Two highrise residential towers in Burnaby feature all corner units thanks to a clover-shaped design. Connecting the towers is an area with a 50-foot outdoor pool, a hot tub and a cabana.

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WESTCOASTHOMES SALT SPRING ISLAND NOT JUST FOR MILLIONAIRES

Cottage development on Bullock Lake offers rental option F9

URBAN APPEALMillennium Development Group launches Étoile, a 398-home highrise development in Burnaby Page F2

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S I M O N B R I AU LT

The densification that has been happening in the Lower Mainland in recent years has started to pro-duce some attractive and mature urban communities, often centred around mass transit hubs. Brent-wood Town Centre in Burnaby is one example, and it’s here that Mil-lennium Development Group has plans for two highrise residential towers to be collectively known as Étoile.

“The homes we’re offering here are very special in that they are all corner units,” said Peter Marek, director at Millennium Develop-ment. “The design challenge we gave to the architect was to make every home a corner suite and they’ve done a fantastic job with it. We have eight units per floor and we’ve been able to make them all corner units because of the design of the building — the footprint is kind of a clover shape, with two homes facing each direction.”

This leaves the central part of each building for the elevators and lobbies, maximizing the views for residents from their units, each of which will include an expansive outdoor terrace. Chris Dikeakos

Architects are the people behind the design of the development, and the two residential towers will be connected by an amenity on the fourth floor. This will include a 50-foot outdoor pool, a hot tub and a cabana. Each tower will also have separate steam rooms, social lounges, fitness centres and rooftop green spaces of more than 37,000 square feet combined.

“We expect buyers from the Brentwood area for sure — people who have lived there for a long time and kids who have grown up in the area,” said George Wong, principal at Magnum Projects, the company that is marketing Étoile. “But the map that people are looking at for buying property in the Lower Mainland has expanded a lot in re-cent years, so we’ll be seeing peo-ple from places like Vancouver, the Tri-Cities and Coquitlam as well.”

Despite its urban setting and easy access to mass transit, Wong is keen to point out that Étoile will also be within walking distance of Burnaby Lake Regional Park, a natural sanctuary of 770 acres that includes the Lower Mainland’s largest lake and more than 19 ki-lometres of walking trails.

Amenities in the park include picnic areas and a rowing course suitable for canoeing, kayaking and rowing training. The rowing pavilion at Burnaby Lake Sports Complex has change rooms and a public canoe launch. In place of the sawmills that used to be part of the Burnaby Lake scenery a century ago, there is now a wildlife view-ing tower, from where you can get an up-close look at beavers, ducks and turtles as well as a wide range of local and migratory birds.

CORNERING THE MARKETEach unit at Étoile faces two sides and is close to both mass transit and nature

Homes at Étoile will have between one and three bedrooms and range in size from 569 to 1,818 square feet.

The two towers that make up the Étoile development will be located in Burnaby’s Brentwood Town Centre. The unique clover-leaf shape of the buildings opens up design opportunities.

We have eight

units per floor

and we’ve been

able to make

them all corner

units because

of the design of

the building —

the footprint is

kind of a clover

shape.

Étoile’s urban setting will allow for easy access to mass transit.S E E E TO I L E O N F4

Also close by is Burnaby Moun-tain Golf Course, an 18-hole course with a 60-stall driving range.

Great recreational facilities aside, Wong expects that the con-venience of Étoile’s urban location and its proximity to rapid transit will be the project’s main appeal.

“Brentwood Town Centre now has a critical mass to it now that means it’s really becoming an ur-ban centre and Étoile will be very much a part of it,” he noted. “It’s attracting buyers from outside of the area because they can see the convenience of being able to walk to shops, entertainment, restau-rants, banks, grocery stores and medical and dental offices right there in the community.

“For young professionals, the length of the commute to work remains among the very top fac-tors in their decisions about where they buy,” he added. “We’re draw-ing a lot of people from Vancou-ver because you’re paying maybe as much as 40 per cent more for a condominium there. A lot of peo-ple have opted to move a bit further out and take that bit of a commute on the SkyTrain, where they can sit and do their work if they need to.”

Buyers at Étoile will have a choice of two colour schemes and wide plank laminate wood flooring in all living areas. All homes come with air conditioning, ceilings of at least nine feet, Blomberg front-loading washers and dryers, and roller shade window coverings.

Kitchens feature two-tone, soft-

close cabinetry, quartz slab coun-tertops with waterfall finishes in Calacatta Nuvo or Coastal Grey, and marble-inspired porcelain tile backsplashes. They also have rec-tilinear stainless-steel sinks and

professional kitchen faucets with built-in sprays. The Bosch appli-ance packages include gas cook-tops, integrated stainless-steel wall ovens and hood fans.

In the bathrooms, there are European-style vanities with soft-close hardware, polished quartz countertops and above-counter double vessel sinks. There are floating mirrors and mirrored backlit medicine cabinets in mas-ter bathrooms, environmentally friendly dual-flush toilets and marble-inspired porcelain floor tiles and tub/shower surrounds.

Homes at Étoile will have be-tween one and three bedrooms and range in size from 569 to 1,818 square feet. Prices are available on request and public previews are scheduled for the end of August.

