Over 32 years at GGA, Stephen’s projects, relationships and experiences have shaped both his career and the studio itself.
It’s difficult to picture GGA without Stephen Mahler.
When Stephen joined Gibbs Gage Architects, now GGA-Architecture, in 1994, the studio was a close-knit team of 19. Three decades later, GGA has grown to nearly 130, and Stephen’s career has grown with it.
He arrived seeking real responsibility and steadily grew from designer to Partner. Stephen describes the years that followed as cumulative, with each project bringing new questions, different people and something he could carry into the next.
The Making of an Architect
Stephen’s path into architecture began well before university. His father worked in construction, and as a kid he would wander over to nearby job sites, convinced his dad was “everywhere.” He remembers the work boots and lunch pail that came home at the end of the day and being drawn to the world of making buildings real.
At home, drawing and Lego fed an interest in how things came together. At school, teachers in drafting and art noticed his blend of technical and creative thinking and encouraged him to pursue architecture.
That interest deepened at the University of Manitoba, where his understanding of design began to broaden. Stephen completed a degree in Environmental Studies before continuing into architecture, where he was introduced to the idea that design exists at the intersection of the built, natural, and social environments. He still remembers a professor drawing the three as overlapping circles. Sociology, psychology and the way people interact with space mattered alongside the technical side of a building.
That perspective stayed with him. Architecture was never only about the object itself. It meant understanding the people, context, operations and other forces around a building, and recognizing how one decision could influence another.
University also introduced Stephen to Rick Lewis, a classmate-turned-longtime friend, who later helped connect him with GGA. Stephen and Rick had also studied under some of the same University of Manitoba professors who had taught founders Doug Gage and Wade Gibbs years earlier. That continuity gave them some common ground in how they approached design, with an emphasis on understanding the conditions surrounding a building before deciding what it should become.
By the time Stephen joined GGA in 1994, he had already spent two and a half years in the industry. At that point in his career, the smaller studio offered the environment Stephen was looking for. He could stay close to the design process, work directly with experienced leaders and take on a larger role in the work.
Stephen was also clear about where he hoped his career at GGA might lead. He told founders Doug Gage and Wade Gibbs that he wanted the chance to become a Partner one day. He was not looking for a guarantee, only the opportunity to earn it.
Progress was gradual. Absorbed in projects he loved, he took his time getting registered. In 2007, thirteen years after joining GGA, Stephen became a Partner.
Learning Through the Work
One of Stephen’s first significant projects at GGA was the expansion of what was then the Roundup Centre at Stampede Park. He was given substantial responsibility early, working on a major Calgary institution when that kind of opportunity was far from guaranteed.
Drawing from historic exhibition halls and train stations, the design gave the expansion a civic presence suited to large public gatherings. For Stephen, the project also broadened his understanding of what it took to design a building. Operations, circulation, structure, constructability and the client’s broader goals all had to work together.
The Roundup Centre also pushed him to see the project through the client’s eyes. Design decisions needed to work architecturally while also supporting how the building would operate and how the Stampede would use it over time.
“Every aspect of architecture is creative,” Stephen says. “It doesn’t mean you’re always designing an image. You have to be creative in solving problems.”
Years later, Stephen’s work at Stampede Park included the Nutrien Western Event Centre. By then, his role had changed considerably, but the relationship with the Stampede had remained a constant.
One of the Centre’s defining elements is the circular rotunda at the entrance, which creates a recognizable point of arrival and a place to gather before moving into the arena and surrounding spaces. Stephen has described it as “a meeting place between agriculture and urban culture,” reflecting both the social role of the space and the Centre’s broader place within Stampede Park.
Roundup and Nutrien came at very different points in Stephen’s career, offering a glimpse of how his experience had evolved within a relationship that spanned decades.
A Career Without a Single Lane
Stampede Park became an enduring thread through Stephen’s career, but his work continued to span sectors and building types. Each brought a different set of questions, and some would eventually develop into much deeper areas of knowledge.
A Different Architectural Puzzle
At the University of Calgary’s CNRL Engineering Complex, Stephen was working with an existing school that had grown increasingly difficult to navigate over decades of additions. The renovation reorganized the complex around a new central atrium while construction unfolded around an occupied campus.
It was a very different architectural puzzle, one in which existing conditions, circulation, and everyday student life all had to be considered together. For Stephen, that variety was part of the appeal. Moving between building types meant encountering different users, constraints and ways of thinking through a design problem.
An Unexpected Path into Healthcare
Healthcare became a significant part of Stephen’s career almost by accident. It was not a sector he had initially been eager to pursue. Early in his career, he had watched architects spend years immersed in large hospital projects and wasn’t convinced that kind of specialization was for him.
His way into healthcare grew through developer-led work. Lake Bonavista Village, a seniors’ residence he still describes as a career highlight, became one of the early steps, bringing questions around aging, care and everyday life into the design process. Outpatient projects followed, including the South Calgary Health Centre and Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre, where the team had to consider what those facilities actually required rather than simply applying the systems and standards of an acute-care hospital.
The distinction mattered. Outpatient care brought its own demands around patient and staff movement, building systems, codes and service delivery. Acute-care environments introduced another level of interdependence between those elements. Stephen became increasingly interested in how the technical demands of a healthcare building could respond to the care being delivered within it.
He continued developing that knowledge beyond individual projects, attending healthcare design and environments-for-aging conferences and following emerging research. Evidence-based design was one idea he brought back to GGA, using research and observed outcomes to inform planning decisions rather than relying on intuition alone.
That thinking later informed the planning of the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre, where Stephen and the team were also working alongside the Calgary Health Region as new standards were being developed. Emerging research was considered alongside the practical knowledge of the people responsible for operating the building and delivering care within it.
What began with seniors living and outpatient care eventually led to major acute-care projects. By the time Stephen was leading GGA’s pursuit of the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital expansion and renovation, he had moved from learning an unfamiliar sector to helping guide the firm’s work within it.
Responsibility to Mentorship
Stephen speaks about his career with a real sense of good fortune. He is quick to credit the people who trusted him, the projects he had the chance to be part of and the fact that so much of what he designed was actually built. Looking back, he knows those opportunities were not a given.
That perspective stayed with him as his own role changed. Having been entrusted with significant work early in his career, Stephen eventually found himself in a position to extend that same trust to others. As a Partner, he gave younger professionals room to contribute ideas, take ownership of the work, and develop their own judgement through experience.
His relationship with architecture evolved alongside that shift. Stephen still loves designing and drawing, but over time he found another kind of satisfaction in helping others find their footing. Reviewing a drawing, supporting an idea and recognizing when someone was ready to take the lead became part of what made the work rewarding.
Buildings may be the most visible record of an architect’s career, but much of what an experienced architect contributes is less tangible. It can be found in the judgement shared across a table, the question that redirects an idea and the trust that gives someone else room to grow.
After 32 years, Stephen’s contribution can be seen in both the buildings he helped design and the people whose careers developed alongside his. Within GGA, it continues in the questions that push ideas further, the trust he placed in his teams and the judgement shared from one person to the next.
Looking Ahead
Around the office, people will remember more than the projects. They’ll remember the patient design reviews, the gentle but pointed questions and the way he could somehow find a Seinfeld quote for almost any situation.
As Stephen moves into retirement, there will be more time for family, travel, home projects and hands-on work in the yard. The scale may change, but the interest in designing and making things has not.
We will miss his presence in the studio, the conversations over drawings and the perspective that comes from more than three decades spent genuinely loving the work.
Thank you, Stephen, for 32 remarkable years at GGA.