WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Thoughtful, elegant, and inclusive. This strong intervention into the Brutalist architecture of the Confederation Centre of the Arts is an example of how 1960s architecture can be elevated to today’s standards of community. Prioritizing a street-level entrance changes the proportions of the existing façade, creating an entry that feels like it has always been there. The additional masses reference the heritage forms while skillfully creating contrast through materiality, considered fenestration, and a slight reveal that allows the forms to visually slide past each other. Ultimately, the new intervention strengthens the entire site.
– Matthew Hickey, juror

LOCATION Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

The Confederation Centre of the Arts (CCoA), in Charlottetown, PEI, is a textbook example of how an initially acclaimed effort by architects of one generation to design something noble, egalitarian, and enduring can look exclusionist and problematic several decades later.

 Designed by Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold and Sise and completed in 1964, this Brutalist National Historic Site—conceived as “Canada’s national memorial to the Fathers of Confederation”—originally consisted of library, theatre, and art gallery buildings, extruded up through a podium edged with terraced planters, and framing a sunken courtyard. “The original intent of Brutalist architecture,” as Abbott Brown Architects notes in the award submission, “was to dislocate it from the normative iconography of power and make it accessible and empowering to all.”

Today, however, the CCoA’s physical inaccessibility and aloofness feels alienating and out of step with Canada’s heterogeneity. Prior to design work on this project, Abbott Brown co-sponsored a conference at which artists and others from diverse backgrounds explained why the very cultural centres meant to embody their voices felt uncomfortable and unwelcoming.  

Drawing from the insights of that gathering, the Phase 1 Revitalization will transform and expand the former library pavilion into a new National Cultural Leadership Institute, which will offer a hub for convening on important Canadian issues, arts and cultural learning programs, as well as spaces for Canadian arts creation and hosting community events.

Abbott Brown’s intent is to preserve the integrity of the original architecture, while subverting its impenetrable character. New construction is restricted to the interstitial zones between the existing volumes, and to the adjacent plaza. Removing a swath of the perimeter terracing along Richmond Street, inserting new glazing, and situating a new atrium floor at grade opens one of the pavilions directly to the street. Within, the mass timber structure of the new connecting volumes takes the chill off the existing expanses of exposed concrete. Removing portions of the original Level 2 and Level 3 floors and inserting a translucent, load-bearing stair just below street level creates new atrium space at street level. The interstitial interventions also establish a new opening to the CCoA’s sunken Garden Courtyard.

In contrast with the original complex’s monolithically blank sandstone exterior walls, the cladding of the new additions combines generous glazing with panels formed from irregular, glazed, terracotta ribs. While keeping within an overall bone-white tonal range, the ribs will vary in profile, texture, and glazing. In this way, the manufactured panels will recall the subtle variations that are celebrated in the traditions of Japanese and Korean handcrafted ceramics. “The cladding itself is a subtle, luminous mosaic, offering the onlooker lively shifts and divergent impressions at different scales,” the award submission states. “It is an intentional, experiential metaphor for the complexity and diversity of contemporary society.”

Targeting CaGBC Zero Carbon Building – Design certification, this first phase of the CCoA’s revitalization preserves most of the existing mass-concrete structure, while introducing large central skylights, stack-effect ventilation, PV rooftop arrays, and many other strategies for improved energy performance.

CLIENT Confederation Centre of the Arts | ARCHITECT TEAM Alec Brown (MRAIC), Jane Abbott (MRAIC), June Jung, Katelyn Latham, Karen Mills, Blake Klotz, Brittany Dwyer, Camila Lima, Saejin Lim, Celina Abba, Leanna Letterio, Kaley Doleman, Jack Ziemanski, Tony Rukongwa, Will McInnes | STRUCTURAL/CIVIL SCL Engineering | MECHANICAL MCA Consultants | ELECTRICAL Richardson Associates | LANDSCAPE NIPPAYSAGE | QUANTITY SURVEYOR QSolv | SUSTAINABILITY reLoad Sustainable Design | CODE LMDG | ACOUSTICS Fox Technologies | CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT Brighton Construction | AREA 4,000 m2 | BUDGET $60 M | STATUS Under construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION May 2026 

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI)116 kWh/m2/year | THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (TEDI)34.9 kWh/m2/year | GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INTENSITY (GHGI)24 kg CO2e/m2 | WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 0.17 m3/m2/year

As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

This quiet infill project feels inevitable and fresh. The design strikes an intelligent balance between the modern and the historic as it rebuilds and abstracts the footprint of a previous structure that burned down in 1959. A modern mansard roof doubles as a shroud for unsightly mechanical equipment, a change in stone texture marks the parapet of the previous building, and each floor’s efficient planning responds to the stairs and exits of the adjacent building.
– D’Arcy Jones, juror

LOCATION Montreal, Quebec

An 18 x 80-foot sliver of real estate in Montreal’s Old Port district has been vacant since 1959, when the modest 19th-century warehouse that formerly occupied the site burned down. To state the obvious, any land parcel that has remained a pocket-size parking lot for more than six decades in this bustling tourism, dining, and shopping district must be fairly resistant to redevelopment. However, the owner of both this corner lot and the mixed-use heritage building adjacent to it determined that an infill building would be viable if it shared elevator and stair access with its neighbour to the east. Architecture écologique’s efficient design makes this happen, and it addresses the site’s challenges with urbane grace.

Due to the topography’s southward slope, the existing building has five storeys along its Rue de la Commune façade, which overlooks the St. Lawrence River, and only four on its north façade, along Rue Saint-Paul. It has retail tenancy at street level on Saint-Paul, and on the first two floors along Rue de la Commune, with two levels of office space above that and a residential loft on level five. The infill building will have a similar disposition of retail space, plus five apartments on its upper four levels, ranging in size from a studio to a three-bedroom unit. The top two apartments are each two-floor stair-connected units, with an upper-level terrace. A mansard-like roof, echoing the form of many others in the district that became Montreal’s main port in the 1600s, tucks the mechanical equipment out of sight.

While clearly a building of its own time, the infill structure subtly alludes to its predecessor, echoing the fire-destroyed building’s rounded corners and marking the height of its parapet with a shift in stone texture.

Best known to date for rural, single-family residences, architecture écologique founder Etienne Lemay demonstrates a deft touch on this project for mixed-use infill in a heritage district. And as his firm’s name suggests, this building will have a small footprint, sustainably as well as literally: its above-ground structural system will be cross-laminated timber; its heating and cooling will be geothermal.

CLIENT Pierre Bouvrette | ARCHITECTS  Etienne Lemay, Odile Lamy | STRUCTURAL Latéral | MECHANICAL Canopée | CODE Technorm Inc. | AREA 965 m2 | BUDGET $4.5 M | STATUS Design development| ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2026

As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The need for supportive housing is at a crisis point across Canada. 11 Brock Avenue not only addresses this need, but does so in a way that understands the effects of good design and the critical need for a baseline of net-zero and low carbon in building construction. This project prioritizes community through the design of an interior single-loaded corridor that promotes access to light and views to the communal spaces along the courtyard. The street façade expresses the rigour of mass timber construction, while still being playful and achieving a balance between opaque and transparent surfaces. – Matthew Hickey, juror

LOCATION Toronto, Ontario

11 Brock Avenue is one of five projects resulting from a City of Toronto partnership with the Federal Government to create urgently needed supportive and affordable housing under the Rapid Housing Initiative. Targeting housing-ready sites, the initiative funds projects that are fast-tracked from project start to occupancy within 18 months.

