Chris Wanless
Associate | OAA
Chris has focused his career on public architecture that advances the wellbeing and cultural development of individuals and communities. His work at MJMA includes large, complex projects that evidence his talents in tackling technical challenges and liaising with clients, stakeholders, contractors, and communities. He also contributes to the studio’s high-performance sustainability initiatives, including mass timber, Zero-Carbon, and Passive House design, as well as efforts to integrate meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities. Chris believes the development of these two practices is especially essential to the future of architecture — its formal language as well as its potential for positive social and environmental impacts.
Representative projects from his portfolio at MJMA include the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, a flagship facility on Vancouver’s Seawall that is slated to be North America’s first Passive House aquatic centre. He was also a key team member on the Hiwa Recreation Centre at the University of Auckland, a densely programmed, 232,000 sf 8-storey complex that also creates important new outdoor public spaces and connections on its tight urban campus site.
Chris has a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and a Master of Architecture from the University of Toronto. Before joining MJMA in 2016, he worked at firms in Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Toronto, on projects that included social housing as well as academic, institutional, justice, healthcare, and performing arts architecture.
