Entries for our 16th annual WL Designers of the Year Awards are now open in 9 categories. And for those of you considering the Architecture category, we have excellent news: these top designers from around the world have all signed up to be our 2023 Architecture judging panel.

Get your entry in today!

Questions? Drop us a line at mail@westernliving.ca

Introducing the 2023 Designers of the Year Architecture Judges

Kengo Kuma

Founder, Kengo Kuma & Associates

Kengo Kuma was born in 1954. He established Kengo Kuma & Associates in 1990. He is currently a University Professor and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo after teaching at Keio University and the University of Tokyo. KKAA projects are currently underway in more than 30 countries—including in Vancouver, with the upcoming Alberni by Kengo Kuma in Vancouver.  Kengo Kuma proposes architecture that opens up new relationships between nature, technology, and human beings. His major publications include Zen Shigoto (Kengo Kuma – the complete works, Daiwa Shobo), Ten Sen Men (“point, line, plane”, Iwanami Shoten), Makeru Kenchiku (Architecture of Defeat, Iwanami Shoten), Shizen na Kenchiku (Natural Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho), Chii-sana Kenchiku (Small Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho) and many others.

Balázs Bognár

Partner, Kengo Kuma & Associates

Balázs Bognár is a HungarianAmerican architect and Partner at Kengo Kuma & Associates. He has been working with Kengo Kuma since 2007, leading projects in the U.S., with construction in Vancouver, Dallas, Sydney, and Los Angeles.

Notable completed work includes Amanpuri’s Retail Pavilion in Phuket, Thailand (2019), Rolex Tower in Dallas, Texas (2018, receiving Engineering NewsRecords 2019 Global Best Office Building Project); Portland Japanese Garden’s Cultural Village in Oregon (2017, receiving the 2018 Eurasian Prize, the 2019 AIA Japan Architecture Award, and others); and Red Bull Music Academy in Tokyo, Japan (2014).

He has lectured at University of Washington, University of Oregon, Auburn University, University of Tennessee, and has been a guest critic at Monash University, Temple University, and Boston Architectural College. His latest essay, Fitness on Connected Fields: Distance, Time, and Conversation is in Approaching Architecture: Three Fields, One Discipline (Routledge 2022).

He received his Master’s in Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (2003), and his B.A. in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis (2000). Balázs is a native of Urbana, Illinois, based in Tokyo, Japan.

Shirley Blumberg

Founding Partner, KPMB Architects

Shirley Blumberg is a founding partner of KPMB Architects and a Member of the Order of Canada for her contributions to architecture and community. She has designed many of the firm’s noteworthy and award-winning projects that range in scale, from interiors to architecture and planning.

In addition to her academic and cultural projects, she has also focused on social justice work in affordable housing. She is currently working on such projects as the Montreal Holocaust Museum and prototypical housing for the northern Indigenous community of Fort Severn in Ontario, Canada.

Several years ago, Shirley began a conversation with like-minded colleagues that became BEAT – Building Equality in Architecture Toronto – a grassroots initiative to promote equality for women in the profession that has since grown to include chapters across Canada.

Michael Green

Principal, MGA

Michael Green is an award-winning architect, speaker, and author known for using design to create meaningful, sustainably-built environments that benefit both people and planet. A leader in wood construction and innovation, he has completed some of the most significant timber buildings in the world, and has been recognized with over forty international awards for design excellence, including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Firm of the Year, Architizer’s Best in North America Firm Award in both 2021 and 2022, four Governor General’s Medals, two RAIC Innovation Awards, and the American Institute of Architects Innovation Award. 

Michael is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the recipient of an honourary doctorate degree from the University of Northern British Columbia, lecturing internationally about mass timber and new building technology, including his TED talk, “Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers.” He serves as a government policy advisor on mass timber design and co-authors the first and second editions of ‘The Case for Tall Wood Buildings’ and ‘Tall Wood Buildings: Design, Construction and Performance.’ 

An avid traveller and adventurer, Michael has explored remote regions of every continent and loves ice climbing, mountaineering, ocean kayaking, and biking. These journeys through nature are what inspire his work. 

Clinton Cuddington

Principal, Measured Architecture

Prior to forming Measured in 2007, Clinton had amassed an impressive public architecture pedigree, including nine years as an architect for Bing Thom Architects in Vancouver working on commissions that included the redevelopment and expansion of the Arena Stage Theatre in Washington, DC, and the Surrey Campus of Simon Fraser University. Working alongside Bing Thom, Clinton played a pivotal role as project architect on both commissions, which garnered international attention and won the firm numerous prestigious awards. In particular, the SFU building was recognized for a Special Jury Prize in France’s Marche International des Professionels de l’Immobilier.

In Measured, Clinton has actualized his vision to create a firm where architects can fully engage and collaborate with clients, builders and other artisans to create outcomes that far surpass the sum of the individuals involved. It’s here Clinton is able to combine his hard-earned, traditional architectural roots and technical skill with the learned core values from his past that he holds dear. Among those values are a duty of care to the environment — which Measured exercises through its continuous pursuit of local, sustainable materials and partnerships with local craftspeople — and a sense of responsibility to clients that manifests in trust relationships and, ultimately, the delivery of authentically functional, enduring and beautiful spaces.