ARIDO Award: Centennial College A – Building Expansion 

The Centennial College A-Building Expansion advances the design profession by setting a precedent for culturally integrated, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive educational spaces.

Category: IMPACT

Interior Designer: Chen Cohen, ARIDO 
Design Firm: DIALOG
Design Team: Camille Ganuelas, ARIDO 
Joint Venture: Eladia Smoke, Smoke Architecture Inc. 

Photographer: James Brittain 

As Canada’s first LEED Gold, net-zero carbon, WELL-certified mass timber higher education facility, the project represents a milestone in sustainable design. It demonstrates how interior environments can meaningfully address climate change while enhancing human well-being.

What truly distinguishes this project is its grounding in Two-Eyed Seeing, an Indigenous framework that harmonizes Indigenous and Western worldviews. By embracing this philosophy, the design team redefined traditional approaches to interior planning and storytelling, transforming the building itself into a living educational tool. This represents innovation not just in form or materiality, but in process, embedding reconciliation into every design decision, from stakeholder engagement to spatial narratives.

The result is a new standard for design thinking. Merging biophilic strategies, equitable access, and cultural continuity and calling on the profession to evolve beyond aesthetics and function, toward spaces that actively foster healing, connection, and transformative learning.

Text by: The Interior Designer