Portrait of Jana Foit, Higher Education Practice Leader in the Vancouver studio

Jana Foit

Architect AIBC, LEED AP
Principal, Operations Director, Vancouver

Born in Czechoslovakia and immigrating to Canada at age six, Jana has always had a passion for art and design. Inheriting a love of drawing from her engineer father, she loved to sketch floor plans of imagined homes and create stories around the people who might live there.

Today, she is passionate about storytelling on behalf of some of the country’s most influential post-secondary institutions. Within the changing landscape of higher education, Jana believes that stories contribute to a campus’s identity, culture, and reputation—and she gets most excited working with clients to bring those narratives to life through architecture.

Jana’s greatest source of inspiration is found through working with people—collaborating with true experts in their fields, feeding inspiration through the design process, and building a shared excitement that ignites creativity and innovation.

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Say hello to Jana
“We are not the experts in our clients’ businesses; they are the experts. We have to make sure our design solutions create spaces that allow them to thrive in what they do.”
A photograph of Cheko’nien House from Ring Road looking down the Campus Greenway with students walking in the foreground.
University of Victoria—Student Housing and Dining Facility
Targeting Passive House certification for both buildings, the UVIC SHD supports a vibrant, compact, and walkable campus.
UBC Earth Sciences Building during construction showing mass timber structure
UBC Earth Sciences Building
The academic wing of the building uses wood as the primary structural material, providing a welcoming environment while sequestering approximately 1,005 tonnes of CO2.
Mass Timber Ambassador

Seeing first-hand the benefits of mass timber construction, Jana has been an advocate since working on the award-winning Earth Sciences Building (ESB) project at the University of British Columbia (UBC). North America’s largest panelised wood structure at the time of its construction, ESB uses a combination of solid, cross-laminated wood and wood-concrete composite panels and raises the bar for the use of wood in large-scale, high-performance projects.

University of Brotish Columbia Earth Science Building
UBC Earth Sciences Building
A leading example of large-scale mass timber construction, ESB earned LEED Gold certification.
Jana facilitating a workshop at the University of Calgary.

Jana's Featured Work

University of British Columbia, Orchard Commons
Work
University of British Columbia, Orchard Commons
Vancouver, British Columbia
Simon Fraser University Stadium SFU Stadium from track.
Work
Simon Fraser University Stadium
Burnaby, British Columbia
University of British Columbia, Gateway
Work
University of British Columbia, Gateway
Vancouver, BC
Simon Fraser University, Student Union Building Photograph showing entry of the SUB building. The warm wood interior of the upper floor and colouful soffit at the entry can be seen.
Work
Simon Fraser University, Student Union Building
Burnaby, British Columbia
University of Victoria Student Housing and Dining View down the main stairs to the entry from the second floor of the servery with students.
Work
University of Victoria Student Housing and Dining
Victoria, British Columbia
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