BC Business
Risky ice-climbing adventures help architect and MGA founder Michael Green build courage.
Michael Green’s TED Talks on climate change and sustainable architecture mark pivotal points in his career. His first one broke the ceiling on what wood buildings can do for people and the planet, while later appearances uncovered truths related to construction and ways of building. What most people wouldn’t guess from watching Green on stage is that, for a large part of his life, he shied away from public speaking. And despite being one of the most innovative architects in B.C., he also dreaded meeting clients.
Some people take classes to confront those fears. Green decided to take up one of humanity’s most dangerous hobbies.
Green has broken 26 bones in his body, most of them from ice climbing. He picked up the sport when he was 16 years old, and he’s been climbing with his friend Peter Levine—general partner at American venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz—ever since.
Climbing expeditions have seen Green scale peaks in Alaska, Patagonia, Asia, Africa, Ecuador, Peru, Europe, the U.S. and Canada (to list a few). For quick trips, he prefers Banff, as well as Ouray in Colorado. “It’s ice-climbing mecca,” he says of Ouray, “and Banff is one of the best spots in the world. It’s really hardcore.”
As he prepares to face his biggest challenge so far—8,400-metre Makalu in the Himalayas, the fifth tallest mountain in the world (and the namesake of his son)—he maintains that it’s hobbies like these that have made him the risktaker he is today.
“A lot of my work, which was really innovative, was frowned upon by my peers,” says Green. Since he launched Michael Green Architecture in 2012, his firm has positioned itself as a leader in the global mass timber movement, which promotes the use of sustainable wood products over steel or concrete. “Most architects thought what I was doing with wood and big buildings would never happen. And now it’s arguably the most talked- about way of building in the world today.”
In 2024, Green was named a finalist in EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year – Pacific Region program. That same year, MGA was chosen to design the Marcus Performing Arts Center, which is expected to be the tallest building in Wisconsin and the tallest wooden skyscraper in the world.
“This will be the longest I’ve ever taken off work since I started working,” he says of his upcoming trip to climb Makalu. Mastering a sport like ice climbing requires deep knowledge—slight changes in the sound or colour of ice can mean life or death. “And even if you know all those things, you still might fall. The rule in ice climbing is don’t fall,” Green adds with a laugh.
It’s a lesson that’s shaped him as a climber. In 1996, Green learned just how critical it is while climbing Aonach Mór in the Scottish Highlands with Levine—an experience he’ll never forget.
“We had climbed up about 300 metres of ice, and there was a huge cornice [an overhanging edge of snow] above us,” Green recalls. “It’s like a roof or a ceiling and you can’t really climb over it… I tried to go up an area of the overhang, and as I was going up and over… I broke into sugary snow. That doesn’t hold your ice axes. I fell backwards, thinking I had clipped a piece of protection just below me. I thought, ‘OK, this will suck. I’ll fall 10 feet or something.’ But I just kept going and going and going, and I ended up falling about 60 feet, so six storeys, and I got knocked unconscious.”
Green and Levine got caught in a snowstorm, which forced them to retrace their steps through brutal conditions for eight hours. Later, Green learned that he’d broken his back and several ribs, and his ice axe had punctured his hip. Doctors told him he’d never carry more than 10 pounds again. “I burst into tears,” he remembers. Yet, miraculously, he was back to climbing within weeks.
“Adrenaline is an amazing thing,” Green says, grinning over Zoom.
“I was working for a famous architect when [the accident] happened—César Pelli,” he continues. “We were building [what was then] the world’s tallest building, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, and I had to meet a lot of ‘important people’—clients—but I was quite shy and nervous about it all. My first TED Talk was a super scary thing to do—Bill Gates was in the front row; Jeff Bezos was there. It was a big deal for my career, and the world of architecture literally changed because of it. But I was terrified. And I just kept thinking about that night [on Aonach Mór] and how if I can do that, I can do this.
“As hard as that night was, it was the turning point of my life, being able to power through things that I otherwise might have found fear in. These kinds of adventures and powerful life-changing moments, for anybody, can be positively transformative if you choose to leverage it that way.”
Vancouver-based Michael Green Architecture is known for its innovative design solutions. The company, which is supported by a team of 40, advocates for sustainable practices. “The best buildings in the world are deeply simple,” says Michael Green. “They last for centuries… the Vancouver House building has two times the amount of concrete than any other building in the city. Two times means double the carbon footprint. That is recklessly irresponsible behaviour, and we have to transform the industry to explain, ‘Don’t do that anymore. Don’t be gregarious. Don’t be shape-making. Be intelligent, responsible and quiet.’”