Look, every project's different. We're not gonna hand you a cookie-cutter solution and call it a day. Each service we offer gets tailored to what you're actually trying to accomplish - whether that's building your dream home or breathing new life into a century-old building.
Residential Design & Planning
Here's the thing about designing homes - it's gotta feel right, you know? We take our time listening to how you actually live, not how some magazine says you should. Whether you're building from scratch or renovating that house you've been in for 20 years, we'll work through the site analysis, zoning headaches, and spatial flow until it just clicks.
We've done everything from compact laneway homes to larger family estates, always keeping that connection to natural light and landscape front and center. The Pacific Northwest has this incredible quality of light that changes through the seasons - we design with that in mind.
Commercial Architecture
Commercial work's a different beast - you've got budgets, timelines, building codes up the wazoo, and stakeholders with competing visions. We get it. Our approach is pretty straightforward: understand your business needs first, then design around those rather than imposing some grand architectural vision that looks great but doesn't work.
From small retail spaces to multi-tenant office buildings, we focus on creating environments that people actually want to spend time in. Good commercial architecture shouldn't just function - it should enhance how your business operates and how your team feels showing up every day.
Heritage Building Restoration
This is where things get really interesting. Vancouver's got this incredible stock of heritage buildings that tell the story of the city's evolution. We've worked on projects dating back to the early 1900s, and honestly, it never gets old uncovering the craftsmanship from another era.
Restoration isn't about freezing a building in time - it's about respecting what was there while making it work for today. We navigate the heritage designation process, work with specialized trades, and find that sweet spot between preservation and practical modern use.
Sometimes we're dealing with original growth timber beams, other times it's ornate facades that need careful restoration. Each project teaches us something new about how buildings were constructed before everything became standardized.
Sustainable Design Consulting
Let's be real - "sustainable design" has become such a buzzword that it's almost meaningless now. But here's what it actually means to us: building things that'll last, using materials responsibly, and not wasting energy heating or cooling spaces unnecessarily.
We can consult on existing projects or new builds, helping you navigate everything from passive house standards to net-zero targets. Sometimes it's as simple as proper orientation and window placement. Other times we're diving deep into building envelope performance and mechanical systems.
The best part? A lot of sustainable design principles just make financial sense in the long run. Better insulation means lower heating bills. Durable materials mean less maintenance. Natural light means healthier, happier occupants.
Interior Space Planning
The shell of a building is only half the story. How spaces flow into each other, where natural light lands throughout the day, how materials and textures interact - that's where architecture becomes livable.
We work on interior planning both as part of larger projects and as standalone services. Maybe you've got an existing building that just doesn't work anymore, or a new space that needs to accommodate multiple functions. We'll map out the circulation, test different furniture layouts, consider acoustics and lighting - all the stuff that makes a space actually function well day-to-day.
Construction Administration
Here's what nobody tells you about architecture - the drawings are just the beginning. Construction's where the rubber meets the road, and that's when you need someone who knows what they're doing overseeing things.
We stick around through the build, reviewing shop drawings, answering contractor questions, making site visits, and dealing with those inevitable surprises that come up when you start actually building something. ("Hey, we found a boulder exactly where the foundation needs to go" - yeah, we've heard that one before.)
Good construction administration means the building that gets built actually matches what was designed. It means catching issues before they become expensive problems. And it means being available when your contractor needs a quick answer so the project doesn't stall out.
