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 because to communicate and coordinate … you need to know your stuff. Buildings are custom, multi-party, and risk-filled complex products where literally anything or anyone can go off course at any time.

Henry has focused on solving the Missing Middle problem as the firm’s purpose. His stress-tested project solutioning that he developed for defending large scale projects’ budgets and tornado schedules in concert with OCD-level due diligence has proven challenging and largely incompatible with the residential sector.

Hoping that awareness and education is instead the answer: he authored the publication, The Art of Better Buildings: A Pre-Construction Guidance Book: Strategies towards Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification.

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.