The majority of Auditor General Shelley Spence’s 121-page Value for Money audit of the Ontario Place redevelopment centres on procurement. “We found that the CFD [Call for Development] process and realty decisions were not fair, transparent or accountable to all participants as would be required by the Realty Direction, the CFD document, and best practices,” writes Spence.

That language echoes the words of previous Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, who analyzed changes to the Greenbelt in a 2023 report, concluding that the way the government proposed changes to the Greenbelt “was not publicly transparent, objective or well-informed, and was inconsistent with the vision, goals and processes of the Greenbelt Plan, as well as previous amendments to the Greenbelt boundary.”

Summarizing the Ministry of Infrastructure’s decision-making on Ontario Place, the report points to how, for example, “despite published guidance that contact with government officials was prohibited during the open period, some participants were invited to meet with government officials and high-ranking political staff during the CFD open period.”  These communications included nine e-mails and one call between a Vice President at Infrastructure Ontario and Therme’s legal counsel, an introduction of Therme to the transaction advisor leading the Call for Development, and an invitation to an event at the legal counsel’s firm. Minutes of these meetings—as well as separate meetings between the VP and other participants—were not kept, so there is no way to know what was discussed, let alone assess whether all participants had equal access to the same information.

Rather than following the Province’s standard procurement law, directives, or best practices, the 2019 Call for Development, as well as an earlier call in 2017, were categorized as real estate transactions. This is unusual—other large waterfront developments, in both Ontario and abroad, have proceeded as procurements. In any case, the current process also did not meet the lesser requirements of the Realty Directive, which strives for accountability and transparency. As a result of terms and conditions with considerable ambiguity (for instance, “The Government may select one, none or multiple submissions as part of the process”), a few participants did not invest a significant amount of time and resources into their submissions, sending in a one-page response.

The assessment process itself, in the Auditor General’s summary, “was irregular, subjective, and not always followed.” The process used a qualitative scoring framework, with criteria that were not finalized until after the submission deadline—with the result that a third of the criteria never appeared in the CFD document being referenced by submitters. Criteria were not assigned relative weights, leading to uneven scoring. In many cases, individual assessors’ scores were very different from each other—not unusual in itself—but after a consensus meeting that sought to reconcile those scores, some scores were altered two subsequent times. While assessors were required to score all areas, there were 126 instances (or 11%) where an objective was left unscored by an assessor. One assessor did not score any of the criteria for Therme prior to the consensus meeting. The process did not include a fairness monitor, whose job as an independent third party involves ensuring that the advertised process is followed, and all parties are treated fairly and equally.

One of the submitters, Triple Five Group, was asked to substantially revise and resubmit its submission, which was received 70 days after the submission deadline. This process moved the submission from a consensus score of “low” and the lead assessor writing that they were “unable to assess” the submission, to Triple Five Group eventually becoming the primary comprehensive site-wide solution option.  In other cases, proponents were selected for a short list or further discussions despite ranking lower than others. Due diligence meetings, in which Infrastructure Ontario sought to clarify information and/or confirm assumptions in submissions, were conducted with only six of the 34 participants, despite four additional participants receiving a high score for “Alignment with Government’s Vision” and an additional 13 participants assessed as receiving a moderate score on this criteria.

One of the biggest procedural missteps is that the Call for Developments envisioned two different types of bids: some that would present a comprehensive site-wide solution, and another scenario with multiple single tenants. “The same criteria were used to score these vastly different solutions,” notes the report. The full implications of the provincial costs of each solution were not presented to key decision-makers, even though by taking on its present role as Master Developer, the province has put taxpayers on the hook for public realm, parking, and last mile transit costs totalling over $950 million for the project. The report notes that several of the site-wide submissions includes designs for the public realm, parking solutions, and/or last mile designs, including, in some cases, provisions to pay for these features.

The social and environmental costs of redevelopment were not considered in the redevelopment, either—and the report makes notes that the government’s Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 exempts the site from key environmental assessments and heritage requirements. As critics have long noted, there was no input sought from the public until after the tenants had already been announced. In the 17 consultations held afterwards, a key sentiment, according to Infrastructure Ontario’s own reporting, was “why now and what’s the purpose; why [wasn’t the] public consulted on partner selection.”

“Taking what the public wanted into consideration from the beginning would have made the process more open and transparent to the public and could have prevented many of the issues, lawsuits, media attention, etc. that have occurred,” says the Auditor General’s report. “Between September 2019 and June 2024, the government has spent $8.5 million on legal fees associated with the 2019 CFD, MZO, lease negotiations and associated work.”

Related:

The Auditor General’s Report, Part 1: The cost of privatizing Ontario Place

The Auditor General’s Report, Part 2: The billion dollar question of parking

The Auditor General’s Report, Part 3: Therme

The Auditor General’s Report, Part 4: Collateral Damage

The Auditor General’s Report, Part 5: The Future, Continued Privatization of Ontario Place

The post The Auditor General’s Report, Part 6: Procurement appeared first on Canadian Architect.

PROJECT Maisonneuve Library, restoration and extension

ARCHITECT EVOQ Architecture

PROJECT Octogone Library, transformation and extension

ARCHITECT Anne Carrier Architecture in consortium with Les architectes Labonté Marcil

TEXT Odile Hénault

PHOTOS Adrien Williams

Late last spring, as I was lining up outside Montreal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, waiting for the doors to open, I started a casual conversation with the person nearest me. At one point, totally out of the blue, she asked: “Have you visited Montreal’s new libraries?” Before I had a chance to answer, she went on: “You know, they are the result of architectural competitions. A great system!” I couldn’t help laughing and thinking this was the moment I had long been waiting for… The word was spreading! The news was reaching the public! 

Over the past three decades, the Quebec government has gradually set in place an enviable competition system for cultural buildings—that is, museums, theatres, interpretation centres, and libraries. It results from a policy adopted in June 1992 by the province’s Ministry of Culture, which aimed at “holding public competitions for cultural facility projects presented by municipalities and organizations and produced with the assistance of government grants, the cost of which is over $2 million” (Ministère de la Culture du Québec, La politique culturelle du Québec, 1992). 

A new cultural landscape

Thanks to this policy, a new cultural landscape has gradually emerged across Quebec’s major cities as well as in its smaller municipalities. Competitions have been behind the design of at least 16 theatres, 20 museums of various sizes, and numerous interpretative pavilions. As far as libraries are concerned, the wave of competitions started in 2001 with the small Bibliothèque de Châteauguay (by Atelier TAG with JLP architectes). Since then, more than 20 libraries were the object of competitions. Several of these new cultural institutions have gone on to win awards, and to be covered in journals such as Canadian Architect. 

The benefits to the public are obvious, even though the average Montrealer (with the exception of my theatre-going friend) is mostly unaware of the competition process at work. Needless to say, architects have gained a lot from this policy, which has allowed them to explore ideas and concepts they might not have been able to address in a standard RFP system.  

Two competitions 

It is often presumed that while design competitions may be suitable for new-builds, the complexities of additions and renovations put them out of reach for competitions. However, the contrary is proving to be the case: quite a few of Quebec’s library competitions have been for additions or the quasi-total transformation of existing buildings. 

This is the case for two recently-inaugurated amenities in Montreal: the Maisonneuve Library and L’Octogone both fit into this latter category. They are also among the largest of the city’s 45 branch public libraries, including seven that were the objects of architectural competitions. Both Maisonneuve and L’Octogone existed as libraries before 2017, when separate competitions were launched to renovate and expand them. 

The Maisonneuve Library

The Maisonneuve Library is a rather unique case, since it is sited in a historic City Hall—part of a grand City Beautiful plan carried by a few enlightened entrepreneurs, who developed this sector of Montreal at the turn of the 20th century. Opened in 1912, their new City Hall only filled its role for a short period as the heavily indebted Cité de Maisonneuve was amalgamated to Montreal in 1918. The Beaux-Arts building, designed by architect Louis-Joseph Cajetan Dufort, remained standing through the last century, relatively unaltered—thankfully—by its successive occupants. In 1981, it became part of Montreal’s public library network.

Four teams were selected to take part in the Maisonneuve Library competition: in situ atelier d’architecture + DMA architects; Saucier + Perrotte/DFS inc.; Chevalier Morales Architectes; and Dan Hanganu architectes + EVOQ Architecture. All four teams are considered to be among Quebec’s most creative architectural firms, a reputation they acquired mostly through competitions. They were paid the pre-tax sum of $82,000 to take part in the competition, a sum which was included in the winning team’s eventual contract. 

The challenge for the four teams was to triple the size of the 1,240-square-metre original facility with a contemporary intervention that would pay homage to the former City Hall. The Hanganu-EVOQ team had a definite advantage, EVOQ being one of very few offices in Quebec with a strong expertise in heritage preservation. Their parti was therefore centred on restoring the historic building (then in an advanced state of disrepair) to its original splendour, and treating it as a jewel inserted at the centre of a sober, contemporary composition. The alignment of the new curtain walls and the rhythm of a brise-soleil took their cues from the existing neoclassical colonnade.

On the exterior, stone façades and monumental doors were carefully restored. On the interior, similar attention was paid to the original plaster mouldings, wood panelling, and mosaic floors. The former piano nobile’s marble staircase and its two imposing stained-glass features were painstakingly restored by a team of remarkable artisans, who still work using traditional construction methods. 

Every effort was made by EVOQ—which now includes the late Dan Hanganu’s former team—to ensure the library would be fully accessible to all. This led to the design of a circular entrance pavilion, projecting from the east wing. An architectural promenade takes one from the new entrance, through the historic building, and onwards to the west wing. A sheer delight. The subtly handled transition points between old and new celebrate the original 1900s monument and the skill of its builders.

Slightly less convincing is the west wing’s shelf wall, visible from Ontario Street. It reflects an influence from Sou Fujimoto Architects’ Musashino Art University Museum & Library in Tokyo (2010), with its striking wooden shelving doubling as wall structure. In both cases, aesthetics seem to have been chosen over utility as any books stored in these areas are challenging to access.

While intent on keeping alive the memory of the past, the local librarians simultaneously embraced the progressive outlook of the International Federation of Library Associations and Federations (IFLA). The Maisonneuve Library looks clearly to the future, particularly in its mission is to improve local levels of digital literacy. Gone are the administrative offices hidden away from the public: staff members wheel mobile stations around the building, plugging into a large array of floor outlets. The library’s offerings also now include a playful children’s area, a Media Lab, and a small roof garden. Silence is no longer the rule, except for in a few enclosed spaces. 

Octogone Library

Another major library competition was also launched in 2017: this one for Octogone Library, in a totally distinct environment situated towards the western tip of the Montreal Island. A suburban street pattern is prevalent in the borough and the site of the library is off a banal commercial strip. The area’s most interesting feature is perhaps the adjoining Parc Félix Leclerc, with its gentle landscape and large weeping willows. 

The original Octogone Library building was the outcome of decades-long advocacy efforts by the local community, which did, finally, lead to the government commitment for a public library in 1983. The following year, a low-scale, rather Brutalist building opened its doors to the public. The architects were Bisson, Hébert et Bertomeu. The long-awaited amenity was named Centre culturel de l’Octogone in reference to its role in the community and to its geometry. 

When the 2017 competition was launched for a renovation and addition to the existing building, the resulting proposals aimed to perpetuate the memory—and the name—of the 1984 building. Again, four teams were selected to participate in the competition: Atelier Big City with L’Oeuf; BGLA with Blouin Tardif architects; EVOQ Architecture with Groupe A; and finally, Anne Carrier architecture in consortium with Labonté Marcil, the winning team. The octagonal foundations were deemed solid enough to handle the loads of a new construction, but the existing walls presented competitors with a number of difficulties.

Carrier and Labonté Marcil’s entry was, as noted by the jury, a “vigorous” and “joyous” response to the program. The team had opted not to adhere too closely to the original octagonal plan and to refer instead to a far more significant symbol for LaSalle citizens, the 1827 Fleming Mill. The project’s most striking feature is a central helicoidal stair, or “hub”, which immediately attracts attention as one enters from either side of the new building. 

The second-level plan is laid out to evoke a mill’s three giant “blades” revolving around a central pivot, which culminates in a quiet, more secluded, circular space enlivened by an airy artwork. Produced by artist Karilee Fuglem, this piece alludes to L’Octogone’s extensive collection of graphic novels and comics—the largest such collection in Montreal’s library network.

Conclusion

While architectural competitions have yet to spread across Canada, Quebec can boast a rich repository of experience in this domain. At the end of three decades, and with dozens of projects successfully built through the competition process, the province’s landscape of libraries, theatres, and museums is obvious proof that competitions are worth the effort. 

Of course, there are improvements to be made. The process has gradually been burdened with overly complicated programmatic specifications—some preliminary documents are now up to several hundred pages long. The constraint of tight budgetary commitments in a highly volatile context can also seriously hinder creativity. But in the end, despite the need to revisit and simplify the process, a healthy competition culture has emerged, not just in Montreal and Quebec City, but all over the province. 

At 32 years old, Quebec’s architecture policy is entering middle-age, and it’s perhaps worth considering how it might be adjusted to prompt even more innovative, mature expressions of architecture. Can programs be loosened to allow for more daring concepts? Is there a place for open design competitions, creating opportunities for younger generations of architects? Despite some shortcomings experienced over the last three decades, Quebec has successfully put competitions to the test. And the rest of Canada could learn from it.

Odile Hénault is a contributing editor to Canadian Architect. She was the professional advisor for two pilot competitions that led to the adoption of the Quebec Ministry of Culture’s 1992 policy on architectural competitions.

