Saint John’s Acre Architects Wins Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture
SAINT JOHN – Acre Architects, the firm that’s designing the apartment complex that will replace Saint John’s ‘Jelly Bean’ buildings, won this year’s Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture from The Canada Council for the Arts. The firm will receive a $50,000 stipend for research, travel and public presentation.
The prize is awarded to a young practitioner of architecture or an architectural firm that has completed their first built works and has demonstrated exceptional artistic potential.
Monica Adair, who co-founded Acre Architects with husband Stephen Kopp, said winning the Prix de Rome has been on their bucket list for years.
“It’s a real significant win for us to win this prestigious national prize,” she said. “There’s always an opportunity when people are presented as ambassadors on the national stage to be able to represent either your work or your firm. But in this case, we feel that we’re as much representing New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada as we are the work of Acre Architects, because in many ways they’re one and the same.”
Both of Acre Architects’ founders are Master of Architecture graduates from the architecture, landscape and design program at the University of Toronto. Their firm’s philosophy lies in an understanding of the unique opportunity that creative collaboration offers for the exploration of new ideas and the achievement of new outcomes.
To be considered for the prize, the firm had to submit a research proposal and some of its built work. Acre Architects mainly focused on projects in Atlantic Canada despite having international clients, because they wanted to showcase the contemporary work that they’ve been doing in the region.
“There hasn’t been a lot of contemporary architecture that existed in New Brunswick. So, the opportunity is with our practice of storied architecture – we want to inspire people to live great stories,” Adair said. “What we’re doing is trying to understand the history that exists here in Atlantic Canada and then see what they would look like moving forward. I think architecture is a great way to bridge who we are as people and where we aspire to be.”
With the prize money, Adair and Kopp will look at various tourism frameworks, in line with their vision to become leaders of cultural tourism in New Brunswick. They will visit Norway, Texas – where they already have projects under construction – and Newfoundland’s Fogo Island Inn.
“We want to make sure that we can learn from places around the world and then come back and bring that into our work,” Adair said. “We believe that cultural tourism is the sustainable way forward for us to not only survive economically but also to really inspire and thrive as a province, to create something unique and be a premier destination throughout the world.”