Over the past two years ZAS Vancouver has been supporting social entrepreneurs to build a home for their vision.

In 2015 Simon Fraser University (SFU) launched an innovation strategy and associated facility that supports a lifecycle approach to innovation and entrepreneurship that mobilizes creative minds and research to contribute to British Columbia’s economic, social and environmental wellbeing.

One of these programs is RADIUS (radical ideas, useful to society), a community-based social innovation lab, launched by SFU’s Beedie School of Business in 2013. One of the programs within RADIUS is a six-month accelerator, Slingshot, designed to take growth-ready social ventures to the next level.

One of the ventures from the third Slingshot cohort, Zero Waste Market, teamed up with ZAS Architects + Interiors to build out their first brick and mortar store.

“We’ve been working with them for just under a year,” Zero Waste Market founder Brianne Miller shared with us. “It’s been a great opportunity for us to work with partners that are well established and looking to get more involved in the community and build new expertise.”

The motivation for ZAS Architects to work on this project – in addition to our interest in supporting emerging talent – was to create a case study on green building to present to their team. Green building and interior design is a growth area for the firm and, according to Brianne, “ZAS has helped us with everything from doing the architectural drawings of our space to design consultation and working with us to incorporate elements of brand into our store design.”

Read more here.