Situated along UBC’s iconic Main Mall, the addition to the Beaty Biodiversity Centre is a study in architectural continuity and research evolution. The project expands the “biodiversity precinct,” utilizing the campus’s signature bar-building typology to define and frame exterior courtyards. While the upper floors provide critical infrastructure for the new Conservation Science Initiative, the below-grade expansion doubles down on the museum’s mission, creating contiguous space for the world-class collections. The design received unanimous support from the UBC Urban Design Panel.

Project Description

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Expanding the world behind one of Canada’s most important collections of life.

Public Architecture is leading the seismic replacement of Pitt Meadows Secondary School, prioritizing campus continuity throughout construction. The three-storey design anchors a central academic core between a low-profile shop wing and a dedicated athletics-theatre hub. The design is neighbourly by orienting the low-profile wing eastward to respect privacy. The new LEED Gold–target school will provide 1,100 students with a safe, energy-efficient space for evolving community needs.

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Academics, athletics, arts, and space for 1,100 learners to gather, over three polite storeys.

In partnership with the Métis Nation of British Columbia (MNBC) and Solo Architecture, this mixed-use affordable housing development in Campbell River brings 45 family units to a five-storey building with community space at street level. One of several projects developed with MNBC, each building in the series carries a distinct visual identity rooted in Métis cultural traditions.

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Affordable housing for Campbell River, in collaboration with Solo Architecture.

Located on UBC Okanagan’s Kelowna campus, sʔitwənx is a 37-space child care expansion designed for imagination and economy. The project’s unique character is defined by six prefabricated truss shapes that create a shifting interior cadence while defining play, nap, and kitchen areas. By keeping all programming on a single, compact level, the design retains the site’s mature trees and existing infrastructure—drastically reducing construction complexity while preserving the natural character of the campus.

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UBCO Childcare

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A multiple award-winning, 37-space expansion of the Children’s Learning Centre.

Vienna House is a seven-storey, 123-unit multi-family pilot project that advances innovative housing solutions to affordability, climate change, and social resilience. Designed during the 2021 heat dome, the design prioritizes social resilience as a public health necessity, supporting an emotional ecosystem where residents are more naturally connected. To ensure long-term stability, the mix of studios to four-bedroom homes allows families to expand and contract without leaving their community. The project is on track to achieve Passive House certification, through the use of mass timber, extremely low embodied and operational carbon, and passive cooling—driven by adjustable exterior shading and cross-ventilation.

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A multi-family pilot for more affordable, resilient, climate-ready housing.

As the first Passive House-certified student residence in Canada, Skeena Residence at UBCO is a high-performance living lab. The six-storey building completes the campus ensemble encircling Commons Field, acting as a pedestrian-oriented street wall that prioritizes both energy efficiency and human connection. On the ground level, social hubs like lounges and activity rooms foster happenstance gatherings, while upper floors offer quiet study areas accessed by light-filled, extroverted stairs. To achieve rigorous Passive House standards, the design utilizes a simplified form and deep-recessed windows to manage solar gain seasonally. Beyond housing 220 students, Skeena serves as an industry accelerator, equipped with integrated sensors to monitor real-time energy performance and occupant comfort.

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Skeena House

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Housing 220 students in Canada’s first Passive House residence.

The Fulmer Family Centre for Childhood Studies at Capilano University is a living classroom where 74 children, future educators, and a coastal forest learn from one another. Integrating licensed child care spaces with Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) teaching areas, the Centre addresses a regional shortage of child care while advancing early childhood pedagogy, campus life, and low-carbon design. Rooted in the Reggio Emilia Approach and biophilic principles, the project demonstrates how mass-timber architecture, carefully tuned to site and climate, supports deep engagement with nature and community while achieving Step Code 4 performance and LEED Gold certification.

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Nature, children, and future educators reimagine early-childhood education together in a mass-timber centre. testingss

Designed in association with KPMB Architects, the Wilson School of Design at KPU is a preeminent hub for technical fashion on the West Coast. The building’s architecture is a modern evolution of the industrial loft—a rational, high-ceilinged grid engineered for a 100-year lifespan. To navigate Richmond’s high water table and seismic conditions, the high-tech wood structure was designed to perform like a ship: incredibly light yet structurally stiff. The program is organized into three distinct zones—public industry labs, mid-level teaching studios, and upper-level event spaces—all unified by a contemporary glass façade that reflects the dramatic Fraser River delta sky. By prioritizing 100% fresh air, natural light, and layered transparency, the design re-orients the campus toward a future of sustainable, interdisciplinary creativity.

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A creative hub designed to grow with its environment and future generations.

This affordable, 299-unit residential tower sits on a triangular site bordered by traffic arterials, the Cambie bridge, and significant utility right-of-ways. Responding to economy and the need to create a resilient community, the design neatly tucks the rental units into a flat-iron form with communal balconies on alternating floors skip-stopping up the facade, reaching a shared outdoor roof garden. Of 299 apartments, 112 are family units and 15 are accessible. Three levels of underground parking hold space for 536 bicycles and 63 vehicles.

