In celebration of National Indigenous People’s Day, DIALOG’s Katherine Gerson, Associate and architect, joined Women in Architecture Vancouver and Michelle Parrish, creative director at Entro, in a webinar to showcase the new First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) project, a new office building that is first-of-its-kind founded through the expression of British Columbia First Nations self-determination and self-governance.
On Thursday, June 15, 2023, Katherine Gerson showcased the new FNHA project, currently under construction, that brings together teams from across Metro Vancouver locations to one central location on Tsleil-Waututh Nation land in North Vancouver.
The building structure and foundation design draws inspiration from Coast Salish cultural and building traditions and the deep connection the Tsleil-Waututh people have with their land and waters. The mass timber structure of the building sits on a base of forms clad in fiber cement to give them a stone-like expression representing boulders or islands, with the spaces in-between symbolizing the waters that flow around them.
