- Words Lin Stranberg  Photography by Julia Logliscia

Vancouver architect Michael Green is internationally known for his inventive, enviro-forward building style鈥攅specially when it comes to wooden buildings.

His accolades and awards are numerous, but he is not interested in lingering on past achievements. Instead, Michael appears to leap effortlessly from one passionate terrain to the next, as he amasses adventures and fulfills his creative drive through architecture and storytelling.

Michael founded in 2012 and heads up with fellow principal Natalie Telewiak, is a hive of activity, pushing the limits of mass timber construction as the firm designs projects that range from private homes to large-scale master plans.

The busy Kitsilano studio has completed some of the most significant timber buildings in the world, including T3 in Minneapolis (Timber, Technology, Transit), which was the tallest wood structure in the US at the time of completion in 2016, and the Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, the tallest modern all-timber structure in the world when it was finished in 2014.

MGA has been recognized with more than 40 international awards for design excellence, including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Firm of the Year, Architizer鈥檚 Best in North America Firm Award, four Governor General鈥檚 Medals, two RAIC Innovation Awards, and the American Institute of Architects Innovation Award.

Most days, Michael drives over from his Kits Point home in his classic 1959 Range Rover Series II, now an electric vehicle. Converting older cars into electric vehicles is one of his latest passions, and he is enthusiastic about turning it into a new project called Adventure Green. It may have already happened. Details are blurred when he discusses the things that matter most to him: family, adventure, impact, meaning, responsibility, purpose.

鈥淎ll these things to me are really beautiful,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd service鈥攈ow we show up and what we do when we are there.鈥�

Recognized as a global leader in wood construction and innovation, he serves as a government policy advisor on mass timber design, and speaks internationally on the subject of mass timber and new building technology. Alongside Jim Taggart (editor of Sustainable Architecture and Building Magazine), Michael co-authored the 2020 book Tall Wood Buildings: Design, Construction and Performance.

His 2013 TED talk, 鈥淲hy We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers,鈥� has been viewed more than 1.4 million times. It鈥檚 absorbing and personal, especially when he describes why wood is the material he loves the most, and not simply for its ability to sequester carbon.

鈥淧art of the reason I love it is that every time people go into my buildings that are wood, I notice they react completely differently. I鈥檝e never seen anybody walk into one of my buildings and hug a steel or a concrete column, but I鈥檝e actually seen that happen in a wood building,鈥� he says.

鈥淚鈥檝e actually seen how people touch the wood, and I think there鈥檚 a reason for it. Just like snowflakes, no two pieces of wood can ever be the same anywhere on Earth. That鈥檚 a wonderful thing. I like to think that wood gives Mother Nature fingerprints in our buildings. It鈥檚 Mother Nature鈥檚 fingerprints that make our buildings connect us to nature in the built environment.鈥�

Nature and adventure are pivotal to his being.

鈥淟ife is an adventure,鈥� he says, speaking like someone who knows. His adventures are big鈥攈e鈥檚 an ice and mountain climber鈥攁nd next fall he鈥檚 heading to a peak in Nepal.

鈥淢y adventures inform a lot of my choices,鈥� he says. 鈥淏y going into nature we find our centre鈥攁nd that鈥檚 a big part of the art of life.鈥�

He was born in the northerly hamlet of Qamani鈥檛uaq in Nunavut (formerly Baker Lake in the Northwest Territories) and grew up in Vancouver, which he considers his hometown. His family history has led him to adventure, he says.

鈥淭he risk tolerance I鈥檝e developed in climbing spills over into my life. It informs and inspires my architecture.鈥�

What those risks look like, and what is inherent in them, can determine how his life unfolds. He is known for architecture, but it鈥檚 his range of interests that form who he is as an architect. He and his son have kayaked off several continents, including Antarctica, and he writes children鈥檚 books to 鈥渉elp nurture deeply creative children.鈥�

He says he has written more than 14 children鈥檚 stories; the one he mentions frequently is Alpenglow, a story he wrote and illustrated about concentric rings of support planted for a windblown alpine flower. He wrote it in the context of designing a 72-family Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver, also modelled on a concentric support rings concept, designed specifically to foster strength of community.

Michael鈥檚 creative process combines worlds within worlds of the things he loves鈥攁rchitecture, art and the making of things鈥攁ltering preconceptions and firing imaginations with his visionary analogies and shared stories.

鈥淪torytelling remains one of the most important of the arts, and I tell my stories through buildings for community, family, climate, and to protect the world for our children and our children鈥檚 children.鈥�

Story courtesy of , a Black Press Media publication
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