In late September, jurors Omar Gandhi, Claire Weisz, and Michael Heeney gathered in Toronto to review the submissions to the 2023 Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence. We had a strong response to the program this year, including 160 project submissions to the professional Awards of Excellence program and 34 submissions to the Photo Awards of Excellence program. The work of 24 thesis students was nominated by schools of architecture from across Canada.
Gandhi, Weisz, and Heeney selected five Awards of Excellence winners, eight Award of Merit winners, and three Student Award of Excellence winners. They were joined by photo juror Jacqueline Young to select two Photo Award of Excellence winners.
Over the past few cycles of the Awards program, projects with an Indigenous focus have been coming forward as locations for architectural innovation in Canada. This is especially true in the current cycle, in which six projects with Indigenous themes were among the winners. “We ended up having a larger selection of Indigenous projects, but they happen to be the best ones in many cases—there’s a spirit and a soul to them,” says juror Michael Heeney. “And that’s where architects are trying to do something different.”
Winning an Award of Excellence is Reimagine Architects’ Horse Healing Centre for Frog Lake First Nations—a compound designed to support and nurture therapeutic relationships between horses and humans. Sweeping mass timber ceiling beams elevate the interior spaces and celebrate the process of horse therapy. “I like that the program informs the creation of the horse arena as the most architecturally ambitious space,” says juror Claire Weisz.
The University of Victoria’s National Centre for Indigenous Laws, designed by Two Row Architect and Teeple Architects with Low Hammond Rowe Architects, also won an Award of Excellence. An expansion to the existing Fraser Law Building, the Centre provides a home for the university’s JD/JID (Juris Doctor/Juris Indigenarum Doctor) degree program, the first of its kind globally. “I love this one because it’s taking a typical seventies academic building and adding an Indigenous wrapper—the symbolism of that is so powerful,” says juror Michael Heeney.
Two Award of Merit-winning projects are primarily directed to Indigenous clients: Lateral Office and Verne Reimer’s Innusirvik Community Wellness Hub in Nunavut, and Formline with LGA Architectural Partners and Public Work’s Indigenous House at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus.
Located in central Iqaluit, the Innusirvik Community Wellness Hub brings together childcare, community spaces, and a wellness research centre, including areas for delivering Inuit counselling services and land-based programs. The jurors were particularly impressed by the building’s relationship to the context of its northern community. “Looking at this and how it fits within the fabric, you think, this would be remarkable as an investment,” says Weisz. Juror Omar Gandhi adds that the design “plays with the building blocks of the community—it’s not pulling in things that are foreign.”
The design of Indigenous House, which contains a mix of academic and social spaces, is informed by the architecture of wigwams. It handles its references to its site and to its precedents in a way that the jurors felt was highly accomplished. “Finally, we’re seeing all the things people are talking about actually come into an architecture that’s subtle,” says Weisz. “It feels like it has an authentic, engaged process.”
A third Award of Merit was given to Dawes Road Library, designed by Perkins&Will with Smoke Architecture, for the City of Toronto. The library’s Indigenous-inspired design, including a circular room referencing Anishnaabe roundhouses and a blanket-like façade, is part of the Toronto Public Library’s ongoing efforts towards Indigenous engagement. “It’s an admirable approach to reconciliation—making it part of everybody’s lives,” says Heeney.
One of three Student Award of Excellence went to Kaamil Allah Baksh’s thesis “The Third Space,” which explored creating an Indigenous-inspired gathering place as a catalyst for University of Manitoba students to engage with land-based teachings and Indigenous learning processes. A second winning student project, by Jonathan Kabumbe, looked to social and material processes Indigenous to the Democratic Republic of Congo to propose a series of centres that empower and train women in local male-dominated industries, building their social and economic status with the ultimate goal of preventing gender-based violence.
Three other winning projects concerned university spaces. The New Vic at McGill University, designed by Diamond Schmitt with Lemay Michaud, repurposes the castle-like Royal Victoria Hospital as academic spaces, consolidating several existing structures through the careful insertion of a skylit central pavilion that is integrated into the site’s steep topography. “The way it engages with the ground plane as well as the sky—its materiality, its texture—it hits every note,” says Gandhi.
In Metro Vancouver, the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum at Simon Fraser University, designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects with Iredale Architecture, forms a secondary gateway to Arthur Erickson’s iconic campus atop Burnaby mountain. “In many ways, this will become a new entrance to the campus,” says Heeney. “So much of what Arthur Erickson was trying to do with the original campus entry was to create a powerful spatial sequence of compression and expansion—so it’s interesting that in deference to that you’re basically coming through a forest now, with an Indigenous gathering space on your left, and this very low-key building on the right.”
