Despite hosting a third of all dwelling units in Canada, modest-cost, multi-family housing projects are rarely the recipients of Canadian national and provincial architectural awards. This session will explore the reasons why, and consider changes to improve our understanding of the importance of design in everyday life. Architects have a social duty with each building. Design quality and innovation in a ubiquitous building type is clearly under-represented in our consideration of quality in architecture. In addition to a critical analysis of architecture awards programmes, the session will illustrate design strategies for the improvement of modest-cost, mixed-use, multi-family housing in Canada. Could changing how we approach architecture awards induce a design revolution in Canada’s multi-unit housing?

Presented by various experts on behalf of Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC).