Providence Health Care Head Office

The new Vancouver Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) store is the tenth and latest of a family of distinct new stores across the country completed by MEC over the past 5 years. 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 store is a high-performance building that uses almost one-third less energy than the standards set out by the national energy code. It utilizes innovative wastewater technologies, collecting rainwater in cisterns fed from a central blue roof sandwiched between two sloping green roofs. The building is designed to achieve a minimum of LEED Gold certification and is Salmon Safe.

As an internationally recognized provider of vital health care services, Providence is committed to providing a unified and equitable working environment for their employees. The phased consolidation of their administrative offices is designed to encourage access and communication between departments, while providing flexibility for future growth. Interconnected floor space and an open office ‘pod’ configurations promotes ease of communication and adjacencies between users.

PHOTOGRAPHY/RENDERING: Ed White
CLIENT: Providence Health Care
LOCATION: Vancouver, BC
SIZE: 54,600 ft² renovation
COMPLETION: 2011