Nk'Mip Wins Governor General's Award

The Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre in the Okanagan has been selected as a 2008 recipient for a Governor General's Medal in Architecture.

A collaboration between Vancouver-based architects Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden and AldrichPears Associates, the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre celebrates the rich living culture of the Okanagan People. The architectural and interpretive teams worked together to design a state of the art facility in Canada's only desert. The building incorporates numerous sustainable design features, including the largest earth-rammed wall in North America.

"We consider this award as much a recognition of AldrichPears Associates' dedication to the project as our own," says architect Bruce Haden. "Without [The AldrichPears team], we would not have been able to achieve a building that is so tightly integrated in terms of relationship to landscape, conceptual structure, and exhibitory."

Presented by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts, the Governor General's Medal in Architecture is the highest acknowledgement that a building can receive. Only 12 medals are awarded across the country every two years.

AldrichPears Associates is currently collaborating with another 2008 medal winner, Moriyama and Teshima Architects, of Toronto, on the new Meewasin Valley Centre in Saskatoon.

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