The pragmatic and the poetic, economy as ethic, critical regionalism: These concepts have defined Brian MacKay-Lyons’s work for over 40 years. Studying the typologies of the Maritime region, the founder of Nova Scotia firm MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects (MLSA) has honoured the vernacular while advancing it. “Vernacular is not a style or an image,” he has said. “It is a process or cultural view…By taking up new technologies and materials, the vernacular is always contemporary and forward-looking, rather than sentimental and backward-looking.” He likes to quote the Mexican poet Octavio Paz: “When joined, modernity breathes life into tradition and tradition responds by providing depth and gravity.”

Brian MacKay-Lyons, founder of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects (MLSA).

In December 2022, MacKay-Lyons was appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of his contribution to this dia­lectic between the modern and the traditional. And though he’s retired from his professorship at Dalhousie University, where he taught and influenced innumerable East Coast archi­tects for 37 years, he’s more active than ever, designing buildings (from houses to entire villages) and writing books; MLSA is currently at work on its latest title, Dwelling. The firm has two outposts in the U.S., one in Oregon and one in Massachusetts, and MacKay-Lyons orbits around its three Nova Scotia offices, in Shobac, Lunenburg and Queen’s Marque. Azure’s editor, Elizabeth Pagliacolo, met up with him at these three unique places that he has had a continuous role in evolving.

Queen’s Marque — a new commercial, residential and cultural development on the Halifax Harbour — exudes a materiality and attention to detail that recalls Brian MacKay-Lyons’s best work. A granite slipway leads directly into the water; visitors have been known to dive right in. Photos, here and top of article, by Nic Lehoux.

From any vantage point at Queen’s Marque, you can enjoy a full view of this new commercial and residential hub. On a rainy morning, enshrouded in the maritime fog, people dart from one end of the campus to the opposite, taking refuge in the passageways that connect its buildings to the city beyond; the boardwalk is drenched in the same tone as the Muntz metal that clads the underside of those portals. On a sunny afternoon, from the grand Rise Again staircase, you can observe children splashing in the water at the base of another staircase that leads down into the Halifax Harbour a few metres away, their parents anxious and bemused. Yoga mats are being unfurled for an open-air class and tourists congregate on the restaurant patios.

“It’s like a theatre — you’ve got all these roof terraces that look down like balconies onto the boardwalk. And then Rise Again is a very theatrical bleacher. So it’s meant to be a ‘people space’ and it’s full of people all the time,” says Brian MacKay-Lyons, the architect whose firm, MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects (MLSA), designed the development in collaboration with FBM Architects. Shane Andrews, a partner at MLSA, was project architect.

In essence, the 41,800-square-metre complex hugs the Harbour with a mixed-use, somewhat U-shaped assemblage of structures. Anchoring the western perimeter of the site is an eight-storey sandstone building, supported by glass prisms, that houses apartments; jutting out from either end of it, two Muntz-clad volumes step down in height and taper in width as they approach the water. One features commercial office space, and the other is home to Muir — a resplendent five-star hotel. In between these two buildings, which are reminiscent of ships docking at the pier, are the two staircases. Rise Again is both artwork and infrastructure: It houses a soon-to-open restaurant by DesignAgency at its base and is crowned with a shimmering totemic installation by Ned Kahn, Tidal Beacon, at its apex. The sense of peaks and valleys, of ascending and then stepping down, of passageways in and out, gives the entire place an uncommon dynamism, aesthetically and experientially.

Some of the big moves feel cosmopolitan. Both the water stairs (which have sparked concern among people with disabilities) and the passageways hint at Venice, while the hospitality aspect is big-city chic. But the textures are of the place. MLSA sought to achieve a “fine-grained pier–building fabric,” and in this sense, Queen’s Marque reflects a city-scaled application of the attention to genius loci that MacKay-Lyons has honed in the smaller works — mainly houses — that first brought him international praise. Both the sandstone and the Muntz connect the development to its surroundings, including the art deco Dominion Public Building; the Muntz is also the stuff of seafaring vessels. In the passageways, the hand-patinated panels are tattooed with a historic narrative of the transatlantic trade that shaped the site.

Queen’s Marque’s tactility at the human scale is the most successful aspect of the biggest project that MLSA has completed in the urban realm. The parti — a blown-up version of which is mounted on the wall of the firm’s Queen’s Marque office — emphasizes the movement of people with loops and squiggles that anticipate how they’ll traverse the place. MacKay-Lyons praises the developer, Armour Group, and its CEO, Scott Armour McCrea, for the project’s expansiveness. “I would say that, in a way, he’s the architect, just through his commitment to doing things properly. This development is 70 per cent public open space. That’s the key to it. It’s not a building at all: It’s a district. And it’s a public experience.”

In fact, the development — which sits on 400 piles and 200 rock anchors and includes two levels of underground parking — almost doubles the area’s public space, to 9,270 square metres. McCrea tells me that he sought to create a setting “that could be meaningful and iconic” without the star-architect or shiny-object factor. “We wanted a fabric development, and to build something that is true and authentic to its roots, as opposed to something that could be anywhere,” he explains. He also considered a sense of inclusivity. “How do you make the public space not feel as if it is kind of a protected area for the wealthy who might be above it? We have had a lot of deep conversations about democracy of place.”

A slice of the campus at Shobac, in Upper Kingsburg, Nova Scotia, captures the Troop Barn, Schoolhouse, Enough House, four cottages and The Studio, which sometimes serves as a satellite office. Photos of Shobac by James Brittain.

Perhaps oddly, MacKay-Lyons compares Queen’s Marque to the project that has amounted to his life’s work: Shobac. “I like to think that, when we’re talking about Shobac and how the buildings aggregate, it’s a similar ethic, even though it’s a very different kind of project. But there’s that urbanist kind of approach to architecture.” Situated on land that he has sculpted in Upper Kingsburg, Shobac is an architectural menagerie of elemental houses that are both rugged and elegant, mainly wood-framed, gable-roofed volumes on robust bases, with wondrous hearths at their centres.

It all started with the renovation of an 18th-century house. In 1986, after completing his graduate studies at UCLA, and after having travelled and worked throughout Europe, MacKay-Lyons and his wife, Marilyn MacKay-Lyons, bought a 1750s dwelling and restored it. Despite his family’s long history in the region, it was a difficult place and a difficult time to set up a practice. And then the house won a Governor General’s Medal. “And we thought, Okay, this is our big break, we can stay and keep trying.” (That house is now the home of one of his daughters; she’s a veterinarian and tends to the horses of Shobac. Another daughter is an engineer who collaborates on some MLSA projects, while his son is an architect with the firm.)

Shobac occupies the site where French explorer Samuel de Champlain first made landfall in 1604 (its name derives from the original land grant of Christian Shoubach), but it was a seasonal settlement for Mi’kmaq peoples for millennia before that. The landscape is characterized by majestic verdant drumlins formed by glaciers. MacKay-Lyons started out by working the land — returning forested hills back to their agricultural origins — and then began to build on it with structures old and new, rescued and invented. “We bought all these little fish lots and cleared the land, but the land got expensive — we had to buy it, protect it and sell some of it to people who wanted to have the architecture,” he explains. “So, we do this architect–developer thing. What do out-of-work architects do? Become developers.”

