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Traveling exhibition showcasing the work in progress on roadmaps developed by 15 cross-sector teams from coast to coast

As part of a research partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and numerous partners, the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competition and Quality at the Université de Montréal, under the direction of Professor Jean-Pierre Chupin, brought together 14 universities and more than 60 academics. Together, they convinced the Rick Hansen Foundation, Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and more than 60 citizen groups, professional organizations, and municipal services to form 15 collaborative research teams, including a team of young Indigenous leaders.

In May 2025, these cross-sector groups presented an initial status report on their roadmaps toward more equitable, sustainable, and socially valuable quality at the annual convention at the University of Toronto and then, in June, at Place Bonaventure during the RAIC’s annual conference.

In Room 2081 of the Faculty of Environmental Design, from August 29 to September 19, 2025, this exhibition of work in progress provides an overview of research undertaken since 2022 and which will continue until 2027. This is an ongoing national project and not a finished product. Videos made by students accompany the panels, which summarize the major issues of quality, the steps taken, and the actions proposed.

A roadmap outlines key elements such as the initial problem, overall objectives, resources, process steps, and proposed short-, medium-, and long-term actions. There are many gray areas in our current definitions of quality: accessible quality, adaptive reuse, participatory processes, resilient parks, inclusive schools, integrated biodiversity, etc. Following a bottom-up process, these stakeholder teams conduct analyses and consultations in specific contexts, addressing issues that challenge current definitions of quality in architecture, landscape, design, and urban planning. The research highlights the importance of collecting lived experiences to break down silos while updating expertise.Don’t miss the launch of the ArchiQualiData.ca platform on September 10 at 5:15 p.m.

On Wednesday, September 10, at 5:15 p.m. in rooms 2081 and 2083 of the Faculty of Environmental Design, the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competition, and Quality, led by Professor Jean-Pierre Chupin at the University of Montreal, will present the large open-access digital platform: ArchiQualiData.

ArchiQualiData is being launched as part of the traveling exhibition “Quality Issues in Canada’s Built Environment,” on display from August 29 to September 19.

ArchiQualiData is the resource platform for quality, lived experience, and awards of excellence in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and urban design in Canada.

This major national collaboration has received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Quebec Ministry of Education, the University of Montreal, the Canada Research Chairs Program, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

ArchiQualiData is hosted on the secure servers of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.

• Using filters, ArchiQualiData reveals more than 4,000 award-winning projects with links to design and architecture firms and agencies, as well as a map-based tracking system.
• You can also discover an initial collection of more than 160 “positive experiences of quality” that provide a better understanding of what users and citizens feel and appreciate in public places (some award-winning, some lesser known, but always worth discovering), whether they are buildings or public spaces.
• Finally, month after month, visitors will discover all the case studies, analyses, action plans, conferences, courses, and round tables, as well as, perhaps most importantly, roadmaps toward a more equitable, inclusive, and socially valuable quality. The ArchiQualiData platform is powered by researchers, students, and professional and social partners brought together in the Canada-wide SSHRC Partnership on Quality under the scientific direction of Professor Chupin.

Enjoy your discovery and, above all, learn to share your own experience of quality so that disciplines, professions, and decision-makers can think about and produce the built environment beyond silos and habits, in increasingly inclusive and sustainable ways.

Letʼs build a map of Canadaʼs public buildings and places that incorporates your own experience of quality!

Why does your experience matter to improve quality?

Our buildings, parcs and cities are still designed and based on visions that poorly consider the diverse experiences of the public. By informing decision-makers,students and designers, your voice can help make public buildings and places more inclusive, more valuable and more sustainable.

3 ways to contribute:

📷 Take a picture showing what you like in a public building or public space, along with a short description (300 words).

🎤 Record a voice message on your phone while experiencing the place you like and take a picture.

🎥 Take a short video and record your voice describing the place you like and take a picture.