 Located in Toronto’s central-west Parkdale neighbourhood, 11 Brock Avenue will provide 42 new supportive and rent-geared-to-income residential units on a corner lot that has been vacant for years. The building’s fine-grained, four-storey Brock Avenue façade is vertically divided into six bands, and animated by a couple of curves reminiscent of an old rolltop desk. One band demarcates the main entry by rolling inward above it; an adjacent band unrolls above the ground at bench height, creating an informal seating platform. Along the building’s west and north facades, its landscaped border amps up visual interest by oscillating in plan between planting beds and hardscaped areas for seating and bicycle parking.

Several other congenial ideas coalesce in and around the building’s tiered, south-facing courtyard. At grade, the building’s dining hall and lounge, lobby corridor, and staff spaces all face onto a compact courtyard patio, providing the ‘eyes on the street’ that help make this secluded space feel like a safe, sociable hub. The laundry room, conceived here as a social space rather than a purely utilitarian one, also has a courtyard view. A series of outdoor areas cascade down towards the ground-floor patio: the topmost tier is a garden terrace, with picnic tables and raised accessible community-garden planting beds. Single-loaded corridors wrap the outdoor space on three sides, and include large window-boxes with seating, so that residents can sit by a window with views to the shared social area.

11 Brock Avenue is an all-electric, mass timber building, designed to meet net zero and low embodied carbon requirements. A wide band of extensive green roof aids in retaining stormwater and promotes biodiversity; the roof has also been designed to support a planned, future photovoltaics installation.

The layout of the residential units is optimized for simplicity and efficiency, and ensures privacy by not having any units face each other. Using a regular grid layout and repeating stacked suites improves the efficiency of the design and the speed of construction. More than 30 percent of the homes this project provides are accessible suites.

CLIENT Govan Brown and Associates Ltd., City of Toronto | ARCHITECT TEAM Aaron Budd (MRAIC), Sam Dufaux, Joseph Khan, Hayley Imerman (MRAIC), Hugo Flammin, Jessica Daga, Evan Wakelin, Aziza Asat, Jina Lee, Luke Kairys, Valerie Hough, Bonnie Chuong, Hillary Eppel, Huy Pham | TRANSPORTATION BA Consulting Group | AREA 1,055 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Under construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2025

As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Whimsical, yet structured, it is easy to imagine how this pavilion will become an icon for the city and create a gravitational pull for park users. The boldness of the vaulted roof structure and its consistent rhythm defies the organic shape in plan. With its strong monochromatic colour, it creates a distinctive, warm presence in the park.
– Andrea Wolff, juror

LOCATION Edmonton, Alberta

Architecture is what separates a pavilion from a shed. Gh3*’s building for a pending park on the western edge of Edmonton’s downtown has a modest and largely utilitarian program: it contains washrooms, community multi-purpose space, mechanical and electrical rooms, storage space, and staff space. But this welcoming, emphatically red little building, topped with a yoo-hoo of a barrel-vaulted, cantilevered roof, looks set to become an instant local landmark. Warehouse Park Pavilion speaks, as its award submission notes, to a time when park pavilions were “celebratory.”

Reclaiming a former car dealership precinct as public green space, Warehouse Park aims to reconnect this part of Edmonton with its Indigenous roots. The name O-day’min, gifted by a local Elder to the ward in which the park is located, means “strawberry” or “heart-berry” in Anishinaabemowin. The berry-red pavilion on the west side of the park will embrace and define the Warming Plaza (a.k.a. west plaza), a community space centred around a fire pit,  and face toward the main, strawberry-shaped open lawn to the east.

The park’s geometry and organization generated the pavilion’s footprint. While the building encloses 270 m2, its irregularly shaped roof canopy stretches out to cover 400 m2, providing bountiful sheltered outdoor space in a configuration that aligns with surrounding park pathways. The pavilion’s large glazed areas, in combination with its relatively narrow width, allow for transparency and clear views from the alley along its west edge through to the public plaza to the east. Its robust exterior materials—tempered laminated glass and powder-coated steel—are graffiti resilient and resistant to vandalism.

This project’s barrel vaulting tips the hat to historic modern buildings in Edmonton such as Jasper Place High School and the Westwood Transit Garage—and affirms that this ancient structural form lends itself anew to contemporary applications. The vaulted ceilings and interior walls, washrooms (including partitions) and event space are clad with red-stained marine grade plywood. Lest the site’s immediate past be forgot, the exterior areas of the pavilion’s cast-in-place concrete floor have an acid-etched, aggregate-exposing finish that mimics the old car dealerships’ durable terrazzo flooring, patches of which still remained in place after initial attempts to clear the site. (Interior public-area floors are polished concrete.)

The building is passively ventilated with no cooling; its deep roof overhang reduces solar gain and associated cooling loads.

Glowing a warm red even on a cold winter night and inviting all visitors to pause for a moment to enjoy its scalloped roofline, Warehouse Park Pavilion provides basic amenities with an uplifting generosity of spirit.

CLIENT City of Edmonton | ARCHITECT TEAM Pat Hanson (FRAIC), Raymond Chow (MRAIC), Elise Shelley, John McKenna, Joel Di Giacomo, Richard Freeman, Petra Bogias, Alison Huo | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN LEAD CCxA | LOCAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE / STRUCTURAL / MECHANICAL / ENGINEERING / CIVIL / TRAFFIC AECOM| LIGHTING Ombrages / Éclairage public | PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS Twenty/20 Communications | AREA Building—270m2 ; Park—17,800 m2 | BUDGET Pavilion—$5.6M; Entire Park—$35.3M | STATUS Under construction| ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2025 

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 179.16 kWh/m2/year | THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (TEDI) 23.5 kWh/m2/year | GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INTENSITY (GHGI) 1.38 kg CO2e/m2 | WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 2.22 m3/m2/year

As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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WINNER OF A 2023 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

I love this idea of the Indigenous program wrapping around—and effectively allowing the First Nations’ program to recolonize—the ubiquitous old 20th-century academic building currently housing the law school. The plan is functionally well integrated with the existing building, but the materials and expression of the new building says: “This is a law school that understands where it is located, and is committed to reconciliation.”

— Michael Heeney, juror

The University of Victoria’s new National Centre for Indigenous Laws (NCIL) is dedicated to the study and practice of Canadian Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders. Situated on the northwestern edge of the campus, on the traditional territory of the lək wəŋən peoples, the NCIL expands the existing Fraser Law Building and becomes the face of the Faculty of Law.

The design honours its host, the Coast Salish peoples, and welcomes students and visitors from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities from across Turtle Island and beyond. Its slender, organic form touches lightly upon the land. Trees that were felled for its construction were first blessed by local Elders and then reused as mass-timber columns for the building. Its mass-timber roof slopes upward from the north entrance towards the forest to the south, expanding to the height of treetops. 

The form brings its users face-to-face with the forest. The sloped roof directs rainwater to a new system of rainwater gardens and plantings. At the north, sheltered by a gentle berm, an Elders’ Garden is a site for reflection, ethnobotany, and cultivation of Indigenous foods and medicines. The garden connects to the Small Gathering Space—dedicated to oral knowledge sharing—and the adjacent Indigenous Initiatives, Wellness and Elders’ Suite, dedicated to student care. The sculptural cladding echoes the silhouettes of Coast Salish canoes and paddles. 