Some of the early structures came out of Ghost Lab, the two-week design–build workshops that MacKay-Lyons began with his students in 1994. These gatherings evolved to include eminent peers like critics Kenneth Frampton (who notably developed the term “critical regionalism”) and Juhani Pallasmaa, and Pritzker Prize–winners Glenn Murcutt and Francis Kéré. Burkina Faso–born, Berlin-based Kéré helped MacKay-Lyons retrofit a rescued barn on the site. “We almost died together,” MacKay-Lyons recalls. “We were up on a beam together and it broke. We went down together on this beam, like surfers, and almost died.”

Ghost culminated in the 2011 conference Ideas in Things, which was an attempt to capture this moment — or even this movement — focused on the local and human-built as an alternative to the anywhere architecture contrived by the flattening forces of globalization. Yet, writing in Azure, critic (and present-day director of McGill’s architecture school) David Theodore wondered if the ideas in question were past their best-by dates. In a world where architects are increasingly expected to train their expertise on tackling the gnarly problems of urbanism, spending this much energy on notions of the single-family home felt passé. “I’m struck by how the representations of the Ghost ethos — local architecture is good architecture — are for the most part finely wrought, poetic single-family residences, built for individuals rather than communities,” Theodore wrote.

For MacKay-Lyons, the house will always be culturally relevant — and architecture cannot disavow it. “It’s a blunt instrument to say that houses don’t matter, when 70 per cent of the world lives in them,” he says. And his work has always hewed to modesty, economy and even (a compliment, to him) banality.

The conferences came to an end, but the Ghost internship continues (interns work on projects in the Lunenburg office and are helping with the new book), and MacKay-Lyons’s vision and expansion — for Shobac and beyond — was just beginning. As his houses garnered ever more international press and accolades, blue-chip clients began their approach and more luxury-leaning projects followed. In the past decade, MLSA has designed numerous residences and villages that bear his signature around the world, including a barrel-shaped home that embodies stealth wealth and an elite ski village of cedar-clad chalets, both in Utah, among other places that aspire to what MacKay-Lyons describes as a “utopian” ideal.

The Enough House is a 65-square-metre prototype exploring the idea of “economy as ethic.”

Utopia is a paradise on Earth; Alvar Aalto felt that its creation ought to be the ultimate goal of the architect, and practitioners like Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Moore and Paolo Soleri set out, in their own particular ways, to show it could be done. Today, as the exigencies faced by urban centres take on increasing import, the desire to create utopia in a rarified pocket of the world might feel to some like the preoccupation of a bygone era.

And yet its appeal is eternal.

When it comes to Shobac, the utopian intention is manifested in the harmony expressed between landscape and built fabric. You cannot help but marvel at its beauty. In the foreword to Robert McCarter’s Economy as Ethic monograph, Pallasmaa writes of this place, where the buildings seem “self-evident,” that “instead of the presence of architecture, we are made conscious of the earth, gravity and climate. The [architectural] language also reflects the mental power of the archetypes of timeless human constructions, and as a result the buildings place themselves in a historical continuum, making us sense the presence of time.” Last year, author Larry Gaudet wrote a book about Shobac called Skyroom — named after a granite-lined sunken space for star-gazing that MacKay-Lyons created over one of the many building ruins on the land — that conjures its Indigenous–colonial history and mythologizes its present-day caretaker. MacKay-Lyons, for his part, prefers wholesome characterizations: He often refers to himself as the “village architect”; he signs the inside cover of my copy of Gaudet’s book with “welcome to Mr. Rogers’ neighbourhood.”

MacKay-Lyons created the Skyroom, a restored ruin dating back to the 1500s and a sunken space for star-gazing at Shobac. Photo by Matthew MacKay-Lyons.

As we toured the campus in the whipping wind one afternoon, the sheep baaing in the background and the highland cattle grazing on the drumlin, the participants of a yoga retreat had taken over the 1830s schoolhouse and a set of four identical cottages. Next to the schoolhouse stands Enough House, an experiment in building as compactly and affordably as possible without eschewing beauty and comfort that won an AZ Award in 2016. This prototype, on its own, represents for MacKay-Lyons the utopian dimension as much as anything else he’s done. Another structure — an elongated “tin can” that serves as a satellite office for the firm — also communicates a sense of modesty in materials and form. Its wedge-like silhouette, which has just been further extended, is a celebrated form of his that is most evocative in a similarly shaped creation — the Hill House — that emerges like a rectilinear landform atop the drumlin.

The most recently completed abodes occupy a plot called the The Point, where they have been placed at an angle cut to the road. The Smith House, for a family that enjoys vacationing on the Atlantic coast, is perhaps the most compelling example of how a house can embody placemaking: It consists of three Corten-clad pavilions that are supported on a stone plinth constructed of local granite, a favoured material. A deck between them serves as an open living room and the buildings’ low eaves frame the landscape. Everything is a sensory experience. “Dwelling in the landscape, dwelling in the cosmos,” MacKay-Lyons intones, paraphrasing Pallasmaa. “These are research projects that allow us to study the landscape, to study the cosmos.”

A postcard come to life, Lunenburg is the site of MLSA’s B2 Lofts, whose gable and gambrel roofs fit in with the local character. Photo by Matthew MacKay-Lyons.

Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the most authentic intact representation of a British colonial settlement in North America. A postcard come to life, it is populated by brightly painted buildings, and MLSA’s two B2 Loft buildings, one of which houses its Lunenburg office at ground level, riff on this traditional language with their respective gable and gambrel rooflines. The project is named after the course that MacKay-Lyons taught for 37 years at Dalhousie on creating infill housing in the town. “We used Lunenburg as the vehicle to teach manners to architecture students. If you’re building in a historic context, you’ve got to develop some good-neighbour manners.”

Even in Lunenburg, or especially here, housing is at a premium. So the town has hired MLSA to propose a plan for developing Blockhouse Hill, a beloved public space, with new buildings, including affordable units. Lunenburg locals have raised concerns about how the development will do away with much-needed green space and whether it will adhere to the character of the town — both concerns around which MLSA has convened community engagement sessions. “We walked into the propeller of an airplane” when taking on the project, MacKay-Lyons concedes. “It’s contentious.” MLSA will provide four or five urban development options, integrating feedback from these gatherings, as well as learnings from best practices exemplified around the world. “Out of that will come a process where the town will decide what to do.”

At this point in his career, MacKay-Lyons is taking on projects under greater scrutiny, like Queen’s Marque, Lunenburg and other sensitive commissions, and also having fun — he jokingly predicts he’ll “die in the saddle.” He runs his firm, with partner Talbot Sweetapple, as an apprenticeship; students, like Sweetapple himself, often become partners and clients often become friends. In a business that he’s based largely on relationships, he’s been working with some patrons for so long that he’s now designing their headstones. But, at 69 years old, he himself is not going anywhere: He wants to retain artistic control, and he needs to do the parti drawing that kicks off a project’s conception.

A village of elegant cedar-clad cottages makes up MLSA’s Horizon Neighbourhood on Powder Mountain in Utah. Photo by Doublespace.

In fact, MacKay-Lyons is currently working on what he hopes will be his best project yet: El Aleph, just a few kilometres away in Port L’Hebert. “There’s three saltwater promontories and we’re building a constellation of buildings that speak across the kilometre of water to one another.” The residence is for a New York client, and the site, he explains, is a spiritual one for Indigenous people. The guest house, a lead–copper cube on stilts over the ocean, has just been completed. It represents the courtyard that has been plucked from the centre of the main house, a kilometre away, which will be shaped like a Scottish broch, an ancient fortress-like roundhouse. “So it’s very highly conceptual, right? It’s not like most of what you see in magazines, and it’s not fashion. It’s about an idea that the client got excited about.”

