As part of a larger national capacity and skill-building project, the RAIC held a training program during Congress 2023 to increase low-carbon awareness among architects. To increase access to a larger audience, the RAIC will be hosting a live webinar version of the training over four Tuesdays in February: 6, 13, 20, 27, 2024. Each module is 90 minutes in duration.
We’re excited to share the stellar line up of 10 leading subject matter experts who are part of this new, architect-specific low carbon workshop. This program is funded by the Government of Canada's Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program.
Mona Lemoine - Architect AIBC | MRAIC | LEED AP BD+C, LFA | Regenerative Practitioner | RELi AP
Associate, Senior Sustainability Consultant at Dialog. Mona is a licensed architect with more than twenty-three years of experience in the built environment. Her work addresses the urgencies of climate change by offering design solutions that weave together resilience, equity, health, and biodiversity considerations. As part of these efforts, Mona remains focused on designing and building projects that are enabled to draw down carbon emissions—rather than contribute to them—through material performance, circular economy, and regenerative design and development. In combining big-picture systems thinking with attention to detail, Mona works together with clients to craft a carbon impact vision, fit with both ambitious and achievable goals that support their ideal outcomes for the project.
Mona is the Chair of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Committee on Regenerative Environments (CORE), and Co-Chair of the RAIC Climate Action Engagement and Enablement Plan (CAEEP) steering committee. Prior to joining DIALOG, she was Executive Director of the Cascadia Green Building Council, responsible for the successful leadership and operation of the International Living Future Institute’s bioregional program. Simultaneously, she was Vice-President, Education and Events, responsible for overseeing, planning, curating, and producing the organization’s internal-external education and events including their annual, international signature event, the Living Future unConference. Her influence has created a ripple effect throughout DIALOG’s culture and practice, design approach and delivery, as well as performance on projects locally, regionally, and internationally.
Kelly Alvarez Doran - OAA, MRAIC, Architecture 2030 Senior Fellow
Kelly is the Senior Director of Sustainability and Regenerative Design at MASS Design Group. He joined MASS in 2014 to lead the Kigali office, overseeing the growth of the practice from a team of 8 to 80 over a five-year period, and he directed and implemented several projects across East Africa. He is professor at The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and at the University of Toronto where his Ha/f Research Studio is focused on the whole life carbon of the built environment. He was the recipient of the Canada Council’s Prix de Rome for Emerging Practitioners, the Irving Grossman Prize for innovation in housing design, and both AIA and RAIC medals. He previously held teaching positions at the University of Waterloo, Università Iuav di Venezia, and the GSD, Harvard University.
Joanne Perdue - Architect AAA, MRAIC, LEED Fellow
Joanne is the Associate Vice President, Sustainability at the University of Calgary. She is an architect, a Canada Clean50 Honouree, and the recipient of the Canada Green Building Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2022). Joanne founded the University of Calgary’s Office of Sustainability in 2007. Since then, the University has attained multiple recognitions as one of Canada’s top universities in sustainability, including a Times Higher Education top five percent global ranking for progress in advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for the past four years. Joanne plays a leadership role in advancing the University of Calgary’s Climate Action Plan and commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050. To date, the university has achieved a 39% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions representing approximately 90,000 tonnes of annual emissions. Joanne has a research focus on the intersection of architecture, climate change, and resilience. She is an avid supporter of preparing future leaders and of empowering women to accelerate the transformation toward a sustainable future.
Joanne is also co-chair of the RAIC Climate Action Engagement and Enablement Plan Steering Committee, and a member of the Committee on Regenerative Environments and the Low Carbon Education Advisory Committee.
Ellen Pond - MLArch, BCSLA, Canadian Centre for Climate Services (ECCC)
Ellen lives and works in Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories, and also spends time in Ktunaxa, Sinixt and Syilx territories. Ellen’s work and education background includes a BA in Geography, a red seal Carpenter’s ticket, and a Master of Landscape Architecture focused on communities and climate change. Ellen joined the CCCS in 2022, following more than a decade of consulting work supporting climate action at the local government level. Ellen has taught in the Royal Roads Climate Leadership Program, and taught public policy and sustainability at Kwantlen Polytechnic University for several years, where she developed the Climate+ Challenge, an initiative to increase teaching and learning on climate change across the university, with a strong decolonization and equity lens.
