Shoreline: Sublime Manufacturing Facility in Vancouver by MGA.

Today’s post is proof that there really is a first time for everything. Engaging an interior designer is common practice for offices, homes and hospitality ventures, but this would have to be the first time we’ve seen a thoughtful design approach towards a manufacturing facility. A manufacturing facility? Right? Wrapping our heads around the simple fact that this isn’t a Japanese gallery space, and rather an industrial site for an instrumentation engineering company in Vancouver has been somewhat of a journey. But we’re here now, accepting, and eager to talk about how fucking beautiful this space is.

MGA | Michael Green Architecture are the guys behind the job, who were engaged based on their previous ‘timber en masse’ work – a strong and sustainable aesthetic which they are becoming very well known for. Just one material was used for the entire job; a re-sawn layered timber panel product named ‘Brisco’. It took three tradesmen just 16 days to complete the entire project, an absolutely unheard of turn-around for a space of such scale. The resulting design includes both a warehouse space for machinery and a mezzanine office space. There’s a Japanese wabi-sabi balance evident in the design, where the emptiness is just as strong as the designed elements. Planar surfaces are used to great effect, and the repetition of linear elements gives a poetic rhythm to the space. Just one material, a super quick turnaround, a surprisingly beautiful aesthetic approach to a usually neglected type of space – in all there’s something sweetly simple about this design that we find very appealing.

[Images Courtesy of MGA | Michael Green Architecture. Photography by Michael Elkan.]