Montreal City Hall – Beaupré Michaud and Associates, Architects in collaboration with MU Architecture, Montreal. Photo credit: Raphaël Thibodeau The Ordre des architectes du Québec (OAQ) has revealed the winners of its 2025 Awards of Excellence in Architecture. A total of eleven projects were recognized at a gala hosted by Jean-René Dufort at Espace St-Denis in Montreal. The Grand Prix d’excellence en architecture was awarded to the restoration of Montreal City Hall , a major project led by Beaupré Michaud et Associés, architects, and MU Architecture. This complex project successfully preserves the building’s historical qualities while transforming it into an exemplary place in terms of energy and ecology.  Guided by plans from the 1920s, the architects revived this building by equipping it with contemporary, efficient, more open, and more accessible features for residents. In addition to the heritage restoration, the team also reconciled old and contemporary technologies, energy efficiency, universal accessibility, and the reappropriation of spaces that had become dilapidated. The People’s Choice Award was presented to the Coop Milieu de l’île, designed by Pivot: Coopérative d’architecture. Located in Outremont, this 91-unit intergenerational housing cooperative was born from the initiative of a group of committed citizens looking to address the housing crisis by creating affordable, off-market housing. In the context of the housing crisis, the jury emphasized that this project, which is also the recipient of an Award of Excellence, designed by and for its residents, acts as a “breath of fresh air in Outremont.” Coop Milieu de l’île. Pivot: Architecture Cooperative, Montreal. Photo credit: Annie Fafard “The projects we evaluated this year were truly remarkable in their richness and diversity. The jury found in them everything that makes Quebec architecture so strong and unique: rigor, attention to detail, and respect for the context and built heritage. We saw emblematic projects, but also discreet gestures, almost invisible in the landscape. Some projects rehabilitated forgotten places, transformed historic buildings, or even imagined new spaces for collective living. All, in their own way, highlighted the powerful impact of built quality on our living environments,” said Gabrielle Nadeau, chair of the OAQ Awards of Excellence Jury. The jury for the 2025 Awards of Excellence in Architecture was chaired by Gabrielle Nadeau, principal design architect, COBE in Copenhagen. It also included architects Marianne Charbonneau of Agence Spatiale, Maxime-Alexis Frappier of ACDF, and Guillaume Martel-Trudel of Provencher-Roy. Élène Levasseur, director of research and education at Architecture sans frontières Québec, acted as the public representative. Through the Awards of Excellence in Architecture, presented annually, the Order aims to raise awareness among Quebecers of the multiple dimensions of architectural quality, in addition to promoting the role of the architects in the design of inspiring, sustainable and thoughtful senior living environments. The full list of winners include the following. Habitat Sélénite by _naturehumaine Habitat Sélénite – _naturehumaine, Eastman (Estrie). Photo: Raphaël Thibodeau École secondaire du Bosquet by ABCP | Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux | Bilodeau Baril Leeming Architectes École secondaire du Bosquet – ABCP | Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux | Bilodeau Baril Leeming Architectes, Drummondville (Centre-du-Québec). Photo: Stéphane Brügger Bibliothèque Gabrielle-Roy by Saucier + Perrotte Architectes et GLCRM Architectes Bibliothèque Gabrielle-Roy – Saucier + Perrotte Architectes et GLCRM Architectes, Québec (Capitale-Nationale). Photo: Olivier Blouin Maison A by Atelier Pierre Thibault Maison A – Atelier Pierre Thibault, Saint-Nicolas (Chaudière-Appalaches). Photo: Maxime Brouillet Nouvel Hôtel de Ville de La Pêche by BGLA Architecture et Design Urbain Nouvel Hôtel de Ville de La Pêche – BGLA Architecture et Design Urbain, La Pêche (Outaouais). Photo: Stéphane Brügger / Dominique Laroche École du Zénith by Pelletier de Fontenay + Leclerc École du Zénith – Pelletier de Fontenay + Leclerc, Shefford (Estrie). Photo: James Brittain / David Boyer Le Paquebot by _naturehumaine Le Paquebot – _naturehumaine, Montréal (Montréal). Photo: Ronan Mézière Coopérative funéraire la Seigneurie by ultralocal architectes Coopérative funéraire la Seigneurie – ultralocal architectes, Québec (Capitale-Nationale). Photo credit: Paul Dussault Site d’observation des bélugas Putep’t-awt by atelier5 + mainstudio Site d’observation des bélugas Putep’t-awt – atelier5 + mainstudio, Cacouna (Bas-Saint-Laurent). Photo: Stéphane Groleau The post OAQ Awards of Excellence winners announced appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Paris-based AI startup Veesion has secured €38mn to fuel expansion to the US — where it looks to help cure the country’s shoplifting “epidemic.” Veesion’s AI-based computer vision software is trained to spot gestures in security camera feeds, such as a shopper putting an item in their pocket. If it sees something suspicious, the AI pings the store owner or security guard via an app, where it displays a recording of the activity. The user then makes the final judgment on whether the situation qualifies as theft.  