The singular house on the field, the promontory or the mountain, and the possibilities for its connection to both the firmament and the terra firma, still holds meaning for MacKay-Lyons, and always will — even as he and his practice embark on affordable housing, including units in Lunenburg and an entire village around a former racetrack in Cape Breton. These, too, are predicated on making those symbolic relationships; he’s excited about the Cape Breton project’s potential to feel like Rome’s Piazza Navona and that “regular people will have an amazing address on an amazing ellipse made of modest little houses.”

Even when he’s working with his more affluent clients, MacKay-Lyons has never been what he refers to as a “$1,000-a-foot architect.” And despite it being perhaps the most expensive of his “cheaply made” houses, he sees El Aleph in Port L’Hebert as akin to the satellite office in Shobac — the corrugated-metal one-room-deep dwelling that is being expanded with a studio. They are not objects — but participants in the landscape. “We’re raised on bread and water,” he says, “and we bring that attitude of restraint into everything we do.”

If architecture suffers a chronic crisis of public relevance, spare a thought for architectural theory. Designers may bemoan a lack of civic presence, but their work, at least, forms part of the evolving built fabric — if not the cultural landscape. And while most of our country’s 41 million residents would likely struggle to name a single practicing Canadian architect, the discipline’s academics and theorists are even further removed from the public eye. David Fortin is an exception.

A Professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture and a practicing architect, David Fortin is also a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario, and among the small but growing number of Indigenous practitioners in Canada. In 2018, he was also a co-curator of UNCEDED: Voices of the Land, a landmark exhibition — selected as Canada’s entry to the Venice Biennale of Architecture — exploring both the legacies of colonialism and the revival of Indigenous design across Turtle Island. Five years later, he returned to the Biennale as part of the Architects Against Housing Alienation collective, which advocates for a bold amalgam of radical solutions to the housing crisis, ranging from returning stolen land into Indigenous stewardship to creating a public fund for cohousing and community land trusts.

David Fortin.

In Venice and across Turtle Island, Fortin’s civic advocacy has highlighted the links between architectural practice and urgent — and inter-related — social issues like housing affordability and post-colonial reconciliation. As a theorist, Fortin brings clarity of mind and purpose to a field that seldom feels culturally legible or politically urgent. In 2022, Fortin challenged the primacy of the design studio as the locus of architectural education, publishing an essay on the succinct yet provocative notion of the “design lodge.” And last year, he delivered a series of talks on his nascent theory of “critical relationalism.” It’s a thoughtful reconsideration of critical regionalism — and one that gets at a bigger question: Are we thinking about architecture all wrong?

Before we can understand critical relationalism, we need to understand critical regionalism. It’s a concept that’s often invoked in Canadian architecture, but I wonder how well we really collectively understand it. Why was this idea a useful departure point?

Even when critical regionalism isn’t explicitly evoked per se, its tenets are foundational of the vocabulary of contemporary Canadian design. When I listen to architects talk, or look at what gets published in magazines and wins awards, much of it coalesces around a language (visual and spoken) of polite, elegantly deferential and contextually sensitive modernism. Of buildings as “good neighbours” that don’t overwhelm their surroundings, and that adopt a site-specific design strategy, meld with the local landscape, and so on. If there’s a prevailing consensus on what constitutes “good Canadian architecture,” I’d say that’s as close as it gets. What does it leave out?

It’s not just a matter of “Capital A” architecture. In your recent talk on “Critical Relationality in Housing Design,” you applied the critique to post-war housing the Canadian government built on Indigenous reserves. They basically replicated the same suburban bungalows that were ubiquitous across North America — and that more or less succeeded in settler communities. While we could critique reserve housing on regionalist grounds — it imposed the same forms across different geographies and climates — the more fundamental failures rest on cultural and political terrain. For starters, the interiors imposed spatial programs organized around post-war nuclear families, not Indigenous communities. As you’ve also pointed out, settler houses were also designed around cars, roads, clean running water, sewer systems — with maintenance facilitated by trips to Home Depot. Little of this infrastructure existed on reserves. It’s a failure rooted in political economy, which architects seldom really understand. How can we change that?

Fortin used Midjourney to create instant examples of “Indigenous” architecture in a variety of contexts.

It feels surprisingly difficult to connect architecture to the values it represents. Living in downtown Toronto, for example, much of our civic and political culture is oriented around celebrating multiculturalism and diversity. Conversely, contemporary architecture doesn’t really engage with these values through built form. So much of “good design” is still a blue-glass curtain wall hiding behind a restored Victorian façade. It’s architecture that apologizes for its own existence. To my mind, it doesn’t reflect the reality of living in this fast-growing, dynamic, assertive place. Maybe that’s a symptom of a broader divergence between civic values and design culture?

A red river cart fronts the Gabriel Dumont Institute in Saskatchewan. PHOTO: Jason Surkan.

As a writer and editor, I’m increasingly thinking about our profession’s role in curating the politics of the architectural canon. In Azure’s current issue, for example, we published a feature on the Métis Crossing complex in Alberta by Tiffany Shaw and Reimagine Architects. We published it because it’s a meaningful project that serves the community — and a wonderful, deeply thoughtful design. At the same time, it’s kind of a challenge because it looks pretty different than other stuff in the magazine — and we recognized that its aesthetic quality resides within a different values system, which we may not have fluency with.

Completed in late 2023, the misatimosimôwin mîhkowâp (Horse Dance Lodge) is a transitional housing project in Regina designed by David Fortin. PHOTO: Celina Rios-Nadeau

Where do you see Canadian architecture going? Obviously, Indigenous design is now a part of our procurement bureaucracy — and our cultural discourse (superficial as it often is). I also get the sense that young practitioners are thinking differently about design, and emphasizing open, collaborative ways of working.

Lead Image: Gabriel Dumont Institute Office Expansion and Cultural Centre, with Edwards Edwards McEwen Architects. Photo credit: King Rose Visuals. 

For too long, the top-down approach to delivering architecture to Canada’s remote communities has largely been an abysmal failure. Much of the problem, to be sure, derives from the astronomical cost and logistics of shipping materials to the North. Formulaic thinking and old-fashioned neglect also figure prominently. Plus, the built landscapes north of the 60th parallel are rarely seen by design journalists and critics, let alone the majority of Canadians. Out of sight, out of mind. 

And yet, with their rich heritage and perennial need for housing, northern communities should be the perfect stage for innovation and investment in the built environment. A permanent local community with deep ties to the land is a hugely important bulwark against malign foreign interests — especially now, as climate change widens the Northwest Passage and foreign leaders wear their imperial ambitions on their sleeves. Serving the communities of the North is not just a matter of ethics and legality; for Canada, it may turn out to be an existential issue. Canada’s Arctic coastline — its northern “border” — is 162,000 kilometres long, compared with the 8,900-kilometre-long, highly regulated border to the south. It is newly vulnerable, and its communities require more housing and public buildings than ever before. 

But what we think of as the Canadian “North” is huge and varied: almost four million square kilometres with soil conditions, topography, weather patterns and social customs that differ from place to place. There are, in the words of architects Mason White and Lola Sheppard of Lateral Office, “a multiplicity of norths.” 

Stantec’s Iqaluit International Airport, developed through a P3 partnership, is an elegant structure that withstands wind speeds of 130 kilometres per hour and doubles as a social connector.