At the south end, the building’s atrium and classrooms open to the forest and Learning Deck, where students can enjoy open-air classes. In concert with the goals of the NCIL, alternatives to past colonial approaches to learning space emerged: less hierarchical learning layouts and greater flexibility in space arrangements; learning immersed in nature; equitable access and inclusion across gender, age, and ability; and welcoming informal learning environments. The ideas of “forest as teacher” and “walking the path” come together in the NCIL as a pedagogical tool central to the teaching and practice of Indigenous laws and traditions. The interior circulation path is framed by a “forest of columns” that point-support a CLT mass timber roof.

The project supports the goals of the university’s Sustainability Action Plan. The choice of wood as the primary building material reduces greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration. Further energy savings derive from a high-performance building envelope and highly efficient mechanical and electrical systems.

CLIENT University of Victoria, British Columbia | ARCHITECT TEAM Two Row Architect—Brian Porter FRAIC, Matt Hickey MRAIC, Jacqueline Daniel. Teeple Architects Inc—Stephen Teeple FRAIC, Avery Guthrie MRAIC, Myles Craig, Richard Lam, Josh Rensby, Sahel Tahvildari, Amanda Kemeny, Mina Pavlovic, Chris Qiu. Low Hammond Rowe Architects Inc.—Paul Hammond MRAIC, Howard Kim, Roya Darvish, Jeff Rushton. Past and present members of the NCIL project Steering Committee; Past and present members of the NCIL project Building Committee | STRUCTURAL Fast + Epp | MECHANICAL AME Consulting Group |  ELECTRICAL/LIGHTING/TECHNOLOGY/AV  AES Engineering | ENERGY MODELLING/LEED Introba | CIVIL/TRANSPORTATION McElhanney | LANDSCAPE PFS Studio | ARBORIST Talbot McKenzie | CODE GHL Consultants Ltd. | HARDWARE Allegion Canada Inc. | COST BTY Group | ENVELOPE RJC Engineers | AREA 2,683 m2 | BUDGET $40.65 M | STATUS Under construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION Fall 2024

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 99 kWh/m2/year | THERMAL ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 67 kWh/m2/year | GREENHOUSE GAS INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 1.1 kgCO2e/m2/year | WATER USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 0.32 m3/m2/year

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WINNER OF A 2023 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The design articulation of how a shared and undervalued community asset has a voice through architectural exploration is so important. In this case, the cut-out pier designed to allow safe swimming—coupled with a series of open and community-responsive spaces including a shaded portal, porches and paths—will create an appropriately scaled, but powerful lakeside public space. — Claire Weisz, juror

I have always enjoyed the romance of walking out on a pier and experiencing that incredible interface between land and water. This project takes the pier typology to a new level, and the architecture allows you to imagine a much wider range of activities on both land and water than what is usually supported by a public pier. The swimming enclosure is particularly wonderful, but the range of events and daily activities imagined and supported by the pier’s architecture is also fantastic. Nelson will be so lucky to have this amazing public amenity. – Michael Heeney, juror

The industries that fuel a community’s growth often isolate it from its best natural assets. In the case of Nelson, BC, boat building and other woodworks-related enterprises—along with the railyards and port that enabled them to flourish—occupied the downtown shorefront along Kootenay Lake in the late 19th and early 20th century. In its manufacturing heyday, Nelson was renowned as the birthplace of the Ladybird, a racing vessel that set the world speed record in 1933. Although the small city’s industrial waterfront subsequently declined, its boom-era infrastructure remains in place, impeding connectivity between the urban core and the lake.

Like the Ladybird, the Nelson Pier project is a community initiative that involves contributions of expertise, supplies, and time from a wide range of stakeholders and volunteers. MBAC, working with SOA as architect of record, leads the redesign of the pier at the terminus of Nelson’s Hall Street, a project whose objective is “to suture city and lake.” Fittingly, the new pier celebrates Nelson’s famously fast old boat: through a Nelson Museum of Art and History outreach program, the Ladybird will be prominently situated on the pier, housed in a glass pavilion.

The existing pier is well situated—Hall Street is one of Nelson’s main urban streets—but was too narrow and mono-functional to be a landmark, four-season community gathering place at the water’s edge. In addition to being a public realm space for strolling and informal gathering, the main, upper section of the new pier can host markets, concerts, weddings and other special events. Its lower section encloses a publicly accessible swim area and allows for boat mooring.

Inspired by how Nelson leveraged its culture of wood manufacturing and wood crafting to design vessels that intensified the joy of being on the water, the design team developed a cantilevered, acutely angled wood canopy as the dynamic focal point that defines the entry to the widened, fully serviced pier and houses programmable space. The canopy has a hybrid wood and steel primary structure, with wood slats that are differently oriented on its inner and outer surfaces. This creates moiré effects when combined with light and induces strategic views and transparencies. Light reflecting off the water adds to the ever-changing interplay of light and shadow.

“As a concept, the new pier is understood as an expanded threshold, creating a series of unfolding experiences between land and water, past and present,” write the designers.

CLIENT The Corporation of the City of Nelson | ARCHITECT TEAM SOA (Architect of Record)—Matthew Stanley; MBAC (Urban Design)—Marc Boutin FRAIC, Nathaniel Wagenaar, Josh TeBokkel, Kalie Widmer, Ashley Ortlieb, Tony Leong, Miriam Navarrete, Fatima Rehman, Richard Cotter MRAIC, Tim Smith MRAIC, Trevor Steckly, Brett Sanderson | STRUCTURAL Fast+Epp, EffiStruc | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Prism Engineering | GEOTECHNICAL Pennco Engineering, Deverney Engineering, SNC Lavalin | ENVIRONMENTAL Mass Environmental | AREA Project Total: 1330m2; Ladybird enclosure: 41m2; Canopy: 260m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Under Construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION  March 2024

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WINNER OF A 2023 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The building reads as an extension of the landscape filled with natural light and the warm hue of mass timber. The simple approach to the roof carried by the galloping mass timber forms is uplifting and peaceful. This is a sublime project. — Omar Gandhi, juror

An active community, the equestrian cultural legacy of the Peoples of Frog Lake, and the land itself combine to create an almost new type of community centre. The open and curved vault is distinctive and approachable, and shows great promise for creating an inspiring shared space for horses and people, under a mass timber structure and atop an earthen floor. — Claire Weisz, juror

For residential school survivors and others who have experienced trauma, connecting with people can be difficult. Frog Lake First Nations, based on prairie land about 210 km east of Edmonton, has long recognized the therapeutic value of horse-human relationships. The Frog Lake First Nations’ Children & Family, Intervention/Prevention Horse Healing Centre offers healing through traditional and modern methods centred on interaction between humans and horses.

The Centre’s program encompasses mental health, victim services, aftercare, a wellness court, cultural and ceremonial spaces, a museum, and activity spaces for children and youth. These are all clustered around a 28-horse stable and 1,150-square-metre indoor riding arena with viewing stands, tack stalls, and an indoor round pen. 

Nestled into the rolling landscape, the Centre rises to the north and transitions down to a lower south elevation. Locally sourced Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) glulam beams, configured in free-flowing curves, support the large, open central span. The building’s organic lines draw a parallel between horses’ tails and manes, and the ribbons that the people of Frog Lake use to articulate dancing and spiritual expression.