Maisonneuve Library

CLIENTS Ville de Montréal and Arrondissement Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve | ARCHITECT TEAM EVOQ—Gilles Prud’homme, Sylvie Peguiron, Marianne Leroux, Georges Drolet, Nathan Godlovitch, Anne-Catherine Richard, Lynda Labrecque, Simona Rusu, Alexis Charbonneau | ARCHITECT (HISTORIC BUILDING, 1911) Louis-Joseph Cajetan Dufort | LANDSCAPE civiliti | ENVELOPE ULYS Collectif  | STRUCTURAL NCK | CIVIL Génipur | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Pageau Morel | ENVELOPE/QUALITY CONTROL UL CLEB | ELEVATOR EXIM | DOORS, HARDWARE SPECIALISTS ARD | COMMISSIONING Cima+ | FURNITURE/SIGNAGE/MULTIMEDIA GSMProject | ERGONOMICS Vincent Ergonomie | LIGHTING LightFactor | SUSTAINABILITY WSP | ACOUSTICS Octave | METAL/HISTORIC DOORS M&B Métalliers | MOSAIC Artès Métiers d’art | ORNAMENTAL PLASTERS Plâtres Artefact | MASONRY Maçonnerie Rainville et Frères | CONSERVATOR/MASONRY Trevor Gillingwater  | STONECUTTERS Alexandre, Tailleurs de pierres + sculpteurs | STAINED GLASS Studio du verre  | ARTIST (PUBLIC ART) Clément de Gaulejac | AREA 3,594 m2 | construction bUDGET $38.6 M | COMPLETION June 2023

Octogone Library

CLIENTS Ville de Montréal and arrondissement lasalle | ARCHITECT TEAM AC/A—Anne Carrier (FIRAC), Robert Boily, Martin L’Hébreux, Patricia Pronovost, Mathieu St-Amant, Andrée-Ève Gaudreault, Brenda Côté. LES ARCHITECTES LABONTÉ MARCIL IN CONSORTIUM—Pierre Labonté, Jean Marcil, Andréanne Gaudet, MICHEL DESMARAIS | Structural/mechanical/electrical EXP | LANDSCAPE Rousseau Lefevre  | INTERIORS Anne Carrier Architecture/les Architectes Labonté Marcil en consortium | CONTRACTOR Décarel | ergonomics VINCENT ERGONOMIE | acoustics Octave | SCENOGRAPHY GO MULTIMEDIA | aRTISTS (PUBLIC ART) CLAUDE LAMARCHE (1984), KARILEE FUGLEM (2024) | AREA 4,500 m2 | BUDGET $28.6 M | COMPLETION October 2024

As appeared in the November 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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For the past eight years, a national, volunteer-led committee of architects, educators, advocates and organizations that regulate the architectural profession in Canada have been hosting conversations to learn what Canadians want and need in their communities. This has culminated in a report issued earlier this year that shares a comprehensive review of the current practice of architecture in Canada, with recommended actions for adoption across the profession. The research includes a national poll by the Angus Reid Institute, a public survey, roundtables with the architectural profession, a series of architectural student forums, and independent research on the impact of architecture policies in Europe.

Here are some key excerpts from the report, entitled Architecture in Canada: A Vision for the Future, including its recommendations.

Introduction

Since 2014, we have been seeking input from both architects and the public to learn what concerns Canadians about the design of their communities and what needs to change. This report outlines a vision for a renewed future as well as a series of objectives and actions to improve the processes and policies that shape how Canada’s communities are designed and built. This report does not represent the end of a process but rather its beginning. It lays out a series of challenges to all those who are involved in building the cities, towns, and villages we live in.

The Rise for Architecture initiative grew out an awareness that, in a rapidly changing world, if we are to be successful in continuing to help address the needs of Canadians in the future, we must be willing to re-imagine the very framework within which architecture is imagined, designed, funded, regulated, and built. Many aspects of this framework have existed, relatively unchanged, for almost three quarters of a century. It is time for change.

This report summarizes the work that we have undertaken over the past several years to understand the driving forces behind an erosion of public confidence. It also lays out a challenge to those actors who have agency in the creation of the built environment to imagine a new paradigm for this important work, one that prioritizes opportunities over risk reduction, value over cost minimization and ultimately the interests of the people and the planet, impacted by what we build. It urges immediate change within the profession of architecture while also calling for the establishment of an Architecture Policy for Canada to articulate a bold vision of what Canadians should expect from the built environment of their communities and to guide all who have a part to play to achieve it.

A key objective is to be a catalyst for the creation of an architecture policy for Canada. We acknowledge that any architecture policy in Canada must respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; advance the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada; and acknowledge renewed commitments to nation-to-nation relations between Canada and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.

Why is Change Needed Now?

We know that the design of the built environment can be a powerful agent for positive social and environmental change. We also know that the world is changing rapidly and the systems and structures supporting society need to be responsive to change while remaining focused on the collective good. If we approach the ongoing governance of architecture with broader potential in mind, architecture can empower Canadians to meet the pressing challenges of the 21st century; if not, it will be an obstacle to overcome in meeting these challenges. The work of architects is important. This initiative seeks to help renew the profession so that it will continue to serve Canadians to the maximum extent possible. 

The Challenges

The economic impacts of the pandemic, the war in Europe, and climate change are issues that affect all Canadians. There is heightened interest by the profession in the challenges brought about by technological innovation, and by cultural, economic, and social upheaval, and in how the architectural community can effectively partner to bring about positive change.

For governments as well, the status quo is not fully effective. While the profession continues to do an excellent job protecting the public in terms of life safety, there are other governmental priorities, such as responding to the climate crisis or reconciliation, where the full potential of architecture is not yet realized. In this sense the public is not receiving the full potential of the collective efforts of the architectural profession.

Addressing and improving the outcomes related to these, and other, challenges will take a coordinated policy approach over an extended period. The community of design professionals that create our built environment have the knowledge and creativity to engage in collaborative research and cultivate design solutions that support more just, equitable and healthy communities. A formal and coordinated partnership between Governments and industry stakeholders is needed to maximize the potential of architecture to assist communities in moving forward.

The Process 

To develop our recommendations, we started by examining the current state and discussing strengths and weaknesses of the status quo. We examined how the architectural profession in other countries has been dealing with these questions. In the process we identified the potential in an emerging global trend – the development of national architecture policies.

Where a building code sets minimum standards, an Architecture Policy for Canada would set ambitious goals for how the built environment contributes to our social, cultural, and economic wellbeing. It would also establish accountability for politicians, professionals, and the public on how to achieve inclusive, sustainable, and inspiring communities. Its value would be far-reaching.

It became clear that an architecture policy could provide both the opportunity to present a renewed vision for the profession and to galvanize the collective action needed to ensure better outcomes in the future. We also recognized that the development of an Architecture Policy for Canada would be the purview of the Federal Government. However, we recognized that our efforts could lead to much needed conversations within the profession, and with the public, while also outlining the benefits and key aspects that a future policy should address.

To supplement our own research and analysis, we started with a series of consultations within the profession of architecture. Simultaneously, a series of workshops with architecture students took place. Next, we participated in statistically valid public polling and conducted an open online public survey. To round out our information, we commissioned a research paper on the history, evolution, and impact of architecture policies in Europe.

Consultations Within the Profession of Architecture

Rise for Architecture committee members crisscrossed the country talking with architects, and collaborators, about their hopes for a new vision for architecture in Canada. In a series of face-to-face workshops arranged with provincial and territorial associations of architecture as well as local and regional architectural organizations, we challenged architects to reimagine the practice of architecture and the built environment that Canadians inhabit. The conversations touched on why architecture matters, its potential for achieving better outcomes and what’s currently limiting that potential. Participants were drawn together by a shared sense of frustration that Canada’s architecture is being limited in its capacity to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of Canadian communities. In total, these workshops were attended by over 1,500 architects and members of the profession—roughly 15% of the profession in Canada.

Key observations from the feedback received during the consultations within the profession identified the strong support for critical needed changes including:

• There is strong belief that an Architecture Policy for Canada is needed and that it would have far-reaching benefits for all Canadians.
•  There is consistent concern about need to accept greater responsibility with respect to reconciliation with indigenous people and thus a foundational acknowledgement of our responsibilities related to building on unceded and all traditional indigenous lands is needed.
•  Issues of equity need to be foregrounded, including a need to strengthen commitments around inclusivity within the profession, for its processes and products of its designs.
•  The profession needs to make stronger commitments in response to the climate crisis.
•  The recommendations, as well as any potential architecture policies, need to recognize the value of Canada-wide approaches while respecting the strength of regional distinctiveness.
•  Perception that the issues being considered are more relevant or biased towards urbanized areas. The importance of ‘building’ community in remote, rural, and suburban environments is also critical.
•  There is a need to raise public literacy around issues of quality and performance of architecture, including broad recognition of the benefit of early (childhood) education about architecture.
•  Strengthened national voices are needed for architecture, including those for advocacy, regulation, and education.
•  The culture within the profession of architecture, and the schools of architecture, needs to evolve to eliminate unhealthy practices and be fully grounded on principles of equity and respect.
•  The profession needs a stronger commitment to consistently encouraging and facilitating the involvement of the community in design processes and decision-making.
•  Long-term life-cycle costs and impacts need to be given far greater importance in the decisions leading to new buildings being built.
•  Public procurement processes need to shift to be more value(s) based and public interest focused.
•  Architects need to strengthen their commitment to putting the needs of people (building users as well as the broader community) first.

The Voice of Students of Architecture

To engage students, and thus future practitioners, in the conversation, the Rise for Architecture initiative was extended to the Canadian Architecture Forums on Education (CAFÉs). Starting in 2019, the CAFÉ series brought together representatives from all 12 Canadian university schools of architecture at five campuses in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary.

Involving students, professors, and extended professional communities, the forums featured presentations and roundtable discussions oriented around questions of how to enhance the quality of the built environment. 

Five top concerns emerged from Canadian architecture schools:

•  Climate change and environmental stewardship
•  Meaningful community engagement and long-term social value
•  Equity and inclusion
•  Public health and personal well-being
•  Culturally supportive and regionally appropriate design

Independent Polling

In January of 2022 the Angus Reid Foundation was commissioned to complete a national poll based on a survey of a randomized sample of nearly 1,900 Canadian adults asking a variety of key questions focused on a deeper understanding of how the issues raised in the professional consultation are seen by the public. 

The results are detailed in a summary report prepared by Angus Reid. Canadians want more inclusive communities that are welcoming for everyone, and improvements to accountability for creating them. Canadians are nearly unanimous in prioritizing accessibility (96%), aesthetic beauty (92%), and sustainability (90%) in new building and infrastructure developments. They are also widely supportive of new roles which would be responsible for encouraging better design outcomes, such as a Chief Architect or similar title, in both their community (70%) and province (56%).

Three quarters of Canadians say culture and heritage should be key considerations in community design. Yet almost 30% don’t see themselves and their culture reflected in their community, with visible minorities and Indigenous far less likely than Caucasian Canadians to feel this way. Only 11% of Canadians believe their communities are doing a really good job of protecting the environment.

Research also shows that a well-designed built environment helps to create sustainable, socially equitable, and inspiring communities. And yet, in Canada, we haven’t always considered this. The poll found that 51% of Canadians say development in their community is poorly planned. A very telling statistic is that only 46% of Canadians asked have ever provided feedback about a proposed development in their community, and among those that had, only 7% felt their voice made a difference; 56% felt that when they did provide feedback, they were not listened to at all.

Public Survey

Following the Angus Reid opinion poll, Rise for Architecture developed an in-depth online survey, which was circulated through a variety of social media channels. Over 1,110 individuals responded to the survey and provided an extensive collection of over 8,000 detailed comments. Respondents made clear the challenges they see facing their communities, concerns about the people and processes that shape their communities, and their desires for inspiring spaces.

Key findings include:

•  Almost 65% of respondents were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with the decision-making processes that shape their communities.
•  50% of respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the performance of the people who design and plan their communities,
•  76% of respondents support the need for better policies to guide the planning and design of our communities, including the development of an Architecture Policy for Canada.

Collectively the public polling and survey confirmed the need for change and serves as a wake-up call for the profession, its institutions, and governments.

Independent Research

The development and implementation of architecture policies in Europe over the last 30 years demonstrates their general effectiveness in promoting well-designed environments. 28 administrations in the European Union have an official architectural policy at the national level, plus Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland.

Despite differences in character and jurisdiction, all policies seek to raise awareness of the role of architecture in creating high-quality living environments. According to researcher João Bento, all policies are underpinned by three main shared principles: (1) sustainability, or quality of the environment; (2) aesthetics, or quality of experience; and (3) inclusion, or social value, affordability, and accessibility.

Moreover, all documents encompass a broad notion of architecture, meaning “not only buildings, but also public spaces and all built elements that compose human settlements.” 

What We Heard 

Canadians want more welcoming, inclusive communities—and more accountability for creating them.  

Canadians also recognize that architecture’s full potential for positive social and environmental change can only be achieved when projects are commissioned on a strong, public interest-driven framework. All decision makers have a role to play. 

We heard that our profession’s governance needs to remain nimble and responsive to the constantly evolving challenges of our time. To achieve this, our governance processes need to be reviewed. 

Similarly, the way architects are educated, trained, licensed, and regulated needs to adapt so that our skills and experience are appropriate for an expanded definition of the public interest. In short, Canadians broadly support the development of an Architecture Policy for Canada.

A collective effort is required to achieve our vision of an inspiring future where all Canadians are supported by and are empowered to guide the design of their communities, where social and environmental justice shape every design decision, and where architecture is leveraged to celebrate diverse cultures, to lift the human spirit and contribute to a prosperous future. This collective effort will benefit all Canadians.

How do we get there?

Bold actions are required to achieve our vision. Some of these actions will be best led by individuals, or individual organizations, and others will require meaningful ongoing collaboration between a broad range of organizations and stakeholders. This requires creating new partnerships both within the profession and between the profession and governments. This is what is needed so that all Canadians receive the lasting benefits of better-designed communities.

It is important to acknowledge that much good work is already being done, by many within the profession in Canada, that is focused on improving many of the outcomes desired by these actions. Identifying the need for these actions is not intended to diminish the value of the work already being done but rather to identify that more is needed, and that a broader and more coordinated response is in the public interest.

The actions needed vary in terms of scale and potential impact. This is to be expected given the complex and intersecting nature
of architecture. We have developed a series of key recommendations or themes that capture the most fundamental need for change. It is these that are most pivotal for the future of architecture in Canada.

We call on  all stakeholders to:

1 Renew the governance relationships between organizations within the profession, including regulators, Schools, and the RAIC, as well as with governments. 

The key organizations that serve the public and the profession, such as the regulators, the schools of architecture and advocacy organizations including the RAIC, have a responsibility to collaborate and work together to support the advancement of the profession in the public interest. While some aspects of these intersecting relationships are constructive and effective, many are not. To fulfill our shared responsibility, a new and coordinated working relationship needs to be defined and established. This renewed relationship is to be based upon mutual support and recognition of the unique ways that each stakeholder organization contributes to better communities, and the ultimate aim of these collective efforts being in support of ambitions far greater than any one organization.

2 Collaborate to achieve the goal of an Architecture Policy for Canada. 

Our consultations confirm that there is broad support, within both the profession and the public, for the creation of better policies to shape the built environment including consistently strong support for the creation of an architecture policy for Canada. This remains a key objective and achieving this will require coordination and collaboration by all industry partners. The process of obtaining a commitment from governments followed by further consultation and development will be lengthy. The professions’ governing organizations can play a key role, and this will require ongoing commitment, support, and collaboration. 

