Ocean View Terrace
The ocean view terrace Vision
Community
Nanaimo—‘The Harbour City’—is a vibrant small city close to the scenic Gulf Islands, the natural beauty of the Wild West Coast, and is Vancouver Island’s gateway to Whistler Olympic Village. Hammond Bay is one of Nanaimo’s premier neighborhoods with prime access to Beaches, Parks, amenities and transportation. Ocean View Terrace is a living community within the community of Hammond Bay. It is connected at three roads, but has a sense of unique intimacy in that parks, roads and undevelopable vacant lands provide separation.
The OVT Community comprises the Lands and the Homes and the Parks.
Lands
The Lands of OVT arise from an inspired design; resulting in an innovative hillside enclave of roads, home sites and parks/trails. Aesthetics of the roads and sloping spaces were a prime design consideration, but the awe-inspiring views to the Sunshine Coast and the snow capped coast range mountains initially capture the attention.
The lands are designed for people. The focus is to provide for human necessities: comfortable pedestrian spaces and trails, continuous access to the sweeping views, unobtrusive constructed features, and widespread landscaping, thereby allowing OVT’s houses to become homes. And yet transportation needs are also well met with ample parking, modest road grades and level driveways.
Terraced Home sites afford permanent uninterrupted views, yet the design provides for columns of roadside trees and generous grassed boulevards. All utility services are underground. Roads are uniquely adapted to the needs of the homes, resulting in narrow pavement areas that slow traffic and encourage walking along the many looped pedestrian routes on the site. Sidewalks connect to park trails and transportation links.
Homes
The OVT community offers Homes that are unique in the Nanaimo market. Two prime considerations have governed design: integrity with OVT’s expression of ‘the west coast experience’ through appearance and materials selection, and provision of modern floor plans suitable for diverse lifestyles.
Building lines are simple with open spaces honouring the views and capturing light. Floor plans promote ‘indoor/outdoor’ living with common spaces that flow onto porches, decks and patios. High-efficiency design allow modest home sizes to encompass a variety of lifestyles and uses. The homes’ multiple private and public places can accommodate couples, singles, professionals, families and guests. Shelters, cold storage pantries and rain water storage tanks are incorporated into the building foundations. Storage and utility spaces recognize the needs of active west coast living.
Parks
Parks are an integral part of living on the coast. Hammond Bay and its numerous oceanside parks and beaches are readily accessible from the site. In addition the site itself offers a heavily-wooded 8 acre nature park and a gathering-place amenity park, all seamlessly linked by the walkways on the site.