The software comes in a small box that plugs into a shop’s existing CCTV system. To protect privacy, the system only registers human movements, not identifying information like a person’s face or clothing, the company said.  Security cameras are common in most retail outlets. However, Veesion’s CEO and co-founder Thibault David said he thinks they are “completely useless.” Grab that deal “Cameras in shops are rarely used, because they require a human to keep watch on them,” he told TNW. Founded in 2018, Veesion’s AI shoplifter-spotter is already installed in over 6,000 stores in 25 countries, including France, the UK, Brazil and the US, where it is now looking to expand.   In 2022, US retailers reported inventory losses amounting to $112bn (€100bn), $40.3bn (€36bn) of which was attributed to shoplifting. Meanwhile, the UK, with a population around a quarter of the US, is also experiencing a rise in incidents of shoplifting. The country suffered losses of £2.2bn (€2.5bn) in 2023, according to a recent survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC).  “Shoplifting is a huge pain point for retail stores, especially in the US, which is suffering from a theft epidemic,” said David. However, spotting the crime is just one part of the puzzle — confronting shoplifters is another. According to the same BRC survey, violence and abuse against UK shop workers rose by 50% in 2023, with more than 2,000 such incidents recorded on average per day. In both the UK and the US, enforcement against shoplifters is free-falling.   As retailers struggle to keep pace with rising theft, some are turning to technology for support. While Veesion’s AI doesn’t promise to solve shoplifting outright, it might give store owners better tools to detect it and decide how to respond.  As part of its US expansion plans, Veesion will open an office in Florida that aims to employ about 50 people. One of its co-founders, Benoît Koenig, is also moving across the Atlantic permanently as part of the company’s expanded presence in the country.  Looking ahead, Vession hopes to use its computer vision technology to spot other issues in retail stores, such as falling or slipping risks. It’s also considering expanding to other sectors like manufacturing and healthcare.  AI’s evolution will be a hot topic at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 19-20 in Amsterdam. Tickets for the event are now on sale — use the code TNWXMEDIA2025 at the checkout to get 30% off. Story by Siôn Geschwindt Siôn is a freelance science and technology reporter, specialising in climate and energy. From nuclear fusion breakthroughs to electric vehic (show all) Siôn is a freelance science and technology reporter, specialising in climate and energy. From nuclear fusion breakthroughs to electric vehicles, he's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. He has five years of journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. When he's not writing, you can probably find Siôn out hiking, surfing, playing the drums or catering to his moderate caffeine addiction. You can contact him at: sion.geschwindt [at] protonmail [dot] com Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week. Also tagged with

The International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia,  has returned, with its grand opening held in early May. The exhibition runs until November 23, 2025 The Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioner of Canada’s official participation in the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, administers the selection process and oversees the exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. But in addition to the Canada Pavilion, Canadian architects and designers have a presence in several other exhibitions that are part of this year’s festival. Here’s a round-up of the Canadian work in Venice. Picoplanktonics. Photo credit: Valentina Mori Picoplanktonics led by Living Room Collective Canada’s official entry to the Biennale is Picoplanktonics, a 3D-printed living artwork incorporating cyanobacteria—a global first at the intersection of architecture, biotechnology, and art. The exhibition, developed by the Living Room Collective, showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Picoplanktonics is an exploration of the potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that “remediate the planet rather than exploit it.” The installation transforms the Canada Pavilion into an aquatic micro-ecosystem, where architectural structures grow, evolve, and naturally degrade alongside their living components. It was designed according to regenerative architecture principles, and is not only a built object, but also a breathing organism interacting with its environment, which prompts reflection on potential futures of the built environment. The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee. Etude Ile Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault. Photo credit Alex Lesage Les boucaneries de l’île Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault Atelier Pierre Thibault has been invited to participate in this year’s Venice Biennale as the only team from Québec. His project is inspired by the old fish smokehouses, or boucaneries, of Île Verte. With the support of the fifty permanent residents of Île Verte, Atelier Pierre Thibault has designed a