3 Expand the definition of public interest. 

While the range of professional responsibilities is wide, the emphasis for professional regulation is on conduct related to public interest. For this purpose, public interest tends to relate to life-safety and building code issues. While these elements remain critical, the impact of architecture extends far beyond these narrower issues. It is time to challenge this fundamental assumption that underpins professional conduct and hold us to a higher standard. Truly responding to the public interest should include having positive impact on a more complete range of factors that we influence.  

4 Commit to dramatically improving equity within the profession.

It is understood that the profession is not reflective enough of the diversity of the community it serves. There are many reasons for this. However, this is not the time to focus on the constraints of the past. It is time to move forward with a clear goal of building a more equitable and diverse profession. This will involve reversing the long-standing gender imbalance as well as addressing a more complete range of equity imbalances. This also includes addressing issues such as the prevalence of unfair labour practices within some areas of the profession and the unique challenges faced by foreign trained architects. Equity issues within the profession extend beyond those specifically identified above. A comprehensive response is needed that not only addresses these issues but also seeks to identify and eliminate existing and future barriers and systemic problems impacting equity. 

5 Facilitate the meaningful involvement of the public in the processes shaping their communities. 

While public consultation has long been present in many architectural projects, we have heard repeatedly about the need for much more significant and meaningful involvement by those utilizing and impacted by the built environment. The profession must shift its mindset and recognize that the broader social justice potential and responsibilities, impacted by architecture, can only be addressed with recognition that the voice of the user is a fundamental requirement. Achieving this will require a broad commitment from practitioners and support of all the institutions within the profession. 

6 Make stronger commitments as individual Architects, Technologists and Firms to contribute to solutions to the big social and environmental challenges of our time. 

There are many actions that can be undertaken by individual architects and architecture firms independently that will improve the positive impact architecture has on significant social challenges.  These include challenges such as the climate crisis, reconciliation, equity and inclusion, and housing affordability. We can commit to greater attention to these issues without the need for intervention by governments or regulators. What is required is collaboration and a shared commitment.

In addition to the key recommendations, there are many other needed changes that require action. We have organized these actions by category of who should be involved and/or take the lead in pursuing them. 

Actions for the entirety of the profession will require collaboration among the regulators (through ROAC), the schools of architecture (through CCUSA) and the key advocacy organizations (such as the RAIC). These groups should work together to identify how best to collaborate on implementation and who should take the lead on each initiative. Furthermore, while these actions are written with the profession of architecture in mind, they apply generally to and will require broader collaboration with the larger professional community engaged on the design of the built environment. 

We call on the entirety of the architectural profession to: 

 1 Strengthen collaboration and working relationship between the key stakeholders: the regulators, the schools and advocacy organizations. 

 2 Strengthen collaboration and working relationship between the full range of allied professional and stakeholder organizations related to the built environment. 

 3 Develop and implement strategies to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion within the profession. 

 4 Develop strategies to integrate Indigenous design perspectives and knowledge in response to the TRC Calls to Action. 

 5 Commit to a more urgent response to the climate crisis. 

 6 Participate in increasing the integration of education and experiential learning with the objective of streamlining pathways to licensure, including the consideration of expanding broadly experienced and Syllabus programs. 

 7 Examine the effectiveness of limiting architectural professional degrees to Masters level programs. 

 8 Evaluate and consider the adequacy and capacity within the educational system for both professional and technical degree programs to ensure that Canada has a sustainable level of architects and technologists. 

 9 Invest in ongoing public education and awareness campaigns aimed at imparting the importance of high-quality built environments. 

10 Advocate with the Federal Government for the development and implementation of an Architecture Policy for Canada with the intention of improving accountability for architecture within government. 

 11 Establish and support an ongoing mechanism for identifying and implementing change as the needs of society evolve in the future.

We call on the Regulators of the Profession to: 

 1 Review and expand the definition of public interest to be inclusive of broader societal and environmental concerns and extend expectations of professional conduct accordingly. 

 2 Review and adjust regulatory frameworks and policies to be more agile, timely, and responsive to the rapidly changing needs of Canadians and the Profession. 

 3 Ensure appropriate ongoing funding and support to sustain national regulatory committees and initiatives including the supports necessary to ensure ongoing succession of volunteers and protection of institutional knowledge. 

 4 Review and identify unnecessary barriers to licensure and implement changes to reduce them and streamline processes. 

 5 Review and share best practices for ensuring equitable access to licensure. 

 6 Define and defend an appropriate public interest advocacy role for the regulators. 

 7 Seek to eliminate unnecessary barriers to innovative forms of practice and emerging business models. 

 8 To the extent possible, encourage and facilitate membership, by architects, in local and national advocacy organizations. 

 9 Review unnecessary barriers that restrict fair public comment by architects on architecture. 

We call on Schools of Architecture to: 

 1 Enhance and diversify collaboration and knowledge exchange between academic and professional sectors. 

 2 Enhance and increase interdisciplinary collaborations and learning experiences within the university and with other educational institutions. 

 3 Re-imagine design studio cultures to foster collaborative skills. 

 4 Work with the regulators to assess and enhance professional practice courses. 

 5 Collaborate with regulators to create more agile systems of accreditation. 

 6 Collaborate with regulators to create more agile systems of licensure. 

 7 Review recruitment and admissions process for accessibility and non-traditional students. 

 8 Increase focus on teaching human behaviour and social outcomes within the curriculum. 

We call on advocacy organizations, including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, to: 

 1 Increase membership and engagement with registered architects. 

 2 Consider modifying the RAIC Board composition to increase understanding and awareness of current regulatory issues and constraints. 

 3 Support the establishment of additional organizations to fill gaps in advocacy or expand range of advocacy to include the business interests of architects. 

 4 Better define and communicate the limits of its advocacy mandate. 

 5 Redirect more funding to its core advocacy functions.

We call on individual architects, technologists, and architectural firms to: 

 1 Commit to honouring a broader understanding of the public interest, through the quality of design and individual and practice behaviour. 

 2 Commit to active engagement of communities in design processes and outcomes and to strengthen diverse and equitable access to consultations. 

 3 Use their agency and voice to be stronger advocates for positive social outcomes. 

 4 Commit to a more urgent response to the climate crisis through the actions of their firms and the outcomes of their design work.  

 5 Commit to fair labour practices within the profession. 

 6 Commit to fair fee practices within the profession. 

 7 Commit to the ongoing support, mentorship, and development of future architects. 

 8 Improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in recruitment, hiring and promotion practices. 

 9 Pursue every design regardless of scale or prestige as an opportunity to improve the health and happiness of people and the planet. 

10 Advocate, at the local level, for the need for better policies on Architecture, including an Architecture Policy for Canada. 

We call on all levels of Federal, Provincial and Municipal Governments to: 

 1 Create comprehensive architecture policies, including an Architecture Policy for Canada, that operate across all agencies of government that set out enhanced expectations from the built environment and strategies to achieve them. 

 2 Leverage the significant impact architecture makes in Canadian communities, including supporting the environment, economy, and Canadian cultures. 

 3 Recognize the potential of public projects to drive change and commit to delivering these projects as exemplars. 

 4 Enhance research, innovation and education that develops and supports Canadian expertise as world leaders in the design of inclusive, resilient, and sustainable built environments. 

 5 Develop education programs within grade school curriculums to encourage greater literacy of the built environment. 

 6 Strengthen programs that support the preservation of cultural heritage, retrofit and adaptive reuse. 

 7 Review and strengthen building codes and policies on the built environment in response to the climate crisis in view of national and international sustainability commitments. 

 8 Clarify and strengthen accountability for architectural quality within government ministries and departments. 

 9 Review and improve the effectiveness of procurement practices to support broader positive social and environmental outcomes. 

10 Contribute to the celebration of the world-class quality of Canadian Architecture (promote Canadian architectural expertise abroad). 

 11 Rethink the definition of “public interest” to ensure that the profession has responsibility for the impact of their work on the health and wellness of people and the planet.

Conclusion 

Our built environment is a powerful agent for positive social and environmental change. As the world rapidly evolves, the systems and structures supporting society need to respond—and they must focus on the collective good. By renewing the social contract between the architectural profession and the public, Canadians will be better equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Inclusive, sustainable, and inspiring communities are achievable. The time to act is now.

To read the full report, visit roac.ca/future-of-architecture/

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Winner of a 2023 RAIC Advocate for Architecture Award

In the past decade, Edmonton has become a hotbed of contemporary Canadian architecture. At the centre of this transformation is City Architect Carol Bélanger. In 2005, then-mayor Stephen Mandel stated, “Our tolerance for [architectural] crap is now zero.” This gave Bélanger—who started working with the City of Edmonton in 2005 and became its City Architect in 2009—a clear mandate to demonstrate architecture’s vital role in the growth and transformation of the city. 

Bélanger has since facilitated the design and construction of public spaces and facilities that have improved the daily lives of many Edmontonians, and in doing so, garnered excitement and respect for what good architecture can mean for a growing city.

Radically revamping the procurement procedure has been fundamental to the City of Edmonton’s architectural revitalization. In the quality-based process developed by Carol Bélanger, the first stage goes beyond typical proposal requirements to include applicants’ previous design awards and publications, the firms’ design process (including parti diagrams, renderings, technical details and final photography), and proponents’ experience presenting to Design Review Committees. The scoring of these additional sections allows the City to objectively measure architectural quality. 

In the second phase of the procurement process, the quality-based model is further advanced by including a section related to a vision for the project—which may include a parti sketch, a site strategy, or precedent images—allowing the City to determine how a firm might start to think about the design. Between the two stages of this process, a significant amount of a firms’ score is determined by their ability to demonstrate design quality and thinking. Fees make up only 10% of the overall score, and fee score is determined by adherence to the provincial fee guidelines, disincentivizing under-bidding on projects.

A further innovation instigated by Bélanger is the inclusion of the client on the selection committee, so they understand the complexities and nuances of the procurement process, and take responsibility for the selection as the project progresses. “That way they have skin in the game and they understand the breadth of consultants we have to pick from,” says Bélanger. “You want to make sure there’s a good relationship.”

As proposals develop into projects, Bélanger has a unique ability to support and help navigate architectural teams through complex public processes. Bélanger and his staff are involved in projects from concept design through to the completion of technical drawings, as facilitators and advocates. Their presence is key in supporting creative freedom for design teams while ensuring critical oversight.

As another means to champion architectural excellence, Bélanger initiated and managed one of the only open national design competitions that Canada has seen in the last few decades. The competition for five relatively small park pavilion buildings drew the attention of architects across Canada, resulting in 130 entries from firms ranging from emerging talent to highly experienced. The completed structures have all been recognized with local or national design awards—including one which received a Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. More importantly, they are appreciated by the public, and are a testament to a burgeoning interest in civic buildings. 

Bélanger sees the mentorship and support of emerging architectural firms as fundamental in ensuring that the culture of design grows and matures in the City of Edmonton. Firms can qualify for the city’s standing roster for small projects with similar criteria to the larger procurement process, in which demonstration of design judgement and commitment is as important as the firms’ portfolios.

While Bélanger is respectful of his position as a public servant and is careful in his advocacy, he has spread the word that all Canadian citizens should be re-energized and re-engage with urban design. He has been in speaker in academic settings where he informs students about the role architects can have in influencing the public sector, to conferences where he advocates for the importance of the City Architect position. At the symposium Les temps de la Qualité in Montréal, he was part of examining four project to determine criteria for architectural quality; at a roundtable convened by Jennifer Keesmaat, then Chief Planner of Toronto, he advocated for a rigorous, impartial and transparent procurement process structured to produce design excellence.

Bélanger can be credited with initiating an era for change in Edmonton, with an influence which has gone beyond the city’s boundaries. His advocacy throughout Canada has established new benchmarks for Canadian architectural excellence. Through championing architectural quality and ambition, Belanger has effectively transformed public policy and public opinion—as well as the City of Edmonton’s reputation.

Jury Comments :: Carol Bélanger is not just an advocate for architecture, but an advocate for procurement reform, design excellence and civic life. Since his appointment, Edmonton has become an exemplar of contemporary Canadian architecture. The projects he has shepherded through the city shape the public realm, and are marked by high-quality design and construction. Whether located in the urban centre, a community park, or a suburban mall, the resulting work encourages citizens to engage with architecture and city building—and demonstrably improves the lives of those who use it. 

Bélanger’s advocacy and support for the procurement and execution of great design is an inspiring example to municipalities, professionals, and the public, and sets a beautiful example for improvements in procurement processes across the country. 

The jury for this award included Brent Bellamy, Charles-Mathieu Brunelle, Michael Green, Jenn McArthur, Shallyn Murray, and Betsy Williamson. 

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Residents of Ottawa deserve better places. Better buildings for social events, learning and forging community. Places that are accessible, welcoming and resilient in the face of a changing climate and the city’s evolving needs. Residents deserve access to clean and safe public washrooms at transit stations, parks and public markets. The people of Ottawa should have a built environment they can be proud of, one that lifts the human spirit and supports both an equitable economy and sustainable future.

So why don’t we build these places?

Ottawa lacks the vision for excellence that would come from the leadership provided by a city architect and a robust municipal architectural policy. We’re comfortable letting the federal government and National Capital Commission take responsibility for most of the public realm – the museums, Parliament buildings, experimental farm, canal or Ottawa River parkways. But no municipal building in Ottawa has ever been recognized with a Governor-General’s Medal in Architecture, and we collect few prizes at provincial design awards.

This is a choice. We choose not to put washrooms at every LRT station. We choose not to invest in the ByWard Market, the second-most visited tourist destination in the city. We choose, annually, to allocate just a tiny fraction of our budget for buildings and parks. We let billions of dollars’ worth of buildings crumble from neglect because we choose not to make sustainable investments.

Although we’re the capital of a G7 country, we pale in comparison to similar-sized cities around the world when it comes to providing the sort of quality spaces that lift the human spirit and creating lasting legacies for future generations. We need leadership in championing design excellence that is paired with development of a municipal architectural policy. Such a policy can inform an Official Plan, but also decision making on cultural heritage, well-being, economic vitality and reconciliation. This would be similar to policies that exist in comparable cities around the world as well as in the province of Quebec.

But that would address only half the problem.

The way architects are commissioned in Ottawa is driven by a hiring process that puts design last. The focus is on risk avoidance and low fees. The result is mediocre public buildings that do a disservice to the people of Ottawa and the wider economy.