Iqaluit — the capital of Nunavut — offers us a case study on the right and wrong ways to design for the North. As with many other northern communities, this city is informed by both a rich underlying culture and the cataclysm of colonialism and modernity. Once known as Frobisher Bay, it has suffered the consequences of southern-centric planning and building. But recent architectural projects show the value of attentive, locally focused design, when architects are prepared to embrace that approach. 

Foremost among the region’s architectural champions are Sheppard and White, who authored the benchmark 2017 book Many Norths: Spatial Practice in a Polar Territory to unpack the complexities of building in such diverse regions. What is pertinent and challenging in a capital of roughly 7,500 people on Baffin Island is a world apart from what is pertinent and challenging in a landlocked hamlet in the Yukon. These kinds of qualitative differences are difficult to address in a meaningful way when housing and public buildings are designed from afar and shipped in as a kit of parts. 

Even with those limitations, it’s possible to create architecture that is both meaningful and efficient, when architects take care to work with the local context and stakeholders. Recent examples are the Inuusirvik Community Wellness Hub, by Verne Reimer Architecture and Lateral Office, completed in late 2023; the Nunavut Arctic College Expansion, by Teeple Architects in collaboration with Winnipeg’s Cibinel Architecture; and several buildings by Stantec — a corporate behemoth of a firm not always known for visual excitement — that liven up the treeless surroundings. 

With the Inuusirvik Community Wellness Hub, Verne Reimer Architecture and Lateral Office worked with the elements — namely snow, which gathers on its balcony scoops — to insulate the building in winter. Inside (below), the building is serene and welcoming.

Building anything above the treeline is hampered by the dearth of readily available lumber, and building on an island requires everything to be either flown or barged in with strategic (and, in some cases, lucky) timing to the spring melt, which allows water access to certain locales. Constructing on permafrost means the entire building must be built on piles, rather than a conventional foundation, because the incipient heat would begin to thaw the permafrost over time, and the structure would settle into a lopsided mass (known as a “thaw bulb”). Even within the same place, the soil and climate can shift  significantly over the years, and, along with the world’s climate, the permafrost is changing, notes Bruce Carscadden. His firm, Carscadden Stokes McDonald Architects, working together with Stantec’s architects and engineers, had to make allowances for that when designing the base of the Iqaluit Aquatic Centre. 

The challenges for architects run well beyond engineering pragmatics, notes Vivian Manasc, founder of Edmonton-based firm Reimagine Architects. “The question has to be framed as: How do we build in the Arctic so that the people living in the Arctic are actually excited about sharing the culture of the Arctic?” Manasc served as the professional advisor for the recent international competition for the new Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre, a process that involved extensive local consultation. Inuk architectural intern Nicole Luke, one of the competition jurors, notes that cultural expression can be embodied in architecture in many ways. The imperative, she warns, is to “avoid key cultural representation that’s just surface-clad, or that can be taken off during the value-engineering process.” 

The four finalist schemes — by firms including Lateral Office with Teeple Architects, Bjarke Ingels Group, Helsinki-based ALA Architects, and Copenhagen-based Dorte Mandrup — all addressed the region’s unique geography and lifestyle. The concept by Dorte Mandrup was chosen as the winner. Defined by a curvilinear triple-glazed facade and nestled in bedrock, the dramatic structure seems certain to create excitement, if and when it gets built. (Funding requests for big cultural buildings are stumbling through a rough patch these days.) Speaking to Canadian Geographic, Elder Sakiasie Sowdlooapik, who sits on the board of the Inuit Heritage Trust, explained that engagement played a big part in determining the experience of the building. “When we did the consultations with the community, they told us very clearly that the centre has to represent the landscape and how it’s laid out — that it’s not just going to be cubes,” he said. “It’s going to be something very different — beautiful from the outside and the inside.”

Danish architect Dorte Mandrup’s award-winning proposal for the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre sees the building gently emerging from the Arctic landscape.

Renderings courtesy Dorte Mandrup

This custom approach is a far cry from the one-size-fits-all building boom launched by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in the 1950s. Under  his watch, some 1,200 “matchbox houses” — essentially one-room plywood shacks — were hastily built for Inuit families, a paradigm that unsurprisingly proved to be an abject failure. The following years brought more ambitious design ideas, but from an overtly Euro-Canadian perspective. The federal government’s chief architect devised the futuristic “New Town I, Frobisher Bay,” as Iqaluit was then called. A self-contained mini-community, it was designed to house a thousand people — and all the goods and services they might need in life — within a cluster of interconnected 12-storey towers. As Sheppard and White write in Many Norths, “The fact that these practitioners viewed the environment as inhospitable when seen through the lens of their home climates illuminates a missed opportunity to collaborate with residents and address their specific needs.” 

The principals of Whitehorse-based Kobayashi + Zedda Architects are even more critical of the existing built landscape of the Canadian Arctic and the rigid adherence to building codes and standards developed elsewhere. “The modern north was built by military and industrial interests, two organizations that consider community-building and housing as afterthoughts,” says Jack Kobayashi. “We have inherited a completely inappropriate street network and housing typology, which is akin to inheriting an old gas-guzzler from your grandparents.” 

A vision for Iqaluit, called “New Town 1, Frobisher Bay,” made the cover of The Canadian Architect in 1958. It was premised on housing towers equipped with amenities so that residents would rarely have to brave the outdoors.

I know what he means. During two recent fortnight-long trips to Iqaluit, I stayed at Astro Hill, an architecturally mundane version of the New Town series built in stages from the late 1960s through the ’70s. Astro Hill comprises a mid-rise apartment building, hotel, pub, cinema, grocery store, and smattering of offices and retailers, all connected internally by common spaces and corridors. It is such an anomaly in sprawling, low-rise Iqaluit that it’s known not by its formal name but by its built form: Everyone in town simply calls it the Eight-Storey. 

On paper, and to a southern city-slicker, it seems logical: Stay out of the cold, live your whole week — your whole life, even — away from the minus-thirty January climate. By day, I wandered through a grim labyrinth of windowless corridors or stared out the small window of the compact apartment; evenings, we would hear through the thin interior walls our neighbours’ heated conversations or passionate encounters. Throughout the night, the rumble of the elevator down the hall pockmarked our sleep as shift workers and nighthawks returned to the lair. 

The Iqaluit Aquatic Centre, by Carscadden Stokes McDonald Architects and Stantec, protects the permafrost while delivering a statement-making form.

Building high and close together is a southern-centric solution. Traditionally, the Inuit way of life and inhabitation involves spreading out on the land. So the mid-to-high-rise labyrinth is a dud paradigm for the Arctic. But keeping up with the burgeoning housing demand is a perennial challenge, leading in some instances to haphazard sprawl and, in most cases, to orthogonal kit houses that don’t project a sense of place. “The real priority is more community stakeholder and Indigenous involvement in the design of projects,” says Josh Armstrong, an Iqaluit-based architect with Stantec. 

Armstrong worked on both the Iqaluit Aquatic Centre and on St. Jude’s Cathedral, the social and spiritual nucleus for many residents. Ron Thom designed the original cathedral in 1970 as an igloo-like hemisphere furnished by local Inuit artisans, but it was tragically destroyed by fire in 2005. The replacement cathedral — like Thom’s design, based on a dome — was completed by FSC Architects & Engineers (now owned by Stantec) in 2012; the architect of record is Harriet Burdett-Moulton, a Métis woman. Like the original cathedral, its creation involved a critical mass of local involvement and, not coincidentally, it seems well-used and well-loved by the community. For government-issue housing and public buildings, however, that kind of outreach had not been standard practice — until recently. 

