Erickson/Massey Architects, 1970

• Constructed 1970
• Location Vancouver, BC
• Architect Erickson/Massey Architects
• Use Commercial
• Status Proposed High-Rise Redevelopment (2025)

Completed in 1970, the Erickson/Massey Office Building was a three-storey structure originally purpose-built to house studios for the renowned Vancouver-based architectural partnership of Erickson/Massey Architects, and later Arthur Erickson Architects. Conceived by Arthur Erickson and Geoffrey Massey, the design employed a series of modest moves, a minimal palette of natural materials, and a sense of infinity to create a unique spatial experience unbounded by the architecture and deeply connected to fluctuations of natural light.

The design of the building took on the overall form a simple, rectangular box constructed of split-faced concrete block. Turning inwards, few openings were punched into the concrete facade, namely for the administrative areas of the office and a roof deck at the top northwest corner of the building with dramatic views overlooking downtown Vancouver and the Coastal Mountains. On the exterior, the vertical mortar joints of the concrete block were flush-filled with grout to emphasize the horizontal lines of the exterior walls. The opaque portions of the roof structure were separated from the exterior walls to create ribbon skylights around the perimeter of the building.

On the interior, the studio inhabited a two-storey, windowless volume surrounded by concrete walls and four free-standing, rough-sawn fir tree-form columns supporting the roof. Looking upwards from the studio floor, the tree-forms combined with a wood ceiling structure evoked a sense of sitting beneath a west coast forest canopy. At the perimeter edges of this forest canopy, where the roof structure pulled back from the walls, natural light washed the concrete surfaces, illuminating the studio space, and provoking a sense of the infinite.

After the architects moved out of the building, alterations have taken place by subsequent occupants that have rendered the original building nearly unrecognizable. In 2025, a rezoning application was filed on the property for a proposed 16-storey hotel development.