Finding Middle Ground Design Competition

Pat Hanson (Founding Principal and Creative Director BFA MArch OAA AAA FRAIC) is a founding partner of gh3*. Under her leadership, the firm has established a reputation for design integrity across a range of building typologies and through all scales of practice. She is the architect of institutional, infrastructural and residential projects that create meaningful connections between architecture and landscape within the urban realm. Exemplary projects include the internationally recognized June Callwood Park in Toronto, the Trinity College Quadrangle at the University of Toronto, the Governor General's Medal-awarded projects Borden Park Pavilion and the Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool in Edmonton and the Cherry Street Storm Water Facility in Toronto.

Pat is an expert communicator of compelling design visions that are both environmentally and socially sustainable. She is a strong and insightful advocate for the potential for built form to rise above the merely functional, to integrate the pragmatic with the poetic, and to achieve an aesthetic impact that brings pleasure to everyday uses. For over 30 years, she has led clients and interdisciplinary design teams through complex programs, negotiating extensive public consultation processes to achieve internationally recognized, award-winning projects, whether at the scale of infrastructure or the sheltering of a community program.

Alfred Waugh (Architect AIBC, OAA, SAA, MRAIC, LEED AP Principal | Director) Recently elected to the College of Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Alfred specializes in culturally and environmentally sensitive projects and has extensive experience with Indigenous and Metis cultural societies, and educational institutions. He is the first Indigenous Architect to receive the Govenor’s General Medal in Architecture. Alfred is actively involved in the community and is the Co-Director of the RAIC Truth and Reconciliation Task Force. He was instrumental in bringing a motion to the 2020 RAIC AGM where the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights was unanimously accepted. He has recently been a juror on a number of awards programs including the Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence and the RAIC International prize.

Alfred is status Indian registered with the Fond Du Lac Band in Northern Saskatchewan. He was born and raised in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and was the first Indigenous person to graduate with honours from UBC School of Architecture in 1993. During his internship at Perkins & Wills (formerly Busby + Associates Architects), Alfred led the design team for the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, which attained numerous awards, including the Governor Generals Medal in Architecture. In 2005 Alfred established Alfred Waugh Architect, a 100 per cent Indigenous owned architecture practice. In 2012, Alfred incorporated the firm and changed the name to Formline Architecture + Urbanism Inc. The firm has developed a reputation for finely crafted cultural and sustainable buildings including the UBC Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, which garnered the first Governor Generals Medal for Architecture awarded to an Indigenous-owned firm. In recent years, the firm has branched out designing projects from coast to coast in Canada and Washington State.

Jennifer Fix is the founding principal of Ahne Studio, an urbanism and engagement practice specializing in policy planning and participatory design. She began her planning career nearly two decades ago at the City of Regina and has since worked as a consultant with dozens of communities across Canada on plans for downtowns, waterfronts, heritage districts, public spaces, neighbourhoods, and entire towns, cities, and regions. Her practice has taken her from small town main streets to some of the most significant redevelopment projects in Vancouver.

Recent projects range from a missing middle housing program for the City of Burnaby to cultural guidelines for Vancouver’s infill ʔəy̓alməxʷ/Iy̓álmexw/Jericho Land, the largest Indigenous-led real estate project in Canada. With her clients, her projects have been honoured with awards by the Canadian Institute of Canada, Planning Institute of BC, Union of BC Municipalities, Canadian Brownfield Network, and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

Rayleen Hill is the founding principal of RHAD Architects located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The firm just celebrated its 15th anniversary. Rayleen also serves as an occasional design studio sessional instructor and guest critic at Dalhousie University Architecture School. RHAD Architects undertakes a variety of projects across a variety of scales and budgets, including residential, commercial, and small community pavilions. The office has received four Lieutenant Governor's Awards and was recognized with the RAIC Emerging Architect Award in 2017. The firm's beginnings were marked with a winning competition entry for a Skating Pavilion in the North Saskatchewan River Valley in Edmonton. The office has designed numerous houses that are net zero, net zero ready, or meet passive house standards.

Regardless of the project size or budget, Rayleen believes that design must extend beyond the built form itself and into the environment it informs, the lives it impacts and the community it truly empowers. It’s not just about the obvious spaces, but also the spaces in-between.

Chris Weibe is a founding partner of AtLRG Architecture, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The firm focuses on mixed-use urban infill projects, including adaptive re-use of heritage buildings, as well as the conversion of vacant downtown office towers into residential apartments.

AtLRG revels in the challenges of historic oddities, present complexities and future visions of their home city. As their work is increasingly concentrated on housing, their core methodology of employing a rational, minimalist design approach, with the imperative of achieving more with less, has proven beneficial. AtLRG view local economic constraints as opportunities for innovation that give rise to unexpected and exciting results. The team insists all of their work, large or small, permanent or ephemeral, should serve, elevate and enrich the lives of people.