Carly Ziter holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Urban Ecology and Sustainability (2021-2026)

New article published in Le Devoir by Yolene Handabaka Ames, student of the individualized doctorate in architecture at the École d’architecture de la Faculté de l’aménagement: What’s behind the demolition of Chocolats favoris’ building in Vieux-Lévis?

“The case of the imminent demolition of Chocolats favoris has been making headlines since October 2023, when a public notice of demolition request from the City of Lévis was posted on the building’s façade.

The saga, which lasted almost two years, revealed recurring conservation issues surrounding Quebec’s built heritage. So much so that the Lévis residence has become an emblematic case of what lies behind most heritage building demolition projects: the social value of a “living” heritage.

In autumn 2022, the house that had housed Chocolats favoris since 1996 was closed due to water infiltration and deteriorating masonry. After professional appraisals, letters signed by heritage advocates, requests for review and the active participation of Lévis residents at public hearings, demolition was approved on December 16. A request for a one-year moratorium did not change the building’s fate either. On June 19, at a regular meeting of the municipal council, elected officials voted against accepting the request. The house of Chocolats favoris will soon fall under the demolition pick… ”

Read more on Le Devoir’s website.

Photo by René Bélanger (Flickr).

The Atlas of Research on Exemplarity in Architecture and the Built Environment (AREA-BE) is an open construction site!

 

AREA-BE is an initiative of the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations for Excellence (CRC-ACME), held by Jean-Pierre Chupin, Ph.D. , architect MOAQ, MIRAC, DPLG, DipArch (2), Professor at Université de Montréal. This initiative is actively supported by a network of Canadian and international scholars.

The current website of the AREA (www.architecture-excellence.org) has been officially launched in November 2019 for information purposes.

The AREA website foreshadows an important documentation and research platform to be launched in 2021 / 2022

This long-term initiative is supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through the Canada Research Chairs Program.

In the coming years, the establishment of an AREA partnership of researchers based in Canadian schools of architecture and research universities will ensure the reliability, regular updating and sustainability of this scientific platform regrouping resources, knowledge transfers and analyzes on best examples of architectural design, landscape design and urban design in Canada.

Thanks to the contribution of institutions delivering awards and to professional teams giving access to data on projects and buildings, researchers and students will be able to contribute to a better understanding of the current evolution of quality in the built environment. The data, information, analyzes, comparisons, visualizations that will be progressively delivered – in open access – on the AREA platform will take advantage of award-winning projects and buildings in Canada, from year to year, in order to identify and better understand best practices.

The AREA collective platform will be meant to provide scientific data in order to support education, policies, actions and mediations aiming at excellence in the built environment.

Jean-Pierre Chupin (Université de Montréal)

The ArchiQualiData database provides analyses and studies of exemplary and award-winning living environments, real-life experiences and case studies.

DISCOVER detailed studies conducted by researchers, providing unique insights into exceptional buildings and places.

ACCESS testimonials from people who have directly interacted with these entities, enriching understanding through authentic stories.

FIND precise information on each exemplary entity, thanks to a simple interface and advanced search system.

 

Toronto 2025 Convention Program : Toward a White Paper on Quality…

DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM IN PDF FORMAT The final program for the 2025 Annual Convention is now available. From April 30 to May 2 in Toronto, the event will bring together experts, researchers, and practitioners to advance a national strategy for quality in Canada’s built environment. We are happy to share with you this program and hope you are as excited as we are for those great speakers, roundtables discussions and site visits that will take place during the convention.

 

Jean-Pierre Chupin, PhD, Professor, Architect MOAQ, MIRAC. Holder of the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence at Université de Montréal and Principal Investigator of the SSHRC Research Partnership on Quality in Canada’s Built Environment.

 Conference by Léa-Catherine Szacka , University of Manchester

Date: Tuesday, April 1st at 5:30 pm.

