That's a great building. They've managed to quite successfully create a modern "post-and-beam" building without looking like they were trying desperately to duplicate every aspect of an architectural style that defines an earlier era of city-building.
The building science piece of it is quite interesting to me: it's a modern multi-storey wood office building. We just don't build those any longer and there is a 60-70+ year gap in building stock that reflects the ongoing evolution of using monumental (old growth) wooden posts and beams as the primary structural building material. We ran out of inexpensive and readily available large-diameter old growth trees while steel and concrete rightfully their place as the preferred building material, helped along by being all-but-mandatory by the fire insurance industry.
Now the designers of the MEC building have jumped ahead into present day and built a modern green building that at looks very familiar and is also simultaneously quite radical, all while embodying much of the philosophy of the client (MEC). As a MEC member and loyal customer, I'm very pleased with this investment and I think it's a great model for the city and its design community for what can be done for mid-rise office buildings outside of the core.
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I was actually thinking of your updates as I posted this.
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