Vancouver’s Formline Architecture is delighted to learn that they are the first Indigenous-owned architectural firm ever to be awarded the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture. One of Canada’s top 2022 design prizes went to the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the heart of the UBC campus. According to its designer and Formline’s founder/owner Alfred Waugh FRAIC: “This is tremendous recognition and a shot in the arm for my fellow status and Métis architects across the country—it means validation from peers that our designs have risen to the highest levels. All Canadians can be proud of this new ‘Indigenuity,’ as I like to call it.”
Constructed next to the main UBC library, the IRSHDC is an unprecedented institution sharing interactive exhibits in a “Vault of Memories” with names, photos and some records of the more than 150,000 Indigenous Canadians who were taken from their families into church-run schools (up to 6,000 are thought to have died there.) Open to Indigenous and non-Indigenous public alike, Waugh’s design tempers the emotional experience of visitation with culturally resonant choices of natural materials and flanking gardens and ponds. “IRSHDC is architecture for the reconciliation era,” says Waugh, “A memory chamber and bridge between communities that we conceived as being vital to the healing process for all Canadians.”
Find the news story from CanadianArchitect.com here and an article about awarded projects here.
The winners of the Governor General’s Awards for Architecture are featured in the August issue of Canadian Architect.