While the patrons of the new Edgewater Casino in Vancouver, British Columbia, enjoy the slot machines and gaming tables, it is the building's interior design team who should be considered the jackpot winners. Located on False Creek, Vancouver's inner harbour at the Plaza of Nations, the building itself was British Columbia's pavilion on the site of Expo '86 World's Fair. Retrofitting the all glazed building facade to suit a new casino tenant posed a unique challenge. The existing building, made almost entirely out of glass with 80 foot high vaulted ceilings, looked more like a greenhouse allowing excessive natural light into the interior and had inadequate ventilation and air handling systems. The design plans called for the building to maintain its existing glass facade while being adapted for use as a full service casino which traditionally seek low ceilings, enclosed interiors without natural light and totally controlled comfort elements. Considering it was the transparency of the exterior glass posing the greatest challenge to the design requirements, it is ironic then that glass would be one of the primary elements used to fulfill them.
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