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SÉBASTIEN GARON | ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN | MEC Head Office - SÉBASTIEN GARON | ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN

MEC Head Office

Certification Level | LEED NC Platinum (Certified)

Location | Vancouver, British Columbia

Architect | Proscenium Architecture & Interiors


Our Role | LEED & Sustainability Consultant


MEC’s objectives for this project are two fold; to deliver a fun and productive work place and to do it with the least possible impact on the environment. MEC staff identified a number of key areas that inform the design; work groups need to be connected, connections need to facilitate mixing, spaces and amenities need to support active lifestyles, and there needs to be a strong connection to nature.

MEC has been engaged in greening its buildings for the past sixteen years as part of a broad organisational journey towards social and environmental sustainability. Wild places and the recreational opportunities afforded by them are fundamental to MEC’s business model and thus the conservation and preservation of those places is an intrinsic organizational goal.

In general, we need to reduce our energy consumption in the present but also think in terms of a less energy rich future state. To that end we need buildings that can accommodate many uses and be modified to suit different purposes over time; and when repurposing fails we need buildings that can be reduced to their constituent parts for reuse.

These two ideas have guided MEC’s team in developing a building that is first of all passive in design; one that could operate comfortably for much of the time with little mechanical assistance. And one that will be made primarily of a material that is synonymous with its locale – wood; a material that both sequesters carbon and can be used in future in numerous ways with minimal energy inputs.

 

[In collaboration between Sébastien Garon Architecture + Design and Recollective Consulting]