MEC Vancouver

Winner of the SABMag Award, Canada Green Building Award and BC Wood Design Award, the Vancouver MEC Flagship Store sets a new standard for sustainable, community-oriented retail. Located at the corner of 2nd and Quebec, the three-storey mass timber building embodies MEC’s brand identity while acting as a gateway marker to the Olympic Village neighbourhood.

The innovative high-performance building uses almost one-third less energy than the standards set out by the national energy code. Wastewater recycling strategies reduce its potable water use by 40%, collecting rainwater in cisterns fed from a central blue roof sandwiched between sloping green roofs. High insulation and efficient heating/cooling allows the building to sell excess energy to the district energy network, contributing more energy to the grid than it uses each year.

MEC Vancouver, the latest in a family of over ten stores designed by PAI across Canada, has been featured as a case study for mass timber in multiple publications (online and print) since its completion in 2020.