The  OAA Perspectives Editorial  Committee believes you have hundreds of untold stories, drawings and images worth sharing - they would like to publish some of them. Have a look at the Editorial Calendar for upcoming topics.   

For this issue of  OAA Perspectives, we asked contributors to submit  stories two sketches with a brief note explaining the meaning, intent or outcome of their sketch or their reasons for sketching at all. Like the drawing themselves, some of these description are helpfully explanatory, while others are ambiguously poetic.

Summer 2012

OAA AWARDS

This annual issue showcases the winners of the OAA Awards competitions held in February and celebrated at the Awards Ceremony in late Spring.

Awards are granted in three categories: 

1. Design Excellence – recently completed buildings that represent the epitome of architectural achievement.
2. Concepts + Presentations – unbuilt architectural ideas, small objects and artifacts designed by architects and architectural imagery.
3. Awards of Recognition – celebrating the careers and achievements of exceptional architects and firms, as well as recognizing a cherished architectural landmark. 

Fall 2011

WHY ARE (SOME) BUILDINGS SO UGLY? 

Through the ages, people have accused architects of creating ugly buildings—not all of our buildings, mind you, just some of them. Accusers have ranged from peasants to princes and from bona fide architecture critics to the sidewalk variety. The only people, it seems, who refrain from making these accusations are architects themselves. 

Non-architects are our audience, our clients and our potential supporters, so it won’t do to simply question their judgment. Maybe they have a point.

Our examination of the question will focus on two aspects of ugliness: the pragmatic (can beauty be quantified, even a little?) and the theoretical (is there an accounting for some people’s taste?)

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Winter 2012

WINTER ARCHITECTURE

In case you need to be reminded, Ottawa, Ontario is one of the coldest capital cities in the world. But it doesn’t matter where in this vast province you live, winter is an inescapable annual reality. 

Winter is a big part of our Ontario culture, and ice, snow and chilly winds surround our architectural creations for much of the year. Yet we rarely illustrate, photograph or verbally describe our buildings in winter conditions—not on the pages of OAA Perspectives, nor in the OAA awards submissions, nor indeed in presentations to our clients.

In “Winter Architecture,” architects describe in words and images how their work responds to the romance, the harshness and the chilling inevitability winter in Ontario. 

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