Creating resilient workspaces for 24-hour teams

Culture first, floorplans second

With multiple workplaces and diverse team needs, we focused on identifying a shared culture to unite the organisation.

To support this, we moved away from siloed, traditional layouts and designed spaces that promote collaboration, equity and inclusivity, bringing together field teams, corporate staff and others.

Our strategy team developed a modular system of work settings that could flexibly support a wide range of functions. This approach ensures the space can adapt to change while enabling connection and collaboration.

The Airport Authority’s core values of safety, teamwork, accountability and innovation are reflected throughout the design.

Designing for context, flow and belonging

Situated on Sea Island, where the Fraser River meets the ocean to form one of North America’s largest estuaries, the airport’s unique setting informed our design approach. Just as an estuary is a place of transition and convergence, the design became a metaphor for the client itself: a gateway, a hub, a living ecosystem.

Rather than a single aesthetic statement, the design focus was functionality with soul and a space where everyone feels seen.

Solutions through strategy

Behind the design was a 300-page strategy report, one of the most detailed M Moser has ever produced. It explored how 20+ locations could work together, instead of apart.

Through surveys, workshops, site tours and even benchmarking visits to Portland and Seattle airports, our team developed phased solutions. These were incorporated into a phased approach, consisting of immediate enhancements, a medium-term densification program and a long-term master plan through 2035.

Scenario planning, adjacency studies and change champions turned vision into the roadmap.

The road to change

Change management played a key role in the Airport Authority’s enhancements, ensuring staff were supported and well-prepared as they transitioned to new workspaces.

Our workplace strategy team helped lead the change management effort. Balancing inclusivity with decision-making clarity required identifying key decision-makers throughout the project.

Together with our client, we crafted the messaging that would help people understand and begin to adopt their new work environment. We introduced new areas to ease the transition, including ‘manager flex rooms,’ hybrid meeting tech and zones built for quiet, collaboration and neurodiverse needs.

Every move considered ergonomics, accessibility and the emotional weight of transformation.

Making the invisible visible

What makes a workplace truly inclusive? It’s not always what you see. We integrated details such as safety-rated materials and above-standard accessibility features into the process and design. Air and acoustic standards were stringent. HVAC had to perform flawlessly, even inside phone booths.

The result is a workplace that is both grounded and forward-thinking.

A workplace that moves with its people

The work is ongoing, but the ripple effects are already visible. Teams are connected and the space is more functional, inviting and efficiently used.

Smart technology, hybrid-enabled rooms and standardised furniture systems are just the beginning. Vancouver Airport Authority now has a platform to flex, scale and grow.

The new workplace empowers employees to connect, collaborate and thrive. It helps fuel the exceptional service to our client’s valued partners, customers and guests in a place that never stops moving.