Spanning 605,000 square feet, The Butterfly + First Baptist Church Complex brings together an iconic residential tower, a mid-rise social housing building, and a masterfully restored and expanded Gothic Revival landmark—shaping a bold new vision for the future of high-rise living in Vancouver’s urban landscape.
The project by Revery Architecture features a 57-storey residential tower, a seven-storey affordable rental building, and the heritage restoration and expansion of First Baptist Church. The design embodies the idea that diverse people, programs, and experiences can coexist and thrive together.
Framed by mountains, ocean, and forest, the city has an unusually close relationship with the natural world for a major urban centre. The Butterfly was conceived as an extension of that relationship, bringing light, air, and greenery into the daily experience of high-rise living. Throughout the tower, floor-to-ceiling glazing and open, flowing interiors blur the boundary between inside and out, drawing the surrounding landscape deep into the residential experience.
At the heart of the tower, open-air sky gardens on every residential floor replace conventionally enclosed corridors. Residents leave the elevator and enter naturally ventilated communal gardens where vegetation and expansive views become part of daily life. Deciduous trees planted throughout the building create a vertical landscape that evolves with the seasons, bringing nature high above the city.
Beyond their experiential benefits, the sky gardens provide natural ventilation, cooling, and daylighting, contributing to an estimated 400,000 kWh of annual energy savings and reducing tower energy use by more than 10 per cent compared with conventional corridor designs. Energy modelling indicates a 65 per cent reduction in periods where suite temperatures exceed comfort thresholds during the warmest months of the year.
This relationship with nature extends beyond the tower through landscaped courtyards, green roofs, water features, and shared amenity spaces. A striking 50-metre lap pool, positioned to benefit from natural light and views, offers an immersive sensory experience that complements the broader emphasis on wellbeing and connection to the outdoors.
The Butterfly and First Baptist Church Complex also brings together people and programs that are rarely found in a single development. Market and affordable housing sit alongside childcare, counselling services, recreation facilities, community gathering spaces, meal programs, and emergency shelter support, creating a place where different people and programs can find common ground.
By layering housing, community services, and social infrastructure on a shared site, the project fosters interaction across different needs, backgrounds, and experiences.
The seven-storey rental building extends this vision through communal rooftop gardens, urban agriculture plots, outdoor kitchens, and landscaped play areas. More than 25 per cent of the homes contain two or more bedrooms, supporting families, seniors, and a range of household types.
At the centre of the project is an expanded and rehabilitated historic church dating from 1911. The First Baptist Church campus continues a long tradition of community outreach while providing new space for counselling, childcare, recreation, meals, shelter, and neighbourhood programs.
As Revery principal Venelin Kokalov describes it, the project is “a community building, different incomes, different people, different programs living together.”
The project preserves and expands one of Vancouver’s oldest churches, ensuring its continued role as a centre for worship, outreach, culture, and community life.
The conservation program included extensive seismic upgrading, foundation work, restoration of heritage windows and masonry, accessibility improvements, modernization of building systems, and rehabilitation of significant interior spaces including the Heritage Listed Sanctuary and Pinder Hall. Historic elements ranging from original timber structure and millwork to the church’s Deagan chimes have been carefully preserved and restored.
At first glance, The Butterfly appears to have little in common with the century-old church integrated into its base. Beneath its elegant silhouette lies a subtle homage to First Baptist: the largest cutouts of the tower’s distinctive chamfered base, mirror the scale of the existing bell tower in height, creating a dialogue of transformation between past and present as well as a physical connection with the light filled galleria that joins the two. This relationship between old and new reflects the project’s broader ambition to preserve history while accommodating the evolving needs of the city.
The tower’s base is carefully shaped to expand the public realm, creating landscaped open space that strengthens the relationship between Burrard Street, the West End, and First Baptist Church. A transparent galleria links the church and tower while providing access to community programs and informal gathering spaces, helping to animate the site throughout the day.
Targeting LEED Gold standards, the project reduces operational carbon by 68 per cent (up to 85 per cent when leveraging renewable energy from the onsite district energy plant), energy use by 45 per cent, and energy costs by 25 per cent—surpassing City of Vancouver requirements for tall buildings and large sites. A water management strategy reduces potable water use by 50 per cent and domestic water use by 35 per cent, while promoting long-term resource conservation.
The tower’s curved massing optimizes views and daylight while minimizing lateral load and urban shadow impact. A high-performance R-15 precast envelope, paired with moderate glazing ratios and four-pipe fan coil systems, supports year-round comfort with reduced demand on mechanical systems. Daylighting, natural ventilation, thermal comfort and integral shading strategies are embedded across all building zones—from the tower’s breezeways to the church’s reoriented courtyards.
By combining housing, community infrastructure, heritage preservation, and an enhanced public realm on one of Vancouver’s most prominent sites, The Butterfly contributes as much to the life of the city as it does to its skyline.