participatory architectural project that aims to reinterpret the boucaneries as creative canvases to imagine new uses to strengthen Île Verte’s autonomy. This includes community greenhouses, artist studios, and gathering places. The exhibition aims to highlight, as Thibault puts it, “the strength of a sensitive and collective gesture in response to the erosion of traditional buildings and the major climate challenges faced by inhabitants living year-round in an isolated island environment.” The construction of the installations, along with the exchanges sparked with the community, was documented through photography and video, and captures both the process and the spirit of collaboration that defined the project. Celebrating the Verdoyants’ collective intelligence and inviting reflection on the future of the boucaneries, this participatory project highlights the exemplary and internationally resonant nature of this approach. The Atelier Pierre Thibault project will be on view at the Corderie dell’Arsenale. The pavilion itself will take the form of a temporary, lightweight structure constructed from reused materials, situated on the grounds of the French Pavilion, which is currently undergoing renovation. The curators have selected 50 projects to be featured across six thematic sections: Living With the Existing, the Immediate, the Broken, Vulnerabilities, Nature, and Combined Intelligences. Image courtesy of WZMH Architects Speedstac by WZMH Architects as part of Living With…Combined Intelligences  As part of the exhibition “Living With… Combined Intelligences,” WZMH Architects presents Speedstac, a prefabricated modular precast solution that aims to reimagine how urban areas devastated by war can be rebuilt. Originally designed to accelerate housing construction in Canada, Speedstac took on urgent new relevance following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With more than 170,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and millions displaced, WZMH’s innovation, developed through its R&D lab, sparkbird, aims to offer a scalable solution: self-contained, plug-and-play building modules with integrated electrical and plumbing systems that can be seamlessly inserted into existing structures. The use of modern materials such as high-performance concrete can reduce the weight of the modules, making them easier to lift and move using conventional crane equipment. Using a robust locking mechanism, several modules can be securely fastened and unfastened as needed, to produce an adaptive modular housing solution. The Speedstac system aims to offer a solution to the challenges of traditional construction methods, enabling faster, more flexible, and more sustainable building projects. The Vivre Avec / Living With exhibition is hosted in the French Pavilion. Presentation, Northern Horizons. Photo credit: Blouin Orzes architectes Northern Horizons by Blouin Orzes architectes as part of Time Space Existence  Through a wide selection of projects—ranging from conceptual works, models and photographs to videos, sculptures and site-specific installations—the exhibition Time Space Existence, hosted by the European Cultural Centre, aims to provoke participants to question their relationship with space and time, re-envisioning new ways of living and rethinking architecture through a larger lens. Quebec firm Blouin Orzes’ participation revolves around their first-hand understanding of Inuit territories, where they have been working since 2000. Their contribution is based on their  recent publication, Northern Journeys. Blouin Orzes’ contribution in on display at the Palazzo Mora, and additional contributions to Time Space Existence are on view at the Palazzo Bembo and Marinaressa Gardens. View of Commercial and Residential Towers from Seymour and West Georgia Streets. Image credit: Henriquez Partners Studio BC Glass Sea Sponge Another contribution to Time Space Existence is the work of Henriquez Partners Studio. The transformative mixed-use development which they are presenting merges architectural innovation, social responsibility and urban revitalization, and has recently been submitted to the City of Vancouver. The project is about ambitious city-building, and aims to unlock public benefits on currently underutilized land in a way that supports some of the city’s most urgent needs, while contributing bold architecture to the city skyline. Four towers, designed by Henriquez, draw inspiration from rare and ancient glass sea sponge reefs, whose ecological strength and resilience have shaped both form and structure. These living marine organisms, which are unique to the Pacific Northwest, aim to serve as a metaphor for regeneration and adaptation. This concept is translated through the architectural language of the towers: silhouettes, sculptural forms, and sustainable performance. The tallest tower, a stand-alone hotel, proposed at 1,033 feet, is shaped by a structural diagrid exoskeleton that allows for column-free interiors while maximizing strength and minimizing material use. Developed in collaboration with Arup, the structural system references the skeletal lattice of sea sponges; a concept researched at Harvard for its groundbreaking structural efficiency. Henriquez Partners’  contribution is on display at Palazzo Bembo. Renewal Development Shishalh Project Duplex Renderings – Image credit: