Watch the recording of the presentation by Lisa Landrum and Darryl Condon below
Quality In Canada’s Built Environment, a research partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), organized the Toronto 2025 National Quality Convention from April 30 to May 2, 2025. This year’s main objective was to reflect on how to develop a National Quality Strategy for the built environment. As part of this process, this national convention featured two series of roundtable discussions (April 30 and May 1) and multiple plenary sessions. These sessions brought together diverse stakeholders and experts to share their experiences of developing different strategies regarding quality in the built environment, both at the national and international levels. Like other experts, Darryl Condon and Lisa Landrum actively participated in both roundtable series and delivered a joint presentation during the third plenary session on Day 1. Their talk, “Rise for Architecture Initiative: Toward an Architecture Policy in Canada” and “CAFÉ Experience”, offered valuable insights into organizing co-creation processes and collaborative decision-making.
Darryl Condon, Managing Principal at hcma architecture + design, has dedicated over 35 years to fostering social change through public architecture. From 2016 to 2023, he chaired Rise for Architecture, advocating for a national architecture policy. A Fellow of the RAIC and Past President of the AIBC, Darryl is now pursuing a Doctorate of Design at the University of Calgary, exploring how to maximize public benefit through community facilities.
Lisa Landrum, Professor and Chair of the Department of Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University, is an architect, educator, and researcher whose work explores the intersections of architectural agency, ethics, and poetics. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University, along with a Master’s and PhD in Architectural History and Theory from McGill University. In 2019, she founded the Canadian Architecture Forums on Education (CAFÉ) to advance national dialogue on the future of architecture. Her works advocate for social equity and cultural meaning, highlighting architecture’s role in fostering peace, justice, and jo. She is the author of Theatres of Architectural Imagination (Routledge, 2023).
Darryl Condon discussed in his presentation that the “Rise for Architecture initiative” was launched in 2014 by a coalition of architects, educators, regulators, and advocacy groups, with an aim to begin dialogue on the future of architecture in Canada and advocate for a national architecture policy. This project brought together regulators, schools, and advocacy groups, engaging over 2,000 architects in combination with public polling. Darryl discoursed about the six priorities: reform governance, expand “public interest,” diversify the profession, improve culture, enhance education, and strengthen public engagement. Later, as successes, he noted that raising national awareness, influencing political conversations are noteworthy. Challenges included stalled governance reforms, limited progress on accreditation reform, and the absence (so far) of a formal Canadian architecture policy. Darryl Condon emphasized that the initiative’s real legacy was “…the start of the conversation, not the end.”, and stated that the effort is the beginning of a long-term movement to transform architectural practice in Canada.
The second presenter in the plenary session, Lisa Landrum, reflected on lessons from the Canadian Architecture Forums on Education (CAFÉ) initiative. The main focus of this CAFÉ initiative, launched in 2017, was to include and bring students, who make up a third of Canada’s architectural community, in national conversations about the future of architecture. Lisa discoursed that through three different series of workshops, CAFÉ has brought together all 12 accredited schools via student-led presentations, roundtables, exhibitions, and theme-based discussions, including Indigenous perspectives. Through interactive presentation, both videos and illustrations, Lisa displayed that the first series of workshops connected students nationwide on issues like climate action, accessibility, and social justice; the second workshop series focused on, “Toward Equity in Architecture,” addressed anti-racism and inclusion; and the third workshop series focused on housing. Lisa Landrum emphasized that the major focus of these CAFÉ workshops was to develop student leadership so that a more inclusive, responsive, and socially engaged architectural profession can be developed in the future.
At the final part, Darryl Condon reflected on lessons from the CAFÉ initiative, contrasting its bottom-up, student-driven approach with the more top-down “Rise for Architecture” process. He stressed that real change requires combining both approaches, widening participation by including the public, and recognizing that perceptions of quality differ greatly and depend on lived experience.
Watch the presentation by Darryl Condon and Lisa Landrum here:
