Vancouver architecture firm MGA has announced two new promotions: Jesse Martyn and Graham Tkachuk are now associates.

Martyn was born and raised in the suburbs of Southern Ontario—Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Attiwonderonk (Neutral). He received an advanced diploma in architectural technology and bachelor’s degrees in art history and environmental design from the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University, and completed his Master of Architecture degree at the University of British Columbia.

He has taken an interest in vernacular architecture and its relationship to place, and with a relentless attention to detail, his design methodology looks for opportunities to deploy scalable systems and strategies that can be executed from conception through to construction. Rigorous design, an emphasis on craft, and holistic approaches to architecture and the environment are what brought him to MGA. Before heading to the West Coast, he worked for award-winning architecture firms in Toronto and Halifax focusing on single- and multi-family housing and mixed-use projects.

Tkachuk joined MGA after working extensively on a large social housing development project in Vancouver. He brings experience from a diversity of social and public projects, including health care, universities, community centers and libraries.

Also a Dalhousie graduate, he went on to work for several years on a major expansion project for the university. This was a formative experience as it exposed him to the rigor and intensity of a large-scale public project. Tkachuk believes strongly in architecture as an instrument of social change, and that every project must have a social agenda. He has worked in offices in Halifax, Italy and Switzerland.