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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Elsa Lam |Heather Dubbeldam |Jessie Mendoza
Groundwork Exhibition - Canadian Centre for ArchitecturemayAll DaysepGroundwork Exhibition - Canadian Centre for ArchitectureMontreal, QuebecmoreGroundwork is a three-part film and exhibition series exploring the conceptual development and field research of contemporary architects cultivating alternative modes of engagement with new project sites.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Pamela Young |Jessie Mendoza
“What do you feel is unique about your practice or process?” this year’s Twenty + Change entry form asked. “Every project, no matter its size or context, is a venture aimed at either confronting fundamental challenges or fostering experimentation,” Nonument founder Dom Cheng responded. For Cheng, gaining extensive experience at leading design firms was the run-up to that leap into investigation and experimentation. His 2005 entry in the University of Toronto’s portfolio competition for M.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Pamela Young |Jessie Mendoza
If it’s not one thing, it’s another–or better yet, a bit of both. Aránzazu González Bernardo, who is from Spain, and Michael Fohring, a Canadian, met when they were both working at an architectural practice in Austria. The couple, who founded Toronto-based Odami in 2017, describe themselves as two very stubborn people with very different architectural educations.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | John Lorinc |Jessie Mendoza
When Jim Siemens and Anna Ringstrom struck out on their own, the duo, who are partners in life and work, chose a firm name that reflected a worldview that prioritizes landscape—the term “oxbow” describes the lakes that form along meandering prairie rivers as they shift. Siemens often describes architecture as simply “a subset” of landscape architecture, Ringstrom’s discipline. “I think sometimes we, as architects, think of architecture as something grander,” he notes.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Elsa Lam |Jessie Mendoza
Every few years, we dedicate an issue to showcasing emerging talent. The following pages put the spotlight on 20 firms that our curatorial team chose for the contributions they’re making to the culture of Canadian architecture. It’s a small sampling of the many firms we feel are worth watching in the years to come. As someone in my mid-40s, I was interested to see that at least a half-dozen of the firms featured this year were founded by architects who had just turned 40.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Bernard Flaman |Tak Pham |Jessie Mendoza
This fall, an exhibition at Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery aims to bring the work of Kiyoshi Izumi—the earliest known Canadian architect of Japanese descent—into the public eye. Izumi (1921 – 1996) was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Japanese immigrant parents. His personal journey from Vancouver to Regina, following the 1942 introduction of Canada’s War Measures Act, was remarkable.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | John Lorinc |Jessie Mendoza
The trick to working in Whitehorse is to be connected to the place. The people, comments Jackie Burgess, who grew up in tiny Beaver Creek on the Alaska-Yukon border, “are incredibly friendly to visitors, and they’re incredibly friendly to each other.” You need to be when you share the cold and dark together. Partners Jackie Burgess and Chris Chevalier met while they were both studying at the University of Manitoba.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Pamela Young |Jessie Mendoza
Balance matters to Vanessa Fong. Whether the challenge is figuring out how to use natural materials to take the chill off clean, contemporary lines, or balancing family life with a demanding career, she’s given careful thought to getting the ratio right. In becoming an architect, she struck a balance between the careers her Asian-immigrant parents envisioned for her when she was growing up in Toronto—medicine and accounting were at the top of their list—and her own affinity for creative work.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Elsa Lam |Jessie Mendoza
In 1999, Rafael Santa Ana was a newly established architect in Mexico City, working on a team designing the tallest building in Latin America. He gave it all up to move to Canada, where he had to re-do his undergraduate degree, eventually complete a master’s, and finally become a registered architect. After more than a decade working first with Steve Cohlmeyer in Winnipeg and later with Russell Acton and Mark Ostry in Vancouver, he set out his own shingle.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
canadianarchitect.com | Pamela Young |Jessie Mendoza
In 2006, when Geneviève Noël saw T. Maginnis Cocivera’s competition-winning M.Arch thesis on sewage biofiltration, it was a meeting of environmentally aligned minds. Raised in Quebec’s trees-and-skis Eastern Townships, Noël grew up knowing that she was Québécoise with some Indigenous ancestry, with the latter largely assimilated into the former.