Olivia Keung - B.E.S., M.Arch., OAA, MRAIC, CPHD
Olivia Keung is an Associate at Moriyama Teshima Architects, where she has played key roles on some of the firm’s most forward-thinking projects to date. She is currently the Project Architect for Science North, which MTA is working on as part of the NorthWest Design Collaborative. This project comprises two science centres in Northern Ontario, both targeting Zero Carbon certification, that use science and education as tools to build knowledge, community resilience and cultural dialogue. She is also part of team for the Limberlost Place, a tall, mass timber building at George Brown College, and the Honey Bee Research Centre at the University of Guelph.
Olivia is active in a number of advocacy roles that enable her to push for greater climate action while highlighting related issues around environmental justice. She is a member of the RAIC’s Advisory Committee for Promoting Equity and Justice and their liaison to the Climate Action Engagement and Enablement Plan Steering Committee. She also serves as a Sustainability Advisor on the City of Toronto’s Design Review Panel. She has spoken extensively about low carbon design, including lectures at the CaGBC’s Innovation Series, the University of Toronto and George Brown College.
Kourosh Mahvash - (He, Him, His) MRAIC, M.Arch, M.St. (Cantab), LEED AP
With over twenty years of experience in both academia and practice, Kourosh Mahvash is the chair of the RAIC Promoting Equity and Justice Advisory Committee. A PhD candidate at the School of Planning, University of Waterloo, where his research is an investigation of the architecture’s contribution to social good, Kourosh concurrently teaches at the Environmental Design Program, Faculty of Design, Ontario College of Art and Design.
Starting as the sustainability researcher in 2007, Kourosh was the Sustainable Research Leader for HCMA Architecture + Design from 2010 to 2014. Kourosh has also taught design, building systems interface and sustainability at Dalhousie University (2003- 2006), BCIT (2014) and University of Waterloo (2022).
Kourosh received his Master of Architectural Engineering from Tehran University (1995), his Post-Professional Master of Architecture from Dalhousie University (2002) and his Master of Studies in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment from the University of Cambridge (2009). He has been a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) since 2013.
Alanna Quock - Intern Architect, AIBC, MRAIC, MILFI
Principal, Regenative Design. Alanna is a Tāłtān and Tlingit planner, designer, and creative problem solver with a passion for building adaptive capacity. Alanna grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon, the home of the Ta’an Kwachan Council and Kwanlin Dun First Nations, and now calls the territory of the shishalh Nation home. Alanna has 20 years experience working with individuals, first nations, communities and governments in the Yukon, BC and Quebec. Alanna is most comfortable when navigating a space of ambiguity and complexity - she seeks to use design thinking as a practical and creative approach to bring clarity and simplicity to complex situations. Her training in architecture supports her ability for cross-scale interdisciplinary thinking that allows her to quickly see patterns and bring together disparate elements into a cohesive whole. As project lead Alanna knows how to build and coordinate a team to get the job done. Alanna’s approach to community-based project design and delivery has been recognized as leading the way in global indigenous design practice.
Alanna is also a member of the RAIC Indigenous Task Force and Low Carbon Education Advisory Committee.
Graeme Bristol - AIBC (Ret.), MRAIC, BA(Hon.), BArch, MASA, LLM
Graeme Bristol, a Canadian architect, is the founder and executive director of the Centre for Architecture and Human Rights, an international foundation advancing a rights-based approach to development in the practice of architecture through ongoing demonstration projects, research and education programmes. He holds a Masters in architecture from the University of British Columbia and a Masters in human rights law from Queen’s University Belfast.
Graeme is also a member of the RAIC Promoting Equity and Justice Advisory Committee.
Michel Labrie- Architect AIBC, MRAIC. ENV SP LEED BD+C
Principal, Architect AIBC, LEED AP, BD+C, ENVISION SP, MRAIC. Thoughtful, inspiring, and approachable, Michel Labrie is a principal and co-founder of Local Practice Architecture, focusing on regenerative design, integrated design process, public consultation, and green building research and education. An acknowledged leader in the field of sustainable construction in BC, Michel’s expertise is in the delivery of buildings that provide net benefits to their host communities and ecosystems. Michel teaches sustainability theory and practice in the Architectural Science program at BCIT’s School of Construction.
Todd Thexton
Todd is an Assistant Professor in the School of Business at Royal Roads University. Thexton teaches in areas related to environmental economics and sustainability for the School of Business and the School of Environment and Sustainability and teaches business case planning for climate adaptation in the Master of Arts in Climate Action Leadership program. He is actively involved in designing educational innovations for social and environmental impact. In addition to the scholarship of teaching and learning, Thexton’s main research interests relate to ecocentric management and the intrinsic value of nature.