St. Jude’s Cathedral, by FSC Architects & Engineers, replaced a beloved (and similarly domed) building by Ron Thom that was destroyed in a fire.

A concerted effort to engage local end-users early in the design process has been key to the success of the Aquatic Centre and the Iqaluit International Airport (also designed by Stantec), which double as social connectors. “Architecture is evolving in Iqaluit, because that Indigenous voice is pushing for change,” says Armstrong, whose spouse is Inuit — which helps him understand the culture a little more every day, he says. 

The most visually striking work of recent architecture is the 2018 Nunavut Arctic College Expansion, whose sculpted roofline evokes the topology of the surrounding region. Inside is a dramatic circular common space, warm wood cladding and a profusion of daylight in every corner. The cafeteria is off the main foyer, in keeping with the local tradition of making food preparation and communal dining a privileged place. 

Teeple’s design team sourced materials — pre-finished wood siding, super-insulated walls and triple-glazed windows — based on endurance and insulating quality that would be overkill in the south. And yet cedar, which architects usually avoid as an exterior cladding, given its propensity to rot,  turned out to be a viable choice in this hybrid construction; like much of the Arctic, the region around Iqaluit is as dry as a desert. Rainscreen features that would be imperative in the south are useless in the Arctic. Instead, the design team had to configure the piles and massing in such a way that snow wouldn’t gather along the walls. Overall, the high-powered passive-design approach helps to ensure the building stays in shape long after the architects leave town. Six years after its construction, it looks and feels like new. 

The Nunavut Arctic College Expansion by Teeple Architects (here and below) is a spirit-lifting addition to an existing building.

The greatest testament to the power of good architecture is the stroll from the addition into the original building: Both physically and mentally, my comfort level plunged from high to low as I entered the dim, prison-like corridor of the older structure. “Is that the form you want for your education — a long corridor where people are isolated?” asks Stephen Teeple, rhetorically, “or a more social setting, focused on food, that brings people together?” 

As the stakes grow higher for maintaining physically and socially healthy communities along our Northern perimeter, so does the need for regionally appropriate architecture that’s built for the long term and informed by the local context. The region’s historically traditional construction materials have been bone, skin, stone — and snow. All four materials are highly impractical for contemporary building — or are they? Verne Reimer Architecture and Lateral Office designed the newly completed Wellness Hub with scooped-out spaces on its second floor, which serve as balconies in the summer and capture snow in the winter. The design team hopes that the snow that accumulates on the balcony-scoops will help insulate the building. For now, it’s speculation — but it’s low-risk experimentation. 

“Whenever you can, smart construction means using simple, basic, reparable pieces,” says White. “When you cannot, it’s smart to use components that can be serviced on a regular basis.” Unlike large cities in the south, where trades and repair personnel are usually easy to find, small remote communities rarely have the skilled technicians living nearby to fix ailing building stock. “What we really need are new ways to co-design and collaborate with local people and allow local leaders to lead,” White continues. “We can’t just say: ‘Well, I just designed this fancy new building, so let’s crane it in and then wish everyone good luck.’ ” 

Few women have had as much influence on Canadian architecture as Shirley Blumberg and Marianne McKenna. As founding partners of KPMB Architects, McKenna and Blumberg broke boundaries. At the time, they were among the first female leaders in architecture. In their 38 years of practice, their work across North America has spanned scales and typologies. From Ponderosa Commons at the University of British Columbia to Toronto’s Koerner Hall to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery expansion in Halifax, their work as individuals is grounded in shared values: sustainability, equity and design excellence. It is no wonder, then, that the firm has garnered hundreds of well-earned accolades, including 18 Governor General’s medals, 12 AIA Awards and four AZ Awards, to name just a few. Today, Blumberg and McKenna raised the bar once again with their 2025 RAIC Gold Medal win, becoming some of the first women in history to receive Canada’s highest honour in architecture.

Four decades into their careers, they don’t show any signs of slowing down: Both Blumberg and McKenna have career-defining projects underway, including the Montreal Holocaust Museum and Yale School of Drama, respectively. With their hard-earned knowledge as a guide, they are also laser-focused on writing the next chapter of KPMB’s history, ensuring the practice is well-prepared to take on whatever challenges may come next. At this milestone, we caught up with Blumberg and McKenna to discuss the ethos behind their work and the biggest lessons they’ve learned along the way:

Shirley Blumberg

Marianne McKenna

First of all, I want to congratulate you both on receiving this honour. How does it feel to have your work recognized at this level?

TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning/Koerner Hall. PHOTO: Tom Arban

In its nearly 60-year history, just a handful of women have been awarded the RAIC Gold Medal (most recently, Blanche Lemko van Ginkel won the award in 2020, and Brigitte Shim won the following year with her partner Howard Sutcliffe). What does this honour mean to you — and to all women in architecture?

Allied Music Centre/Massey Hall Renovation and Expansion. PHOTO: Scott Norsworthy

Having worked so closely together throughout your career, you must have learned a great deal from each other along the way. How do your approaches to practice differ and what do you admire most about each other?

Harrison McCain Pavilion, Beaverbrook Art Gallery. PHOTO: Doublespace

What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about design leadership?

Ponderosa Commons, University of British Columbia. PHOTO: Courtesy of KPMB Architects

Looking back at your four decades of practice, is there a particular project that felt like a defining moment in your career?

Montreal Holocaust Museum. PHOTO: Courtesy of KPMB Architects

What is your vision for the next chapter of KPMB? How will the firm continue to evolve with the forces that are shaping this industry?

Hospitality was the hot topic at the January 2025 edition of IDS Toronto, where industry heavyweights like Denizens of Design and Yabu Pushelberg presented their visions for the hotel of the future in the feature exhibit “Night & Day.” (Their respective takeaways: Front desks are out and sultry red bars are in.) Meanwhile, Toronto proved to be a gracious host to visitors like Salone del Mobile president Maria Porro, who flew in from Milan to deliver a rousing keynote. Out-of towners continued to supply fresh perspective during the 10-day DesignTO Festival that followed, where “Ensemble,” a group show organized by a motley crew of Montrealers, earned top marks for transforming the Plumb’s otherwise drab subterranean gallery into a surreal dreamscape. One room boasted a sci-fi glow, and another was draped in a Lynchian curtain; throughout both, chair and lighting designs embraced delightfully strange silhouettes.

As DesignTO continued, two different approaches dominated. On the one hand, many designers provided welcome antidotes to the stresses of 2025. Mason Studio teamed up with the meditation experts at Othership to launch a “sensory odyssey” that quickly sold out. But other exhibitors followed in the footsteps of “Ensemble” by translating unease into physical forms. Chairs that looked intimidating at first — featuring seats covered in pink spikes or wooden knobs — soon revealed themselves to be unexpectedly accommodating thrones. 

The world has stopped being a gracious host. We can seek temporary escape in spas and vacations, but eventually, we must confront our anxiety head-on. Perhaps by doing so, we may even find ourselves better equipped to endure it. As the “Buy Canadian” movement gains momentum, there’s solace to be found in the fact that so many designers are delivering creative, well-crafted coping mechanisms.

