marc boutin architectural collaborative inc. (MBAC), a Calgary-based multi-scale firm, is the recipient of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s 2020 Architectural Firm Award.

“MBAC’s collective body of work, framed as the Landscape of Memory, adeptly traverses across scales,” said the 2020 Jury in a collective comment.  “The studio itself operates uniquely within an integrated practice model. Marc and his team embody a true commitment to architectural education, mentorship, public awareness, and the growth of architects.”

The RAIC Architectural Firm Award recognizes the achievements of a firm for its quality of architecture, service to clients and innovations in practice. It also takes into account the firm’s contribution to architectural education and professional organizations, as well as public recognition.

Notable projects from MBAC include:

• Courtyard House, Calgary AB
• Calgary Public Building Restoration, Calgary AB
• The Fourth Street SW Underpass Enhancement, Calgary AB
• Varsity Multi-Service Redevelopment, Calgary AB
• Ambelside Integrated Site, Edmonton AB
• The Sunalta Community Hub, Calgary AB 

Due to the cancellation of the 2020 Conference because of the COVID-19 pandemic, MBAC will be honoured as award recipients at the RAIC 2021 Conference on Architecture in Montreal, QC.

Since its inception in 1997, marc boutin architectural collaborative inc. MBAC has operated at the boundary between design disciplines—seeking a density of meaning that emerges through the synthesis of art, architecture, urban design, and landscape design. This characteristic interdisciplinarity both characterizes and enriches the quality of the firm's work by the emphasis it places on the relationships between scales of design.

Over the past 20-plus years, MBAC has been recognized for design excellence for both unrealized and built projects across a broad spectrum of project types—from custom houses to large cultural buildings and recreation centers to public plazas. This recognition has come in the form of local, regional, national awards, and international awards including numerous Mayor’s Urban Design Awards in Calgary and Edmonton, several Prairie Design Awards, nine Canadian Architect Awards, a Progressive Architecture Award, a Canadian Society of Landscape Architecture National Honour, National Urban Design Awards, and a Landscape Network Award 'Top 10 Public Space Award'.

As a design firm that champions the importance of public space in a northern climate, MBAC continues to frame sustainability as a design driver that ought to be considered pluralistically, and in the interest of social equity. MBAC is proud to pursue accreditation programs such as LEED® and WELL—but also prides itself on engaging in architectural issues that impact the broader conceptual and environmental boundaries of social justice and the built environment. To that end, MBAC is as proud of the Calgary Public Building Restoration being the first LEED® Platinum accredited project for the City of Calgary, introducing food security as a design driver for the upcoming Sunalta Community Hub.

MBAC has been home to nearly 40 employees, serving as a rich and vibrant point of design exchange and innovation. Led by Marc Boutin, the current staff includes Tony Leong, Richard Cotter, Nathaniel Wagenaar, Michelle Smith Cowman, Fatima Rehman, Brett Sanderson, Trevor Steckly, Tim Smith, Kalie Widmer, and Ashley Ortlieb. As the firm continues to evolve and engage new design territories, it remains dedicated to the proposition that the best design ideas are the product of intensive, interdisciplinary collaboration, and preoccupied with a desire to leverage architecture's capacity to materially enrich where and how we live.

The composition of the 2020 jury is:

• Diarmuid Nash, PP/FRAIC Chair of the Jury
  Moriyama & Teshima Architects
• Rami Bebawi, MRAIC
  KANVA
  Quebec, QC
• Pat Hanson, FRAIC
  gh3
  Toronto, ON
• Jessie Andjelic, MRAIC
  SPECTACLE
  Calgary, AB
• Omar Gandhi, MRAIC
  Omar Gandhi Architect
  Halifax, NS
• Shelley Craig, FRAIC
  Urban Arts Architecture
  Vancouver, BC 

About the RAIC

The Royal Architecture Institute of Canada (RAIC) is a not-for-profit, national organization that has represented architects and architecture for over 100 years, in existence since 1907. The RAIC is the leading voice for excellence in the built environment in Canada, demonstrating how design enhances the quality of life while addressing important issues of society through responsible architecture. The RAIC’s mission is to promote excellence in the built environment and to advocate for responsible architecture. The organization national office is based in Ottawa with a growing federated chapter model. Current chapters and networks are based in British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia. 

About marc boutin architectural collaborative inc. 

We practice architecture because we believe in its capacity to materially enrich the world.

We work at multiple scales and in a wide variety of physical and conceptual contexts, but always with the objective of developing robust and resilient designs that can adapt to their environments as they evolve.

We commit to designing holistically because we believe the world can only be understood as a whole; consequently, we focus on a creating a density of meaning that emerges through the synthesis of art, architecture, urban design, and landscape design.

Collaboration is central to our identity: it resonates as both a philosophy that structures our design process, as well as a practice for engaging the broader ecology of spaces, places, and actions that together define the contemporary built environment. We use this comprehensive approach to work with clients, sub-consultants, contractors, and many others to develop and deliver architectural, urban, and landscape design excellence.