PRACTICAL ELEGANCE HONOURED

Vancouver’s Michael Green Architecture has been awarded the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Governor General’s Medal in Architecture — the highest distinction given to an architectural project in Canada — for the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club Dock Building.

Located on Jericho Beach, the Dock Building houses offices for the Harbour Master, instruction space, maintenance workshops, showers and washrooms.

“The Dock Building is a working building where boats are repaired, and wet clothes are dried from days on the water,” says architect Michael Green. “In some respects, it’s the quintessential Canadian building: modest, quiet, durable, hardworking, thoughtful and respectful of its neighbour, which in this case is the ocean itself . ... It is a reminder that a modest budget and utilitarian purpose can deliver elegance in the essential.”