If the city wants to hire an architect for a project, they won’t consider a firm that hasn’t done the same kind of project before, multiple times and recently. The Globe and Mail’s architecture critic Alex Bozikovic discussed this last year when questioning why Toronto won’t make great buildings. If you’ve designed apartment buildings, but not affordable housing in that city, you won’t be considered for such projects. If you worked on them while employed at a firm, and then start your own practice, it’s the same story.

Similarly, in Ottawa, a firm essentially can’t get a contract to design a washroom, for example, unless it has City of Ottawa washrooms in their portfolio. Such an approach means the people of Ottawa don’t get the benefit of a wider range of creative ideas.

Imagine if the only new music was from artists who had released at least three albums in the past five years. We’d never see new music.

The city also assumes that if three architects meet the minimum qualifications, the bid with the lowest price is best. That might be true if you are buying toilet paper or plywood: These are physical things that can be quantified. But creative ideas can’t. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities published a guide that explains this.

Suppose, for example, a $2-million building costs $200,000 to design, but carries $9-million in lifetime operating costs for utilities and services. If a creative architect invests more time in the design, spending 10 per cent more in fees, and saves 5 per cent annually on utility costs, a city might end up spending $20,000 more initially but saving $450,000 over the life of the building. A better hiring process would make this kind of scenario possible.

Ottawa’s current process of commissioning architects also imposes one-sided contracts that are often unfair. For example, contract conditions require a firm to transfer its intellectual property to the city; in doing so, it forfeits its copyright and requires permission from the city to reuse, modify or adapt part of its own design for a future project. Architectural firms are further dissuaded from bidding because of conditions that impose an unreasonable transfer of risk.

If we want to be the city we aspire to be, the public needs to demand better. This requires political will to invest in our places, our people and our future.

Our public sector needs to reform its approach to hiring and commissioning architects and engineers. Creating durable, beautiful and uplifting buildings, parks and social infrastructure requires the creative talents, skills and abilities of interested firms that make Ottawa their home.

Toon Dreessen is president of Architects DCA. He is a past president of the Ontario Association of Architects.

This article was originally published in The Globe and Mail, and appears here with the permission of the author.

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In a compact new book, former Smith Carter Principal and C.O.O. Rick Linley describes a simple method for understanding the financials of any architecture firm—and what those financials mean for managing a practice. Here’s an excerpt from the book, explaining how to benchmark a firm’s performance using seven key figures.

It’s critical to understand how the Scoreboard numbers relate both internally to each other and externally to the broader industry. All the numbers used in the Strong Practice Scoreboard relate internally back to net fee. For external benchmarking to the industry, this book uses the 2021 Deltek Clarity A&E Industry Survey data set. The Deltek data is segmented in three basic ways. All firms, upper quartile firms only, and all firms excluding upper quartile firms. For a more detailed look by firm size and geography, you’ll need to delve more deeply into the Deltek data and also look at other surveys.

1. Full Time Equivalent

The number of FTEs is a measure of firm size, but isn’t a good indicator of firm strength. FTEs include all personnel—principals, leadership, project people, marketing, financial, and administrative folks—all employees of the firm. There is no benchmark for FTEs because there is no optimal number. The size of your firm as measured by FTEs should be a function of your goals, aspirations, and how effectively you’re deploying your people.

2. Net Fees

Net fees are also a measure of firm size, but practitioners are usually tight-lipped about this number. Like FTEs, there is no benchmark for net fees, but this single number is pivotal in making sense of your firm’s other metrics.

The Ratio—Net Fee per Full Time Equivalent

Dividing net fee by FTEs produces a very useful benchmark. In addition to the 7 numbers in the Scoreboard, this one ratio provides the best shorthand gauge of your firm’s strength. Upper-quartile firms in the 2021 Deltek survey achieved an average of about $174,000 NF/FTE. All other firms (excluding upper-quartile firms) averaged about $140,000 NF/FTE. This ratio is influenced by a range of factors, from how you price your work to how efficient your team is.

To help gauge where your firm is positioned relative to the broader industry, the 2021 Deltek data is used to create three performance bands based on the NF/FTE ratio. The performance bands also provide a reference point to track your firm’s performance over time.

• Struggling firms: less than $120,000 NF/FTE

• Strong firms: $120,000 to $170,000 NF/FTE

• Super firms: more than $170,000 NF/FTE

The dividing line between these ranges is somewhat arbitrary, but useful for comparison purposes. You may need to use more detailed benchmarking data to adjust the performance bands so they suit your discipline, firm size, type of firm, the geography you operate in, and other considerations. Adjustments will also be required over time as market conditions fluctuate and for inflation impacts. With a little benchmarking at budget time, you can establish performance bands to help determine targets appropriate for your firm.

3. Adjusted Payroll as Percentage of Net Fee

In a strong firm, adjusted payroll should be approximately 45% to 55% of net fee. This means that a strong firm should be spending about half its net fee on payroll for staff and principals—excluding fringe benefits. Payroll includes principal salary, but an adjustment may be required if principal salary is not aligned with the market. If principals are paid in salary supplemented by other forms of compensation such as bonuses and/or profit distributions, then a market-based salary needs to be assigned to principals as part of the payroll adjustment.

As an example, if the going market salary for the principal of a firm like yours is $140,000, but you are only paying yourself $100,000, then you need to increase the payroll number used in the Scoreboard by $40,000. It doesn’t mean you need to give yourself a raise, although you may want to consider that. It just means you need to make the adjustment when using the Scoreboard, otherwise your operating profits will be overstated.

4. Operating Expenses as Percentage of Net Fee

In a strong firm, operating expenses should be approximately 25% of net fee. Some firms run lean, employing strategies to keep costs low such as offshoring, minimal fringe benefits, and other strategies. For firms that commonly invest heavily in administration, marketing, professional development, benefits, etc., operating expenses may exceed 25%. Either approach is valid, depending on how your practice is positioned in the marketplace. The secret is to consider each expense as an investment in the future of your practice and to keep the overall operating expenses within your target.

5. Operating Profit as Percentage of Net Fee

For a strong firm, a reasonable target for operating profit should be between 20% and 25% of net fee. In the 2021 Deltek survey, the median profitability for upper quartile firms was about 27%. For all firms (excluding upper-quartile firms) the median profitability was about 11%. Think about that. If the median profitability for non-upper quartile firms was 11%, that means a large number of those firms had operating profits in the single digits. For small and midsized practices, single-digit profitability over the long term, usually spells trouble.

6. Pipeline as Percentage of Net Fee

A strong and reliable pipeline is critical. No one can predict the future with certainty, but a well-built pipeline will allow you to predict your future workload with a pretty high degree of certainty.

The median backlog reported for all firms in the 2021 Deltek survey is six months. That means the total of all contracted but unbilled future work if added together represents six months of annual net fees. This doesn’t include prospect projects, just work that is already under contract. The problem with using backlog only, is that it represents work that’s spread over many months or years in the future. The Scoreboard pipeline number is a rolling, twelve-month metric, and includes your estimation of both backlog and prospects. The twelve-month horizon makes for a more transparent crystal ball.

The pipeline of a strong firm should be slightly more than annual net fees in order to facilitate choice. Aiming for 125% of annual net fee for your twelve-month pipeline is a stretch for many firms, but well worth the investment of time and effort. That’s equivalent to approximately fifteen months of net fees. If your firm is growing, the pipeline may need to be larger to support your growth strategy. See Appendix B for a pipeline summary sample.

7. Cash on Hand as Percentage of Net Fee

In a strong firm, the amount of cash you should have immediately available will depend on a number of factors. They include but are not limited to, your tolerance for risk, the health of your pipeline, how predictable your profitability is, your WIP and A/R status, as well as the presence of any gorilla clients.

If growth is part of your strategy moving forward, you’ll have to decide to what degree growth will be financed by your own cash flow or financed by taking on debt. Again, it’s about your tolerance for risk.

Industry surveys of WIP and A/Rs over the years have consistently shown the median time from start of task to payment is about eighty-one days. Total WIP should be something less than one-twelfth (less than 30 days) of your annual gross fee. Total A/R amounts owing should be no more than approximately two-twelfths (60 days) of your annual gross fee. If you’re able to hit or beat those benchmarks, and if you’re generating healthy profits, you’ll have your cash flow under control.

Be cautious! Having more cash than you should inside the firm can also be a red flag. Cash provides a safety net. If the net is too large, it can encourage you to become complacent, deferring business decisions that need to be made in a timely fashion. Relying on a line of credit can promote the same ill-advised behaviour.

Ten to fifteen percent of annual net fee is a good guideline for cash on hand for a firm that is not experiencing significant growth. That’s equivalent to about two months of payroll and operating expenses. Cash on hand allows the firm to ride out small bumps in the economy or lulls between projects. That way firms can avoid dipping into a line of credit, taking out a loan, or relying on cash-calls.

To allow for major business disruptions, most principals hold funds outside the firm in their personal bank accounts and investments. With this approach, principals need to realize that if hard times befall the firm, they may be called upon to lend cash back to the business. Since a cash-call using after-tax dollars is painful, it acts as one more reason for leadership to keep the firm on solid ground.

Taking all the Scoreboard metrics into consideration will give you a quick overview of how well your firm is performing. You’ll be able to compare performance against previous reporting periods, as well as in comparison to the overall industry.

Remember This:

There are too many Key Performance Indicators in typical benchmarking studies and they’re too confusing. Staying focussed on the 7 Scoreboard benchmarks will keep the essential financials of your firm in context with the rest of the industry. For the latest Deltek benchmarks you can do an internet search for “Deltek Clarity A&E Industry Study” or go to www.strongpracticestrategies.com for a historical record of relevant Deltek benchmarks along with a current update.

Rick J. Linley, FRAIC, LEED AP leads Strong Practice Strategies, a consultancy helping leaders of emerging and evolving design firms who are focussed on building stronger practices. His work is informed by over thirty years of practice and business experience, culminating in his role as Principal/COO of Smith Carter Architects and Engineers Inc, a 200-person, multidisciplinary design firm (now part of Architecture49). Scoreboard Your Practice: 7 Numbers to Understand Your Design Firm’s Financials is available in eBook, paperback and hardcover versions at online booksellers including Amazon, Chapters Indigo, Apple Books, Google Play, and Kobo Store.

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A major research partnership on quality in the built environment is bringing together 14 universities, 70 researchers and 68 public and private organizations at the municipal, provincial and national levels, for the first time.

Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada until 2027, the total value of this partnership will be $8.6M ($2.5M from SSHRC, $6.1M from partners including $4.2M in-kind contributions).

Coordinated, from the University of Montreal, by the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence (CRC-ACME), the partnership “Quality in Canada’s Built Environment: Roadmaps to Equity, Social Value and Sustainability” addresses the diversity of public environments impacting the everyday life of millions of Canadians in urban spaces, buildings and landscapes.

The program has three aims:
1. Analyzing the current limitations of environmental norms and sustainability models to bring us closer to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
2. Co-designing new paths to equity, diversity and inclusion in the built environment;
3. Defining new frameworks for the definition of quality so as to enhance the social value of the built environment through roadmaps to quality.

To achieve these objectives, the partnership brings together four sets of stakeholders concerned with the use, scientific study, planning, design, construction and management of built environments:

• Citizens (representatives of communities including minorities and underrepresented populations).
• Cities (national, provincial and municipal actors in the public procurement of built environments).
• Organizations assessing quality (professional associations, award-granting institutions, councils, cities).
• Universities (interdisciplinary research teams).

The project gathers 14 Canadian universities, including all of those with schools of architecture, as well as most landscape architecture and environmental design departments. It mobilizes 23 disciplines concerned with the impact of built environments on citizens. Sixty-eight partner organizations, including national institutions and not-for-profits, will join in a conversation pertaining to four thematic clusters to address urgent considerations on quality relative to:

1- Spatial justice and heightened quality of life;
2- Integrated resilience, material culture and adaptive reuse;
3- Inclusive design for health, wellness, aging and special needs;
4- Processes and policies supporting the reinvention of built environments.

This collaborative effort will stimulate training, internships and connections between hundreds of students and communities of practice. The partnership will engage in the cross-sectoral co-creation of knowledge, whose outcomes will take the form of “roadmaps to quality” (guidebooks, analyses of case studies, resources for design thinking and proposals for public policies, etc.).

These will constitute a bilingual Living Atlas on Quality in the Built Environment, set on a digital platform created with the support of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

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For architects responding to Requests for Proposals (RFPs), one of the most consistent head-scratchers is detailing a firm’s portfolio: not on independent merit, but according to requirements given by an RFP. “Project Experience” is almost always a required section in proposals, with associated page limits, word counts, and necessary details. The need to submit “profiles for three similar projects completed within the past ten years” (or something very close to this) should be relatively commonplace to anybody regularly working with RFPs.

In theory, this Project Experience section is useful to both clients and architects, limiting the work of responding, and applying consistent criteria for all. But it’s more complicated than it seems. For instance, how do you evaluate a building’s aesthetic value? When contending with a truly unique project, what constitutes similar past work? How does a firm’s past portfolio measure against what they are proposing to do now? These invite another key question: are there times when it would benefit everybody involved to change how we think about Project Experience, or remove it completely from the RFP process?

Monica Contreras is an architect and project manager with experience creating and evaluating RFPs, as well as teaching Integrated Design and Project Management. For almost 20 years, she led procurement of architectural services at several Ontario universities, also working with architects on the projects that followed. Her career has provided her with insight into both the mechanics of RFPs, and the ways architects tend to respond to them.

When asked about the standard of providing three similar project profiles from the past ten years, Contreras responds: “That criteria is actually more to do with risk than anything else, because when you’re trying to find an architect—for instance, for a capital project, for a new building—you want to know that they have the capacity to do something big.”

“And sometimes […] you’re trying to get something unique, and therefore that category may mean very little, because no one’s ever done the project that you’re doing.”

Contreras says that even then, for institutions like universities, procurement procedures require the inclusion of Project Experience as a section within RFPs when seeking out new architects for a unique or large-scale project. By releasing a publicly posted RFP and stepping outside of an established Vendor of Record list for architects (if a client has such a thing), the client is ultimately saying the project needs special expertise, which should then be illustrated by respondent architects within their proposals, partially via profiles of their past work.

Despite this requirement, Project Experience is not always the most important component of a proposal to Contreras, and she ultimately finds other elements more informative: “To me, it’s more important who is going to be on the project. Who are the team members? How long have they worked together? What’s their design strategy? And what do they bring that is a value-add to the project?”