1

The Invisible Tide by Mason Studio

Photo by Andrew Williamson

Hosted in Mason’s own office (which frequently doubles as an exhibition venue), this immersive installation combined cinematic lighting by Mulvey & Banani, an A/V projection by Seeing into the Unknown and a mossy scent by CBCB Fragrances. Visitors sat on a platform surrounded by a pool of water as a guide from Othership led a mindfulness session.

2

The Spa by Rollout and Coolab

Image by Kristopher Grunert

At IDS’s “Night & Day” exhibition, Rollout and Coolab anticipated the next wave of wellness design with a shipping container wallpapered to resemble an amethyst — a jagged gemstone that nevertheless boasts calming properties. Mirrored surfaces and an ethereal soundscape amplified the space’s tranquil power.

3

Soft Spikes by Cait Kalb

Held at Stackt Market, the DesignTO exhibition “About Time” showcased work by five Sheridan College grads who had their 2021 thesis show cancelled by the pandemic. Cait Kalb’s appropriately spiky standout used hot pink velvet to subvert otherwise hostile shapes. Thankfully, anyone brave enough for a torture test found its thorns made for ultra-soft cushioning.

4

Knob by Alison Postma

Theraguns may be all the rage today, but lower-tech wooden massage instruments have long boasted their own soothing powers. Shown at IDS, Alison Postma’s prototype scales these sculptural tools up into a piece of furniture. While the seat and backrest may resemble a bed of oversized wooden nails at first, they nevertheless support the body’s contours with satisfying grace.

5

Tom by Reggyyy

Photo by Simon S. Belleau

Another surprisingly comfortable chair, this friendly, creature-like living room companion by Montreal designer Reggy St-Surin has already been on a world tour, debuting at last year’s Stockholm Furniture Fair before winning a Best of Launch Pad award at ICFF 2024. Its latest stop: “Ensemble” during DesignTO, where it grew its fan base in bright red.

6

Cake by Found

Feeling patriotic (or just pragmatic) in the face of U.S. tariff threats? Over the past five years, Montreal-based brand Found has launched a full catalogue of made-in-Canada furnishings, several of which were on view in “Ensemble.” This powder-coated aluminum light shade featuring charming pinched ends is available in five colours and three sizes.

7

Alta Metallic Mota by Yury Goncharov

CNC-milled with a metallic chrome finish, Yury Goncharov’s sinuous design sits right at the intersection of fantasy and reality. While it was inspired by Isaac Newton’s theories about the earth’s rotation and kinetic energy, the end result is just as likely to recall comic book superhero the Silver Surfer, who cruises through space on a matching metal surfboard.

8

Pearl by Devansh Shah

Modelled after an organic shape yet created using digital tools, Devansh Shah’s jewel-like beacon of light secures a frosted glass globe to a 3D-printed PLA base. An Open Studio event in Liberty Village charted the table lamp’s development process from early sketches to finished product, which retails for $250.

9

Buis by Le Tenon et La Mortaise

Exhibiting in the Studio North section of IDS, Quebec woodworking duo Benoit St-Jean and Caroline Roberge highlighted their Bosquet collection inspired by the soft curves of bucolic garden groves. This combination side table–stool is made from solid Canadian Douglas fir and is available in a natural finish or with lilac or green stains.

10

Roxanne by Montauk Sofa

Unveiled at IDS in a snaking eight-metre-long configuration, Montauk Sofa’s latest modular system (available with both straight and curved components) demonstrated the mood-boosting power of chocolate-toned velvet — and probably also inspired a few people to cue up one of The Police’s greatest hits.

The exhibition installed at Toronto showroom Standard Shop this week has been no less than 10 years in the making. Last week, the lighting dealership cleared away its usual mix of designs for a full takeover by Vancouver manufacturer A-N-D, staged to commemorate the brand’s first decade in the lighting industry. And what a decade it has been. The retrospective, dubbed “10 Years Later” (a follow-up to a similar showcase displayed at Vancouver’s Inform last fall) retraces A-N-D’s trajectory from the early days of LED technology through to recent hits like the Iris floor lamp.

Founded in 2014 by designers Caine Heintzman and Lukas Peet alongside business director Matt Davis, A-N-D is an acronym for “A New Detail.” As that name might suggest, the beauty of the brand’s approach often lies in the attention that it pays to technical components. In turn, “10 Years Later” places special focus on the inner workings that power A-N-D’s creations, all of which are assembled in its home base of Vancouver.

Caine Heintzman

Lukas Peet

Matt Davis

While the end results are plenty sculptural, their forms are primarily driven by a quest to maximize quality of light and deliver intriguing illumination effects. The vision seems to be working. In 2023, two A-N-D designs (the eyeball-like Iris pendant and the architectural Column) were selected by our AZ Awards jury as Award of Merit recipients — a rare feat for a single manufacturer. Iris and Column are also two of the stars of “10 Years Later,” displayed in their finished form as well as dissected into their core components. But perhaps the real pièce de résistance is a glowing screen assembled from the modules that compose A-N-D’s Vale series.

A-N-D opened “10 Years Later” with a jam-packed IDS Toronto afterparty on a chilly Friday night, when the warm glow of its lights proved especially comforting. (To help everyone layer up for the walk home, the evening also included a custom party favour: a commemorative Reigning Champ T-shirt.) Before the party kicked off, we sat down with Heintzman, Peet and Davis to reflect on the milestone that had inspired the big bash.

Iris (left) and Vale

1

Origins

How did the three of you initially connect?

Building off that, what were your initial ambitions when you started A-N-D 10 years ago?

What was the biggest challenge with starting your own company rather than trying to license your designs?

Components from Column

2

Evolution

You’ve gained a lot of exposure from shows like Euroluce, ICFF, 3DaysofDesign and Alcova. How have those played into your strategy in terms of building a global brand?

Column

Vale

How have you felt your approach evolve from your initial designs to some of your latest launches?

You source components from vendors in North America, Europe and Asia, and assemble everything in Vancouver. What have you learned from taking such a hands-on approach to production?

Pipeline (top) and Iris

Iris

One of your latest launches is a floor lamp version of Iris, which originally debuted in 2021 as a pendant. How did you go about adapting the design into this new form?

Column

3

Recognition

How did you plan what’s on view in your 10 Years Later installation?

What comes to mind as you look at some of the photos that you have included in the installation from your early days?

In 10 years, you’ve managed to become one of the rare Canadian brands that’s recognized by a large international audience. How has it felt to have your designs resonate with the global market as well as they have?

Even though you have this global impact, you’re also a Vancouver brand at heart, and I’m sure that the fact that you do all your design and assembly in Canada resonates with Canadian customers. Do you see that contributing to A-N-D’s identity?

Can you share any teasers about the three new collections you’ll be launching in Milan this April?

A preview of an upcoming A-N-D launch.

Images by Gabriel Cabrera

Architecture is a vessel for cultural expression. From Douglas Cardinal’s Canadian Museum of History and Raymond Moriyama’s Science North to John and Patricia Patkau’s Audain Art Gallery, the country’s public galleries and museums claim a leading place in the national design discourse, providing a civic lens through which we understand culture, art, history, and nature. Yet, across Canada, the lens is seldom inverted; our galleries and museum programs rarely focus on architecture. Fortunately, there are notable exceptions. Last fall, I visited the elegant KPMB-designed Harrison McCain Pavilion at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton. And for once, I wasn’t there for the building.

