An arts incubator hub to be built on a parking lot in Granville Island, B.C. A sandbar prone to caving, the site acutely feels entropic effects of weathering. The structure is lifted to anticipate 100-year sea levels, when the island will be submerged.

A simple box is the most efficient form for passive heating and cooling. The project challenges the idea that program should determine form, instead introducing complexity in sensory experience shaped through material processes and detail-scale moves.

Materially, the building expresses a sandblasted wood facade that captures the slightly differing weathering effects of light, rain and wind on each face. As a former logging hub, sand and wood have an intertwined history on site.




The alternating boards and fins seperate around the outdoor entry stairs, creating transparency around the only penetration into the rectangular massing.

The building is lifted up on piles, with a wide pier extending underneath. Landscape is inspired by Robert Smithson’s unbuilt Island of Concrete concept, breaking the retaining wall and allowing the tide to re-naturalize the water’s edge.