Our Story – Celebrating 30 years of Proscenium

On the occasion of our 30^th year in business as Proscenium Architecture + Interiors Inc. (PAI), we are taking a moment to reflect on our journey as a design firm!

It is with great pride that we are celebrating thirty years of design on the West Coast and a substantial portfolio of work spanning many project types.

BEGINNINGS

PAI was founded in 1996 as a small architectural and interior design firm mainly focused on studies, renovations and the construction of arts and cultural spaces. Thom Weeks and Jennifer Stanley, co-founders of Proscenium and now retired, were experts in theatre design and passionate about the performing arts. Our current Principals, Kori Chan and Hugh Cochlin, worked with Thom and Jennifer for over twenty years, gaining valuable experience in the complex building typology that is a theatre.

ARTS LEGACY + A WAY OF WORKING

Since our founding, Proscenium worked on dozens of theatres and entertainment venues in the Lower Mainland and beyond. There have been many memorable moments, such as the large-scale renovation of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre (during which the ceiling was removed completely) in advance of the 2010 Olympic Games. Our firm was engaged to design and renovate designated heritage buildings, such as the Orpheum Theatre. and Vancouver East Cultural Centre—which remain crowning jewels of our performing arts community. We carried out arts studies and projects throughout BC and Alberta, forming lasting relationships with municipalities and cultural organizations.

During this time, PAI developed a strong methodology for arts projects that includes comprehensive building assessments, studies, and phased renovations that work around an organization’s performance season. This way of working became central to PAI’s overall approach; a process-driven design process that makes the most of a project’s unique constraints and opportunities.

EXPANDING THE FOCUS

In the mid-2000s, PAI started to expand the focus as the firm grew and took on diverse projects, including post-secondary, office, heritage, mixed-use and multi-family residential buildings.  Our understanding of performing arts spaces allowed us to design unique projects such as SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts—a post-secondary facility that includes a 400-seat black box theatre.

Working with sustainability-minded clients such as the David Suzuki Foundation and MEC gave our team the opportunity to develop high-performance solutions and a passion for innovative sustainable design. Understanding how great design can contribute to user health, whether it be for office workers, students or residential tenants, continues to motivate and inspire our team. In 2014, we completed MEC Head Office, a 112,000 ft² mass timber building using building materials that were at the forefront of sustainable design. Since then, our projects have incorporated industry-leading green building practices that have been recognized by WoodWorks BC, Canada Green Building Council Awards and SABMag Awards.

COMMUNITY & CULTURE

Though we’ve grown to a sizeable 25 staff members, PAI has always maintained the feel of a small design studio. There is constant collaboration between our architectural and interior design teams, who work closely together to deliver projects.

Building a sense of community remains of our key values. We foster a workplace culture where individuals bring their unique interests to the table to enrich the PAI team. We are very proud to say our firm is over 60% women, with over 50% women in management. Our staff speaks more than 10 languages and represents many different countries of origin.

We incorporate social responsibility into our office culture, functioning as a co-op, sharing kitchen, cleaning, recycling and composting duties. Many of our staff walk or bike to work and we reimburse those who take public transit. We actively support local businesses and organizations that align with our values, including holding an annual spring donation drive for WISH Drop-in Centre and Working Gear charities.

NEW ENERGIES + DIRECTIONS

Since 2020, we’ve been based in a bright, open-plan office on the third floor of the PAI-designed MEC Vancouver Store in Mount Pleasant. We are glad to work in a high-performance building with lots of green features including rainwater collection and reuse. The building returns more energy to the NEU (district energy system) that it uses annually, which greatly lowers our firm’s daily environmental impact.

We continue to honour our roots by working with arts and cultural groups—large and small—on studies, built theatres and other cultural/entertainment spaces. In 2023, we completed a major renovation of Arts Umbrella to create a new home for Ballet BC, Western Canada’s pre-eminent contemporary ballet company.

More recently, we have found ourselves at the forefront of sustainable retrofits—as institutions seek alternatives to demolition. Our deep understanding of renovations has contributed  to two major capital renewal projects at UBC, delivered along with Teeple Architects: UBC MacLeod electrical engineering building and Jack Bell Renewal for the School of Social Work. The MacLeod project’s high sustainable targets made it a focus project for Canada Green Building Awards in 2024 (Recipient of SABMAG Award for Institutional – Large). Building on the success of MacLeod, PAI has since had the opportunity to apply its expertise in complex seismic retrofits to several other major university projects.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

With three decades under our belts, we are taking a breath to acknowledge all the amazing work carried out by our firm over the years. As we approach the future, the PAI team is confident and excited to take on new projects in diverse typologies, applying our expertise to find functional, beautiful, and sustainable design solutions for our clients.

Thank you for reading our story! Check out our portfolio.