Throughout the Centre, even the spaces that do not allow for physical interaction between people and horses offer views of horses, typically with steeds and humans finding themselves at eye level. In the stable, portals allow horses to peek their heads through to socialize with clients and other horses. In their proportions, the meeting rooms and offices overlooking the indoor riding arena from the north echo the dimensions of the horse stalls that line the arena’s south side.

In addition to the Centre, the site houses ancillary buildings, paddocks, pastures, an outdoor riding area, ceremonial grounds, children’s play space, an amphitheatre, and healing gardens.

This project targets net-zero and carbon-neutral status, using passive sun, wind, and water strategies, as well as solar panels and a geothermal loop. The site operates entirely on electricity and generates its own resources: it is not connected to a gas line. 

The natural topography is leveraged to collect surface runoff in a retention pond that functions as skating rink in winter. Decommissioned oil well sites are reclaimed and used as overflow parking lots for large community events and cultural gatherings.

Thin, horizontally staggered, thermally treated cedar planks clad much of the exterior, contrasting with stone collected from the land, which clads the round, projecting volumes of a cultural room and the museum. On the interior, cedar planks, stone, brushed concrete, birch plywood, Corten panels and steel finishing harmonize with soil, sand, wood chips, and horse accoutrements such as wool blankets and leather bridles. The design team states that integral to the Centre’s healing nature is the idea of “embracing what is already there, and celebrating materials that will, in time, become ‘worn in’, and not ‘worn out’.”

CLIENT Frog Lake First Nations | ARCHITECT TEAM Carey van der Zalm, Garth Crump, Rob Maggay, Nina Christianson, Toni Chui, Chandra Domes, Matt Murphy, Karamjit Grewal, Ana-Dora Matei, Andreea Stanica, Alecsandru Vasiliu, Kenton McKay, Vivian Manasc | STRUCTURAL Fast + Epp | MECHANICAL Williams Engineering | ELECTRICAL Reimagine Consulting | LANDSCAPE Katharina Kafka Landscape Architecture | ENERGY Revolve Engineering | AREA 5300 m2 | BUDGET $36 M | STATUS Construction Documents | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION November 2025

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 74 kWh/m2/year | PROPORTION OF ENERGY FROM RENEWABLE SOURCES 100% photovoltaics | EMBODIED CARBON  450 kgCO2e/m2

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WINNER OF A 2023 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

A masterful composition of texture and natural light, with places for social interaction as well as spaces for repose. The delicate building skin adds magic to an otherwise simple and economical building massing. The juxtaposition of the building massing and large refined spaces with the highly textured landscape approach is magnificent. – Omar Gandhi, juror 

A great contemporary interpretation of Islamic architecture. A refined and simple plan, combined with a restricted palate of materials, has been detailed and elevated into something serene and spiritual that recalls the richness of Persian architecture. I can imagine that the thoughtfully controlled sunlight in the buildings will make the spaces quite magical.
– Michael Heeney, juror

Ismaili Centres mark the community presence of the Ismaili branch of Shi’a Islam in more than two dozen countries throughout the world. Located in the Toronto suburb of Thorncliffe Park, the Don Mills Jamatkhana and Ismaili Community Centre will mark the site of the first Ismaili prayer hall in Ontario, and will also contain a gymnasium, library, food drop-off area, administrative offices, and multi-purpose teaching spaces. Built and supported directly through the contributions of the community it serves, the Jamatkhana will welcome the wider community. The plan divides the building into four quadrants, reflecting traditional principles of Persian garden design, and alluding to this building’s identity as a place for worship, respite, recreation, and community life.

The centre’s Overlea Boulevard site is something of a no-context context: buildings in the vicinity include low-rise offices, strip malls, and a Greek Orthodox church and theological academy. Across the street, a huge, isolated residential tower looms skyward. To the rear, however, the centre will have a lush, forested view of the Don Valley. 

Two principal volumes, bisected by the main entrance, address Overlea Boulevard. The simplicity of these paired forms, clad in a double façade of pierced metal and vision glass, cuts through the surface noise of the site. The volumes reveal and conceal, with a patterned screen inspired by the principles of unity and proportion found in Islamic numerology and geometry. Also intrinsic to the massing and orientation is the particularly Islamic architectural principal of introversion, whereby the face of the building exposed to the street gives way to the revelation of a vibrant and complex social space within.

The central corridor that is visible from the street extends north through the building and is bisected by a secondary east/west corridor. Reflecting the Ismaili emphasis on education, community, and good works, the library (‘healthy mind’) and gymnasium/multi-purpose room (‘healthy body’) flank the main entrance. A visitor continuing north along the central corridor enters the sacred northeast quadrant by passing through the wide, low entrance archway that is the threshold to the expansive, double-height prayer hall.

Conventional materials are sensitively deployed to endow this community-funded project with poetry. On the exterior, the space between the perforated metal screen and the glazing creates light-dappling effects. The strategic direction of natural light extends into the core of the building, with fritted glass roof panels that illuminate the circulation corridors.

The three-storey roof height along Overlea Boulevard drops down to two storeys in the northeast quadrant, allowing for the insertion of a roof garden. The sculptural forms of the sawtooth clerestory skylights that illuminate the prayer hall project up into the roof garden. In plan, this garden is a microcosm of the Jamatkhana itself: a pocket paradise that provides views of the Don Valley ravine.

A spiral staircase rises at the western terminus of the secondary corridor, symbolizing, in its geometric perfection, the divinity’s role as a creation-unifying focal point. This staircase provides a gracious route to second-floor community rooms, third-floor offices, and the roof garden.

CLIENT Imara National | ARCHITECT TEAM Robert Cadeau, Nushin Samavaki, Javier Vitieri | STRUCTURAL The Mitchell Partnership | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Mulvey & Banani | LANDSCAPE Martin Wade Landscape Architects | GEOTECH Grounded Engineering | ENERGY MODELLING EQ Building Performance | CIVIL LEA Consulting | TRANSPORTATION WSP | ARBORIST Urban Forest Associates | AREA 4,454 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Design development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2026

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WINNER OF A 2023 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

This sensitively inserted addition and the adaptive reuse of these historic institutional buildings is superbly done. Without compromising the integrity of the historic buildings or overly downplaying the new addition, the old buildings become much more accessible and will be given a new life. Brought much closer to the public street, the new entrance is immediately welcoming and brings you into a series of sunlit and generous volumes, despite being largely underground. — Michael Heeney, juror

A brilliant interwoven intervention to the existing campus building which delicately weaves light, texture and material innovation. The overall composition is a masterful palette of natural light, material innovation, sustainable approaches and Indigenous knowledge. – Omar Gandhi, juror

A convincing argument for why using buildings that have outlived their original roles is the value-case of our time, demonstrating why architecture matters. Universal access is made manifest and this forbidding hilly courtyard made newly accessible in this design, which simultaneously brings natural light into the below-grade portions of the project. — Claire Weisz, juror

For over a century, the former Royal Victoria Hospital has been a place of healing the body and mind. Now, McGill University is embarking on a reinvention of the historic site as a place for helping to heal the planet as well. The principal grounds and heritage buildings of the former hospital will transform into one of the world’s leading centres for teaching, research, and innovation, with an explicit focus on sustainability. 

This site occupies a special place in the physical, social, and cultural history of Montreal: first as a meeting place of Indigenous peoples, and subsequently the site of the hospital. The original complex was comprised of a series of architectural pavilions set in a 19th-century landscape, shaped and sympathetic to the dominant sloping topography of the area. Over the years, large new neighbouring buildings and ad-hoc additions obscured the clear circulation and abundant light of the 19th-century hospital. The architecture of The New Vic re-establishes this clarity, beginning with the removal of buildings and additions, to restore the site’s historic connections to Mount Royal. 