Considered at scale, there can be industry-wide consequences to clients overvaluing the score for Project Experience in RFPs. Requiring even a few directly comparable examples within a relatively short timeframe—say, three new academic buildings within the past decade— creates a bias in favour of larger firms. Firms with multiple offices will likely have a greater portfolio of recent work to draw on for their response. Asked about whether scoring Project Experience too highly creates an unfair bias towards larger-scale firms, Contreras says it “absolutely” does.

“If you only hire the old firms, then you are never giving an opportunity to a young firm,” says Contreras. “So how does a firm get experience on university projects if no one ever hires them, because they don’t have previous experience on university projects?”

Contreras thinks there are improvements that can be made to RFPs overall. For Project Experience, she notes the importance of establishing that projects put forward within proposals were completed by the same team that is being proposed for the current project. For evaluators and architects alike, she stresses the need for careful wording, and to focus above all on the project at hand.

“I always spend some time with the evaluators saying ‘this is the purpose’, because it’s really important for everybody to understand the purpose of the project,” says Contreras. “The firm that we need is a firm that understands what you want, that has listened to everything that we put into the document for the proposal call. And that firm has to demonstrate that they can get us there.”

“The mistakes that architects make is that they read all this, they put it aside, and they don’t actually create a checklist […] looking at how it’s being evaluated and seeing where the weights are.”

Contreras says it’s important to remember an RFP can represent the culmination of years of work within an institution, perhaps the realization of a person’s career. She stresses the importance of responding to specifics and emphasizes the need to not “throw marketing at it” and bombard clients with inapplicable material.

In general, says Contreras, “architectural firms don’t respond very well to RFPs. They just don’t do a good job. And it’s so hard.” She adds: “What you’re trying to find is really an alignment between the firm and your project.”

Clients, for their part, also need to understand how architects establish a record of their own Project Experience. It takes an agonizing amount of money and effort to maintain a portfolio for use in proposals. At a minimum, you need writing (somebody’s time) and pictures (money for a photographer) that can be quickly re-purposed into proposals (once again, somebody’s time). The likelihood of success in any single pursuit is never strong, but RFPs are still a necessity for many firms. It can become incredibly frustrating when something akin to a lack of nuance stands in the way of success, or even qualification.

Take, for example, the question of when Project Experience becomes stale-dated. Say a client is seeking a designer for a renovation and requires similar project examples from the past 10 years, but your team designed two successful projects in other areas of the same building 11 years ago. Then suppose the RFP forbids these older projects, and the client has doubled down in an addendum where you asked that question. Do you still submit your otherwise excellent experience? As a client, how would you score this if it crossed your desk? At what point does age matter less than applicability, and how does this all become a numbered score? There are different cases to be made here. Speaking generally on how Project Experience ages, Contreras points out how significantly the world can change within ten years. But this is still a series of questions where the answers have potential to win or lose everybody involved tens of thousands of dollars: and they are the type of questions that come up repeatedly when firms respond to RFPs.

It is the ability of this whole process to accommodate and evaluate nuance that really matters. Architects want to avoid unnecessary overhead and to have their Project Experience—as well as other information about their practice—assessed on merit. Clients should think carefully about what this means. Get it right, and it will help to find a stellar candidate at the end of the process.

Jake Nicholson is a writer based in London, Ontario, with extensive experience working on proposals for architectural and engineering firms.

The post Practice: When Experience Counts appeared first on Canadian Architect.

TEXT Elsa Lam with Kelly Edzerza-Bapty, Dr. David Fortin, Tiffany Shaw, Dr. Patrick Stewart, and Alfred Waugh

In the past few years, there has been an increasing awareness of the imperative for Indigenous involvement on major public architecture projects, whether their program directly serves Indigenous Peoples or not. This reflects the concept that Indigenous architects and designers—as well as the Indigenous Peoples that live both on reserves as well as throughout other urban, rural, and northern regions in Canada—are equity-deserving as a community that has experienced barriers to equal access, opportunities, and resources due to disadvantage, discrimination, and racism. Most commonly, this takes the form of a requirement on calls for proposals for an Indigenous consultant to be part of design teams. But as any firm who has responded to such RFPs knows, there are few Indigenous architects in Canada, and involving Indigenous community members directly requires thoughtful strategies.

What are some guiding principles to approaching an Indigenous architect, Elder, Knowledge Keeper or community member to be part of a team? What do non-Indigenous architects and consultant teams need to know about designing and/or building with Indigenous architects and communities? We asked five of Canada’s licensed Indigenous architects—Kelly Edzerza-Bapty, Dr. David Fortin, Tiffany Shaw, Dr. Patrick Stewart, and Alfred Waugh—for their advice. Here’s what they shared with us.

Intent and Awareness

In choosing to bid on a project that serves First Nations, Métis and/or Inuit communities, the intentions of the non-Indigenous architects carry increased importance. Why are you interested in doing this project? Why are you interested in working with an Indigenous architect? To what extent is this interest oriented towards building up your firm and your portfolio, versus towards increasing the capacity or prospects for the community?

When working with an Indigenous community—or, indeed, any equity-deserving group—it is important for individual non-Indigenous architects and teams to reflect on their self-interest, as well as on their current and future place within a larger community of practice. Having a non-Indigenous architect leading a project may be perceived by an Indigenous community as a limitation to see themselves reflected on the design team and in the built project. How can a design team
acknowledge this difficulty, as well as their own biases? What do they bring to the project that can add to the empowerment and agency of Indigenous architects and community?

Self-awareness is important when seeking Indigenous knowledge. Tiffany Shaw recalls attending the RAIC’s first International Indigenous Design Symposium in 2017 and looking forward to learning and sharing knowledge with other Indigenous practitioners: but then feeling overwhelmed by the number of non-Indigenous attendees. “You could sense the hunger for Indigenous knowledge,” she recalls. While some of this interest seemed to come from a genuine desire to learn and understand, she felt an undercurrent of others interested in extracting Indigenous knowledge for their own use, while leaving the Indigenous designers and community members behind.

“Considering your intentions in the first place should be part of any project,” says Shaw. But, she notes, it’s especially important when designing for an Indigenous community or other equity-deserving group.

Transparency and Sharing

When partnering with an Indigenous architect, says Dr. David Fortin, “there needs to be a clarity about roles and associated fees.” He adds, “these need to be transparently talked about.” Often, involving an Indigenous architect is seen as ticking a box, rather than bringing them fully into the design process. This is where equity must exist to understand what an Indigenous partner can deliver, without sidelining them to a marginal position.

While much depends on the project and on the individual, it is important to consider roles. For instance, an Indigenous architect may be glad to be involved in community engagement, and may even specialize in this front-end part of the work. On the other hand, Fortin says, “Indigenous architects aren’t necessarily interested in always being the community engagement sub-consultant—they’re architects, and they want to be designing buildings as they are trained to do.”

Some larger non-Indigenous-owned and -operated architectural firms are beginning to build their own internal Indigenous design studios, through partnerships with universities and mentorship programs that pull Indigenous students into their firms. “It can provide an invaluable learning experience for young interns,” says Fortin, “but it’s complex.” There’s an added need for firms pursuing such a path to be transparent with their recruits about the risks, rewards, expectations, and opportunities that come from such offers. In any firm, Indigenous architects, designers, and interns must be provided with opportunities and equity in accordance with the additional knowledge that they bring into their project work. “Indigenous graduates and interns are hired for their knowledge of the Indigenous world as well as for their architectural skills for which they have been trained,” says Stewart. “It’s an added plus for the firm to benefit from the intern’s Indigenous knowledge, and they must fairly compensate for this cultural knowledge.” 

Indigenous students can often face unseen barriers or lack resources compared to their non-Indigenous colleagues, requiring more supports. When employing Indigenous design students, how might a firm invest in that student’s future, both during and after their employment? Does that firm have a policy on equity? There is much to be done, and the RAIC’s Indigenous Task Force has been working to support its Indigenous members in these areas.

Engagement

Community engagement should also be seen through an equity lens. Authentic engagement can be empowering to Indigenous communities and other equity-deserving groups. This kind of engagement can result not only in projects that are well-fitted to community needs, but that benefit from a deeply rooted sense of ownership for the community.

Engagement needs to follow the community’s lead in terms of participation, time and expectations, and any relevant cultural protocols. The designers need to consider with whom they are engaging,
why they are doing it, what they are asking, and how they will work with the knowledge gained. Sensitivity and consideration are required at all stages of this process. Is your engagement approach accessible to those you are inviting to come? Logistics such as transportation or childcare access may be barriers for those who want to participate in the design process.

Engagement may involve the sharing of stories that are entrusted to the designers. Offering equitable honorariums to those involved in the engagement process is one way to acknowledge the value of such sharing, as well as one of many ways to create equity for community members. Most importantly, says Kelly Edzerza-Bapty, “knowledge shared and gained in the engagement process needs to be translated into the design work for it to be meaningful.”

Engagement processes are often seen as restricted to the beginning stages of a project, but architecture is a complex endeavour and community guidance may be helpful at multiple stages of a project. How can engagement processes continue through to the end of a project, or even beyond? Does the architectural firm hire a local Indigenous community member to be part of the design team?

Professional Responsibility

Designs for buildings on reserves were once reviewed by the federal government, but that process has since been removed. Many Nations do not have the infrastructure for an Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ), which limits their capacity for internal oversight. The puts an added onus on architects, says Alfred Waugh, “to be responsible to your profession, have the respect that some of these Nations don’t have that infrastructure in place, protect the public good, and make sure your sub-consultants do the same.”

When designing for Indigenous communities on remote sites, architects have an added responsibility to ensure that their design is informed by an understanding of access, local climate, operations, and maintenance requirements. For example, specifying a mechanical system for a remote community that will require maintenance personnel to fly-in to the community is probably not the most cost-effective solution. One strategy, says Edzerza-Bapty, is “creating passive rather than active systems,” and “leaning into operational and maintenance strategies and processes that can help ensure the long-term success of the building.”

Patrick Stewart says that he often recommends that communities hire a third-party to review his work, such as a Certified Professional Code Consultant or building inspector. To create further oversight, he’s helped clients put out a call for proposals, so that the third-party is chosen in way that is free from the designer’s biases. “It gives me some satisfaction that I’m looking after my client,” he says. “I feel much more confident with that kind of arrangement.” This approach also ensures that the selected third-party has appropriate qualifications and experience.

Equity and the Collective Lift

David Fortin notes that in building projects, “what you are doing to benefit the community in the long-term goes beyond including an Indigenous designer.” Recent federal procurement guidelines for large projects are encouraging firms and contractors to expand their Indigenous benefits plans. This is leading to considerations about how project costs can benefit Indigenous communities more broadly, with contracts going to Indigenous-owned companies from pre-design right through to warranty. As examples, Fortin cites working on a recent project proposal with a team that prioritized setting up a youth mentorship program and Indigenous hiring strategies for sub-trades.

“How can Indigenous involvement go beyond tokenism?” asks Shaw. For her, taking an equity lens means looking at how design can facilitate a “collective lift” for communities. How can a project—small or large—allow communities to build capacity, increase their economic prosperity, and achieve long-term goals such as strengthening cultural and environmental resiliency? Indigenous involvement can help result in projects that better meet these community needs.

One Generation to the Next

This equity lens also extends beyond our own profession and the borders of our own country. How can non-Indigenous architects ally themselves with Indigenous architects in Canada in working to make the AED world a more supportive place for Indigenous and other BIPOC architects to grow their capabilities and careers? If a stronger, more inclusive profession includes a greater number of Indigenous and BIPOC architects, how can they be provided with resources to learn how to protect their own interests, know their capabilities, and find opportunities to build their portfolios? How can we all improve upon the consulting partnership process, so as to respect each other’s knowledge and growth?

The present generation of established architects stands to improve the profession in ways that benefit the next generation. Self-aware, well-intentioned architects—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous—have the capacity to impact relationships that uplift those that work in architecture and design, along with their families and communities—as well as those who architecture serves from one generation to the next.

The post Working with Indigenous Architects and Indigenous Procurement Requirements appeared first on Canadian Architect.

When emerging architecture firms begin to scale up to larger projects, it often means plunging into the world of publicly posted Requests for Proposals (RFPs). These competitions are a requirement for organizations in the public sector, as a means of ensuring fairness and transparency on taxpayer-backed projects. They are also used by a broad range of client types to find architects for important buildings—hospitals, schools, civic centres, academic buildings, museums, and libraries—to name only a few.

For somebody looking through the list of interested firms for any significantly sized RFP, the globalized nature of architecture as a business becomes clear very quickly. Large firms from urban centres all over Canada are usually interested, and it is not uncommon to also see firms from the United States and overseas. No matter who you are, to participate in this process on multi-million-dollar budgeted projects likely means to compete with behemoths—firms staffed with hundreds of people, equipped with multi-person marketing teams and with portfolios that span the globe.

To say the workload these pursuits place on the industry is “burdensome” would be a serious understatement. The procurement phase for larger-scale projects is often a months-long, multi-phased affair. A qualifying round can see as many as 50 different firms submitting for the project: imagine a 20-page limit on qualifying submissions, and then imagine 1,000+ pages pouring onto a client’s desk at one minute before deadline. Weeks later, a smaller number of firms then pre-qualify for a more labour-intensive second round. Then there might be interviews. There could be travel involved at every step. The work involved for everybody is tremendous and it costs a lot of money. You may also be asked to provide services well outside of typical architectural scope.

If you choose to chase an RFP, the statistical likelihood is that you will lose. Lose early in the process, and you feel personally hurt that you did not make the cut. Lose late, and you may have spent thousands of dollars on a fruitless pursuit. Then there is the debrief process, where you may learn that the person evaluating submissions knows little about architecture and misunderstood something critical about your submission. The successful candidate goes on to design a building that stands as a monument to the time you failed. There is more than one of these monuments in your city. You may pass by a couple on your way to work.

The raw workload—all of it overhead—can prove prohibitive, especially for smaller firms. Yet despite all this genuine pain, the procurement process is an important means of access for designing some stellar projects and (critically) for meeting new clients.

Toon Dreessen is founder of Ottawa-based Architects DCA, a past president of the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), and an outspoken advocate for changing procurement practices for architecture in Canada. He thinks that current procurement practices are “fundamentally broken.” “This is really a matter of public interest,” says Dreessen. “Unfair procurement processes harm small businesses, and their negative impact on the built environment lasts for generations. That’s something that the public needs to better understand.”

