Seeking to align her work with a greater purpose, Shelley took a hiatus from P+A INTERIORS to join the Real Property and Workplace Services (RPWS) team at WorkSafeBC in June 2022. Part of the Innovation and Technology (I&T) division, RPWS comprises over 50 professionals dedicated to creating innovative and sustainable workplace solutions.
As a manager at RPWS, Shelley brought her diverse expertise to an array of impactful initiatives, including hybrid work programming, space planning, design, and project management. Her contributions extended to mentoring a talented team in holistic project delivery, overseeing asset management, office and space decommissioning, and championing furniture and construction waste reduction and diversion. She also spearheaded workplace strategy and change management efforts, conducted research and surveys, developed and managed contracts, and supported recruitment and retention—all while ensuring quality control for safe, healthy, secure, and sustainable work environments.
Beyond her professional achievements, Shelley is a dedicated leader in the design community.
A Registered Member of the Interior Designers Institute of British Columbia (IDIBC), she joined its Board of Directors in 2020 and was elected President for a one-year term in June 2022. She is also an active member of the Canada Green Building Council, further reflecting her commitment to sustainable and forward-thinking design practices.
Before pivoting to the client realm of facilities, Shelley spent more than two decades as Director at P+A INTERIORS, a Vancouver-based sustainable design studio.
Shelley is a graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Interior Design from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba. Her experience as a Senior Planner and Designer encompasses functional programming; user surveys and analysis; schematic design; test-fits; feasibility studies; guidelines and standards; budgeting and financial oversight; space and occupancy planning; concept and design development; universal design; brand integration; millwork and lighting design; contract documents; tendering, bidding, and negotiation; contract administration; furniture systems (FFE), signage, and wayfinding; decommissioning and move coordination; and, project management.
Throughout Shelley’s career, key drivers have been to stay curious, be authentic, and do impactful work to better humanity and the natural world.
During the first decade of its existence, Shelley was joined at P+A INTERIORS by Robin McIntosh, also a graduate in Interior Design from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba. Robin was a creative force, contributing concept development, beautiful hand renderings, an attention to detail, and so much more. Their collaboration resulted in many award-winning projects.
From 2000 to 2005, Shelley and her team resided at Busby + Associates Architects (now Perkins+Will), due to a shared commitment to sustainable design. The period also imbued the studio's modernist aesthetic and led to collaborations on several projects while providing big firm experience.
In the late-1990s, Shelley apprenticed with Susan Morris of Morris Specifications Inc. The experience gained there has informed Shelley's thoroughness in research, contract documents, and contract administration.
Research is at the core of advancing sustainable design and responding to the climate crisis in a meaningful way. Shelley has researched, authored and co-authored numerous guides and articles on the subject. An excellent communicator and speaker, Shelley has developed and delivered many presentations and led workshops on sustainable design, the most recent on IWBI WELL at BUILDEX Vancouver in 2022 and to the IFMA BC Chapter in 2021.
From 2006-07, Shelley was a member of the LEED Canada for Commercial Interiors Core Committee contributing to the adaptation of the USGBC version and implementation for the Canada Green Building Council. A longstanding LEED AP, she has substantial experience in the implementation of LEED rating systems. She has served as project administrator for four LEED Gold projects and as a team member on two other projects that achieved Gold and Platinum.
An environmentalist since the 1990s, Shelley was the driving force in the creation of the EcoDesign Resource Society, one of Canada's earliest green building organizations. EcoDesign was an independent and multidisciplinary organization founded to encourage sustainability in the building industry. Shelley helped defined and forwarded a vision for EcoDesign as a founding member, president, and director. Her leadership and fundraising efforts were instrumental in developing a library, website and journal as resources for the building industry and the general public.
Since 2014, Shelley has been a guest reviewer for 4th-year Senior Studio capstone and final projects in the Interior Design Department at The Wilson School of Design, Kwantlen Polytechnic University. In 2018 and 2019, Shelley served as chair of the IDIBC Building Code Committee, a working group of the former Regulatory Process Committee pursuing regulation under the OSPG Professional Governance Act.
Shelley Penner is an astute thinker and consistently brilliant designer, always taking into account the big picture.
In 2007, Shelley and her team embarked upon developing p+a furniture, a sister company to P+A INTERIORS. p+a furniture exemplified a simple modern aesthetic, with a profound emphasis on health and sustainability. In addition to p+a-designed residential and contract furniture lines, the company carefully selected other makers and manufacturers of goods to complement the p+a aesthetic, and shared values of sustainability and social equity. p+a furniture opened a shop with P+A INTERIORS' design studio in the downtown eastside of Vancouver in June 2009, with the launch of an online store in August 2009. The location and launching at the height of the global recession were challenges that proved difficult to overcome. In 2014, the two companies moved to East Vancouver creating a maker space for design and fabrication. p+a furniture amalgamated into P+A INTERIORS in 2015 with the company re-focusing on interior design. p+a furniture may have been an idea ahead of its time, but it offered Shelley the opportunity to expand her extensive skill set and build resilience.
photography by Arnaldo Rodriguez, Martin Tessler and Bryan Harrison