Experience. Strategy. Integrity. Adaptation.

Henry Chen | Principal

B.A., M. Arch., OAA

Principal Architect

Henry’s portfolio of experience is quite the jumble of building types of all sorts of scales. Throughout his career, he officially or unofficially led architectural teams as lead or as second-in-command of $6.7B worth of projects in construction budgets in the decade before founding the firm — add another $3B worth as a key individual in chasing complex project pursuits.

He can spend an hour talking about any wall in one of his projects; that’s why he’s more than an architect, he’s a Design Gardener: an architect whose designs are grown and pruned to eliminate chaos. Buildings are a multi-party, risk-filled, and custom-designed complex product where literally anything can go in the wrong direction at any time, especially where assumptions are misaligned. Building designs are best when cultivated with care so the worst case scenario is just a rainy day with wet socks vs. what could have been a headline-news disaster.

Henry is working on solving the Missing Middle problem with several multi-resi purpose-built rental apartment buildings on the go. He brings stress-tested project solutioning that he developed for defending large scale projects’ budgets and tornado schedules in concert with OCD-level due diligence to all projects. Now applying those to the Residential Sector in his relentless pursuit of any and all efficiencies so the ride is less hurricane and more of a serene canoe ride.

Originally born and raised in Vancouver, BC, he grew up around forest trails, ocean breezes, campfires, rainy days, and risks of a big earthquake. He knows what’s important in life and how to plan with preparedness so that a rainy day or an earthquake can’t stop you from where you’re supposed to go.

Henry’s diversity of experience across market sectors is highlighted below.