Dreessen has a long list of issues with procurement practices. Among them: he believes that they remove dialogue between clients and prospective architects that would improve projects, they inherently skew in favour of larger firms, they stifle innovation by keeping people from asking questions (lest they lose a competitive advantage), and they ultimately create a focus on low fees that has become so prevalent that it is damaging Canada’s architecture. Asked if there was one thing he feels it is important for procurement professionals to understand, he says: “Ultimately fees don’t matter. We spend too much time and effort arguing about fees, when we really need to be arguing about quality.“

Dreessen noted that most architecture firms in Ontario are small, with only one licensed architect. “These firms don’t participate in this public procurement process because they can’t. They can’t get their foot in the door […] They can’t win these big projects, and when I talk about big projects, I’m talking about a ten, fifteen, twenty-million-dollar project. That’s totally manageable by a small firm of five people.”

“That means that really big firms are the only ones left at the table, and they’re fighting to get even those relatively small projects, let alone the huge ones.”

Dreessen has argued for design competitions as a better approach, saying that they provide a place to foster innovation and for firms to stand on the strength of their ideas. They likewise offer a chance for even the losers to grow their portfolio. Dreessen has also advocated for more quality-based evaluation, as opposed to evaluation based on fee. He suggests that procurement needs to remain fair, while also making room for “conversation” between architect and client.

“If we agreed on fairness—and the concept of fairness—we wouldn’t have fee-based RFPs. We would agree on what a fair fee is, and we would agree on what a reasonable compensation is, and we wouldn’t leave it to a race to the bottom,” says Dreessen. “If all things are equal, it should be a meritocracy. It should be that the person who gets the job is the best qualified for it, or has the most creative solution in a competition format. That should be the deciding factor.”

Others in Canada have even gone so far as to implement a different approach to procurement for architectural services. The City of Edmonton stands out as a case study—not just because of their unique practices, but because of the design-minded politics that led them there. In 2005, Edmonton’s then-mayor Stephen Mandel famously said in a state-of-the-city address: “The time has passed when square boxes with minimal features and lame landscaping are acceptable. Our tolerance for crap is now zero.”

Since that time, Edmonton has become more and more quality-minded in how it evaluates architects submitting proposals to design City projects. It is also unique in having a City Architect on staff. For the past decade and a half, Carol Bélanger has worked to refine Edmonton’s procurement practices for architectural services. “At the time I started my position, we used to do ‘call-ups’, but these were by invitation only,” says Bélanger. “So, you would call up three firms or four firms, to be ‘competitive.’ It was limited by who you knew.”

Influenced by provincial trade agreements that required more projects to be put out for public bid—as well as by the publicly stated desire to do away with “crap”—the City changed how it evaluated architects submitting to design its larger projects. It eventually moved to a two-phased submission and evaluation process. The first is a qualifying phase to create a shortlist of architects identified as being able to complete the work; the second phase consists of an RFP process for these pre-qualified candidates, as well as an interview for finalists. This process was designed to limit the raw work of proposal-writing on the industry at large, while still having an RFP process that focussed—in detail—on the project at hand.

“Once they know they are shortlisted, then we can put out the full-blown RFP,” says Bélanger, adding that the second phase of Edmonton’s RFP process includes the pre-qualified candidates’ vision for the project. “We ask for a vision. Not a design, but a vision: from an urban design point of view, how would you meet this context?”

Perhaps most importantly, Edmonton changed how they evaluated architectural fees. The fee component of their RFP process is rated as 10% of the overall scoring for the submission—very low compared to other governments and public agencies, who often rate fees at 30% or more of a total RFP score. Moreover, the City also works according to fee recommendations established by the province’s professional associations, the Alberta Association of Architects and the Consulting Architects of Alberta. This has the effect of making the expected fee for the project clear to all potential submitters from the outset, and already in-line with professional expectations for what is necessary to deliver good work.

“We’re not allowing firms to ‘buy’ the work with a low fee. But at the same time, being in a municipality, we’re still cognizant of having a limited budget. We’re not just going to pay exorbitant fees,” says Bélanger. “For the most part, unless somebody misunderstands something, we’ve always seen people get full marks on the core fee.”

What has followed from these changes? “The outcome has been nothing short of amazing,” says Bélanger. City of Edmonton projects have been celebrated with four RAIC Governor General’s Awards since 2018: achieved for Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool, The Real Time Control Building #3, Borden Park Pavilion (all by gh3*), and the South Haven Centre for Remembrance (by SHAPE Architecture with PECHET Studio and Group 2 Architects). Says Bélanger, “We’re not doing the work for awards, but the awards are a good indicator from a design excellence perspective.”

Public reception to the projects has also been positive, says Bélanger, noting that memberships to related civic organizations are up. The new buildings show up regularly on social media. It is even an issue which has been put on the ballot in Edmonton’s 2013 civic election: one mayoral candidate decried “Taj Mahal” rec centres, and garnered relatively little support. It turns out people liked design-forward civic buildings and saw the value in what the City was doing. Mandel and Bélanger both earn mention in the book Canadian Modern Architecture, 1967 to the present, with educator Graham Livesey writing that they sparked an “architectural renaissance” with their procurement practices, resulting in “a spectacular series of public projects, mainly by out-of-province firms.”

It is worth examining procurement carefully if an “architectural renaissance” that is also popular with the public can stem from changes to a city’s RFP practices.

There is a lot that RFPs determine before proposals are submitted. In the process of creating an RFP, potential clients of architects—often the staff of public agencies—determine criteria from the outset for who can bid on their projects. This entails making value judgements about what is important in designing the potential building, and what type of architect will be the best choice to design the project. Often, a culture of risk aversion creates a preference for firms who have done similar work in the past: much of the time, you can’t apply to design a building like a library if you haven’t already designed some pre-determined number of them. There is also the issue of how design teams are evaluated, and who does the evaluation. To what extent do client representatives understand architecture? To what extent should they?

Asked about issues with RFPs and procurement, the OAA respond­ed with a written statement, including the following: “Among the most common issues are requirements that do not reflect a correct understanding of the Architect or Licensed Technologist OAA’s role, resulting in OAA members being expected to take on tasks that are the responsibility of others. The result might mean an architect finding themselves responsible for activities and outcomes they do not control, including the performance or responsibilities of the client, authorities having jurisdiction, or the contractor.”

There are other important issues beyond sorting out who-does-what. “This lack of understanding can also impact how to design an appropriate evaluation tool / criteria for selecting the right professional for the particular project you may have.” The OAA’s statement also raised issues of RFPs that include work impossible to cover under mandatory professional insurance.

The OAA advocates for Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), which recommends that clients select the most qualified firm to design the work and negotiate a fee afterwards. The OAA website likens the process to a company hiring a new staff member first, and then negotiating their salary after. This approach differs from the City of Edmonton’s, but it is still a step outside of the norm for most public RFP requirements, which require a fee to be declared as part of the submission process. The matter of how—and when—architectural fees are decided has serious implications for how much the architect eventually gets paid. That, in turn, impacts the scope of service that an architect can reasonably deliver, while still surviving as a business.

Every facet of procurement invites questions with complex answers, and the processes by which we buy something are intimately connected with the product we receive. In the case of architecture, the product being purchased carries long-term planning implications and large environmental impacts, and it informs the look and function of the buildings we use every day. It is critical for potential clients to take time for interrogation, education, and introspection in their approach.

Jake Nicholson is a writer based in London, Ontario, with extensive experience working on proposals for architectural and engineering firms.

The post Practice: Procuring Change appeared first on Canadian Architect.

The basis of a contract is that there is a fair exchange. Usually this is money for a service or product. When you order a coffee at your local coffee shop, there is an implied contract (that the coffee will be hot and fresh) that fairly represents the money you paid.

This is also true when hiring professional services. Fundamentally, the contract is expected to be fair to both parties. Yet that is not the case with many public entities contracting architectural services in Canada, including the City of Ottawa.

In 2012, the City released a series of supplementary conditions to standard contracts between architects and engineers and the City. Across 19 pages of dense legalese, the City redefines standard terms that have a long precedent and history in contract law.

Some of these changes do little other than redefine a standard term in a longer, more complex way with little or no benefit. Other conditions raise serious questions of legality and fairness. For example, the City expects to violate federal copyright law and denies architects the right to fair decisions by the courts, setting the City up as both judge and jury of disputes.

Architects, like lawyers and doctors, carry professional liability insurance because, despite the best of intentions, sometimes mistakes happen. Insurance is there to protect the public (the client) from these rare cases where there is an error or omission.

Where the City’s contract conditions set unrealistic levels of perfection, or place unreasonable demands on a professional, the insurance coverage may not be available because it is so extra-ordinary to normal professional services. Contracts with the construction industry may set unrealistic schedule expectations and impose unfair costs on contractors through punitive conditions.

Imagine you were going to have an operation and you asked the doctor to guarantee that there would be no side effects and that their insurance would cover any and all possible risks, including that you might suffer a seizure or die on the operating table. No doctor will guarantee this because there are no certainties. You, the patient, take some risk, based on the assumption that your doctor is competent and takes prudent actions to look after your interests.

It is the same for buildings. When the City hires an architect, they are expected to take reasonable care of the City, respect the public interest, and propose design solutions and ideas to achieve the stated goals of the project. It is impossible to remove all risks in a project, just like it is impossible to remove all risks in an operation.

The contract offered by the City of Ottawa is fundamentally unfair, and there is no evidence that these supplementary conditions remove the risks they are intended to. When the conditions seek to punish rather than to be fair, it creates an uneven playing field that drives away collaborative problem solving.

For eight years, a small group of volunteers have been giving their time to come to City meetings and find a solution with (paid) City staff. Years of work finally resulted in a set of comments in March 2018. Since then, further discussions have stalled, while comments have gone back to the legal department for a response that has never materialized. 

Similar contract conditions exist in construction contracts from the City, as well as school boards, provincial projects and Ottawa Community Housing RFPs for both design and construction. Thankfully, for Ottawa Community Housing, sometimes they have at least allowed interested bidders the opportunity to register concerns. And in construction, some of the most egregious can be beaten back by the local construction association, but it takes concerted effort and individual advocacy on a case-by-case basis. That advocacy restarts on every contract or RFP because there is no consistent application across the board.

This becomes a barrier to fair bidding practices. Smaller firms lack the in-house or external legal capacity to fight these issues one on one. Due to the complex nuances of some of this language, it takes significant skill to research and understand how it can affect a company. Fighting a larger-scale battle across the industry means significant effort to simply get to a fair and balanced contract. And when the City holds all the cards, they set all the rules.

Talented local firms who want to deliver good quality services read these contract conditions and self-select out of the process. They are unwilling to put themselves at risk with unfair contracts. While my firm registers concerns when that is possible, it’s rarely the case. Most times, the contract is provided in a “take it or leave it” approach—and that means I leave it. Effectively, I am prevented from bidding for government work because I can’t compete on a fair and level playing field because the contract conditions are unfair, inequitable, and punitive.

As a whole, if the city can impose unfair conditions on one sector, what’s to stop them from doing so on other sectors? Any contractual unfairness should be stopped. It’s against the public interest to limit the pool of bidders for public sector investment, forcing them to operate in a climate of unfair and punitive business practices.

This affects the design and construction of the social infrastructure we need in our communities. It affects design by driving out the talent needed to seek solutions early on, rewarding firms willing to take unfair risks that disadvantage the rest of the industry. It affects the construction industry, putting small and large businesses at risk. Together, this affects jobs, local communities, and the local economy.

The city plans to invest more in buildings. Last fall, the Auditor General released their report with 95 pages of horror stories—buildings that desperately need investment. Climate change and aging infrastructure; the new building planned for the ByWard Market; new community centres; accessibility upgrades and other repairs to city buildings—these are all social infrastructure issues that must be addressed. They need architects, engineers and contractors. Unfair contract language means we’re shutting the door to talented local firms.

We need a reset. We need to eliminate contract conditions that are unfair and get back to a contract that is fair and balanced.

We need to reset the way the City contracts, and invests, in the built environment to deliver on the promises of the safe, healthy, equitable, resilient city that we all aspire to live in.

Toon Dreessen, OAA, FRAIC is president of Architects DCA, an Ottawa-based architecture practice. He is a former president of the OAA and served six years on OAA council. He received the OAA’s Order of da Vinci in 2020.

The post Letter to the Editor: Contract Fairness appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Earlier this summer, the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) launched a Practice Tip to help architects decipher the language of RFPs and client-architect contracts.

In recent years, architects have been under pressure to sign agreements containing multiple pages of supplementary conditions, which often depart from standard architectural practice. In 2015, I moderated a panel on navigating these contracts, and published some resulting tips in a follow-up editorial.

The OAA reviews RFPs and contracts as part of its mandate to protect the public interest—inadvertently excluding insurance coverage or contravening applicable law is not in the public interest—and put together the Practice Tip based on its experience.

In a special news bulletin, the OAA writes: “The OAA has reviewed many RFPs and proposed contract terms and conditions over the past several years. In doing so, it became apparent that there were some inappropriate items that kept appearing with either identical wording or with minor variations.”

Reading about legal language might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found this guide to be excellent. It presents a clear, cogent guide to some of the language that has been appearing in the massive supplemental conditions documents that now accompany many contracts.

The guide includes specific examples of wording that practices should be most concerned about when reviewing RFPs and contracts, and offers suggestions of alternative language.

For instance, in a clause stating that architects agree to “during the progress of the work ensure that the Contractor(s) is keeping as-built drawings up-to-date,” the guide points out that the word “ensure” means to offer a guarantee, and guarantees are not insurable under professional liability insurance policies. Instead, a recommendation is to substitute wording such as “assist in” or “require.”

The document also highlights terms such as “time is of the essence”, which has a very specific legal meaning and implications related to breach of contract and professional liability insurance coverage. It recommends replacing it with “time is critical.”

While the OAA’s guide is directed to Ontario architects, it may be a useful reference for architects in a larger territory, who are dealing with similar challenges. 

The OAA urges members to seek advice from their own legal counsel when reviewing RFP and contract language.

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Lyne Parent had just stepped out of the subway station in Montreal when her cellphone rang. On this mid-August day in 2018, she could barely make out what the caller was saying. She quickly moved away from the screeches and squeals of buses to a quieter spot. Upon hearing the news, she felt relieved – and content. In a matter of moments, a summer of angst gave way to cautious optimism. “The hardest part was to keep the good news to myself for 24 hours because the government wanted to make the announcement itself,” recalls Parent, the executive director of Quebec’s association of private practice architects (AAPPQ).

