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Richard George Henriquez (born 5 February 1941 in Annotto Bay, Jamaica) is a Canadian architect known for founding Henriquez Partners Architects in 1969. His projects are known for its blend of unique design with its historical context. His accumulation of work are celebrated by dozens of awards including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Medal in 2005, Governor Generals Medal in 2004 and the Order of Canada in 2017.

He is currently a partner at Henriquez Partners, along with his son Gregory Henriquez as managing partner.

Design Approach
Richard Henriquez was known for his focus on the place of memory and history in his work. He believed that contemporary buildings are disconnected with the past and so his architecture carries a memory which he calls "issue is continuity between the past, the future and the present, and making people aware of their place in time and space." In a particular interview, Henriquez notes that roman cities were layed out by cardines (running north to south) and decamanus (running east to west), all in line with the rising sun. He believed that cities once had a relationship to nature, and wanted to take inspiration from the past. He incorporates historic elements in a variety of ways such as relating the archaeology of the site to the traditional mythic stories that were passed down the generation. He also explored the depths of spatial relationships beyond the quintessential floor heights, material, setback, etc. but in their cosmic and metaphorical relationships elements. Henriquez says his work is "not to invoke nostalgia but to rather give people a new way of looking at what they take for granted."

He was also known for bringing a distinct style of high-density urban design to Vancouver, designing buildings that have slim proportions, low rise buildings, view corridors and parks that create livable communities. A notable example would be the Sylvia hotel tower, with large glazing area and thin floorplates that influence the high rises of Vancouver for years to come.

Childhood Influences
Henriquez was born from a modest family. When Henriquez was three years old, a hurricane almost destroyed his family's home. Later that year, he discovered his father - an agricultural instructor drafted in the war - was killed in action. Due to these circumstances, Henriquez and his siblings went on to live with their grandparents while the mother worked. During his time with his grandparents, Henriquez would hear stories on how his grandparents and his father lived in the past. Although he lacked first-hand contact with his father, he valued objects his father made before his passing such as wooden bowls and furniture. Henriquez comments that his interest in history may have stemmed from his absent father, inspiring the architectural work that he produced over the years.

Henriquez also credits his grand-uncle for his inspiration of pursuing architecture. His grand-uncle was a multifaceted artisan that was a sculptor, painter, architect and an engineer. This influenced young Henriquez to follow his footsteps and explored artistic endeavors such as creating sculptures out of limestone and painting. None of his other 4 brothers and sisters followed the same artistic pursuits, although his older sister who grew up good at mathematics works with him as a bookkeeper in his firm.

Growing up in Jamaica had affected Henriquez's design sensibility. In Jamaica, material was costly while labor was cheap and therefore, Henriquez believed that nothing of value should go to waste and should be instead reused.

Education
Once Henriquez graduated from highschool, he immediately pursued his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Manitoba in Canada from 1958-1964.

The program was highly technical and even included four years of structural engineering in its curriculum. The school provided Henriquez with a strong technical base and taught him the construction and how to build buildings, but all his work was still constrained to reality and any superfluous work was considered illegitimate.

Upon graduation, Henriquez returned to Jamaica to work for McMorris Sibley Robinson Architects. It was here where he took on over a dozen projects including corporate, cultural and domestic projects. Many of these residential projects, were situated on hilltop sites or steep slopes, giving Henriquez experience later in his life when he designs for Vancouver’s hilly topography.

Henriquez eventually attended MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to complete his Masters degree. It was here that he developed his theoretical and philosophical views in architecture that would be the basis of his work for years to come.

For his final thesis project, Henriquez developed a conceptual scheme of a satellite town for 100,000 people near Germantown, Maryland. His project was an exploration of flexibility, adaptability, which Henriquez puts as “allowing them freedom to live as they choose and meaningful choice as to where and how they live”. Henriquez had always designed for, however it was in this project when he started to develop his philosophical stances in architecture. The project was deeply influenced by his supervisor, Lubicz-Nycz who believed that architecture is spiritual, where it must honor the past and carry its narrative, while allowing future growth. This narrative approach becomes and integral part of Henriquez's design process in his future works.

Selected Projects
Richard Henriquez has done dozens of projects throughout his lifetime. The projects discussed below are only a small handful of his work, and are selected because it showcases the different variety of work, philosophy and styles that he was capable of designing.

Sylvia Hotel Tower
The Sylvia Hotel Tower, built in 1984 was an addition to the Edward Sylvia Hotel (a once popular Vancouver hotel, and currently a designated heritage landmark) located near the Vancouver waterfront. Henriquez designed the building by drawing inspiration from its unique site conditions and adjacencies. On the site's immediate east are the 1958 Ocean Towers, both eighteen-stories tall, slab-form apartment building built in Miami Modern style. On its west side is the Sylvia Hotel, built originally as a luxury apartment but was converted to be a luxury hotel to keep up with the finances during the economic downturn of the roaring twenties. The Sylvia hotel had a "streaky bacon style" aesthetic, meaning it was a brick building with its base and corner cornice capitals made of strips of stone in a lighter color. The main tower itself contained both aesthetic elements of the historic Sylvia tower and the more progressive Ocean Towers of the time. However, the design avoids typical postmodernist strategy of combining bits and pieces of the building to create a hybrid building, but instead, the two polarizing characteristics of the adjacent buildings are distinctly separated and juxtaposed. It is analogous to a clash between the polarizing "black" against the "white" rather than the typical homogenous "grey" of postmodern design. On the seaward corner of the building are floor-to-ceiling glazing that reveal the building's concrete structural frame, and oriented at a 30 degree angle against the cartesian site grid which frames the mountainous views across the waters.

