OAA announces selections for the inaugural SHIFT Challenge

The Ontario Association of Architects announced its selections for the inaugural SHIFT Challenge, which aims to encourage architects, engineers and designers to solve societal issues with their skills and expertise. 

The SHIFT Challenge will take place every two years, complementing the OAA’s Design Excellence Awards, which highlights the best of the best in Ontario architecture. 

“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 first ever SHIFT Challenge, the theme was Infrastructure. Entrants had to think about how they could make a difference on a social level with regard to community infrastructure. Judges were looking at how the entries addressed improving social equity, reducing isolation, and how the submissions embodied social justice. They also scored based on innovation, overall social responsibility, inspiration, inclusivity and holistic approach. 

“One of the pleasant surprises in exploring all of these submissions together is that what you see emerge is a holistic approach to infrastructure,” says Kurtin. “Any one of these projects, if implemented, would help address an issue of immense importance and, at the same time, complement and reinforce each of the other submissions.”  

Seven projects were selected and four honourable mentions were announced. 

The SHIFT Challenge Selections

GO Bike 

GO Bike_OAA SHIFT_ Smart Density from naama blonder on Vimeo.

Naama Blonder and Misha Bereznyak (Smart Density)

Immigrant Landscapes: Architecture in the Age of Migration 
Sophie Mackey 

Multi-Tach: Addressing Housing Infrastructure 
Jaegap Chung, Sue Jean Chung, Derek McCallum, Sudipto Sengupta, Hesam Rostami, Hamid Imami, Robin McKenna, Matthew Mckenna and David Kotewicz (Studio JCI Inc.) 
Nam Hoang (Makeshift Collective)

Rail to Trail: Imagining a Future London 
Ryan Ollson, Magdaleen Bahour, Richard Hammond, Shannon Hawke, Tyler Hearn, Jerry Kim and Siobhan Latimer 
(Cornerstone Architecture Incorporated)

Re-Engaging the Defunct and Historic Welland Canals 
David Donnelly
Martin Bressani (McGill University)

Story Pod: Grassroots Transformation of Civic Space 
Kelly Buffey, Robert Kastelic and Aaron Finbow 
(Atelier Kastelic Buffey Inc.) 
Scott Munro, Bill Mctavish and Ted Kurello (Hollis Wealth) 
Mark Agnoletto (Town of Newmarket)
 
Urban Energy Shift 
Zachary Colbert (Zachary Colbert Architects and Carleton University Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism) 
Antonio Gioventu (Condominium Homeowners Association of B.C) 
Shelby Hagerman, James Nguyen, Jasmine Sykes and Connor Tamborro (Carleton University)

Honourable Mentions

Central Parkway Study 
Martin Tite, John Cook, Alex Leung, and Sean Fright 
(GRC Architects Inc.)
 
The Counterpublic of Union Station 
Aidan Mitchelmore
 
Revitalizing Suburbia: Build Integrated Communities 
Connie Lei
 
Stuff Cloud: A Smart Infrastructure for Buying, Selling, Sharing, Swapping and Remaking Things in Cities 
J. Alejandro López 

More information about each SHIFT Challenge selection will be released leading up to the 2019 OAA Annual Conference in Quebec City on May 22-24, 2019. 

We can’t wait to learn more about these interesting sounding ideas!