Parent had good reason to be pleased. In the middle of summer holidays, two underdogs had jointly mounted a successful advocacy campaign to stave off an effort by the Quebec government to quietly reintroduce lowest-bid contracting. Faced with public pressure, the Quebec government withdrew its controversial draft regulation on August 15 and established a framework to analyze and revise the way in which public contracts for professional services are awarded. “There were not many people who believed we would succeed given the determination and will of the government to adopt the regulation,” says André Rainville, the president and CEO of Quebec’s association of engineering consulting firms (AFG).

The groundwork for a successful pushback had been laid years before. Through networking, the two organizations forged strong ties with industry, educational institutions, environmental groups, and purveyors of professional services. They also kept their members abreast of developments.

A high-profile inquiry, the Charbonneau Commission that investigated awarding of government contracts and influence peddling in the Quebec construction sector, also helped as its 2015 report laid bare the drawbacks to the lowest-bid rule. And ironically, the Quebec government also played a role. More than a decade ago, Quebec became the first jurisdiction in the country to compel provincial agencies to use qualifications-based selection (QBS), sometimes called quality-based selection, to procure architectural and engineering services.

That decision led to the emergence of a robust design culture that has been embraced by the public, says John Stephenson, FRAIC, president of the Ontario Association of Architects. “When (QBS) was threatened, this broad coalition who understands its value was able to mobilize to fight against it. I don’t think we would have had the same response in the rest of the country because we’re not there yet.”

A week before the draft regulation was published on June 27, Parent and Rainville were warned by public servants to keep an eye on the official Quebec Gazette. But nothing had prepared them for the bleak news. There were no hints throughout several roundtable discussions held during the year that the Quebec government was going to move toward lowest-bid contracts, a change that could jeopardize
the financial health of many architectural and engineering firms. “We knew we had a big summer ahead of us,” recalls Rainville. The Quebec government wanted to act quickly, before the fall provincial elections. It dropped the bombshell on the cusp of the annual two-week statutory construction holiday, a time when businesses and organizations affiliated with the construction sector either shut down or slow to a crawl. On top of that, the AAPPQ and the AFG had only 45 days to act before the regulation would be put to the Quebec Cabinet for approval. Robert Poëti, then Quebec minister for integrity in public procurement and information resources, made it plain to Parent and Rainville that if they were going to have a chance of dissuading him, they were going to have to send their briefs promptly. Pleas for an extension fell upon deaf ears. “We were in a race against time,” says Rainville.

Both organizations quickly informed their respective boards of directors. “When we got the news, we were discouraged,” says Jonathan Bisson, MIRAC, who sits on the AAPPQ board. “The association had been working for months trying to discuss with the government how professional public contracts for professional services are awarded, but the dossier was bounced around from ministry to ministry, only for them to act unilaterally,” says Bisson, also the Quebec director for the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

The AAPPQ and the AFG understood that it was in their best interests to join forces since they were both targeted by the draft regulation. A joint multi-pronged strategy was devised, beginning with efforts to mobilize members through electronic and social media to submit briefs and write to members of the National Assembly about the negative repercussions of the draft regulation. The draft regulation asserted in its preamble that it should “have no negative impact on enterprises.” But in Quebec, 80 percent of architectural firms have fewer than 10 employees, with nearly 50 percent of their revenues stemming from public sector work. It was important, says Parent, for members to drive home the message to decision makers that these small firms would be unable to thrive under lowest-bid contracting as it would inevitably lead to a price war they could ill afford.

At the same time, both organizations reached out to stakeholders, hoping to sway as many as possible to support them and lobby the provincial government. Simultaneously, a provocative media strategy aimed at generating public attention was conceived to refute the government’s contention that lowest-bid contracting would have “no impact on the public.” Findings from the Charbonneau Commission were underlined, namely that with lowest-price contracting there is a risk of collusion, undue pressure  on bidders’ margins, and the quality of infrastructure and services is in jeopardy. An open letter penned by nearly 30 organizations made the point even more starkly by recalling a 2006 tragedy that cost the lives of five people and seriously injured six others when an overpass collapsed in Laval, Quebec. The letter, entitled “Will it take another Concorde overpass?” pointed out that it was the catastrophe that had prompted the provincial government to adopt QBS.

The strategy bore fruit, as did their efforts to meet with the minister and his aides. Members of both organizations ended up writing more than 100 briefs, Quebec media coverage was copious, and both organizations continued to receive support from stakeholders well after the advocacy campaign came to an end. Meetings with the minister, while initially tense, have given way to more productive exchanges. “We had the impression that the minister and his aides poorly understood the consequences of the draft regulation,” remarks Parent. “The exchanges were firm and direct.”

Tough negotiations, which began at the end of August 2018, are still underway. The new provincial government has not yet changed the substance of the talks which are being held biweekly. Though lowest-bid contracting is still on the table, architects and engineers have made it clear that it’s a no-go zone. “When you opt for the lowest bid, you are selecting an enterprise that will devote fewer hours to conceive a project, and you are opting for rapid solutions in place of customized solutions that favour creativity and innovation,” says Parent.

A recent study by QBS Canada underlines that the cost growth of a project is nine percent more for lower bid procurement and 1.6 percent more for best value procurement (BVP) than qualifications-based selection. QBS also had the highest construction speed of all procurement methods, with BVP 23 percent slower than QBS and low bid six percent slower than QBS. Perhaps most importantly, “all completed QBS projects had a high to very high level of quality, and there was a higher level of owner and designer satisfaction with the results of the project,” says the 2018 study entitled “Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS): Best Practice for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Management/ General Contractor Procurement in Canada.”

It appears that QBS is slowly making inroads in the rest of the country, though Canada still trails by a long shot the United States, Europe, and Asia. All eyes are on a QBS pilot program launched by the federal government in summer 2018, a development that Stephenson describes as an “important start.” Also, the Ontario Association of Architects is lobbying the Ontario government to take a closer look at QBS and try a pilot program, says Adam Tracey, manager, policy and government relations at the OAA. “There are no commitments, but there is a level of interest in QBS that we haven’t quite seen before.”

Even in Quebec, there is much work to be done. Though QBS is legally mandated for provincial procurement of architectural and engineering services, it’s a different story for municipalities. Municipalities, almost without exception, rely on the lowest bid. That may change eventually following the passage in 2016 of Bill 108, which grants municipalities the power to choose different selection processes. “It will take time before municipalities abandon a formula they have been using for 15 years,” notes Rainville. But on the ground at least, Bisson has noticed that there is a growing interest in QBS.
A forum he helped organize last spring in Montreal that brought industry stakeholders together to discuss QBS may have prompted at least one university to consider adopting QBS for a new project.
“We sensed that they understood the importance of quality,” says Bisson.

In the meantime, Parent and Rainville are cautiously optimistic that though the provincial government wants to tinker with different formulas over the implementation of QBS, it is here to stay. “The Charbonneau Commission said it well: public procurement is complex,” says Parent. “There are no magic recipes. It’s important to consult with industry before adopting a regulation that will affect them.”

Lyne Parent sortait tout juste du métro, à la mi-août 2018, lorsqu’elle a reçu un appel lui annonçant une nouvelle qui l’a réjouie. En quelques minutes, l’angoisse de l’été a cédé la place à un optimisme prudent. « Le plus difficile a été de garder le secret pendant 24 heures, parce que le gouvernement voulait en faire l’annonce lui-même », se souvient Mme Parent, directrice générale de l’Association des architectes en pratique privée du Québec (AAPPQ).

Elle avait une bonne raison de se réjouir. Au beau milieu des vacances d’été, deux associations professionnelles avaient mené une campagne pour contrer la tentative du gouvernement du Québec de réintroduire discrètement la règle du plus bas soumissionnaire. Devant la pression du public, le gouvernement a retiré son projet de règlement controversé le 15 août et il a établi un cadre d’analyse et de révision du mode d’attribution des contrats publics pour les services professionnels. « Peu de gens croyaient en notre réussite, car le gouvernement était déterminé à adopter ce règlement », dit André Rainville, président et chef de la direction de l’Association des firmes de génie-conseil – Québec (AFG).

Les bases d’une campagne d’opposition fructueuse avaient été jetées des années plus tôt. Par du réseautage, les deux organisations ont tissé des liens solides avec le milieu, les établissements d’enseignement, les groupes environne-mentaux et les fournisseurs de services professionnels. Elles ont également tenu leurs membres informés des développements dans ce dossier.

La Commission Charbonneau, cette commission largement médiatisée qui a enquêté sur l’attribution des contrats gouvernementaux et le trafic d’influence dans le secteur de la construction du Québec,
a par ailleurs contribué au dénouement positif, car son rapport de 2015 dénonçait les dangers de la règle du plus bas soumissionnaire. Et ironiquement, le gouvernement du Québec a aussi joué un rôle
du fait qu’une dizaine d’années auparavant, il avait été le premier au pays à obliger les agences provinciales de recourir au processus de sélection basée sur la qualité (SBQ), aussi appelée sélection basée sur les compétences (SBC), pour l’octroi des contrats de services professionnels en architecture et en génie.

Cette décision a d’ailleurs favorisé l’émergence d’une solide culture du design à laquelle le public a adhéré, selon John Stephenson, FRAIC, président de l’Ontario Association of Architects. « Lorsque la SBQ a été menacée, cette grande coalition qui en comprend pleinement la valeur a réussi à se mobiliser pour lutter contre la menace. Je ne crois pas que nous aurions eu la même réaction ailleurs dans le pays, parce que nous n’en sommes pas encore là. »

Une semaine avant la publication du projet de règlement, le 27 juin, les deux directeurs avaient été invités par des fonctionnaires à surveiller la Gazette officielle du Québec. Rien ne les avait toutefois préparés à la mauvaise nouvelle. Pendant les nombreuses discussions en table ronde tenues au cours de l’année, rien ne laissait croire que le gouvernement du Québec se dirigeait vers l’attribution des contrats aux plus bas soumissionnaires, un changement susceptible de compro-mettre la santé financière de bien des bureaux d’architectes et d’ingénieurs. « Nous avons alors compris que nous aurions un gros été », dit André Rainville. 

Le gouvernement québécois voulait agir rapidement, avant les élections de l’automne. Il a largué la bombe à la veille des deux semaines de vacances annuelles de la construction, une quinzaine pendant laquelle les entreprises et autres organisations affiliées au secteur de la construction prennent congé ou ralentissent leurs activités. De plus, l’AAPPQ et l’AFG n’avaient que 45 jours pour réagir avant le dépôt du règlement devant l’Assemblée nationale du Québec. Robert Poëti, alors ministre délégué à l’Intégrité des marchés publics et aux Ressources informationnelles, a fait clairement savoir à Lyne Parent et André Rainville que s’ils voulaient avoir une chance de le dissuader d’aller dans cette voie, ils devaient lui faire parvenir rapidement leurs mémoires. Les demandes d’extension du délai sont tombées dans l’oreille d’un sourd. « Nous étions engagés dans une course contre la montre », rappelle André Rainville.

Les deux directeurs ont rapidement informé leurs conseils d’administration respectifs. « Lorsque nous avons appris la nouvelle, nous étions bien découragés », dit Jonathan Bisson, MIRAC, qui siège au Conseil de l’AAPPQ en plus d’être le représentant du Québec au Conseil de l’Institut royal d’architecture du Canada. « L’AAPPQ tentait depuis des mois de discuter avec le gouvernement des modes d’attribution des contrats de services professionnels des organismes publics, mais le dossier était balloté d’un ministère à l’autre et la mesure a été prise unilatéralement », ajoute-t-il.

L’AAPPQ et l’AFG ont compris qu’il était dans leur intérêt d’unir leurs forces puisqu’elles étaient toutes deux ciblées par le projet de règlement. Elles ont élaboré une stratégie commune en plusieurs volets. Dans un premier temps, elles ont mobilisé leurs membres par les médias électroniques et sociaux et les ont invités à soumettre des mémoires et à écrire aux membres de l’Assemblée nationale pour leur expliquer les répercussions négatives du projet de règlement. Ce projet énonçait, dans son préambule, qu’il ne « devrait pas avoir de conséquences négatives sur les entre-prises ». Mais au Québec, 80 pour cent des bureaux d’architectes comptent moins de 10 employés et 50 pour cent de leur chiffre d’affaires provient du secteur public. Il était important, souligne Mme Parent, que les membres fassent bien comprendre aux décideurs que ces petits bureaux seraient incapables de survivre
à la guerre des prix induite par la règle du plus bas soumissionnaire.

Les deux organisations ont également communiqué avec divers intervenants du secteur, espérant en convaincre le plus grand nombre possible de les appuyer et d’exercer pression sur le gouvernement provincial. En même temps, une stratégie médiatique provocatrice visant à sensibiliser l’opinion publique a été conçue pour réfuter la prétention du gouvernement à l’effet que la règle du plus bas soumissionnaire n’aurait « pas d’impact sur les citoyens ». On a souligné les conclusions de la Commission Charbonneau, indiquant notamment que la règle du plus bas prix pose un risque de collusion et une pression indue sur les marges bénéficiaires des soumissionnaires en plus de mettre en péril la qualité des infrastructures et des services. Une lettre ouverte signée par quelque 30 organisations est allée encore plus loin en rappelant la tragédie de 2006 qui a coûté la vie à cinq personnes et en a blessé six autres lorsqu’un viaduc s’est effondré à Laval, au Québec. Dans leur lettre intitulée « Faudra-t-il un autre viaduc de la Concorde? », les signataires soulignaient que le mode de sélection basée sur la qualité avait été adopté par le gouvernement provincial dans la foulée de cette catastrophe.

La stratégie a porté ses fruits, tout comme les efforts déployés pour rencontrer le ministre et ses fonctionnaires. Les membres des deux organisations ont rédigé plus de 100 mémoires, les médias ont abondamment couvert la question et les deux organisations ont continué de rece-voir l’appui de leurs partenaires bien après la fin de la campagne. Les rencontres avec le ministre, assez tendues au départ, ont donné lieu à des échanges plus productifs. « Nous avions l’impression que le ministre et ses conseillers comprenaient mal les conséquences du projet de règlement », souligne Lyne Parent. « Les échanges ont été fermes et directs. »

Les négociations qui ont commencé à la fin du mois d’août 2018 sont toutefois encore en cours. Le nouveau gouvernement provincial n’a pas encore modifié la teneur des discussions qui ont lieu toutes les deux semaines. La règle du plus bas soumissionnaire est encore envisagée, mais les architectes et les ingénieurs ont exprimé clairement leur vive opposition à ce mode de sélection. « En optant pour la plus basse soumission, le donneur d’ouvrage choisit une entreprise qui consacrera moins d’heures à la conception du projet et opte pour des solutions rapides au lieu de solutions personnalisées qui favorisent la créativité et l’innovation », ajoute Mme Parent.

