From the News Release
The Canada Council for the Arts
Ottawa, February 17, 2009

University of Toronto architecture graduate Kelly Nelson Doran is the winner of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners. He will have the opportunity to study the impacts that resource development companies have on the landscape, infrastructure and urbanism of the North.

This $34,000 Prix de Rome is awarded to a recent graduate of one of Canada’s ten accredited schools of architecture who demonstrates outstanding potential. The prize winner is given the opportunity to visit exceptional buildings abroad, and to intern at an architecture firm of international stature.

Over the next year, Mr. Doran will travel to six industrial communities in Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland to study their economic structure and how they incorporate various elements of sustainable development that could enhance regional planning practices in Canada. He hopes that his travels to Scandinavian cities will develop his understanding of the impact that extreme geographic and economic climates have on architecture. His research will culminate in the publication and exhibition of the six case studies. Mr. Doran’s internship will be with 70°N Arkitektur AS in Norway.

Mr. Doran was selected by an assessment committee consisting of architects Russell Acton (Vancouver), Diana Carl 

(Newport, Nova Scotia), Patrick Evans (Montreal), Raymond Gosselin (Regina), and radio producer Sascha Hastings (Toronto).

The peer assessors noted that while Mr. Doran’s argument about sustainable development of northern towns is interesting, it was his proposed design work that convinced them of the value of his work. The assessment committee was also impressed by Mr. Doran’s interest in collecting information about society, economy and environment, noting that this level of involvement and knowledge is “essential to the making of a citizen-architect.”

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