Discovery Island Retreat

The Discovery Island Family Retreat is a multi-generational ensemble of cabins designed for a forested site overlooking the Strait of Georgia, with distant views toward Desolation Sound and Hernando Island. The project explores how architecture can lightly inhabit a sensitive coastal landscape while creating spaces that support both collective gathering and private retreat.

Rather than a single large structure, the project is organized as three modest cabins arranged around a central courtyard. This composition allows the architecture to follow the natural character of the site while creating a sheltered outdoor room that forms the social heart of the retreat. Decks and stone paths connect the buildings, moving gently through the landscape.

5,310 sq.ft. [completed 2025]

Interior Design in collaboration with Tina Wei Design.

Discovery Island _exterior_Janis Nicolay_3.jpg

Discovery Island _exterior_Janis Nicolay_2.jpg

Discovery Island _interior_Janis Nicolay_4.jpg

Discovery Island _interior_Janis Nicolay_6.jpg

Discovery Island _exterior_Janis Nicolay_1.jpg

Discovery Island _interior_Janis Nicolay_7.jpg

Discovery Island _interior_Janis Nicolay_8.jpg

Kits Point I Residence

A 2.5-level urban residence designed for a young family in Vancouver’s historic Kitsilano Point neighbourhood. Located on a compact lot within a dense and highly visible streetscape, the project explores how a contemporary family home can achieve openness, privacy, and longevity within the constraints of an urban site.

The design is organized vertically, with living spaces layered across 2.5 levels and connected by a central stair that functions as both circulation and a source of light. A skylight positioned above the stair draws daylight deep into the center of the home, allowing natural light to filter through the interior and organize the spatial experience of the house while maintaining privacy from adjacent properties.

2,970 sq.ft. [completed 2021]

Trout Lake Duplex

The Trout Lake Duplex explores how gentle density can be introduced into Vancouver’s traditional single-family neighbourhoods while maintaining the scale, rhythm, and familiarity of the historic streetscape. Located on a standard 33 x 122 foot urban lot adjacent to John Hendry Park in East Vancouver, the project reinterprets the city’s historic gabled houses to create two family-oriented homes that balance contextual sensitivity with contemporary living.

The design draws from the Gabled Vernacular House—one of the most common residential forms built in Vancouver in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than replicating historic details, the project distills key characteristics of this local typology: a steeply pitched roof, simple 2½-storey massing, shingle cladding, and a carefully proportioned dormer. These elements are reconfigured to create a contemporary duplex that feels both familiar and distinctly modern.

2,820 sq.ft. [completed 2023]

Chroma

Chroma is a ten-storey, 133-unit market rental building located in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats. The project combines two levels of commercial space at grade with eight levels of rental housing above. This mixed-use configuration reinforces the area’s evolving employment and residential fabric while activating the public realm at street level.

The building’s design and materiality establish a distinct identity rooted in its setting. Metal panel cladding references the industrial character of the False Creek Flats. The upper residential volume is articulated through a series of undulating V-shaped façade elements offset at each floor. These elements create strong horizontal banding that expresses individual floor levels, and lends a more domestic scale to the residential component.

The top two residential floors are further set back, accommodating two-storey, townhome-style units accessed from an exterior walkway. These units are paired with generous landscaped terraces that extend living spaces outward and reinforce the project’s emphasis on indoor–outdoor living.

127,777 sq.ft. [completed 2025]