The Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) is pleased to announce the selected projects for the first-ever SHIFT 2019 Infrastructure/Architecture Challenge. Meant to spur thinking and conversation about the intersection between architecture and societal issues, the SHIFT Challenge called upon Ontario architects to demonstrate how architectural thinking can promote social equity, reduce isolation and embody social justice.
Held every second year, SHIFT will alternate with the OAA?s Design Excellence Awards, which focus on recognizing outstanding work in the industry.
?The SHIFT Challenge reflects the importance of the built environment in people?s lives,? says Kathleen Kurtin, OAA President. ?Introducing this program as a complement to our usual design awards is an important demonstration of our abilities as a profession to confront challenging problems that extend beyond individual projects into the broader built environment.? For the inaugural year, OAA selected a theme that affects every Ontarian: infrastructure. Submissions focused on how architects could use their skills?design thinking, problem solving and knowledge of the built form?to propose new ways to understand, create or support physical or social infrastructure that links our communities.
Submissions ranged from intimate local projects that could be replicated in communities across the province, to massive transformations altering how various components of the built environment interact with each other. Judge...