Senate of Canada Building wins international design award
It’s another award for the Senate of Canada Building.
On August 23, project architects Diamond Schmitt in joint venture with KWC Architects announced that the project took top honours in the Government Buildings category in this year’s International Architecture Awards.
The award is the latest in a series of domestic and international awards won by the project and its design team. Other honours include the National Trust Cornerstone Award and an international Civic Trust Award.
The Senate of Canada Building was among 130 projects chosen for the 2021 International Architecture Awards from the final shortlist of 450 projects presented to an international jury. The design team transformed one of Ottawa’s most important cultural and historic landmarks, the disused downtown Union train station, into a home for the Senate of Canada.
The project, which was completed in 2019, was not without its challenges. Restoring the historic station and transforming the building into a modern and secure home for the Senate of Canada wasn’t easy. The project team adopted a series of new technologies—some of which were used for the first time in North America—to save and consolidate some of the building’s more striking elements.
“We are thrilled that our design of the Senate of Canada Building has received an International Architecture Award,” said Don Schmitt, Principal at Diamond Schmitt. “It’s especially wonderful when Canadian excellence is recognized globally by our peers.”
The award will be presented on Friday, September 10 by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, at an awards ceremony near the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
The International Architecture Awards are the largest and most extensive global architecture awards program in the world, honouring new skyscrapers, commercial buildings, urban plans, private residences, and real estate projects that achieve a high standard of excellence in design, construction, planning and sustainability. The winning projects promote best practices in all types of real estate development for the private and public sectors, including new skyscrapers, high-rises, corporate and institutional buildings, commercial projects, bridges, airports, city planning, restorations and adaptive reuse, community projects, religious and civic buildings, and interiors.
The annual awards program received hundreds of submissions from architecture firms across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and the Americas.
Featured image: The Senate of Canada building downtown Ottawa. (Diamond Schmitt Architects)