Where Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Vision

The Origin Story

Back in 2012, I was sitting in a corporate high-rise designing yet another glass box that looked like every other glass box in the city. Something just clicked - or maybe broke, depending on how you look at it. I'd spent years studying sacred geometry, visiting ancient temples from Angkor Wat to Machu Picchu, sketching patterns that had survived millennia. And here I was, churning out buildings with zero soul.

So I walked away. Started Arcane Valorium in my apartment with nothing but a drafting table, way too much coffee, and this wild idea that buildings could actually mean something again. Not in some pretentious art-school way, but real meaning - spaces that just feel right when you walk into them.

The name? Yeah, people ask about that all the time. "Arcane" 'cause we dig into those old design principles that most modern architects have forgotten about. "Valorium" - it's kinda made up, honestly, but it sounds like valor andrium combined, like a space for courage and gathering. My partner said it sounded too much like a fantasy novel. I said perfect.

How We Actually Work

First meeting, we don't talk about square footage or budgets right away. We talk about how you want to feel in your space. Sounds weird, I know, but stick with me here. A corporate office shouldn't feel like a monastery, and a home shouldn't feel like a museum.

We blend the old with the new - not in that trendy exposed-brick way everyone's doing, but deeper. Maybe it's orienting a building to catch light like a 12th-century cathedral, or using proportions that the ancient Greeks figured out made people feel at peace. Then we wrap it all in contemporary materials and tech that actually makes sense for 2025.

Our team's pretty small on purpose. There's eight of us, and everyone here's a little obsessed with what they do. We've got Marina who can spot a structural issue from across the room, Dev who somehow makes sustainable design not look boring, and Chen who's restored more heritage buildings than anyone I know under forty.

What Drives Us

Here's the thing about working in Vancouver - you're surrounded by incredible natural beauty and some seriously awful buildings from the 70s and 80s. It's like the city forgot about design for two decades. We're trying to fix that, one project at a time.

Every building we touch, whether it's a new-build mansion in West Van or restoring a century-old warehouse in Gastown, gets the same treatment. We obsess over the details most people won't consciously notice but will absolutely feel. The way light moves through a space at different times of day. How a room sounds - yeah, acoustics matter way more than people think. The flow between indoor and outdoor areas.

We've done residential homes where clients swear they sleep better (might be placebo, might be the bedroom facing east with perfect morning light). We've designed commercial spaces where employees actually want to come to the office. And we've brought old buildings back to life in ways that honor what they were while making them relevant for what they need to be.

The Mystical Part

Look, I get it. "Mystical architecture" sounds like something you'd see on a questionable Instagram account with too many crystals. But hear me out - there's real science behind why certain spaces affect us the way they do. Sacred geometry isn't magic, it's math. Those ancient builders knew something about proportions and harmony that we've only recently started to understand again through modern psychology and neuroscience.

We don't do anything weird or woo-woo. No feng shui consultants or energy healers on staff (though hey, if that's your thing, cool). We just apply principles that have worked for thousands of years because they're based on how humans actually perceive and interact with space.

Why Vancouver?

This city's got everything - ocean, mountains, forests, and a real hunger for better design. Plus the coffee's great, which matters more than you'd think when you're pulling late nights on a deadline. We've worked on projects from Richmond to North Van, and each neighborhood's got its own character we try to respect and enhance.

The building codes here can be intense (shoutout to the folks at City Hall who've reviewed our more ambitious proposals), but honestly, constraints breed creativity. When you can't just do the easy thing, you're forced to think differently. That's when the interesting stuff happens.