Brigitte Shim: Abend Family Visiting Critic Endowed Lecture

Brigitte Shim was born in Kingston, Jamaica and lives in Toronto, Canada. She studied architecture and environmental studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada. In 1994, Shim and her partner, A. Howard Sutcliffe, founded Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in Toronto. Their design practice explores the integration and interrelated scales of architecture, landscape, furniture, and fittings. Shim-Sutcliffe has realized built work in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia, focusing on placemaking.   

To date, Shim and Sutcliffe have received sixteen Governor General’s Medals for Architecture from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada along with an American Institute of Architects National Honor Award and many other professional accolades for their built work. In 2013, Shim and Sutcliffe were awarded the Order of Canada, for their contributions as architects designing sophisticated structures that represent the best of Canadian design to the world. In 2021, they were awarded the RAIC Gold Medal for their tireless commitment to advocacy, teaching, and mentoring along with their commitment to craft, tectonics, site, and ecology in their built work and its lasting impact on Canadian architecture.

Shim is a faculty member at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. She was the 2022 Norman Foster Visiting Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture and has been a visiting chair and lecturer at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, The Cooper Union’s Chanin School of Architecture, the University of Auckland, and others. She has served on numerous international, national, and local design juries as an unwavering advocate for design excellence.