The University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) has announced a call for nominations for the Margolese National Design for Living Prize, a $50,000 award recognizing a Canadian citizen who is making a profound and positive impact on the built environment through design. 

“SALA is delighted to host the Margolese National Design for Living Prize — one of the richest awards in Canadian design,” says SALA director Ron Kellett. “We encourage candidates from a wide array of disciplines and backgrounds, whose work demonstrates the power of design to enhance social, cultural, or environmental well-being. Through this prize, SALA hopes to draw attention to Canadian designers whose work offers creative solutions to the many challenges facing society and the planet, and to inspire others to do the same.” 

Qualified Margolese Prize candidates must be Canadian citizens of any age and profession including architects, landscape architects, planners, engineers, designers, and practitioners in allied fields. Individuals may nominate themselves or someone else through the portal on the prize website.

Nominations are open from now until March 26, 2021. Candidates will be evaluated by a peer jury and shortlisted candidates will be notified in May 2021. A winner will be announced in September 2021 and awarded an unconditional $50,000 CAD to support their interests. An event celebrating the winner’s achievements will be held in October 2021.

The Margolese Prize was made possible through an estate gift to UBC by the late Leonard Herbert Margolese. Since 2012 the Margolese Prize has recognized six outstanding individuals including landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, best known for her public spaces at Robson Square in Vancouver and the National Gallery of Canada, among others; and activist Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum), co-founder of the global grassroots Indigenous and environmental rights movement, Idle No More and small houses initiative One House Many Nations. This will be the first year that the prize has been awarded since 2018 when SALA paused the prize to review its terms, significance, and brand identity. 

For more information about the prize and nomination process, please visit margoleseprize.com or @margoleseprize. 

About SALA

SALA is the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia, located in Vancouver, on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. We are a community of scholars, designers, and makers united by our shared commitment to design in the service of progressive environmental and social values. 

SALA’s position in Vancouver and on Canada’s West Coast connects us to a number of communities, from Cascadia to the Pacific Rim, and our campus and city are ideal laboratories from which to address the urgent human and environmental issues of our time. From this rich geographical, cultural, and historical context, our mission is to equip collaborative, community-minded designers to improve the places in which we live – now and in the future.

Follow SALA at facebook.com/ubcsala, or Instagram @ubcsala or Twitter @UBCSALA