In the new architecture, terraced volumes follow the sloping topography and provide lookouts to the city beyond. The cascading roofscapes of the new wings extend the landscape of Mount Royal into an active space for research and gathering. The design team introduces a new pavilion within the historic forecourt, shaped by the three primary heritage buildings. Visible at the forefront of the site, this entry pavilion signals the renewal and reinvention of the Royal Vic as part of the wider McGill community. 

The new architecture is held back from the old, separated by internal courtyards and atriums usually programmed as gathering spaces. Here, new skylights emphasize these voids and bring light deep into the interior, illuminating the richly textured heritage stonework, with bridges connecting the two. A pair of large skylit atriums also defines the major crossroads within the new architecture, centred around opportunities to collaborate and spontaneously engage outside of the labs and classrooms. 

As part of McGill’s Indigenous Engagement Initiative, an ongoing communication and collaboration with the Indigenous community has informed the design. The New Vic project embodies fluidity, diversity, interconnectedness, and inclusivity. The project offers an architecture in dialogue with a heritage legacy, while also supporting the natural and social history of the site and the City of Montreal.

CLIENT McGill University | ARCHITECT TEAM Diamond Schmitt—Martin Davidson (Project Architect, FRAIC), Don Schmitt (FRAIC), Cecily Eckhardt (MRAIC), Matthew Lella (FRAIC), Peggy Theodore (FRAIC), Emily Baxter, Timothy Birchard, Cynthia Carbonneau, Michelle Chan, Mia Chen, Ashley Fava, John Featherstone, Dan Gallivan, Judith Geher, Dennis Giobbe, Michaela Gomes, Zhivka Hristova, Chris Hughes (MRAIC), Dieter Janssen (MRAIC), Victor Lima, Sarah Low, Fiona Lu, Mike Lukasik, Giuseppe Mandarino, Dejan Mojic, Mindy Morin, Nadia Mulji, Iva Radikova, Philippa Swartz, Mike Taylor, Joe Troppmann, Elcin Unal, Valeriia Vikhtinska, Haley Zhou. Lemay Michaud—Lucie Vaillancourt (Project Architect), Louise Dupont, Marco Blais, Cécile Bohrer, Nicholas Léonard, Olivia Ferguson-Losier, Dimitri Kwas, Marie-Pierre Fréchette, Francesca Devito, Rose-Marie Simard, Sophie Clot, Pascale Nadeau, Jessica Moore, Camille Lepage-Mandeville, Fériel Tamizar, Jessica Ménard-Haman, Olivier Dufour, Anne-Marie Bouliane, Geneviève Gingras, Laurent Dieval, Judi Farkas, Solange Guaida, Harold Stephenson, Philip Juneau-Drolet, Alexandre Desgroseillers, Valérie Soucy, Guillaume Boisvert | HERITAGE ERA Architects | LANDSCAPE CCxA | PRELIMINARY DESIGN FACADES CONSULTANT (up to 40 per cent design): Arup | STRUCTURAL/CIVIL CONSULTANT: ARUP / CIMA+ | ELECTRICAL/MECHANICAL Pageau Morel / BPA | ACOUSTICS Aercoustics Engineering Limited | CODE Technorm Inc.| COMMISSIONING TST Energy Systems Inc.| COSTING Turner & Townsend | ELEVATOR KJA Consultants Inc. | ENVELOPE RDH Building Science | LEED/WELL Village Consulting | LIGHTING CS Design | SECURITY RHEA Group | SIGNAGE Intégral Jean Beaudoin | SPECIFICATIONS Brian Ballantyne Specifications (BBS) and Jean-Guy Lambert | STRUCTURAL GLASS ELEMA+CPA | URBAN DESIGN enclume | PROJECT MANAGEMENT DECASULT | CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT Pomerleau | AREA 49,500 m2 | BUDGET $870 M | STATUS Construction Documents | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2028

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 425 kWh/m2/year | THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 380 kWh/m2/year | GREENHOUSE GAS INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 18.2 kgCO2e/m2/year | WATER USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 0.855 m3/m2/year

See all the 2023 Awards of Excellence winners

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WINNER OF A 2022 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

“Very good architecture gives more than expected in bringing a solution to a challenge. In this project, the architectural solution takes the envelope of a sewer heat exchange system to a new level. It acts as programmed, enclosing the system, but it also delivers a beautiful and elegant object that improves the public realm and draws the pedestrian into a learning experience.” – Louis Lemay, juror

At the corner of Princess Elizabeth Avenue NW and 109th Street NW in Edmonton, sewage is about to intersect with sculptural form. The Blatchford Redevelopment, which aims to transform decommissioned airport lands into Canada’s first carbon neutral community, will rely on several renewable energy centres to provide more than 90% of the energy for heating, cooling, and domestic hot water to up to 30,000 residents. One part of this District Energy Sharing System (DESS), the Blatchford Sewer Heat Exchange (SHX) commands attention visually and functionally. It will extract thermal energy from the 2,400-mm combined sewer trunk located on the site. The facility’s Sharc 880 packaged units for solids removal and heat exchange, in combination with several heat pumps, will provide an average February heating capacity of 6,600 kW and an average August cooling capacity of 6,600 kW. 

Typically, sewage processing facilities are buried or concealed in tucked-away, utilitarian buildings. The Blatchford SHX, however, will be a community icon. Like an elegantly stylized elephant trunk, its odour-dissipating chimney rises up out of park-like public realm space. The building’s striking form and the views it opens up to its inner functions celebrate urban infrastructure’s civic potential, while highlighting the impact of human daily living on the urban environment.

The above-ground form of adjacent, offset parallel bars, with one angling off and curving up to form the chimney, expresses the concept of thermal energy heat transfer: the two volumes run side by side at a point of intersection and then go their separate ways, moving both horizontally and vertically. This is similar to the movement of energy within the Blatchford SHX itself, rising from the sewer line up through the building and then out into the DESS.

Below ground, sewage is extracted from the sewage line and passes through grinding and filtering processes as it is pumped up and into the SHX basement. Screened wastewater then passes through heat exchangers that transfer thermal energy between the wastewater and the DESS. The same heat exchangers can provide both heating and cooling.
After additional processes, the warmed or cooled wastewater is returned to the sewer main. The odour control mechanisms include a bi-polar ionizer installed in the air handling unit and the expelling of exhaust air through an activated carbon system. Any remaining odour is released well above street level, through the 22-metre-tall chimney stack.

The Blatchford SHX is clad in thin white brick with a dark grout—materials chosen for streamlining and horizontal emphasis. The masonry is manipulated to frame views into a subterranean machinery hall and other parts of the building: the northwest end of one bar of the building and the southeast end of the other terminate in large, deep corbelled soffits that that draw the eye inward. On the chimney, offsets in alternating rows of brick create a gradient textured effect; the increased degree of offset as the chimney rises subtly conveys dematerialization, which is entirely fitting for its function.

