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Luxury Retail

#Shopping

As businesses emerge from the pandemic and markets continue to face unprecedented world economic challenges, the luxury brands of the world soar to even greater heights in popularity and demand. It is no surprise that luxury retail is investing in their physical presence with bricks and mortar, or more precisely, natural stone properties around the world. Both new and renovated storefronts and interiors often specify the timeless beauty of natural stone for facades, flooring, feature elements and finishes. PICCO continues to work closely with our luxury retail partners to meet the highest standard for the use of natural stone.

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Brentwood Town Centre

#BurnabyBC

Brentwood Town Centre, originally opening in 1961, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, was just a simple open-air strip mall, with a subsequent second floor being added in 1980. Fast-forward 53 years to 2014 when “The Amazing Brentwood” redevelopment vision commenced. The ambitious project’s construction extended over 6 years and culminated into a transformed property consisting of over 180,000,000 sf of retail stores, office space, and three residential high-rise towers. The renovation was defined by its unique architecture including challenging geometric and radial stone cladding, and a feature radial stair in Cremino Beige Travertine. The Brentwood project is well deserving of its ‘destination property’ status as it boldly offers community and balance as a gathering place, luxury shopping hub, dining & entertainment attraction, and a family-living neighbourhood, all in one place.

Stantec + James K.M. Cheng Architects |  Mixed-use Retail |  2021

Photo: The Amazing Brentwood

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Ask An Engineer

#Q&Aseries

This year, we launched our series—“Ask an Engineer,” to answer common questions we get asked by design professionals about using natural stone.

Category: BIM

Q&A: How do you leverage BIM in the delivery of services?

A BIM workflow allows companies to share live models, giving us the power to work around different elements without having to compare different drawing sets or make interpretations of how things come together from other trades. Being able to see everything all at once reduces the time required to coordinate, limiting submissions and meetings for jobs.

More and more, BIM is becoming the standard in the industry, and it comes with a real team collaboration mindset from all parties involved.

Our BIM process at PICCO allows for a familiar client deliverable with shop drawings, engineering, and shop tickets exceeding industry standards and expectations, however; our service is enhanced by gaining more valuable information and data with BIM. Models viewing allows for better design understanding, problem-solving is integrated with project teams, change management is embedded, automated BOMs and tagging improve project efficiency, improved accuracy, conflict resolution capabilities are heightened, and material and geometry analysis is simplified.

BIM is no longer a new way of working; BIM is essential for effective project delivery enabling traditional deliverables with value-added services by generating and leveraging automated processes and data. At PICCO, we look to lead the industry with innovative BIM services and personalized solutions. Stay tuned for exciting innovations to come!

Answered by: David Jobe, CAD/BIM Technologist

Curious about stone and sourcing, anchoring, facades, fabrication or installation?
» Submit your Question

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Stone101

#HeresWhatWeSaw

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Mike Picco and Karl Doucas’ trip to Italy was a perfect example of why this quote holds true. At the Grassi Pietre shop, they saw firsthand a gang saw simultaneously make several cuts to produce multiple stone slabs. Humans have the urge to improve things even if something is reasonably successful or effective. Gang saws similar to the one seen in the video were first discovered in Turkey around 300 AD, and is still used around the world today.

» Watch the clip

#FeatureLink

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