KANVA wins RAIC 2015 Emerging Architectural Practice Award

Montreal-based KANVA continues to gain acclaim over at their home country in Canada. A few months after winning a top prize in the 2015 Warming Huts competition among other awards in recent years, the KANVA collective was announced today as the winner of the 2015 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Emerging Architectural Practice Award.

The prestigious RAIC award honors the principals of an emerging architectural practice that has consistently produced top-quality built work. Additionally, the award recognizes a firm's service to clients, innovation in practice, and public recognition.

KANVA will be presented with the award during a ceremony at the RAIC/AAA Festival of Architecture in Calgary on June 3-6.

"Founded in 2003, KANVA demonstrates architecture’s transformative power through a range of disciplines and scales, from the ephemeral to the institutional. KANVA’s work elicits an experience, a memory, a reaction."

"The multidisciplinary collective is led by Tudor Radulescu (OAQ LEED PA MRAIC) and Rami Bebawi (OAQ MRAIC RBQ), made up of passionate architects, who act equally as artists and educators dedicated to the perpetuation of a total architecture."

"For this dynamic team of diverse cultural origins, total architecture is a methodology of envisioning and leading every aspect of a project from concept, to construction, to final inhabitation."

"One of the ways Radulescu and Bebawi understand their role is as a contemporary master-builder, an artist of the built environment who considers design and construction technology as a single performative act that produces proactive architecture that addresses the contemporary complexities of culture, economy, sustainability and innovation."

"Applicable to all KANVA’s endeavours, from art installations that enliven the city to innovative turn-key solutions they provide to their clients, total architecture ensures each project carries a cohesive narrative."

"This latest recognition highlights KANVA's victory at two international design competitions: the Winnipeg Warming Huts and the international Space for Life architecture to re-imagine the Montreal Biodome. A success already revealed by notorious projects such as Irène (recipient of a RAIC Innovation in Architecture award) and the Edison Residence (recipient of a Grands Prix du Design Award)"

The 2015 award jury included:

• Peter Busby, FRAIC, Past Gold Medalist, San-Francisco-based architect
• Paule Boutin, AP/FIRAC, Past President of the RAIC and Montreal architect
• Tyler Sharp, MRAIC, Past Recipient of the RAIC Young Architect Award and Toronto architect
• Siamak Hariri, FRAIC, Toronto architect
• Martin Houle, MIRAC, founder of Kollectif.net and Montreal architect