CLIENT City of Edmonton | ARCHITECT TEAM gh3*: Pat Hanson (FRAIC), Raymond Chow (MRAIC), Vanessa Abram, Nicholas Callies, Joel Di Giacomo (MRAIC). S2: Peter Streith (FRAIC), Erin Jess (MRAIC) | STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/PROCESS/ELECTRICAL/CIVIL Associated Engineering | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE gh3*| AREA 1,800 m2 | BUDGET $50 M | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION TBD 

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WINNER OF A 2022 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

“This project is a beautiful and complete expression of the Indigenous program and ethos with which it was designed. In plan and section, its sinuous form acts as a powerful foil to the colonial buildings amongst which it sits. The Mukwa Waakaa’igan Indigenous Centre is appropriately sited at the forefront of the residential school to which it is attached,
creating a powerful building that reorients your spatial experience of the campus while inviting you to a place of learning and healing. Its deep integration into the landscape is exemplary.” – Betsy Williamson, juror 

This is a hopeful project for a place of painful memories. At the entry to Algoma University stands Shingwauk Hall, an imposing former residential school. In the 19th and 20th centuries, children from 184 First Nations communities across Canada were separated from their families and brought to that institution, where school work, religious instruction, and farm chores filled their days. 

In 2021, the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association and Algoma University held a design competition for the Mukwa Waakaa’igan Indigenous Centre of Cultural Excellence, which will be erected next to Shingwauk Hall. It is envisioned as a place for truth telling, healing, teaching and learning, cultural preservation and transformation. The winning design team of Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Smoke Architecture aspires to design a campus gateway that will embody the promise that reconciliation can be achieved, and foster universal principles of respect toward one another and the planet. Programmatically, it will combine archival, library, and exhibition space with spaces for sacred ceremony, a teaching kitchen and greenhouse, classroom and lecture/recital hall space, and offices.

The name Mukwa Waakaa’igan—“Bear’s Den,” in Anishinaabemowin—was given to this building through spiritual Ceremony, prior to the design competition. To the seven Anishinaabe clans, Mukwa, the Bear, is a medicine carrier, protector, and healer of mind, body and spirit. “The building emerges from the land and rises up above Shingwauk Hall, evoking Mukwa’s profile,” the design team explains. “Visitors can stand high, as if on Mukwa’s shoulders, supported and given a new perspective to be above the pain of the residential school, looking down with empowerment.” 

Other guiding principles drawn from Indigenous teachings find expression in the building’s form and orientation. Points of entry and space planning take cues from the Medicine Wheel’s four cardinal directions and its three additional sacred directions (up, down, and centre). The intertwined strands of a sweet grass braid inspired a circulation system of three pathways, each connecting the building to its landscape: Past, honouring the experiences and hardships of the children of the residential school; Present, attaining a perspective of empowerment; and Future, exploring and sharing indoor and outdoor cultural learning spaces that can lead Algoma University’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members toward a more sustainable future.

Constructed from locally sourced mass timber, Mukwa Waakaa’igan will nestle into the landscape and invite people to ascend the paths leading to its topmost green roof promontory. In addition to ceremonial and gathering spaces and a garden for Indigenous foods and medicines, the centre’s outdoor spaces include forest, dry and wet meadow, and riparian landscapes, all of which will be planted to mitigate the effects of invasive species and stimulate the recurrence of native species. Through its integration with the landscape, Mukwa Waakaa’igan blurs boundaries between indoor and outdoor space. On pathways through the site, visitors encounter monuments that prompt reflection on the residential school era, and natural settings that may stimulate thought about our place on this planet—now, and moving forward.

CLIENT Algoma University | ARCHITECT TEAM Carol Phillips (FRAIC, Moriyama & Teshima Architects), Eladia Smoke (MRAIC, Smoke Architecture), Mahsa Majidian (Moriyama & Teshima Architects), Larissa Roque (MRAIC, Smoke Architecture), Jay Zhao (Moriyama & Teshima Architects), Carolina Mellado (Moriyama & Teshima Architects), Ehsan Naimpour (Moriyama & Teshima Architects) | AREA 3,437 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2024

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WINNER OF A 2022 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

“Simplicity is very difficult to achieve. This project has a delightfully simple air to it that provides a nuanced and subtle reference to traditional morphology for this ceremonial building, and avoids the pitfalls of colonial representation. The very thoughtful use of pattern, repetitive structural elements, and a clever balance of structural systems creates a shelter that hovers over the Prairie landscape awaiting the celebrations of deep-rooted traditions on the lands. The physical connection to the land is appropriately light and ephemeral. The project will be delightful in a state of celebration, and also in the state of quietness between powwows.” – Peter Hargraves, juror

Drum groups and dancers often spend their summers on the powwow trail, making cross-country treks to compete for titles, share songs, dance, and revitalize traditional ways while engaging with community members from across many First Nations.

Muscowpetung Salteaux Nation is based on a Qu’Appelle Valley reserve, approximately 70 km northeast of Regina. The design of the Muscowpetung Powwow Arbour draws inspiration from Indigenous building traditions, including the demountable structures that First Nations of the Great Plains carried with them as they followed the buffalo. Although the arbour is a permanent building, like a teepee it makes efficient use of materials that are lightweight, locally sourced, and readily available. It uses local timber and a system of cables that, the design team explains, “works like the stored energy of a drawn bow-string and the tensioning elements of drum heads.”

Developed in consultation with community and band leadership, the arbour’s design also considers and capitalizes on present-day local knowledge, labour and materials. Its lightweight system of spanning components avoids bending moments, and allows for onsite assembly by the local community. It is envisioned that the community will harvest pine and spruce poles from the bush; these poles will be cut to length and debarked on site, ensuring precise dimensionality and eliminating the need to outsource. Local metal fabricators who would normally fashion parts for farm machinery could be employed to fabricate the metal connectors.

The circle has great symbolic significance in many Indigenous cultures, and the arbour’s structural system requires a circular geometry to balance its loads. The arbour is to be erected on a field planted with shade-tolerant grasses; this vegetation provides the dance surface within the perimeter drum circle. The structure is oriented to the four cardinal directions, with Grand Entry from the east.

Open to the sky at its centre and constructed in concentric rings—with some vertical separation between them for light penetration and ventilation—the wide, conical roof hovers above the plain. Around the perimeter, slender, teepee-style log tripods support the canopy and the stands.

The roof’s design incorporates rainwater harvesting techniques and renewable energy technologies that offer significant benefits to the community. Precipitation harvested from the 4,900-square-metre roof surface will irrigate an adjacent medicine garden and orchard. As well, the roof is designed to accommodate photovoltaic panels capable of generating 378,000 kWh per year—enough to meet approximately half the energy needs of all houses on Muscowpetung Saulteaux Nation land.

CLIENT Muscowpetung Saulteaux Nation, Saskatchewan | ARCHITECT TEAM Richard Kroeker, Brad Pickard (MRAIC), Sam Lock (MRAIC), Rory Picklyk (SAA, FRAIC), Meghan Taylor, Tanis Worme, Ashley Graf | STRUCTURAL Jon Reid, Wolfrom Engineering | LANDSCAPE Oxbow Architecture | AREA 2,100 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION Summer 2024

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WINNER OF A 2022 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

“Simplicity, harmony and beauty. A rich diversity of spaces—both for the public and for art—are woven amongst a fabric of existing buildings. The museum neither overwhelms the context, nor does it defer to it, but creates a new world of occupation in the neighbourhood. The reuse of the existing fabric buildings is economical, sustainable and creates a rich juxtaposition for the modern intervention.” – Betsy Williamson, juror 

In 2021, Montreal’s multidisciplinary contemporary arts hub PHI launched an international competition for the design of PHI Contemporary, its new home. Located in the Old Montreal historic district, the site comprises four heritage buildings—most conspicuously Maison Louis-Viger (c. 1765) and Maison Du Calvet (c. 1770)—and a vacant lot. The winning design, by Berlin-based Kuehn Malvezzi and Montreal-based firms Pelletier de Fontenay and Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes, integrates old and new, indoors and out, with an emphasis on giving artists open, unencumbered space to bounce their ideas off of, and making the results readily accessible to the public. “Instead of proposing a new building, we are proposing a new infrastructure, where a variety of events can take place,” the design team states. “Artists need to take possession of all the spaces in surprising and unexpected ways. In this spirit of appropriation, no space should be off limits.”