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Nearly 300, affordable, rental units that centre social and environmental resilience.

Adler University’s new campus integrates architecture, interior design, and storytelling to express its unique social-justice curriculum. Located in Vancouver’s “invisible” downtown academic precinct—where many universities occupy generic towers—Adler’s design breaks form with a vibrant, highly visible cross-section that connects the school directly to the street. Inside, a continuous student commons winds vertically and horizontally across five floors, with spiral staircases acting as a connective thread that reveals a rhythmic sequence of campus and city views. Wayfinding wraps through public areas, while large-scale murals and timelines featuring quotes from social-justice leaders reinforce the school’s philosophy. Trading suburban isolation for a transparent, vertical urban presence, Public Architecture transformed a standard office volume into a dynamic academic hub that is both a place of learning and a public statement.

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A campus where architecture, wayfinding, and branding all work together.

Set within the critical Pacific Flyway of Boundary Bay Regional Park, the Centennial Beach Pavilion balances intensive human use with sensitive wetland conservation. The design functions as a physical boundary, strategically separating vibrant recreation zones from the habitat of 1.5 million migratory birds. Incorporating a green roof, passive cooling, and solar-generated hot water, the facility is a model of environmental stewardship developed through extensive stakeholder collaboration. Since its completion, the pavilion has transformed the park into a year-round destination, with concession sales and visitation numbers more than doubling. By integrating nature and culture—from bioswales to identity graphics—the architecture provides a safe, accessible, and sustainable “front door” for over one million annual visitors to enjoy the Salish Sea.

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Built to protect the wetland it welcomes people into.

When a Fortune 500 tech giant needed to double its desk count, they traded their Yaletown loft for two floors of a downtown tower. Public Architecture was tasked with injecting character into this blank slate, translating complex technical requirements into warm, wood-finished lofts that prioritize the human experience. Eschewing traditional hierarchies, we “democratized the view,” ensuring the perimeter and natural light belong to everyone rather than being cordoned off for private offices. The design centers on four expansive “work lofts” that act as quiet, introspective anchors for 190 workstations. To balance this focus, we clustered high-energy collaboration spaces into the building’s idiosyncratic corners and outdoor podium decks. The material palette draws directly from Vancouver’s coastal forests, with Douglas fir cladding weaving from the core into a ceiling slat canopy.

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Doubling desk count without losing the human scale, or the view.

Situated on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, the renewal of this modernist student hub transforms a standard lobby into a “living museum.” In a highly consultative process guided by Musqueam Living Culture guidelines, the design integrates traditional color palettes and cedar plank facades with large-scale graphic histories. By weaving Indigenous teachings directly into the fabric of student life, the architecture creates a powerful place for non-traditional learning. As Musqueam Elder Larry Grant suggests, this exchange of resources allows for profound personal growth: “Your life gets transformed into something else, something you never even thought of.” Through this reversal of the typical exhibition experience, the project fosters a deeper sense of place, ensuring the Musqueam story is told in their own voice and approach.

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Where thousands of students leave knowing whose land they’re on.

The Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (QMI) at UBC is a gateway for atomic-scale research. Public Architecture designed this LEED Gold addition to unite researchers, wrapping the building in a brick skin that mirrors the YBCO crystal lattices fundamental to their work. In a nod to the facility’s high-powered magnets, every brick is aligned north-to-south. To protect sensitive experiments, the structure is decoupled from the site with isolation pads to eliminate vibrations. Inside, the design laminates precise laboratories with spontaneous social hubs, using light-filled stairwells to encourage the cross-pollination of ideas. Technical innovations, including a pioneering helium recycling system, ensure that this high-performance facility supports the groundbreaking future of quantum science.

A research facility designed from the atomic scale up.

A mass-timber, 'living classroom' in a coastal forest, where children, future educators, and nature learn from one another while modeling low-carbon, biophilic design for the next generation.

PUBLIC is a Vancouver-based architecture practice focused on spaces that belong to everyone. We elevate the social potential of public spaces, with award-winning work spanning across civic, commercial, cultural, and educational sectors.

A multi-family pilot for more affordable, resilient, climate-ready housing.

Expanding the world behind one of Canada’s most important collections of life.

Academics, athletics, arts, and space for 1,100 learners to gather, over three polite storeys.

A new LEED Gold home for 425 upper-year students

Affordable housing for Campbell River, in collaboration with Solo Architecture.

A multiple award-winning, 37-space expansion of the Children’s Learning Centre.

Spaces hold memory and meaning beyond their materials or architectural quality. They hum with energy when real people continue to use them, so we seek to enhance that liveliness and emotional wellness for years and years.

Our architecture practice is an evolving team of tenacious problem solvers, relentless optimists, and advocates for the public good.