A home where learning transcends classrooms. Pax House breathes life into student experience through intentional community and shared purpose.
Legacy of Community and Transformation
Pax House carries forward the rich legacy of the Menno Simons Centre — a beloved student residence that, for decades, offered community, spiritual growth, and hospitality to university students in Vancouver, about 5 minutes off-campus.
Founded on Anabaptist ideals of peace, humility, and shared life, the Menno Simons Centre provided a place where students lived, learned, and grew together through shared meals, service, dialogue, and prayer.
Now entering a new chapter at Menno Hall, Pax House continues that same spirit in a modern context.
Built by Shape Architects as a beautiful, purpose-designed residence at the Gateway to UBC, Pax House expands the vision of intentional community for today’s students — open to all who value reflection, curiosity, and connection. Here, the legacy of the Menno Simons Centre continues to thrive — not as a memory, but as a living invitation to shared life, learning, and peace.
Menno Hall is also home to the new PeaceBridge Institute, a centre for peace and development, which will provide opportunities for learning and service to Pax House students and the broader community.
Our Community Values
Community Identity
At Pax House, we welcome students from all backgrounds and beliefs. While a commitment to any particular faith tradition is not required, residents join a community that values dialogue, reflection, and intentional living. Pax House is not a secular residence, but one rooted in the Anabaptist Christian tradition of hospitality, humility, and peacebuilding. Together, we create space for thoughtful conversation about faith and learning, and for exploring how these ideas shape our shared academic and personal journeys.
Living with Intention
Living at Pax House means committing to community-making in every sense. We seek to look for the good in one another and to presume goodwill in every conversation. Guided by traditions of mutual care and hospitality, we exercise charity toward one another and welcome those who disagree with us as friends and fellow bearers of God’s image. We aim to treat one another with hospitality and respect, engaging in reasoned and honest dialogue. Acknowledging our own limitations, we see ourselves and those who differ from us as fellow seekers — asking every question and listening to every voice in an environment of charity and freedom.
Engaging Together
Many of the community events at Pax House are invitational only. However, we encourage our students to actively participate in community and require students to engage in Orientation Week events, regular dorm meetings, weekly community meals and winter retreat.
