APRIL 2014
H
business elite canada
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A practice that the company holds dear is the
restoration and adaptive reuse of older build-
ings. This was the case when Merrick took on
City Square, a commercial project early in the
history of the practice which salvaged and em-
braced two heritage school buildings to create a
transformative shopping centre composition, a
project that ultimately led Merrick into incorpo-
rating heritage components into many of their
buildings thereafter. The centre created a sig-
nificant “people place” and produced a vibrant
environment instead of an artificially ventilated
space. “These projects were significant in Van-
couver at the time because we have buildings
that are worth readapting and not simply bull-
dozing. We were among the firms that pio-
neered reusing building structures for different
purposes,” says Borowski. “We’re specialists
in variety and our range of projects speaks to
that.”
A habitual practice in western Canada is to tear