The design layers a roof garden-topped platform onto the sloping site and extends two levels below grade. From Rue Bonsecours, the platform—the level on which much of the exhibition space is concentrated—reads as a simple glazed band that slots in behind the Maison Louis-Viger façade and connects to the second storey of Maison Du Calvet. Perpendicular to Rue Bonsecours, a wide void extends through the site from north to south; the void begins at the gutted Maison Louis-Viger interior and traces the width of the house through the platform. (Interiors of both houses had been altered extensively and often over the centuries, and there were condition issues. The design team chose to pare these stone structures back to their shells to highlight their original construction, while also creating as much flexible gallery space as possible.)

Multiple points of entry connect to a thoughtfully conceived circulation system. At the platform level’s southwest corner, an entrance through a new courtyard provides direct access through the building to the rooftop, via a ramp. At the core of all three main floors, a linear gallery transects the north/south void. The cruciform circulation system maximizes exhibition space and helps visitors intuitively grasp PHI Contemporary’s spatial organization. The partially unroofed “open field” section of the top floor’s circulation system blurs boundaries between indoors and out and opens up views between levels. Below the platform, entries provide access to a semi-basement level containing reception, a café/bar, auditoriums, and archives. 

The roof garden promises to be a new landmark destination in Montreal’s signature historic district. Upper portions of Maison Viger and Maison Du Calvet emerge from PHI Contemporary’s rooftop plane as though extruded through it. The crystalline forms of a new winter garden greenhouse and studio spaces add to the impression of the roof garden as an elevated arts playground that beckons passers-by to come up and view the old streetscape from fresh perspectives.

CLIENT PHI | ARCHITECT TEAM Kuehn Malvezzi—Johannes Kuehn, Simona Malvezzi, Wilfried Kuehn, Johannes Wigand, Robert Elert, Raquel Torres, Janis Kaisinger. Pelletier de Fontenay—Hubert Pelletier, Yves De Fontenay, Yann Gay-Crosier, Alexis Deleporte, Julien Beauchamp. Jodoin Lamarre Pratte—Nicolas Ranger, Ariane Latendresse | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Atelier Le Balto | STRUCTURAL/CIVIL Latéral Conseil | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Dupras Ledoux | MULTIMEDIA Trizart Alliance Inc. | DEEP FOUNDATIONS Substructur expert-conseil | HERITAGE DFS Inc. | SUSTAINABLE DESIGN AND BUILDING CLIMATE Transsolar Canada Inc. | AREA 6,900 m2 | BUDGET $47.3 M | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2026

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WINNER OF A 2021 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The issue of Indigenous housing is one of crisis where architecture and design can play a direct role. This project is one of several that came out of an initiative to model a process of community engagement, led by Indigenous architects, that would result in designs tailored to the needs of particular communities.

In the case of the Fort Severn site, the resulting design recognizes the family unit as flexible and fluid and offers the possibility of evolving with the changing needs of an intergenerational family. Additionally, it integrates the needs of a cultural way of life that includes frequent trips out onto the land and outdoor communal cooking. There is the promise that many of the materials for the buildings could be harvested locally. The project also hopes to generate an opportunity to create local prefabrication facilities whose production ramps up during the long winter, in preparation for the short summer building season. The success of the design is linked directly to a meaningful and community-specific engagement process. – Jury Comment

Approximately 25 percent of Indigenous Canadians live in overcrowded conditions and 20 percent live in homes requiring major repairs. The Assembly of First Nations estimates that by 2031, First Nations communities in Canada will need to build over 130,000 new housing units and renovate 20,000 more. The National Research Council of Canada’s Path to Healthy Homes program pairs Indigenous communities across Canada with design teams led by Indigenous architects, with the aim of producing a best practices manual for the design of affordable, resilient, culturally appropriate Indigenous housing.

As participants in this program, Two Row Architect and KPMB were paired with the West Main Cree community of Fort Severn First Nation, a member of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and The Keewatinook Okimakanak (Northern Chiefs) Council. Located on Hudson Bay, and accessible only by air and ice road, Fort Severn is Ontario’s northernmost settlement.

Working closely with band leaders and community members, the architects developed a housing typology that addresses two key local objectives: enabling elders to live independently in the community for longer, while also providing units for young families, who often end up sharing overcrowded homes with parents and siblings due to a lack of alternatives.

The Resilient Duplex iterative housing system allows elders and young families to live as neighbours and support each other. A single-storey accessible elder’s apartment is attached to a two-bedroom unit with a flexible loft space. The two units share an entry porch, encouraging interaction between neighbours, and the elder’s apartment has a private terrace off the bedroom.

The design is flexible in two important ways. First, the larger unit’s loft space, when left open, can be used for storage, or as a playroom or home office. It can also be partially enclosed to create a main bedroom with ensuite bath, or fully enclosed as a private apartment. Units could be configured differently from the start, or adapted incrementally. Second, because it is possible to give every room in each unit a window using only the north and south facades, the two basic modules can generate configurations ranging from detached homes to large multi-unit dwellings. This includes arrangements in which multiple elders’ apartments are combined with one large unit, which provides communal space and a private apartment for a caregiver.

The team developed a site plan that arranges 12 units in two back-to-back clusters, each connected by a network of raised walkways, with open space between the clusters suitable for children’s play and community gatherings. To minimize water damage caused by frozen pipes, the walkways could do double duty as insulated utilidors.

Many other design aspects address the challenges of building in the remote north. Relying on locally fabricated larch shingle cladding helps mitigate material transportation issues. The stick-frame construction techniques required are familiar to crews working in the community, and passive house strategies upgrade envelope efficiency. Due to shifting caused by muskeg ground’s annual freezing and thawing—and, increasingly, by the climate change-related thawing of permafrost below the muskeg—foundations in Port Severn require constant repair. The duplexes’ hand-adjustable space frame foundation, which sits directly on gravel, provides built-in responsiveness to this literally unsettling condition.

CLIENT National Research Council of Canada / Fort Severn First Nation | ARCHITECT TEAM Two Row: Brian Porter (MRAIC); KPMB Architects: Shirley Blumberg (FRAIC), Bruno Weber, Laurence Holland, Rosa Newman | STRUCTURAL Blackwell | SUSTAINABILITY JMV Consulting | ENVELOPE RDH Building Science | AREA 140 M2 | STATUS Searching for construction funding

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WINNER OF A 2021 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

At a time where homelessness, along with the lack of affordable and transitional housing, is visibly present in communities throughout Canada, this proposal seeks solutions that can be rapidly implemented and seamlessly knitted into existing neighbourhoods. This project aims to destigmatize supportive housing and to give a sense of dignity to its residents. It includes communal spaces that are about trying to live and share together. The fact that it is modular will help with extending the construction season, making it affordable and filling demand, while also ensuring quality control and minimizing the disturbance of the construction for neighbours.