In October, the Beaverbrook unveiled “Omar Gandhi Architects,” a months-long exhibit — which ran until early 2024 — chronicling the work of the eponymous Halifax- and Toronto-based firm. Curated by art and architecture historian John Leroux, the assembly of photos and architectural models created an eclectic procession through forms and geography across the country. Crouching down, I immediately recognize the vaulted ceiling of Toronto’s Prime Seafood Palace in exquisite miniature, nestled alongside houses like Rabbit Snare Gorge, Sluice Point, and many more, as well as recent public projects like the accessible viewing platform at Peggy’s Cove, and — at the heart of the room — the striking, albeit politically stalled, vision for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Curated by John Leroux, “Omar Gandhi Architects” was exhibited at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery until early 2024. PHOTO: Julia Parkinson

The next morning, I met Omar Gandhi over coffee and cinnamon buns. A Governor General’s Medal in Architecture winner — not to mention a multiple AZ Awards laureate, among numerous other accolades — Gandhi leads one of Canada’s most celebrated design firms, with an ouevre that ranges across architectural typologies and also includes standout industrial design, furniture, and — most recently — lighting. In a country where opportunities for young architects are scarce, Gandhi has successfully leveraged a boutique residential portfolio into high-profile public commissions. How’d he do it? And how does his coherent design sensibility translate from furniture and lighting to restaurant interiors, houses, and civic spaces? Also, what’s Matty Matheson like? But for starters, how does it feel to be the focus of a public exhibition?

At the centre of the room, a model for the ambitious transformation of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. PHOTO: Julia Parkinson

Yet, Gandhi was gracefully reticent to dominate the focus — or speak with singular authority. While Omar Gandhi Architects began as a one-person practice, today, “it’s fundamentally a team project,” he stressed. So how does he do it? “Not alone.” Understanding the studio’s work and approach means taking a wider view. “Our design work isn’t something that just comes from me. It emerges out of collaboration, starting with our leadership team: Stephanie Hosein, Jordan Rice, and Jeff Shaw,” he said. “To get what we’re all about, you’ve got to talk to them, too.” So that’s what I did. Over the next few months, I also spoke to each of the firm’s senior associates, with all four conversations distilled into the insights below.

I

Design Origins

Stephanie Hosein attended Dalhousie University and received the AIA Henry Adams certificate and RAIC High Honour Roll upon graduation with her M.Arch. Her wide range of project experience in both new construction and adaptive re-use includes commercial, hospitality, residential, offices and higher education. She is a founding member of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), an independent organization dedicated to the promotion of diversity and equality in the profession of architecture.

Jeff Shaw first encountered architecture growing up in Herring Cove, Nova Scotia while working on construction projects in the summer with his grandfather. He went on to complete his Master of Architecture at Dalhousie University. It was there that he developed his interests in how people interact with the built environment at all scales – from the small, tactile elements to the formal and massing qualities. Jeff started at Omar Gandhi Architects as part of his M.Arch. internship, and joined the practice shortly after graduation in 2012.

Omar Gandhi is a Canadian architect, born in Toronto and raised in Brampton and currently practicing and residing in both Halifax, Nova Scotia and Toronto, Ontario. After studying in the Regional Arts program at Mayfield Secondary School (Caledon) and then the inaugural Architectural Studies Program at the University of Toronto, Omar moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia where he received his Master’s degree in 2005 at Dalhousie University.

Jordan Rice has built success through combining a calm and steadfast approach with extensive knowledge of construction, experienced project delivery, and a collaborative design sensibility. He has held pivotal roles in designing a range of institutional, commercial, residential, and civic projects. Jordan joined Omar Gandhi Architects in 2018, after accumulating over 10 years of experience with award-winning firms in Canada and France.

II

The Architecture of Collaboration

The much-lauded Prime Seafood Palace saw Omar Gandhi Architects pick up an AZ Award in 2023, among many other accolades. PHOTO: Adrian Ozimek

Designed to repel water, the sloping roof of Treow Brycg (2018) house on Nova Scotia’s stormy South Shore melds into a canted facade. PHOTO: Ema Peter

III

New Horizons

A breakout public commission for Omar Gandhi Architects, the Peggy’s Cove Viewing Platform (2021) incorporates ramps, hand-rails and tactile indicators to transform a challenging landscape into an accessible attraction. PHOTO: Maxime Brouillet

The OG Brick light was initially developed for Gandhi’s own residence, and was launched in 2024.

Drawing on the wave-like shape found in metal cladding, the sine-shaped curved profile of 18 ga. serves as a unique reflector, subtly elevating lighting quality while casting shadows and depth.

Portraits by Vanessa Heins.

Shane Laptiste and Tura Cousins Wilson have had a year for the books. Over the early months of 2023, the co-founders of Toronto’s Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA) were lauded with the RAIC’s Emerging Architectural Practice Award, as well as the Canada Council’s Professional Prix de Rome, while also playing a prominent role in Canada’s thought-provoking entry to the Venice Biennale of Architecture. But when we floated the idea of a magazine profile, the young architects were quick to emphasize that their achievements are fundamentally a community endeavour.

It called for a wider-spanning conversation. A couple of months later, a group convened in Azure’s office with senior editor Stefan Novakovic. Laptiste and Cousins Wilson were joined by fellow multihyphenate designers Farida Abu-Bakare and Reza Nik, as well as urban planner Cheryll Case and — via FaceTime from Munich — visual artist and musician Curtis Talwst Santiago. As the conversation unfolded, the tally of vital connections quickly mounted, and the names of their frequent collaborators — from Tiffany Shaw to Tei Carpenter — kept coming. In a field where competition is fierce and authorship and acclaim are jealously guarded, the mutual passion for sharing credit and amplifying the power of community feels refreshing, even transgressive.

Shane Laptiste, Tura Cousins Wilson, Cheryll Case, Farida Abu-Bakare and Reza Nik (left to right) are joined by Curtis Talwst Santiago [portrait by David Plas] via FaceTime.

The openness to collaboration also reflects a distinctly vocal, civic-minded sensibility. From teaching and mentorship to public outreach and professional engagement — whether through local events or professional groups like Black Architects and Interior Designers Association (BAIDA) and the Architecture Lobby — the group also shares a commitment to creating a more inclusive and just design profession, opening doors for emerging practitioners from diverse and marginalized backgrounds. After all, success has many architects — not to mention artists, activists and planners.

A PLACE OF ABUNDANCE

TURA: Something that Shane and I have been talking about recently — which ties into collaboration — is operating from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. If you’re operating from scarcity, you hoard opportunities. Yet I think there is actually a lot of work out there, and especially if you’re expanding upon what might be seen as traditional work for an architect to be doing. Our work on Alexandra Park, for example, started as a critique published in Azure, and even though we didn’t do it for a client, it opened up a lot of conversations.

SOCA is also designing an exhibition at the Gardiner Museum [“Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects” opened October 19]. And Reza’s doing art installations like Nuit Blanche — and work at The Bentway [the linear park under Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway] with Tei Carpenter. I think architects are generally pretty well trained to cross over into these adjacent disciplines. And there’s curatorial projects like Dr. Kenneth Montague’s new exhibition at MOCA [“Dancing in the Light,” on until February 4, 2024], which Farida curated.

CURTIS: Tura and I met through Dr. Kenneth Montague, too — he was actually our dentist. He’s retired now and he’s full-time in the art world. And then we really got to know each other through music. We’d sit together in a room and sonically just create, create, create. It’s so nice to be at ease with someone to allow your creativity to just go; it’s not something that can be forced or really orchestrated. It’s all been a natural progression since then.