Shops and services all within walking distanceE TO I L E F R O M F2

ÉTOILE

Project location: 5345 Goring St., BurnabyProject size: 398 homes of between one and three bedrooms and ranging in size from 569 to 1,818 square feet.Developer: Millennium Devel-opment GroupArchitect: Chris Dikeakos ArchitectsInterior designer: CHIL Interior DesignSales centre: Unit B — 4247 Lougheed Hwy., BurnabyHours: Open noon to 5 p.m. daily except FridayPhone: 604-828-1373Website: etoileliving.com

The list of desirable amenities at Étoile will include a 50-foot outdoor pool, a hot tub, cabana and exercise facilities.

We’re drawing ... from Vancouver because you’re paying maybe as much as 40 per cent more for a condominium there.

K AT H E R I N E R O T H

N E W Y O R K Bamboo is getting atten-tion these days as a versatile and sustainable material for house-wares, so the timing is good for a Metropolitan Museum of Art ex-hibit that explores Japan’s ancient craft of basketry.

Japanese Bamboo Art: The Ab-bey Collection is devoted to mas-terworks, including a half dozen works by two artists designated as Living National Treasures in Ja-pan. To highlight the works’ virtu-osity and context, they have been displayed alongside paintings, ceramics, bronzes, kimonos and other pieces from different genres.

The exhibit also explores other traditional Japanese arts that are entwined with bamboo basketry, such as ikebana flower arranging and tea ceremony. Bamboo is so central to Japanese culture that the Japanese and Chinese char-acter for bamboo is part of over a thousand other characters, in-cluding those for many items tra-ditionally made of bamboo, such as flutes, writing brushes, boxes and baskets.

The Met’s show, organized by Monika Bincsik, assistant cura-tor in the department of Asian art, tells the story of bamboo through almost 100 works dating from the late 19th century to the present. It focuses on the refined beauty and technical complexity of Japanese basketry. The exhibit will remain on view through Feb. 4, 2018.

Although the oldest Japanese baskets date to the 700s and were mainly used as offering trays and holders for lotus petals, there was little focus on Japanese bamboo art in the Western world until rela-tively recently, Bincsik says. Most of the works featured in this show are taken from the Diane and Ar-thur Abbey Collection, and most have never before been shown to the public. More than 70 of the works exhibited were recently promised as gifts to the Met.

The show opens with a dramati-cally curvaceous floor-to-ceiling sculpture by master craftsman Ta-nabe Chikuunsay IV. With its vo-

luptuous shape, the piece is woven out of rare tiger bamboo, which is mottled with dark spots.

The introductory section shows how bamboo was used for hun-dreds of years for everyday uten-sils as well as refined containers. It was a craft generally honed by specific families, with expertise handed down from one generation to the next. Some leading bamboo artisans created their own schools, many still active today.

But it was not until the late 19th century, the exhibit explains, that bamboo craftsmanship began to be recognized as, first, a veritable Japanese decorative art and, later, as a bona fide art form. Later mas-ters such as Iizuka Rokansai cre-ated innovative works that were the foundation for contemporary bamboo art.

The show includes textiles passed from bamboo basketry mentors to their students as a sort of diploma, or graduation gift, indicating an apprentice’s eleva-tion to the rank of skilled crafts-man. These precious textiles were passed down time and again over generations.

Most of the exhibit is organized geographically into three major Japanese regions; Kansai (mainly Kyoto and Osaka), Kanto (mainly Tokyo), and the southern area of Kyushu.

Highlights include Basket for Transporting Tea Ceremony Uten-sils, made in the late 1800s by Hay-awaka Shokosai I. He is believed to be the first bamboo craftsman to sign his work, paving the way for increased recognition of the works of individual masters.

Moon reflected on Water was made in 1929 by Sakaguchi Soun-sai. It was the first bamboo work accepted into a government-spon-sored art exhibition, that year.

Another major work is Offer-ing or fruit tray with intersect-ing circles design, made in about 1947 from smoked timber bamboo by Shono Shounsai, who in 1967 became the first Living National Treasure of bamboo art.

There are baskets that incorpo-rate ancient arrows, still reveal-

ing their red or black lacquer. A vase called Dragon in Clouds by Iizuka Shokansai is twisted out of a single stick of bamboo. Another work, Woman, made in 2004 by Nagakura Ken’ichi, is also formed from a single stick of bamboo, and resembles a sculpture by Giacom-etti.

One take-away from the show is that the possibilities of bamboo may turn out to be as vast and lim-itless as the form is ancient.

The exhibit will not travel be-yond New York, but is accompa-nied by a slim, but detailed, pub-lication, Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection, with text by Bincsik and photos (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bulletin, Spring 2017).The Associated Press

Exquisite bamboo artistry on display at Met in N.Y. Utilitarian Japanese basketry has evolved far beyond household items

Honma Hideaki fashioned this piece, which he dubbed Flowing Pattern.

The Gate by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV rises from floor to ceiling and is made from a rare species of bamboo that is mottled with dark spots.   P H O T O S : T H E M E T RO P O L I TA N M U S E U M

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