Governor General's Medals in Architecture - 2020 Recipient | Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

Governor General's Medals in Architecture - 2020 Recipient

The Dock Building
Vancouver,
BC
Award Category: 
Governor General’s Medals in Architecture

MGA | MICHAEL GREEN ARCHITECTURE

Lead design architect(s): 

MGA | MICHAEL GREEN ARCHITECTURE

Occupancy: September 1, 2017
Construction Budget: $3.5 million

The Dock Building, located on Jericho Beach in Vancouver, serves a large marina of sailboats. The facility provides washrooms and showers, offices for the Harbour Master, instruction space for children, and a variety of workshops to maintain boats, sails, and gear. The project’s practical working needs, very modest budget, and prominent siting required a simple solution that honoured the cannery and industrial heritage of waterfront buildings that were once found on the site a half-century before. The design demonstrates that all projects from working industrial buildings to boutique museums can and should be realized with grace and architectural dignity.

Jury Comment(s): 

“This practical facility sits very lightly among the docks, at rest on the Vancouver shoreline like a boat on the water. From its simple form and efficient organization arise an architectural experience both poetic and sensible. Modest, it exhibits careful thinking about composition and materials on almost every level. To coin a phrase, sometimes less is more than enough.”

Jury members

Click for full version: 
Exterior 1

PHOTO: Ema Peter

Exterior 2

PHOTO: Ema Peter

Exterior 3

PHOTO: Ema Peter

Exterior 4

PHOTO: Ema Peter

Interior 1

PHOTO: Ema Peter

Interior 2

PHOTO: Ema Peter