Vancouver-based Bing Thom Architects announced that the firm’s founding principal, architect Bing Thom, AIA, died today. “Our beloved Bing, in robust health, passed away this afternoon, October 4th, of a brain aneurism under the kind care of Eastern Hospital in his beloved birthplace, Hong Kong,” said Thom’s wife, Bonnie, in a statement posted to the firm’s homepage.
Thom held a B.Arch. from the University of British Columbia and a M.Arch. from the University of California, Berkeley. He received the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC)’s Gold Medal in 2011, following his firm’s win of the RAIC’s Architectural Firm Award the year prior. “I’m an edgy guy,” he told ARCHITECT in 2012, “in the sense that I don’t like to be in the middle of the action. I like to be on the edge and making my own conclusion. That’s why I’m in Vancouver and not New York or Shanghai. I like the tranquility. I do my best work when I can be observing.”
Founded in 1982, the firm, which also has offices in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., has completed projects such as the Surrey City Centre Library in British Columbia, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., the Sunset Community Centre in Vancouver, and the Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. Last week, the District of Columbia Public Library opened the new Thom-designed Woodridge Library, a 20,000-square-foot concrete and glass branch library in the city’s Northeast quadrant.
One of the firm principals, Venelin Kokalov, will become the principal-in-charge.
The firm posted a statement on their website, which is copied below:
View work by Bing Thom Architects in ARCHITECT’s Project Gallery.
