Prizes
The jury will award first, second and third place prizes. They may also award a special mention at their discretion. Winners of these prizes will receive a selection of recent CCA publications as well as Friends of the CCA memberships with numerous benefits.
jury members
K. Jake Chakasim
Jake Chakasim is a Cree designer from Attawapiskat First Nation, and cross-appointed an assistant Professor at Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism and School of Indigenous & Canadian Studies. With a background spanning architecture, engineering, and indigenous planning, his work bridges disciplines to support culturally grounded and community-led design.
He has worked with firms such as Urban Arts Architecture and Two Row Architects, and has held roles in policy and technical support for indigenous housing and infrastructure across Ontario. Jake is an active member of the RAIC Indigenous Task Force and is currently involved with the development of a National Architecture Policy for Canada that centralizes the valued inclusion of Canada’s Indigenous peoples’ presence, livelihood and wellbeing across the built environment.
In 2008, Jake was a contributing artist to Canada’s participation with the Venice Biennale via the exhibition, “41° to 66° Architecture in Canada: Region, Culture and Tectonics”. In 2011, he was awarded the ARCC King Medal for Excellence in Architectural + Environmental Design Research that acknowledges innovation, integrity, and scholarship. And more recently, he was part of a team of Indigenous architects and designers responsible for UNCEDED, Canada’s contribution to the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Christie Pearson
Christie Pearson is the author of a global history of public bathing cultures, The Architecture of Bathing: Body, Landscape, Art (MIT Press, 2020). Bathing culture research fuels her work as an artist, writer, educator and architect, critically re-imagining urban infrastructures as utopian bathing environments for thermal delight. Fouding member of Thewaves collective for immersive vibratory environments, Wade Festival for installation and performance art in public pools, Urbanvessel performance collective, and the critical journal Scapegoat: Architecture/Landscape/Political Economy, Christie is also a licensed architect working on public places within the City of Toronto’s Parks & Recreation division.
Jean Pelland
Architect and urban designer Jean Pelland has over thirty years of experience, characterized by a multidisciplinary approach encompassing all scales of urban intervention. Co-founder of NOMADE architecture in 1999, then Sid Lee Architecture in 2009, he embodies a generation of interdisciplinary professionals for whom strategic thinking, contextual awareness, and social commitment converge in user-focused architecture.
His work has transformed Montreal's urban landscape through major interventions. Among his most renowned achievements is Bota Bota, a floating spa created through the adaptive transformation of a former ferry moored in the Old Port. This award-winning project reconciles architecture, water, and the city, redefining the collective experience of the urban river environment.
He collaborates on major territorial transformations across various scales. From master plans for the Quartier Molson and Wellington Basin that reimagine the future of entire neighborhoods, to housing projects such as the Village Urbain in Lachine,—marked by its commitment to affordable housing and social diversity—, as well as distinctive residential projects such as the M9 towers, Carré des Arts, and Harold Way in California, his work embodies an architectural vision grounded in the common good.
Internationally recognized, his projects have earned him numerous awards and distinctions: the result of an approach that emphasizes collaboration and a balance between heritage and innovation. He works with a variety of contexts to help create more inclusive, vibrant, and sensitive cities.