Dans une récente étude, QBS Canada souligne que l’augmentation du coût d’un projet est de neuf pour cent supérieure dans les projets attribués au plus bas soumissionnaire et de 1,6 pour cent supérieure dans les projets attribués selon le meilleur rapport qualité-prix (RQP) que dans les projets attribués selon la SBQ. C’est également dans les projets attribués selon la SBQ que les travaux sont exécutés le plus rapidement, soit 23 pour cent plus rapidement que pour les projets en RQP et 6 pour cent plus rapidement que pour les projets attribués au plus bas soumissionnaire. Mais plus important encore, le niveau de qualité de tous les projets réalisés selon la SBQ était d’élevé à très élevé et le niveau de satisfaction des maîtres de l’ouvrage et des concepteurs était supérieur, selon cette étude de 2018 intitulée « Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS): Best Practice for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Management/ General Contractor Procurement in Canada. »

La SBQ semble percer lentement dans le reste du pays, bien que le Canada accuse encore beaucoup de retard par rapport aux États-Unis, à l’Europe et à l’Asie. Tous les yeux sont actuellement tournés vers un programme pilote de SBQ lancé par le gouvernement fédéral à l’été 2018 que John Stephenson décrit comme « un important début ». Par ailleurs, l’Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) presse le gouvernement de la province d’examiner plus attentivement la SBQ et de créer un programme pilote, souligne Adam Tracey, gestionnaire des politiques et des relations gouvernementales à l’OAA. « Il n’y a aucun engagement pour l’instant, mais la SBQ soulève un certain intérêt que nous n’avions jamais vraiment remarqué auparavant. »

Même au Québec, il reste encore beaucoup à faire. Si la SBQ est obligatoire pour l’approvisionnement en services d’architecture et de génie pour les projets provinciaux, il en va autrement pour les projets municipaux. Presque toutes les municipalités utilisent la règle du plus bas soumissionnaire. Cela pourrait toutefois changer éventuellement à cause de l’adoption du projet de loi 108 en 2016 qui donne aux municipalités le pouvoir de choisir différents modes de sélection. « Il faudra du temps pour que les municipalités abandonnent une formule qu’elles utilisent depuis 15 ans », souligne André Rainville. Toutefois, Christian Bisson remarque un intérêt croissant envers la SBQ sur le terrain. Dans la foulée d’un forum sur la SBQ qui a réuni des intervenants de l’industrie à Montréal, le prin-temps dernier, au moins une université aurait été incitée à envisager l’adoption de la SBQ pour un nouveau projet. « Nous avons eu l’impression qu’ils ont compris l’importance de la qualité », souligne Christian Bisson, l’un des organisateurs de ce forum. 

Entre-temps, Lyne Parent et André Rainville demeurent prudemment optimistes même si le gouvernement provincial veut étudier différentes modalités de mise en œuvre de la SBQ. La SBQ est là pour de bon, souligne Lyne Parent. « La Commission Charbonneau l’a dit clairement : l’octroi de contrats publics est complexe. Il n’y a pas de recette magique. Il est important de consulter le secteur avant d’adopter un règlement qui touche ses intervenants », conclut-elle.

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The Association des Architectes en pratique privée du Québec (AAPPQ) and the Association des firmes de génie-conseil – Québec (AFG) applaud the recent decision by the Minister for Integrity in Public Procurement and for Information Resources, Robert Poëti, to withdraw the draft regulation amending the Regulation respecting certain service contracts of public bodies. The news follows the AAPPQ and AFG’s protest of the proposed procurement amendment, which the organizations argued strongly favoured lowest bidders over quality.

The two associations also welcome the creation of a subcommittee within the framework of Forum d’échanges sur les contrats des organismes publics dans le domaine de la construction (exchange forum on public contracts in the construction sector), whose mandate will be to analyze and revise the way in which public contracts for professional services are awarded.

“Backed by dozens of organizations and experts, our two associations were able to successfully convey our concerns to the minister and his ministry,” said Lyne Parent, Executive Director of AAPPQ, and André Rainville, President and CEO of AFG. “The magnitude of the response showed that a broader consultation was in order, and the minister clearly got the message”.

“We would also like to recognize the minister for being open to discussion. Through our conversations it became clear that we shared the same desire to strike a balance between fair pricing and optimal quality”.

AAPPQ and AFG will actively participate in the subcommittee formed by Minister Poëti to guide preparation of a new draft regulation. The subcommittee will be composed of representatives of Association des Architectes en pratique privée du Québec, Association des firmes de génie-conseil, the main public contracting authorities, and Secrétariat du Conseil du trésor. Work is to begin in the coming weeks.

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The Association des Architectes en pratique privée du Québec (AAPPQ), Quebec’s association of private practice architects, and the Association des firmes de génie-conseil (AFG), Québec, Quebec’s association of engineering consulting firms, want to see Quebecers get the most out of government investments in public infrastructure. “Will it take another Concorde overpass?” asked representatives, who are calling on the Government of Quebec to postpone its proposed amendment to the Regulation respecting certain service contracts of public bodies.

“Do we need another tragedy to remind us that we cannot compromise public and environmental safety when we build infrastructure?” asked AAPQ Executive Director Lyne Parent and AFG President and CEO André Rainville.

Over the past week, the two associations have received support from some twenty organizations and individuals who are also calling on Pierre Arcand, the chair of Conseil du trésor and Robert Poëti, Minister for Integrity in Public Procurement and for Information Resources, to reject the new modes of awarding contracts for professional services included in the proposed amendment, which all lead to the selection of the lowest bidders.

The AAPPQ and AFG have each submitted briefs to the government expressing their opposition to clauses in the proposed regulation that would, as of September, allow Ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable et de l’Électrification des transports (MTMDET) and Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) to award professional architectural and consulting engineering service contracts using formulas that favour the lowest bidder.

According to Rainville and Parent, the lowest bidder model professional services leads to an increase in the overall cost of infrastructure. This practice denounced by the Charbonneau Commission runs counter to the government’s stated objectives—innovation, diversification of supply sources, and innovative solutions. “Lowest bid contracting should never be used for professional architectural and consulting engineering services to identify the best solution for each project. This can be achieved only through good planning and engineering. And that means harnessing the best resources available, not the cheapest,” they said.

Better planning of the works inevitably decreases overall cost, which includes design, construction, operation, and maintenance. In this perspective, the coalition is urging the government to maintain quality-based selection as the sole method for procuring professional architectural and engineering services until a number of promising pilot projects are completed and public consultations are held on this contentious issue for the safety and quality of infrastructure in Quebec.

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Fifty years after Canada’s Centennial, it is natural to compare the public patronage of architecture in the 1960s with today’s procurement for public buildings. On the positive side, there is increased transparency in public sector commissions, and former practices such as nepotism or cronyism have been greatly reduced. But on the flip side, the interpretation of current rules has created unnecessary barriers to achieving architectural design quality and long-lasting value.

Our municipal, provincial and federal governments should be promoting innovation and design excellence. This is necessary to create high-quality buildings and spaces in Canadian cities, and also to develop a strong market both in Canada and abroad for designers and architects. A solid architecture policy could achieve this by providing a clear set of guidelines to direct the processes of selection, design development and execution for public commissions of buildings and spaces. A policy can expand on existing directives—for example, providing guidance on how the public-sector procurement principles of fairness, transparency and value for money should be interpreted specifically for architecture projects. Some of our provincial and national architecture bodies have bandied about the idea of an overarching architecture policy, but without yet achieving successful widespread adoption.

My experience as a director of a small architecture studio in Ontario, and as a representative of England for the United Kingdom government at the European Forum for Architectural Policies in the late 2000s, have led to some thoughts on principles that would foster architectural excellence in public buildings. These are intended as a starting point for
a much-needed discussion to which I welcome my colleagues in architectural practice, public sector roles and architectural associations to contribute. The ideas draw heavily on examples from Edmonton and Montreal, Canada’s current leaders in the public commissioning of quality architecture.

1. Select architects based on quality, not lowest cost.

Selecting architects based on lowest-priced design services is a false economy. Fee is rarely the only evaluation criterion for design team selection. Nonetheless, even on the low end (weighted at 15-20 percent), it is often the tipping point for selection.

There is nothing in Ontario’s Procurement Directive that stipulates lowest fee as a requirement for selection. Nonetheless, many public-sector agencies include this constraint in their policies or in practice. To address this misconception, the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) recently commissioned a study from a preeminent construction lawyer, who agreed that public sector clients were mistaken about the requirement for lowest fee, and that they were free to instead focus on selecting architects based on best quality service or design.

The City of Edmonton recognizes that low architectural fees can have a detrimental effect on quality. Therefore, it sets a fee target within plus-or-minus five percent of the Alberta Association of Architects fee schedule. Anyone submitting a price higher—or lower—will lose points. This may seem radical, but research supports it as a fiscally responsible approach.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the National Research Council of Canada and the Government of Canada have produced a national guide entitled Selecting a Professional Consultant. They found that the best value for a client is “achieved when the focus is on finding the most effective, long-term solution to a problem, not the cheapest design.” The design team’s work represents less than 10 percent of the capital cost of a building, but directly affects the other 90 percent in construction costs—not to mention impacting long-term maintenance costs, the health of the people who use the spaces for years to come, and the vitality and competitiveness of our cities. According to the National Guide, even a modest increase in design cost of 0.3 percent can return savings in the ratio of 11:1.

2. Construction expertise and quality must be valued.

Last November, City of Toronto chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat hosted a roundtable discussion titled “Design Excellence: Implementation in Public Projects.” Brent Raymond, partner at DTAH, made a point that seems obvious to architects—design detailing and construction quality are both important to the final result.

Raymond demonstrated how, whether you select high-grade or standard low-cost materials, quality will only be delivered if the person building the project understands the materials and takes care in how it is constructed. This is why contractor selection by tender price alone is not appropriate, and does not demonstrate the best value for money. He reinforced his argument by quoting Benjamin Franklin: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

The City of Toronto has recently received private donations for key public spaces including the Don River Trail and The Bentway. As program manager in urban design Alka Lukatela shared, City staffers recommend that these third parties procure construction outside of the City’s lowest-bid tender process—a true sign that the process is broken.

3. Foster innovation.

The way a Request for Proposal is structured can stymie innovation. Evaluation criteria are often drafted to prefer bidders who have completed multiple similar projects, but not necessarily the best or most innovative work. RFPs also frequently ask for a laundry list of consultants that may or may not be relevant, rather than allowing the team lead to build their own list based on their approach and experience.

An alternative can be seen in the work of city agency Design Montréal. In a recent competition for a four-year temporary design solution to mitigate the effect of roadwork on Saint Catherine Street West, the agency didn’t specify whether the lead needed to be an architect, landscape architect, or graphic designer. Any design practice that met
a minimum experience requirement could apply and assemble a team.

Our studio was shortlisted for the second stage, and we were paid $25,000 to develop our idea. We were allowed to build a team appropriate to our design solution. We proposed a narrative that brought “Catherine” to life through a responsive moveable public space involving robotics, so we brought communications and interactive designers on board, as well as a structural and lighting engineer, and a company that had built temporary Cirque du Soleil venues.

The evaluation criteria and process for this commission consistently stressed innovation and design excellence. The winning team, KANVA, is building a series of large-scale inflatable shelters. They didn’t need to show that they had built three temporary inflatable structures of the same scale in the last five years. They were asked instead to demonstrate that their design team had the relevant experience to execute their vision.

4. Strengthen the architecture industry through creative opportunities.

It is important for the design industry as well as public-sector agencies to nurture a healthy pool of talent and competition for future projects. To counter challenges such as the difficulty for small firms to compete and the tendency towards mergers in the industry, Design Montréal has set up a multi-pronged program that is seeing tangible results. In the last ten years, the city has held 49 design competitions and workshops. Among its project competitions, 22 were anonymous. Over 30 design and architecture firms won their first municipal contracts through Design Montréal’s activities—and many of these projects have gone on to win awards. Design Montreal is modestly sized, with six staff members and $1.5 million in annual funding from the city and province. Why not scale up its success through federal innovation funding, creating a Design Canada agency to support the design sector in every Canadian city?

Anonymous design competitions for key small- and medium-scale buildings are effective in sparking innovation, achieving the best design quality, and creating opportunities for talented architectural practices—arguably more so than competitions for large building projects with multiple stakeholders. For smaller buildings, competitions can bypass the initial Request for Qualifications stage, which can be a barrier for entry to small and emerging firms. In 2011, the City of Edmonton ran an anonymous design competition for five park pavilions. Running the competition cost $65,000—money well spent if you consider the lasting legacy of the park structures, which received many accolades, and positive press for the city.

Due to the lack of true “open” competitions, our talented designers are going elsewhere to compete: Office OU from Toronto recently won an anonymous international competition for the new National Museum Complex Master Plan in South Korea, but would likely not have passed the RFQ stage for local design competitions of a comparable size, like the new Toronto Courthouse or Etobicoke Civic Centre.

5. Foster design champions in the public sector.

We need champions supporting design at every level. This is vividly demonstrated in the City of Edmonton. In 2005, then-mayor Stephen Mandel said, “Our tolerance for crap [architecture] is now zero.” In 2010, the City of Edmonton formed a new department integrating infrastructure services. They created the position of City Architect and hired Carol Bélanger, FRAIC, who says: “I want to franchise my position across the country. Every city needs an architect at the table who is a steward, and who is looking out for the public interest.”

6. Simplify the process—from procurement to design decisions.

Simplifying the processes for selecting a design team, and later for internal approvals, is important to achieving quality results. Design sign-off can be confusing in public sector agencies: the role of various departments and committees in decision-making is not always clear, and their directions can be contradictory. A good project manager will help the architect understand what input must be incorporated, and will negotiate between their internal colleagues at an early stage. At the City of Edmonton, policy direction and manuals detailing the decision-making process are in place, so that projects don’t get derailed by personal opinions or design choices by committee.

There are many examples of excellent public buildings and spaces in Canada, but there could be many more. The country would benefit from following the examples of the City of Edmonton and Design Montréal, and implementing quality-based guidelines for commissioning architects and building architecture. Through a concerted effort, architects and their public-sector clients can work together to build a lasting legacy that Canadians can be proud of in 2067.

Helena Grdadolnik is a director at Toronto-based studio Workshop Architecture.

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