Depending on what individuals are going through as they get on their feet again, the building offers different levels of social engagement, by including program areas such as a lounge, a more social dining facility, and courtyards that engage the land. It’s a thoughtful plan on a number of levels, resulting in a dynamic environment with a village-like typology and a sense of supportive community.  –Jury Comment

In 2019, Ontario’s Durham Region committed to creating one thousand new affordable dwellings by 2024. Part of this initiative, Durham Modular Supportive Housing, will provide 47 transitional housing units for unhoused individuals, as well as on-site access to counsellors, nurses, and personal support workers, and facilitated access to a wider range of off-site services and training opportunities. Reflecting the pressing need for this type of accommodation, the team used modular construction to accelerate project delivery.

Situated in the 3,000-person town of Beaverton, Ontario, the project has a low-rise, pitched-roof massing inspired by the architecture of this agrarian region. Two linked volumes—one private, one public—comprise the building. The three-storey private volume contains the 47 studio apartments, along with lounges, washroom facilities, a laundry, and administrative service areas. The more public, two-storey volume houses the dining room, kitchen and servery, a reading room, meeting and administrative space, and support rooms. The public volume’s subdivision into one section with a single-sloped roof that rises on its northward trajectory from the dining room to the reading room and an adjacent section with a double-pitched roof makes this part of the building ‘read’ at a neighbourly, human scale. A recessed connective link between the private and public volumes serves as the main entrance lobby and opens onto a landscaped courtyard.

Prefabricated modular construction can be completed in less time than conventional on-site construction, while also offering high quality assurance and predictability. Tailored to the size of a standard flatbed, each 66-by-14-foot module for this project’s residential volume is kitted out with two studio apartments flanking a landing. When all modules have been craned into place and secured, work begins on utility connections, interior furnishings, and interior and exterior finishes. Site works, paving and landscaping are also carried out at this stage.

The development is designed to run on solar energy and electric power to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Three hundred solar photovoltaic panels integrated into the design of the roof will supply energy to the entirely electric heating and cooling system. Key contributors to operational energy efficiency are the airtightness of the prefabricated modules and a window-to-wall radio of only 15.1 percent. (Carefully considered window placement will nonetheless optimize views to the outside.)

The overarching goal of Durham Modular Supportive Housing is to assist vulnerable persons on a journey toward independence. The project strives for design excellence through basic means: human scale, a consistent language, pleasant landscape views. The warm, tactile and plain-spoken materials palette, which includes board-and-batten cedar siding, tongue-and-groove wood siding, and corrugated metal roofs, echoes the rural context. While modular construction can help speed the delivery of supportive housing to people who urgently need it, design that affirms residents’ dignity and value is a vital part of the infrastructure that can help them thrive.

CLIENT Region of Durham & NRB Modular Solutions | ARCHITECT TEAM Daniel Ling (MRAIC), Enda McDonagh, Kevin Hutchison, Zheng Li, Grace Chang, Mateusz Nowacki, Sonja Storey-Fleming, Kavitha Jayakrishnan, Megan Lowes, William Tink | DESIGN-BUILDER NRB | STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Design Works | LANDSCAPE Baker Turner | AREA 3,463 M2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS 100% Construction Documentation | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION TBD

Projected Energy Use • POWER GENERATION 89,732 kWh/year | TOTAL ENERGY USE INTENSITY (TEUI) 132.49 kWh/m2/year | THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (TEDI) 60.94 kWh/m2/year | GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INTENSITY (GHGI) 6.62 kg CO2e/m2

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WINNER OF A 2021 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

How do we bring biophilic design into towers? This 57-storey building essentially eliminates interior corridor space, instead including an outdoor breezeway that extends vertically to a very tall height. This brings natural ventilation and a communal connection to the outdoors through the core of the building, and introduces the possibility of cross-ventilation at higher elevations. It’s an innovative move that pushes the envelope of the tower typology. -Jury Comment

Old downtown churches and new luxury condominium towers may sound like strange bedfellows, but in this case, each has something to offer the other—and the community benefits as well. The Butterfly and First Baptist Church (FBC) development is the symbiotic union of a 1911 church on prime Vancouver real estate and a new 57-storey luxury residential tower.

An expanded podium level, landscaped areas, and galleria spaces are closely integrated with FBC’s heritage building. Along with seismic and code upgrades, the restoration of its sanctuary interior and the rehabilitation of other parts of the church, what FBC gets out of the partnership is a new multi-level space for a 37-space daycare facility; community support spaces offering counselling, meals, emergency care and shelter programs; and café, administrative, and multi-purpose community spaces, including a new gymnasium. Additionally, FBC will operate a new seven-storey affordable rental/social housing building that will be incorporated into the development, doubling its previous rental capacity; it will include rooftop community gardens, an outdoor kitchen, and landscaped playgrounds.

The architects state that the tower is named The Butterfly to reflect the spirit of transformation and to “celebrate the constant nature of change and the passage of time.” They add that the undulating forms of the façade’s insulated precast concrete panels are inspired by ephemeral clouds, while the fluted chamfers of the tower’s base carve out public realm space in shapes recalling the pipes of First Baptist Church’s historic organ.

Outdoor sky gardens on each level of The Butterfly provide semi-private space where neighbours on each floor can socialize and connect with nature, without leaving the building. In addition to promoting neighbourliness in a building typology that typically functions more like a series of silos than a hive, these sky gardens improve opportunities for natural cooling, ventilation, and daylighting. In comparison with conventional enclosed corridors, they can reduce overall energy demands while enhancing occupant comfort.

Inside the suites, spaces suitable for use as either second bedrooms or dens are enclosed with curtained, fully glazed partitions, offer­ing flexible use while optimizing views and natural light within.

The show-stopping shared amenity for The Butterfly’s residents is a two-lane, 50-metre-long pool that bridges the podium roof and the tower’s main amenity space. The structural ribs of the pool’s sculptural vault—made of modular prefabricated precast concrete—conceal mechanical and sprinkler services for air supply, condensation control, and fire protection.

All new construction is designed to meet LEED Gold standards and the project will include an on-site low-carbon district energy plant. The Butterfly and FBC aims to meet or exceed City of Vancouver requirements for building and energy performance, sustainable site design, access to nature, green mobility, water efficiency and stormwater management, zero waste planning, and affordable housing.

CLIENT Westbank Corp. and FBC (First Baptist Church) | ARCHITECT TEAM Bing Thom (deceased), Venelin Kokalov (MRAIC), Shinobu Homma (MRAIC), Amirali Javidan, Bibianka Fehr, Nicole Hu, Zhuoli Yang, Steven Schmidt, Culum Osborne, Lisa Potopsingh, Cody Loeffen, Kailey O’Farrell  | STRUCTURAL Glotman Simpson Consulting Engineers | MECHANICAL Integral Group Inc. | ELECTRICAL Nemetz (S/A) & Associates Ltd. | LANDSCAPE Gauthier + Associates Landscape Architecture Inc. with SWA Group and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander | ENERGY MODElLING Integral Group Inc. | AREA 56,206 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Under construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION Winter 2023

PROJECTED ENERGY USE 45% energy use reduction (when compared to ASHRAE 90.1-2010) | 22% energy cost reduction (when compared to ASHRAE 90.1-2010) | 68% greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction (when compared to ASHRAE 90.1-2010) | Targeting LEED Gold certification for New Construction

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