Image courtesy Lateral Office

"Liquid Commons" is one of the proposals centered on an ecologic and social empowerment of Canada's Far North by Lateral Office, winners of the 2010 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture Award.

A Toronto-based architecture firm has won this year's Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture.

Lateral Office received the $50,000 award from the Canada Council for the Arts for "excellent achievement in Canadian architectural practice."

Jury members said Lateral Office addresses issues remaining outside of the architectural imagination, and their decision to focus on research and share their findings will make it possible for a broad community of actors to engage in the search for appropriate solutions.

The firm's founding partners, Lola Sheppard and Mason White, will travel to the Arctic to pursue their research proposal, "Emergent North," with the prize money. They will look at challenges and opportunities of the public realm, civic space, landscape, and infrastructure emerging from the geography. From their research they will form a series of ongoing design projects responding to social, political, economic, and ecological issues confronting the North.

Brigitte Desrocher, Canadian Council for the Arts program officer for architecture, told Construction Canada Online that Sheppard and White won the award for their dedication to topics not readily available.

"We aren't exposed to realities of the northern environment, and their project hinges upon all the big issues going on in the North."

The award is given to a young architect or firm that has completed its first building and demonstrated exceptional artistic potential. The prize allows winners to travel around the world to hone their skills, develop their creative practice, and strengthen their presence in international architecture culture.