VanPlex Plexperts · BC Multiplex Designer
Hapa Collaborative
Featured on VanPlex Plexperts — the curated directory of BC multiplex designers.
Landscape Architecture + Urban Design, Hapa Collaborative
Vancouver landscape architecture and urban design.
Joseph Fry started Hapa Collaborative in 2009. The studio runs about 15 designers and works on parks, plazas, and the public spaces around new housing.
2009
Year founded
~15
Designers on the team
2019
CSLA National Award of Excellence
Meet Hapa Collaborative
Hapa Collaborative is a landscape architecture and urban design studio in Vancouver. Joseph Fry founded it in 2009. Fry holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph (1994) and is registered with the BCSLA, CSLA, and ASLA. He has served on the Vancouver Urban Design Panel, chaired the Richmond Urban Design Panel, and taught as an adjunct professor at UBC's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
The studio runs about 15 designers. Chris McBride is a principal alongside Fry. The name "Hapa" means half, mixed, or hybrid, which the firm uses to describe how it blends landscape and architecture, art and science, and nature and culture in its work.
Hapa focuses on the public realm: parks, plazas, waterfronts, and the shared outdoor spaces that sit around buildings. For a multiplex or small infill housing project, that maps to the courtyards, walkways, planting, grading, and street edge that the City of Vancouver reviews as part of a development application.
Built work includes the Foot of Lonsdale Plaza in North Vancouver, šxʷƛ̓ ənəq Xwtl'e7énḵ Square at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Sp'akw'us Feather Park, Ponderosa Commons at UBC, Mid Main Park, and the Jim Deva Plaza on Davie Street.
Credentials
Recognition
CSLA National Award of Excellence — Foot of Lonsdale Plaza
Why work with Hapa
01
Public realm and landscape on housing sites
Hapa works on parks, plazas, and the outdoor spaces around buildings. On a multiplex or infill site that means the courtyard, walkways, planting, grading, and street edge that the city reviews with the building permit.
02
Registered landscape architects
Founder Joseph Fry is registered with the BCSLA, CSLA, and ASLA. Principal Chris McBride holds the same registrations. A BCSLA-stamped landscape plan is what municipal reviewers expect on a development application.
03
Track record with public design panels
Fry has sat on the Vancouver Urban Design Panel and chaired the Richmond Urban Design Panel. That is useful context if your project has to go through design-panel or rezoning review.
Built work
Foot of Lonsdale Plaza
North Vancouver, BC
Waterfront public plaza between Lonsdale Quay and the Shipyards. Won the 2019 CSLA National Award of Excellence.
šxʷƛ̓ ənəq Xwtl'e7énḵ Square
Vancouver Art Gallery north plaza, Vancouver, BC
Public square redesign on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Jim Deva Plaza
Davie Street, Vancouver, BC
Permanent public plaza and Speaker's Corner in the West End.
Ponderosa Commons
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Landscape and public realm for a UBC student housing precinct.
Frequently asked questions
Does a multiplex project in Vancouver need a landscape architect?
What kind of work does Hapa Collaborative do?
Who runs Hapa Collaborative?
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