Register now for the RAIC/AANB Festival of Architecture in Saint John, New Brunswick, May 30 – June 2.

This year, RAIC members can enjoy exclusive member pricing on their registration. Simply log in with your existing RAIC username and password to have your discount automatically applied.

Register before April 12 to take advantage of earlybird pricing!

Check out the website for the schedule, continuing education sessions, tours, travel information, and more!

Diébédo Francis Kéré, the first child in his village in Burkina Faso to be sent to school, now provides opportunities to others through socially engaged and ecological design. Born in Burkina Faso, Francis studied at the Technical University of Berlin. In 2005, he founded Kéré Architecture in Berlin.

Francis will deliver the keynote address, titled Work Report, at the College of Fellows Convocation on May 31. He will also be inducted as an Honorary Fellow. “Since I started, I always tried to incorporate the people and their environment in my designs, and being recognized for it sends the message that it is important.”

Francis represents a new approach in architecture which combines traditional resources and building techniques with modern engineering methods. The use of local, natural materials and the participation of the community in the building process create architectural concepts, that span a wide range of projects over the African, European and American continents.

His architectural practice has been recognized nationally and internationally with awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in his home village of Gando. The first African architect to design the Serpentine Pavilion in London (2017), he continues to reinvest knowledge into Burkina Faso. At the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, his firm unveiled their scheme to build the country’s new parliament building.

Academic positions include professorships at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Swiss Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio). In 2017, he accepted the professorship for "Architectural Design and Participation" at TU München (Germany).

The Architectural Review calls Odile Decq “a creative powerhouse, spirited breaker of rules and advocate of equality.” She’s an award-winning French architect, urban planner, and academic who recently started her own architecture school.

In addition to speaking at the Foundation Lunch on May 31, Odile will attend the College of Fellows Convocation, also on May 31, where she will be inducted as an Honorary Fellow.

Founder of the Paris firm, Studio Odile Decq, her portfolio ranges from art galleries and museums to social housing and infrastructure. Notable projects include the Banque Populaire de l'Ouest in Rennes, the Cargo office building in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome and the Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark Museum in Nanjing, China. In 2016, the Architectural Review awarded her the Jane Drew Prize for promoting women in architecture. In 1996, she received the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennial.

Odile taught at Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris from 1992 to 2007, before becoming head of the school from 2007 to 2012, and she has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia University in New York, Bartlett in London, and Kunstakademie in Vienna and Düsseldorf. In 2014, she established an international school in Lyon called the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture.

“I have had a long, friendly relationship with Canadian architecture since my first visit in the early 1990s,” she says. “Being from Brittany in France, I have always been looking over the horizon line of the Atlantic Ocean towards the Canadian coast.”

Architect and historian John Leroux, MRAIC, has worked at award-winning architecture firms in Toronto, Atlanta, and Fredericton, and was a team member in Canada’s entry at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. He has won awards for architectural and public art projects throughout Canada, and has taught at St. Thomas University, the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design and the University of New Brunswick, where he is currently an instructor and designer-in-residence in the engineering department.

The President’s Dinner on June 1 is one of the social highlights of the festival. There will be a cocktail reception, sit-down dinner, and awards ceremony recognizing individuals and teams who have demonstrated exceptional achievements in Canadian architecture.

This includes Gold Medalists Gilles Saucier, FIRAC, and André Perrotte, FIRAC, who will present their work. The celebration takes place at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre. Join your colleagues and get your ticket today!

Be there for the big bash on June 2 that will bring the 2018 Festival of Architecture to a close! The wrap-up “Kitchen Party” will take place on the Saint John waterfront at the Diamond Jubilee Cruise Terminal with a rooftop offering a 360-degree view of the city.

The Saint John Ale House will present a family-style lobster dinner from the Bay of Fundy. “We promise you some Maritime flavors with Saint John, New Brunswick’s amazing culinary scene,” says co-owner and chef Jesse Vergen.

Different Folk, a group that combines a melodious mix of Maritime music with contemporary arrangements of Celtic favorites, will provide the entertainment. A generous helping of foot-stomping fiddling from Different Folk will get the party started! Don’t miss it!

Inspired by the momentum of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), architects in Atlantic Canada are launching a Women in Architecture initiative to create an engaging and supportive network for women in the region with mentoring events, lectures and gatherings.

A team of architects and designers started BEAT in 2015. It’s an independent organization dedicated to supporting equality and diversity in the profession of architecture through advocacy, community engagement, and professional development. Members of BEAT will be at the Saint John Women of the Round Table event to speak about their successes.

Men and women – and their ideas – are welcome. At 6:00 p.m. there will be a photo to commemorate the women in attendance at this event. For more information, email info@theacre.ca.