It is the site of the Provincial Law Courts, UBC Robson Square, government office buildings, and public space connecting the newer development to the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The New Democratic Party government of Dave Barrett responded to fears of the dark shadow that the building would cast on downtown, and commissioned a redesign from another architectural firm, Arthur Erickson Architects.

The central block contains provincial government offices and, more recently, portions of the University of British Columbia's downtown satellite campus, UBC Robson Square, housed in the lower level.

[4] An outdoor skating rink is located at the lower level that extends below Robson Street and connects to the northern block with the Vancouver Art Gallery, which was renovated as part of the project.

The Robson Square experience is considered successful, from a designer's point of view, because it follows Whyte's Street Life Project guidelines.

This paradigm was surely the primary motivation behind Arthur Erickson's Robson Square development, Vancouver (1983), wherein a megastructure comprising law courts and municipal offices was integrated with a parking garage in such a way as to assume the profile of a stepped escarpment.

This last, laid out to the designs of the landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander, features an ornamental sheet of water 90 metres (300 feet) long that cascades over the large plate-glass picture window enclosing the registry office.

This artificial architectonic earthwork running through the centre of Vancouver has since been confirmed as a main spine within the city by the medium-rise towers that have grown up around its axis spontaneously over the last decade.

In 2019, accessibility consultant Arnold Cheng called into question the safety of the Robson Square Steps, pointing at the steepness of the ramp as a concern.