Manasc Isaac is pleased to be opening our doors to the public on June 6, 2012, to show off a few of our office's green features! As part of the 2012 Eco Solar Commercial Tour, we will be raising awareness about sustainable choices for commercial buildings.

Manasc Isaac and Bing Thom Architects (Vancouver) have begun collaborating with MacEwan University on the recently-annouced Cultural Arts and Communications Centre! The facility will house the programs currently located at its Centre for the Arts and Communications campus.

The Manasc Isaac office is looking a lot greener this week, after team members adopted 24 new desk plants for their workspaces.

For a donation (which will be given to the Bissell Centre), participating staff were able to get a little dirt beneath their fingernails on Monday afternoon, potting a plant of their choice.

With the advent of Edmonton's first days of warm weather, the Manasc Isaac team was itching to get outside and clean up our neighbourhood!

As part of our commitment to Capital City Cleanup, we spent part of our morning picking up trash from our surrounding neighbourhood. It's great to see the space sparkling and litter-free!

At this time last year, the Manasc Isaac office experienced some reimagining at its home in the Oliver Building, by way of installing solar sunshades on our south wall. Since then, these photovoltaic panels have been helping to provide our building with green power, harnessing solar energy provided by the generous amount of sunlight our south-facing wall receives during the day.

Manasc Isaac is thrilled to announce the second annual Blue Sky Award!

Last year, we received over 25 entries from Albertan not-for-profit organizations, sharing their dream projects that they would like to see turned into reality. Manasc Isaac donated $10,000 of consulting time toward the creation of a conceptual design or feasibility study for the winning organization. In fact, last year's entries were so compelling, we chose three winners!

Vivian Manasc's creative adaptive reuse and transformation of a mechanical room into a penthouse continues to attract attention from members of the community.

Local photographer Darren Kirby took this fascinating shot of the penthouse and has uploaded it HERE on Flickr.

MacEwan University has selected Manasc Isaac and Bing Thom Architects (Vancouver), to design its new Cultural Arts and Communications Centre. The facility will house the programs currently located at its Centre for the Arts and Communications campus.

Shafraaz Kaba will be speaking at the 3rd Annual Calgary Sustainabuild Conference, held on June 19, 2012. Sustainabuild is Western Canada's premier conference focusing on sustainable buildings and communities of all types.

The recently-completed penthouse at the New Cambridge Lofts, which just so happens to be designed by (and occupied by) Vivian Manasc, is featured on the Edmonton Journal website today.

Vivian Manasc will be moderating the Buildex Industry Keynote Panel on Tuesday, March 20, from 8:30am - 10:00am.

We are happy to announce that Manasc Isaac has been announced as a finalist for Alberta Venture Magazine’s Alberta’s Best Workplaces 2012 Awards! The category for which we have been shortlisted is Best Workplace for the Environment. 2012 marks the third year in a row that Manasc Isaac has been shortlisted for the Alberta’s Best Workplaces awards, and we couldn’t be more pleased.

Last week, Vivian Manasc co-chaired the inaugural First Nations Conference on Sustainable Buildings and Communities! Check out her interview with APTN by clicking HERE (the interview appears at around the 20:00 mark).

This week, Shafraaz Kaba and Matt McCombe, both of Manasc Isaac Architects, appeared on Terra Informa, a weekly environmental news program covering issues from across Canada & around the world.

Shafraaz Kaba will be moderating a panel for the Solar Energy Society of Alberta, called "Net Zero Energy Buildings – How Are They Working?" on February 22, 2012 at the Grant MacEwan University CN Theatre (Room 5-142).

The full episode of David Suzuki's "The Nature of Things," featuring an appearance by our very own Shafraaz Kaba, is now available for online viewing. Click HERE to watch the episode, titled "Future City."

Tune in to Dr. David Suzuki's The Nature of Things this week to see Manasc Isaac's very own Shafraaz Kaba make an appearance!

Airing on Thursday (February 16) at 8:00pm on CBC, the episode features Suzuki's trip to Edmonton. From the episode description:

Vivian Manasc will be moderating the keynote panel at the 6th annual BUILDEX Edmonton Conference. The Conference runs March 20 & 21, 2012 and will be held at the Edmonton Expo Centre, at Northlands.

CBC dropped by the Manasc Isaac office this week to interview Ian O'Donnell and get his perspective on the recently-released concept art for Edmonton's proposed downtown arena.

Our very own Josh Johnson and Kent McKay participated in a discussion with Edmonton Economic Development Council (EEDC) about downtown revitalization in Edmonton, and what it is like to live/work downtown. These videos were debuted at EEDC's inaugural "I <3 YEGDT: Downtown X-posed" festival.

Last summer, the Manasc Isaac office benefited from the installation of photovoltaic (PV) panels that also function as sunshades. They were installed on the south side of our building, which receives a generous amount of sunlight during the day.

Manasc Isaac is proud to announce that Leismer Lodge was awarded LEED^® certification today, by the Canada Green Building Council.  Congratulations to the Leismer Lodge team!

Manasc Isaac continues its committment to Edmonton’s newest celebration of winter culture, Metropolis.

On January 26, 2012, join Nextgen at Metropolis for a Pecha Kucha celebration, including a talk by Manasc Isaac's Shafraaz Kaba! Pecha Kucha Nights have become one of Edmonton’s NextGen’s most popular and enduring public events. Japanese for the phrase “the sound of chitchat”, Pecha Kucha Nights feature presentations on local ideas, projects and musings in the 20 slides x 20 second per slide format made popular world-wide by Klein Dytham Architecture.  At Metropolis, the public is invited to attend Pecha Kucha: Metropolis featuring “best of” presentations from the past 11 installments of the event plus fresh ideas.

Shafraaz appears as "The Re-Imagineer" on the back cover of Parlour magazine's latest issue, "The Sweet Life."

The cover highlights one of Shafraaz's current community projects, Designing Downtown.