Brigitte Shim

Crafting Place

A lecture by Brigitte Shim, founding partner of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects with a response by Eric Bunge, Adjunct Associate Professor at GSAPP and a co-Founding Partner of nARCHITECTS.

This lecture will be presented virtually, please register in advance for the Zoom webinar link.

Brigitte Shim is a Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto and a principal at Shim-Sutcliffe Architects. She has been teaching at the Daniels Faculty since 1988, and has overseen core design studios, advanced design studios, thesis studios, and courses in the history and theory of landscape architecture. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Shim graduated from the University of Waterloo with degrees in Environmental Studies and Architecture.

Shim, along with her partner A. Howard Sutcliffe, formed the architectural design practice Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in 1994. Their critical design practice reflects their shared interest in and passion for the integration and interrelated scales of architecture, landscape, and interior and industrial design. To date, Shim and Sutcliffe have received fourteen Governor General’s Medals and Awards for architecture as well as an American Institute of Architects National Honor Award, among many other professional accolades included receiving the 2021 Royal Architecture Institute of Canada Gold Medal. Their built work includes projects for non-profit groups as well as public and private clients. Brigitte Shim has lectured on Shim-Sutcliffe’s built work and participated in invited international symposia around the world. Shim-Sutcliffe’s built work has been published in respected architectural publications around the world. Shim-Sutcliffe – The Passage of Time is part of the Documents in Canadian Architecture series published by Dalhousie Architectural Press.

Shim has also served on numerous international, national, and local design juries as an advocate for design excellence, including the 2007 Aga Khan Architecture Award Master jury. She is currently serving on the Aga Khan Architecture Award Steering Committee (2016 – 2018) and has been a field reviewer for the award programme. Shim is currently a member of Waterfront Toronto’s Design Review Committee. She has served on both Canada’s National Capital Commission Architectural Advisory Board and the University of Toronto’s Design Review Committee for over a decade. She was a board member of Build Toronto, the real estate and development corporation created to generate value from the City’s real estate assets (2008 – 2012). She has served as a board member of Mooreland’s Community Services — a local Toronto non-profit charity helping inner city children and youth affected by poverty since 1917 (2003 – 2008) — and Greenwood College School (2009 – 2013). She is a Senior Fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto and was their College Architect for two decades.

Shim is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC), an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (Hon FAIA), and an elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA). She is a registered architect in the Province of Ontario (OAA), the State of Maine, and the State of Hawaii.

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This event content is equivalent to 1 AIA/CES total learning credit, 1 total credit earned. AIA. Please contact events@arch.columbia.edu for more information.