Clive Wilkinson Architects has converted the upper floors of a downtown Vancouver store into an open-plan office for US tech company Microsoft to house its growing Canadian workforce.
The Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre is located within a former department store in the city's downtown district.

The adaptive reuse project entailed transforming the top two floors of the building into an open and flexible office for the company's growing workforce of nearly 600 employees in the Canadian city.
Staff members were previously spread across three locations.

Microsoft's corporate headquarters is located 230 kilometres south, in the city of Redmond, Washington. The company ? founded by Bill Gates and responsible for the Windows operating system ? also has regional headquarters in cities across the world, including Copenhagen and Vienna. In addition to accommodating two gaming entities and a software developer unit, the Vancouver office needed to be highly adaptable to address changing business models in the future.
The team modified the building?s exterior and completely reconfigured the interior.
"The remodel removed the solid facade, typical of department stores of its era, and re-skinned the building with a new glass curtainwall, exposing the spectacular views of the city and the surrounding landscapes beyond," said Clive Wilkinson Architects, a Los Angeles studio known for its open and progressive workspaces.

Inside, the studio created a collaborative environ...