Canada's new vice-regal, Julie Payette, has announced that a respected Vancouver landscape architect is among the top three Order of Canada recipients in her first round of appointments.

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander has been named a companion of the order, which is the highest rank.

Oberlander, 96, was a pioneer in devising green architectural designs, at times in collaboration with celebrated architects such as Arthur Erickson and Moshe Safdie.

She won the 2013 Mayor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 2014 she received the Interior Designers of Canada/International Interior Design Association Leadership Award of Excellence.

Joining her as companions of the order are retired Supreme Court of Canada judge Louis LeBel and University of Manitoba crystallography and mineralogy professor Frank C. Hawthorne.

The next-highest rank is officer of the order of Canada. Among those named in this category were actor William Shatner and Vancouver-raised artist Ken Lum.

Vancouver-area residents named as officers were geomorphologist Michael Anthony Church, Chief Robert Joseph (who's listed as being from Alert Bay), gerontologist Anne Martin-Matthews, and language and speech researcher Janet Werker.

The most famous person named as a member of the Order of Canada, which is the lowest rank, was singer-songwriter Jann Arden.

Vancouver-area residents named as members were jazz guitarist Oliver Gannon, cancer researcher Martin Gleave, architect and author Richard Henriquez, HIV researcher Robert Hogg, neurology professor Judy Iles, and landscape architect Gregory Smallenberg.