Location: Amphitheatre 1120, Faculté de l’aménagement, Université de Montréal

Lecture series of the Laboratoire d’étude de l’architecture potentielle

 

Crossed Histories

Phyllis Lambert, Ada Louise Huxtable and Gae Aulenti on architecture and the city

 

Summary:

Born in the 1920s, architects Gae Aulenti and Phyllis Lambert and critic Ada Louise Huxtable were among the most influential figures in post-war architecture and design. Pioneers in a largely male-dominated field at the time, and key players in the transition from modernism to postmodernism, they set out to conquer and shape public space. This talk retraces the history and careers of these three women, who are the focus of the exhibition Crossed Histories, presented until May 2025 at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris.

 

Léa-Catherine Szacka:

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Architectural Studies, University of Manchester
Director of the Manchester Architecture Research Group (MARG)
Vice-President, European Architectural History Network (EAHN)
Co-Founder, PASZA – Platform for Architectural Research

 Professor Chupin was nominated by Thierry Montpetit, FRAIC, and letters of support were submitted by five renowned Quebec architects: Anik Shooner, FIRAC, Nathalie Dion, FIRAC, Gilles Prud’homme, FIRAC, Maxime Frappier, FIRAC, and Renée Daoust, FIRAC, in the category of : Outstanding scholarly contributions supported by research, publications or teaching in the field of architecture, and, Outstanding contributions to the profession fostering excellence in architectural practice through leadership in public service or industry organizations.

 

Fellows will be formally inducted into the RAIC College on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 at an induction ceremony held in conjunction with the RAIC Conference on Architecture in Montreal, Quebec.

 

Visit the RAIC website to see the 43 new Fellows 2025.

Conference by Jean-Louis Violeau, École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes

Date: Tuesday, March 11th at 5:30 pm.

Location: Amphitheatre 1120, Faculté de l’aménagement, Université de Montréal

Lecture series of the Laboratoire d’étude de l’architecture potentielle

Architecture and its (Single) Users as Seen by Sociologist and Philosopher Jean Baudrillard

Summary:

How does one go about exploring Jean Baudrillard’s intimate yet suspicious relationship with architecture? One begins, as one should, with Disney, moves on to the duck and the Venturis, stops at the figure of the (architectural) monster, moves on to Jean Nouvel and the ambiguities of transparency, and finally arrives at some contemporary projects, notably the highly condemned Europacity. Along the way, Baudrillard raises two questions: what has become of architectural postmodernism, and the persistence of the notion of the author in architecture. Baudrillard was more of an imaginary sociologist, intuitive and detached, an interpreter who amused himself by drawing the dotted lines of the present, overdoing it and regularly tending to paroxysms. Hence his interest in architectures that resist interpretation and seem to take on a life of their own, as if detached from their designers: the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Biosphère II project, the Beaubourg, the Guggenheim Bilbao, and some of Jean Nouvel’s architecture. Behind the scenes: obscure and ironic, every stage has its backstage, every scene is reversible, every project calls for its counter-project. The cursed part always bides its time. Culture for Beaubourg, globalization for the WTC, the planet for Biosphère II, the commodification of cities for the Guggenheim Bilbao… The ambivalence grows as these projects strive to saturate reality. What all these untamed concretions have in common, however, is that they seek first and foremost to bring the edge of difference to bear on generalized equivalence. In an age of no-fake and a shared quest for authenticity, this sociological perspective is meeting with renewed interest, particularly in the ambivalent choices and behaviors of digital children.

The sociologist Jean-Louis Violeau is a professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes and at the Urban School of Sciences Po Paris. He is a researcher at CRENAU (CNRS UMR AAU).

He is a regular contributor to architectural magazines, in particular AMC-Le Moniteur architecture and L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, as well as more general magazines such as Esprit, Place Publique Nantes-Saint-Nazaire and Urbanisme. He is also a member of the editorial board of the latter two magazines.

His dissertation Les architectes et mai 68 was published in 2005 by Recherches, the distant heirs of the journal of the same name founded under the aegis of Félix Guattari and the CERFI. The sequel, his HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) on Les architectes et mai 81, was published by Recherches in 2011.