The winners of this year's Architizer A+ Awards are out.

Now in its 11th year, the A+ Awards are intended to "honor the world's best architecture and spaces." And supposedly, it is also the world's largest (119 categories) and most democratic architectural awards program. I don't know, I read that here.

I went through the list of winners this evening (okay, I skimmed this Urban Toronto article), and I'm now excited to report that 13 Canadian projects/firms won an award -- either a Jury Award, a Popular Choice Award, or a Special Mention.

I'm also excited to announce that one of the winners is our One Delisle project. It is the Jury Winner for best unbuilt multi-unit housing project (over 10 floors). Awesome!

If you'd like to see the full list of winners, click here.

Back in 2020/2021 when we were getting ready to launch sales for One Delisle, the team came up with the idea of pill-shaped kitchen islands for our residences. 

What that means is we wanted to use perfect semi-circles on both ends. We didn’t want oval islands. We didn’t want distorted semi-circles. We wanted islands shaped like pills!

We felt these opened up the kitchens and also looked really unique. So with Studio Gang and the rest of the team, we proceeded to design a few different types.

We needed ones that would work for smaller suites, we needed ones that would work for larger suites, and we needed to accommodate breakfast bars/seating.

When we approached Scavolini Toronto about this idea their first response was, “we’ve never done this before. It would be a first.”

However, their second response was, “but we’ll figure it out with you.” And based on this response, we built (by hand) a pill-shaped island for our condominium sales gallery, and then included them as part of One Delisle.

Fast forward to 2023 and we are now in the “let’s figure it out phase”. This week we reviewed the very first production prototypes in Scavolini’s factory in Pesaro.

They are everything we could have hoped for, and we are thrilled that Scavolini was a willing partner in this endeavor.

It’s not easy doing new things in construction. The smallest things can (usually?) end up being a lot more work. But it all feels worth it when you get to see the results.

One of the things that I have wanted to do since I was in architecture school was visit the Venice Biennale. Partially because I would hear people say, " so and so exhibited at the Biennale this year", and that made it sound cool. But mostly because it's the oldest cultural exhibition of its kind in the world -- it was inaugurated in 1895 -- and because there's an entire section of it dedicated to architecture. So I'm excited to say that it looks like this month is going to be the month.

The way I am told the Venice Biennale of Architecture works is that there are two main components. There are the national pavilions in the Biennale Gardens, and there is the Arsenale, which is where lots of different nations exhibit under one roof. Canada is one of the 29 countries that has its own pavilion and, if you aren't familiar with its history, it's worth watching this short video:

At the time of writing this post, it only had 277 views, so I'm guessing that most of you have not seen it. I felt patriotic when I watched it, because the purpose of these pavilions is that they host each country's official representation during the Biennale. It's Canada to the world and that makes me proud. This year, Canada is being represented by Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA) with an exhibit called "Not for Sale!"

Here's an excerpt from the project description:

Real estate speculation is a form of extortion. It converts homes into spatio-financial assets, changing the form, function, and aesthetics of housing to better serve the logics of wealth storage and speculation. The process is violent, resulting in an urban environment that is racist, sexist, and classist at a systemic level. This global phenomenon is nowhere more visible than in Canada, a country whose economy is now dominated by real estate.

In other words, it looks like the pavilion is going to be turned into a scathing criticism of what I do for a living: real estate development. How neat! The other neat thing about the Venice Biennale is that One Delisle is going to be featured in an exhibition called, "Reconceptualizing Urban Housing." Our team has been working on this project with Studio Gang since 2016, and so it's a great honor to have it recognized on such a global stage.

It also means that the Venice Biennale is going to simultaneously tell me that my work is doing some amount of good for Toronto, and that I'm also contributing to racism, sexism, and classism at a systemic level. I can't wait.