Cameron Sinclair Wows HOK Canada

Ed Burtynsky and Cameron Sinclair; photo by Hugo Arriojas

10 years ago, HOK Canada started with 15 employees in a townhouse. Now 250 strong, it is celebrating its anniversary in style. Last night Edward Burtynsky dropped jaws all around with a slide show of his photographs of quarries, slag heaps, coal and construction in China and shipbreaking in India. He then introduced Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, who entranced the crowd for 55 minutes, barely squeezing in the history of the organization and a volume of work that would make HOK proud, let alone a 33 year old graduate architect.

Cameron concluded with his invitation to architects everywhere to respond to the AMD Open Architecture Challenge, where the designer gets a $ 250,000 budget to "develop innovative and sustainable solutions to improve living conditions around the world."

When asked by a clearly wowed Director of Design Gordon Stratford "what can we do?" Cameron gave him a number of choices, (including "give me all your staff and money") but concluded with "go local"-find a someone, some place in your own city where you can make a difference. Good advice. ::Architecture for Humanity

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