Renewal Development Shíshálh Nation: Ten Home Rescue Project as part of theLiving With / Vivre avec exhibition Vancouver-based company Renewal Development has been selected to appear as part of the French Pavilion’s exhibition on housing innovation. In 2024, Renewal Development partnered with developer Wesgroup and the shíshálh Nation to relocate ten high value Port Moody homes set for demolition to the shíshálh Nation on the Sunshine Coast. The Nation has been experiencing an acute housing shortage with 900 Nation members currently on a waitlist for housing. Renewal Development says that this initiative reflects its “deeply held values of sustainability, and reconciliation” and its “work to offer real-world solutions to waste and housing shortages by reimagining what already exists.” The project will be on display in the French Pavilion. The following is a list of other Canadian groups and individuals contributing to this year’s Venice Biennale: On Storage Brendan Cormier is a Canadian writer, curator, and urban designer based in London. He is currently the lead curator of 20th and 21st Century Design for the Shekou Partnership at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Prior to this he served as the managing editor of Volume Magazine. La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London present for the ninth consecutive year the Applied Arts Pavilion Special Project titled On Storage, curated by Brendan Cormier, in collaboration with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). It explores the global architecture of storage in service of the circulation of things, and features a newly commissioned six-channel film directed by DS+R. From Liquid to Stone: A Reconfigurable Concrete Tectonic Against Obsolescence Inge Donovan, based in Boston, achieved her Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Design and Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto in 2019 after growing up in Nova Scotia, Canada. The Curse of Dimensionality Adeline Chum is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Spatial Research and third-year student in the MArch Program at GSAPP. She has received her Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo, Canada and has worked in small and medium-sized architecture firms in Toronto, New York, and London. Oceanic Refractions Elise Misao Hunchuck, born in Toronto and currently based Berlin and Milan, is a transdisciplinary researcher, editor, writer, and educator. Her practice brings together architecture, landscape architecture, and media studies to research sites in Canada, Japan, China, and Ukraine, employing text, images, and cartographies to document, explore, and archive the co-constitutive relationships between plants, animals, and minerals—in all of their forms. SpaceSuits.Us: A Case for Ultra Thin Adjustments Charles Kim is a designer currently based in Boston. Stemming from his background in architecture, he is interested in materials, DIY, and the aesthetics of affordability. Since graduating from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2022, he has been working as an architectural designer at Utile. Uncommon Knowledge: Plants as Sensors Sonia Sobrino Ralston is a designer, researcher, and educator, and is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in Landscape Architecture and Art + Design at Northeastern University in the College of Arts, Media, and Design. She is interested in the intersections between landscape, architecture, and the history of technology. Doxiadis’ Informational Modernism Mark Wasiuta is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Columbia GSAPP and Co-Director of the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program. Wasiuta is recipient of recent grants from the Onassis Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, NYSCA, and the Graham Foundation, where he was an inaugural Graham Foundation Fellow. Blue Garden: The Architecture of Emergence Tanvi Khurmi, based in London, UK, is a multidisciplinary designer and artist. Her practice is focused on addressing and combatting issues surrounding the climate crisis. After receiving a Bachelor’s in Architecture with a minor in Environmental Studies from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, she earned a Masters of Architecture in Bio-Integrated Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. Design as an Astronaut Dr. Cody Paige is the Director of the Space Exploration Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, a team of 50+ students, faculty, and staff building and flying advanced technology for space exploration. The Initiative focuses on helping students take their research into space. The pipeline developed to achieve this works with students from across the Media Lab and the MIT community to prototype space-related research in the lab, fly and test them in microgravity on parabolic and suborbital flights, and finally to take them to the International Space Station or on to the Moon. Cody also has a background in geology, specifically quaternary geochronology, and completed her Master of Applied Science at the University of Toronto in Aerospace Engineering and her Bachelor of Applied Science from Queen’s University in Engineering Physics.   The post Round-up: Canadian-led exhibitions at the 2025 Venice Biennale appeared first on Canadian Architect.