FARIDA: Art is also so much more fast-moving than architecture. It’s able to be more temporal and to meet the moment. I think of the social movement of 2020, and redefining the African diaspora identity globally, and everyone pivoting and translating that into contemporary art. And contemporary African artists were transforming their work from 2D to 3D to pavilions and structural elements. Seeing Theaster Gates’s work on the [2022] Serpentine Pavilion in London, for example — that’s a role that’s never been done by an artist. And seeing those lines get blurred allows us an opportunity to redefine what architecture is.

But creatively, Canadian design still feels restricted, because we’re not allowing communities to define what our environments should look like. And I think if we reach out to more artists and collaborate with them more locally, the future of Canadian architecture starts to become more forward-thinking and more exciting.

Tura Cousins Wilson is co-founder of the Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA), an architecture and design studio dedicated to inclusive city-building and public beauty. Tura is also an avid drummer and a member of the Leslieville Residents’ Association, where he undertakes many community projects.

Curtis Talwst Santiago works in multiple media to examine questions of memory, ancerstry and diasporic imagination. The Edmonton-born, Germany-based artist and musician’s works weave historical, familial and speculative narratives together to questions colonial frameworks and celebrated forgotten forms of knowledge.

SHANE: It also means connecting — and collaborating — with communities and breaking out of the moulds of academic practice. Rebecca Taylor and I taught a studio last semester at McGill, working in a historically Black neighbourhood in Montreal. Until then, many of the students never had an opportunity to actually think about the role of an architect as someone who’s listening to people — and then using those conversations to think through what spaces can be and how they can be supported.

CHERYLL: One of the greatest gifts that architects bring to us urban planners is visualizing what the future can look like. To conceptualize and imagine something is one thing, but to lay that down in a drawing or rendering is very empowering for communities.

Much of the work that I’ve been doing with SOCA — in Toronto’s Little Jamaica, for example — and with Reza, as well as with other architects, is about allowing communities to see how what they’re imagining can be made real. And design is an important tool to engage the community — and even the government — and say “This is what we want to do.”

REZA: Something that always bothered me was the insularity of the architectural profession — a culture of making things for other architects to look at. People look for architects to praise other architects’ work without regard for what the general public thinks, or the communities that you’re building for. But I think there’s growth happening, and I hope it’s finally starting to change.

FARIDA: It’s tough to break out of that. But even just trying to spend more time within your community and finding more time with family and the people you love and finding joy — that allows you to create so much more.

Farida Abu-Bakare is director of global practice at WXY and a co-founder of BAIDA (Black Architects and Interiors Designers Association) Canada. She is also a lecturer at the University of Toronto and has served as a critic at the Yale School of Architecture. Farida is also the co-curator and designer of “Dancing in the Light,” a portrait exhibition drawn from Kenneth Montague’s Wedge Collection.

Shane Laptiste is a co-founder of the Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA) and has served as an instructor at the McGil University and Athabasca University. A licensed architect with over 15 years of experience, he has overseen a range of project types dedicated to community spaces, particularly non-profit organizations creating affordable housing and gathering places.

BREAKING BARRIERS

SHANE: You need privilege to make it in architecture. And it starts at school, because it’s a career where you’re not going to make a lot of money — and you need connections to actually start something. And there are all of these structures that basically ensure only people of significant means can thrive.

REZA: One of my students was telling me today, “I work every day.” She’s supporting herself with a job, and that takes her out of the equation of pulling all-nighters, and so she can’t put the same number of hours into it.

FARIDA: It’s this militarization of architecture. I remember that mentality of “You can’t not be here.” You need to be in the studio full-time and fully committed to this experience, which needs to take up all your time. That’s what we were all taught.

TURA: We had these T-shirts with the slogan “Sleep is for the weak.” And one time I actually fell asleep at the band saw, making a model.

FARIDA: So we have to be committed to a little bit of activism, a little bit of academia, a little bit of art — and of course community. A big part of BAIDA is championing architects and designers of diverse backgrounds. My dream is having Ghanaian students and people from West Africa come and complete school in Canada — anyone who has their master’s — and be able to pursue working here. But there are lots of additional hurdles for foreign-trained architects.

Cheryll Case is the founder and executive director of CP Planning, a non-profit practice dedicated to implementing a human rights approach to community planning. She has also served as a sessional professor at the University of Waterloo and was co-editor of the book House Divided: How the Missing Middle Will Solve Toronto’s Housing Crisis.

Reza Nik is an architect, artist and educator working at the intersection of community and culture — and the founding director of SHEEEP, an experimental architecture studio based in Toronto. He is also an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design; and a founding member of the Architecture Lobby’s Toronto chapter.

REZA: And then you look at the exploitation happening in architectural labour. Part of what we’re trying to do with the Architecture Lobby is to figure out how to collectivize and unionize the profession, to help expand bargaining power for architectural workers. And the other aspect that I’ve been interested in is sharing the knowledge about starting your own practice, which is something I’m trying to do through my practice, SHEEEP. I don’t think we all need to compete with each other; we have to be collaborative and transparent about the business of architecture too.

CHERYLL: As someone starting out with an independent practice [CP Planning], I’d say that in my experience, you have to punch way above your weight. Especially as a young Black woman, I had to exceed expectations in every single project that I received. And that was incredibly difficult. I’m glad that I was able to continue to push and I was very fortunate to have people in my corner who expressed support. But financial validation didn’t come until about six years into the whole process.

TURA: Once you start a practice, there’s definitely a lot of barriers. There’s this whole crisis in architectural procurement and how to make room for the smaller fish. And then as we’re having all of these conversations about missing-middle housing, I think there’s also a missing middle of clients in North America. So you get really amazing architects that get stuck at the private residential scale, which is the type of work that’s least able to address social issues. You’re basically doing kitchen renovations, or if you’re really lucky, a home addition. And then there are the big projects like apartment towers, institutional buildings — which are very difficult to break into — with not much in between.

REZA: Something like The Bentway is an interesting model. They’re willing to experiment with ideas. And it’s like, “Hey, here’s a two-year prototype. Let’s see how it goes.” I first applied to do an installation in 2020 and put together a proposal really quickly. The second time, I partnered with Tiffany Shaw and SOCA and we actually got shortlisted.

And then Tei Carpenter from New York’s Agency—Agency got approached to submit a proposal, and she reached out to me to partner. [Carpenter and Nik’s Staging Grounds installation opened in September and will be on display until 2025.] I think we need more organizations like that, which introduce architects to the public realm and the civic bureaucracy.

Five practitioners shaping the future of Canadian architecture.

CHERYLL: The public sector has a responsibility to create these types of opportunities and to support the creativity of those who’ve been traditionally excluded. The Bentway is a great example, but it can start small. In Little Jamaica, for example, they have a farmers’ market every Sunday in the summer. And I think that’s another critical way that the city has been able to support groups and create cultural opportunities, and it creates economic opportunities as well.

TURA: Seeing these kinds of changes also opens you up to the amount of possibility here in Toronto. I don’t know if Toronto will necessarily ever be an architecturally beautiful place — it’s kind of a cheap city, to a large degree, and there are a lot of problems — but there’s a special energy here. Whether it’s what’s happening in Little Jamaica, or even new community land trusts in Kensington Market, there’s a very grassroots, entrepreneurial spirit. Reza, you started your own thing. Cheryll, you just graduated from school and started doing it.

CHERYLL: I only started my own company because I couldn’t get a job! Nobody would hire me. And if they hired me, they wouldn’t give me anything to do. But you know what? It’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me.