The building also introduced the "small-plate" style tower to Vancouver, which has become a defining characteristic of Vancouver's downtown peninsula high-rises. In 1999, Canadian Architect magazine deemed the tower to be on of the most influential Canadian buildings of the twentieth century.



Sinclair Centre
The Sinclair Centre, is a shopping complex that was built by Henriquez Partners Architects in collaboration with Toby Russell Buckwell Architects in 1986. The Sinclair Centre was originally four separate historic buildings, but the renovation unified the buildings into one shopping mall by connecting them in a glazed atrium. The federal government's wanted to have more of a presence of public services in Vancouver. Therefore, The program of Sinclair Centre was called to transform an entire block into government office complex mixed with retail and public functions and replacing the image of the building from being austere to being open and accessible.



A main objective in the architecture is to create a space with an open concept, resulting in a T-shaped galleria. The design of the building preserved each of the four building's historic character and individuality while the glazing was designed in a neutral manner.

The building is named after James Sinclair, a businessman and politician that was the former president of Lafarge Cement in North America and the maternal grandfather of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trent University Campus Environmental Sciences Building
The Trent University campus site is located in the midpoint of Toronto and Ottawa. Its masterplan was developed by Canadian Architect Ron Thom, that was an integration of modern buildings with respect to the surrounding natural environment in the style of Eero Saarinen's design of Morse and Ezra Stiles College in Yale University. Henriquez's plan to design the new Earth Science's building was based on Thom's direction and intention for the Trent University's masterplan, while avoiding overt imitation. For example, the animal-care centre was designed architecturally to be farm-like as an echo to its agricultural past as in line with Thom's original intentions. Another example, the use of a wall fragment from the original Thom's masterplan is sloped upwards so that it meets the roof of the Environmental Sciences building. The purpose of this is to create a "groundhog ramp" to honor the small critters that inhabit the area that were displaced by the construction of the building. By providing a green roof, it invites critters to be part of its community. The building linked and unified the university's pedestrian circulation pathway. An outdoor accessible walkway connects the main campus to the adjacent chemistry building, a facility that was undergoing major growth when the Environmental Sciences building was proposed.

BC Cancer Research Centre
Constructed in 2004, The BC Cancer Research Centre is a cancer research centre for facilities such as the Genome Sequencing Centre that is dedicated to cancer research projects. It is located across the street from the British Columbia Treatment Centre in Vancouver, a facility that connects benchtop-to-bedside research and treatment. This requires quick absorption and relay of constantly updates and information on therapy and cures. As a result, the building is designed for high flexibility. There are six floors laboratory are designed as modules on a grid. There are also six interstitial floors that allows for quick access to mechanical and electrical systems. This arrangement allows for minimal disruptions when laboratories need to be reconfigured. The main program for the building are two main blocks, one for office and another for laboratories. Sectionally, one level of laboratories correspond to two levels of offices. The laboratory and office blocks are separated by space as well as their aesthetics. The laboratory block façade showcased round windows that mimic petri dishes. The office building facade had vertical oriented glazing that mimic an abstract version of chromosome 6, a main focus of the cancer research done in the facilities. The building has amenities such as library, food and theater facilities, penthouse lounge and an outdoor terrace. In 2005, the building was deemed the first health-care facility in Canada to attain LEED Gold certification.

Justice Institute of British Columbia
Built in 1992, the Justice Institute of British Columbia is a professional training centre for public safety officers and officials. It is located in New Westminster and brings students from around the globe. The overarching philosophy for the Justice Institute is to nurture communities rather than demonstrate force. The facility Is 161,400 square feet that include training academies for court staff, police, firefighters, emergency response and paramedics. The architect takes inspiration by the working methods of a variety of sources, including Kevin Lynch and even Louis Kahn (rotunda with its staircase and balcony). One building is a cubic gymnasium building that has clerestory lighting, administrative building with student services on the ground floor. The main administrative building is semi-circled shape that encapsulates the outdoor garden and pool, protecting it from traffic noise. On one end of the building is the main atrium, that contains a staircase that comes out of a proscenium arch. This is to simulate this central atrium space as a stage, where in training demonstrations, where students present in uniforms or costumes would be actors on stage, while the students watching would be the audience. The top of the atrium is a triangular glazed roof supported by thin trusses to allow ample light into the stage.

Memory Theatre
Memory Theatre is an exhibition showcasing twenty-five years of accomplishment by Richard Henriquez. It was a travelling exhibition co-produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibition was physically a cylindrical structure that was held up by a surveyor's tripod and accessed by a bridge. Once visitors enter the cylindrical structure, they will be surrounded by ten cabinets with glass cases that contain found objects ranging from a diversity of architectural models, notes, sculptures, drawings, letters and photographs that demonstrate Henriquez's creative process. Right at the centre of the Theatre is a cylindrical globe. On top of the pole of the globe is Vancouver. By picking a point on the model, the device can be made to point towards the true objective. The architect did so as a way to contrast the Copernican model of the earth by having the earth as the centre of the universe. It shows that the present time and place to be conscious of one's narrative. as memory is used to pinpoint the present.