SHIFT is an aspirational, biennial awards program that alternates with the Association’s more traditional Design Excellence and Service Awards. It asks Ontario architects, intern architects, students, and others with OAA status to respond to an identified area of concern using their skills and insights.
Approved by OAA Council earlier this year, the theme for 2025 is “Reshaping Communities”:
Our buildings, homes, and public spaces making up our communities should be built to last… but how does enduring design account for everything else being in constant change? To really stand the test of time, adaptability is needed. We reshape our built environment; thereafter, it reshapes us.
Altered climate patterns have increased the intensity and frequency of extreme weather in Canada and beyond. Political instability beyond our borders, technological advancements, and social change have brought uncertainty, but also opportunity and new ways to think about how we can ensure people’s needs are met in times of urgency.
Cultural and demographic shifts, an aging population, greater awareness of the need for equity and inclusion, Reconciliation, and access to truly affordable housing… the built environment must prepare for, respond to, and reflect these changes.
The OAA SHIFT2025 Challenge: Reshaping Communities asks architects, and those on the path to licensure, to use their design training, skill sets, and way of thinking to find new approaches while our world keeps evolving. From urban revitalization and reconceptualization to adaptations responding to climate change and other emergencies, SHIFT seeks your conceptual—but possible!—architectural ideas for our communities that enable all people to find stability, a sense of belonging, and hope.
The SHIFT2023 Health/Architecture Challenge website is now in the process of being updated, as the Association prepares to announce the call for submissions in the fall ahead of the January 2025 submission date. Later this month, the OAA’s Communications and Public Education Committee (CPEC) will also be meeting to discuss potential jurors for SHIFT.