One of two Photo Awards of Excellence went to a construction photograph of a major development on the University of Toronto’s main campus. Salina Kassam’s image “Creating the Landmark Project: Structural Framework” documents the grid set by geothermal pipes and structural supports in preparation to sink parking underneath a revitalized King’s College Circle, in a design by KPMB Architects.
Several of the other winning projects are focused on providing community amenities. The Don Mills Jamatkhana and Ismaili Community Centre, designed by architects—Alliance, won an Award of Excellence. It aims to support connections between Toronto’s Ismailis and the broader community. “It’s doing a lot with a simple structure,” says Gandhi. “There’s an aspect of it that’s a little dreamy, with that light quality.” Adds Weisz, “It feels egalitarian, and much of it will be open to people, and yet it didn’t shy away from being culturally specific.”
Another facility in Toronto won an Award of Merit: The John Innes Community Recreation Centre, which replaces an existing facility at Moss Park. The design by MJMA presents generous, inclusive spaces that offer paths towards improved well-being for the equity-deserving groups in this underserved neighbourhood. The jury admired the large windows included in the raised basketball court, the natural light throughout, and the visible structure. “This is a mass timber building, which I thought was impressive, especially in the swimming pool,” says Weisz.
On the West Coast, the development of a new pier in Nelson, BC, aims to reconnect the city to its waterfront. A glass pavilion houses the historic Ladybird racing boat, an elegant wooden canopy hosts programmable space, and the lower section of the pier creates a publicly accessible swim area and boat mooring locations. “It felt like an extension of the town coming out to the pier, and the lake coming in with the swimming area and the boats,” says Heeney.
Two winning designs looked at the densification of single-family residential lots. In Triptych, in Vancouver, Leckie Studio proposes a modular system that allows for flexible configurations of living units on a typical urban parcel. “I really like the idea of putting in these infills that are really textural, and that become repeated just like old homes did,” says Weisz.
In contrast, The Parti Wall, by Toronto’s JA Architecture Studio, is a more idiosyncratic design with complex sectional relationships between floors. “It’s driving for something,” says Gandhi. “There’s some great ways of drawing light into intermediate spaces, and beautiful material experimentation.”
Material and formal exploration are the hallmark of the last winning projects: James Brittain’s photo of the interior of a home designed by Atelier Carle, a student entry by Cameron Penney to create structures by crystallizing the salty run-off from Toronto’s roadways, and a coastal house designed by Brian MacKay-Lyons. The latter, El Aleph, is a round tower with a lighthouse-like presence. “To me, this was an architectural exploration about how you reconcile structures in a landscape,” says Weisz.
The jury also selected three multi-unit residential projects that, although they were not selected for awards, merited mention. The Northern Community Land Trust Affordable Housing Initiative, designed by s.no architecture, was notable for its urban design considerations for 32 new homes in Whitehorse, Yukon. Designed as two half-circles, the paired buildings leverage the efficiencies of round housing, while creating protected courtyard spaces. “They’re going to get some nice micro-climates—the round space will help deflect the wind,” says Weisz. “It also looks within reason in terms of complexity for affordable housing,” adds Gandhi.
Vienna House, designed by PUBLIC Architecture + Communication, was also selected for mention. The 123-unit project develops five City of Vancouver-owned parcels into an affordable, environmentally sustainable multi-unit social housing project. The jurors admired the ambition of using exterior corridors, allowing for all of the units to have cross-ventilation and light on both sides—“it allows for much more efficient planning, and it’s got this nice courtyard for the community in the middle,” says Heeney—although they felt the placement of shared interior social spaces could have been better leveraged.
Designed by KPMB as part of a series of projects on United Church properties, Portland Commons adds 95 new affordable rental units to a site in Saint John, New Brunswick. The façades’ prefabricated wall panels are made of wood, responding to the region’s vernacular, and incorporate recessed balconies. “With the small moves they’re making, it doesn’t look like affordable housing—it looks like something more elegant,” says Gandhi.
Together, the submissions this year—and the resulting selection of winners—paint a hopeful picture for Canadian architecture. On behalf of the magazine and the jurors, we wish to extend thanks to all of our readers who participated in this year’s awards program, and congratulations to all of this year’s winners.