The abandoned headquarters of an oil and gas company is not where you would normally expect to find a pre-eminent school of design. And yet, HCMA Architecture + Design has crafted the new home of the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL) in The Valentine building at 801 7 Avenue S.W., designed by Fred Valentine and completed in 1982, where the NOVA Corporation had its offices up until 2013. The 37-storey tower is a Governor General’s Award—winning study in late modernism, and its good bones made it a worthy — if surprising — candidate to be revived as a design school.

SAPL had outgrown its original footprint at the university; prior to moving into the tower in January 2026, its programs were dispersed across several buildings on campus and within the city’s former Central Library. The relocation, which required both a refurbishment and interior overhaul, constituted an object lesson in good design. The feat emphasizes adaptive re-use as a way to re-activate a downtown core (the tower is connected to Calgary’s +15 Skyway Network, near the C-Train LRT, and adjacent Century Gardens Park) that was deeply impacted by the pandemic and then-plummeting energy prices.