Two Ontario architectural firms are celebrating a significant achievement.

Ottawa’s KWC Architects and Toronto’s Diamond Schmitt Architects, which led the conversion of Ottawa’s former Government Conference Centre into the new Senate of Canada Building, have seen their project earn a Civic Trust Award.

The awards are presented annually to recognize outstanding architecture, planning and design in the built environment. They are Europe’s longest standing built-environment awards program.

The Senate of Canada Building was the only Canadian project to receive the recognition, and just one of three of this year’s 56 recipients to be located outside Europe.

The Senate of Canada Building opened in 2019 as the interim home to the upper house of Parliament while Centre Block is refurbished. Formerly the Government Conference Centre, the building required a complete overhaul of major building systems as well as compliance with seismic codes, accessibility, and life safety upgrades. Construction teams inserted two committee rooms into the enormous General Waiting Room, while the concourse now houses the Senate chamber. Offices and public space were added to a building that has largely been off limits to the public for 50 years.

Significant changes were also made to the building’s exterior façade to modernize the design.

“This project provided a remarkable opportunity to investigate and engage in a range of design innovations to introduce a new program in a historic building and to and convey Canadian identity through contemporary interpretations of landscape and iconography,” said Martin Davidson, principal, Diamond Schmitt Architects.

The Civic Trust also rewards projects that offer a positive cultural, social, economic or environmental benefit to their local communities. When the Senate returns to Parliament Hill in ten or more years, the building can accommodate conference and office use.

This is not the first time Diamond Schmitt Architects has earned a Civic Trust Award. The firm was also recognized for its work on the National Arts Centre rejuvenation in Ottawa (2019), Lazaridis Hall at Wilfrid Laurier University (2018), Bridgepoint Active Healthcare in Toronto (2015) and Daniels Spectrum, also in Toronto (2013).