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Stay updated with our latest Ottawa architecture insights and projects in our News section. Engaging blogs await!

News From Award Winning Architects - Linebox Studio

Quand on parle de nous.

Nouvelles

One of only 5 international projects selected as finalists.

 - one of the world's most prestigious global architecture and design programs - in the 

Now in its third edition, the Archello Awards brings together an international jury of 120 architects and designers to evaluate more than 1,000 entries across 66 project categories. From that field, five finalists were shortlisted in each category, followed by a month-long public vote that spotlighted standout projects, innovative building products, and contributions from leading firms worldwide. In each category, one winner was chosen by the jury and one by popular vote.

Being recognized among this small group of projects, from across the globe and across every scale of practice, is a meaningful milestone for our studio and a reflection of the care, craft, and intention that went into every decision at Ruby Cottage. Thank you to everyone who supported and voted. We are grateful, and we remain inspired.

Ruby Cottage: a finalist in the Archello Awards

Ruby Cottage named a finalist in the Archello Awards 2025

What does it mean to design a building that belongs to its landscape?

The best buildings don't look like they were placed on a site. They look like they grew from it. That's not a romantic notion; it's a design standard. Site-responsive architecture starts from the premise that every piece of land has a logic: a topography, a climate, a material culture, a view. The architect's job is to read that logic carefully and respond to it honestly. When that happens well, the result is a building that feels inevitable, as if nothing else could have stood in that spot.

Linebox Studio recently developed three distinct cabin concepts for a multi-unit retreat development on a 132,000+ sq/m waterfront lot along the Gatineau River near Mont-Sainte-Marie, Quebec. Same site, same zoning, same material palette - three very different answers to the question of what it means to belong to a place. One concept plays with vertical contrast: a steeply pitched gabled roof rising from a cantilevered concrete base, cedar-clad and dramatic. Another goes tall and lean, a vertical vernacular expression with a soaring two-storey interior. The third goes horizontal - a long, low single-storey form that follows the landscape rather than competing with it.

What unites all three is a commitment to architecture as a response rather than an imposition. The green roof that slows the wind and softens the silhouette. The earth-bermed wedge that pulls daylight deep into the section. The covered threshold that stages the transition from outside to in — compression, then release. 

Retreats, Cabins, and the Architecture of Belonging to a Place

For 10 years, Joanne Hall and her husband, Russel, had their dream cottage. Mostly.

Their place was large – about 2,500 square feet – on a scenic lake just a 45-minute drive from their home in central Ottawa. “Our dock was on a deep part of the lake with an interesting, rocky shoreline,” says Joanne.

There was, however, one major drawback. “The cottage only had one bedroom,” she explains. “There was a big open room where we could fit a lot of people, but there was no privacy.”

That issue became more pressing in the summer of 2020. Russel was retired, and Joanne was on the verge of stepping back from her career in mental health.

The cottage property of Joanne Hall and husband Russel is set on a scenic lake a 45-minute drive from central Ottawa.

“I’m from Northwestern Ontario and my husband is from England,” says Joanne. “Growing up, our kids never had the experience of easy, accessible time with their grandparents – they lived far away. We wanted to retire close to Ottawa so our kids and grandkids could visit whenever they wanted, even if it was just to come swimming for the day.”

A cottage on stilts rises above the tree canopy near Ottawa

A cottage on stilts rises above the tree canopy near Ottawa.

A growing body of research — and a new wave of experimental housing - suggests that architecture has a measurable impact on human wellbeing. Here's what that means for how we design.

It's a question worth asking directly: can architecture make people healthier, happier, more connected? The answer, increasingly supported by research and real-world experimentation, is yes — but only if we design for it intentionally. The built environment shapes behaviour, mood, and social connection in ways that are both subtle and profound. Most housing is designed around minimum viable standards. The most interesting work happening today is designed around maximum human flourishing.

Linebox Studio is currently in the early research phase of a new development project centred precisely on this question. We're exploring what 'light-touch, human-centred' architecture can mean today: materials that age well and improve with time, spatial layouts that encourage connection without removing privacy, systems designed for adaptability as households change over decades. We're drawing on exemplars like Living Places Copenhagen — a brilliant model of how real-life testing and architectural experimentation can reshape the way we think about residential design.

The fundamentals matter enormously here. Natural light isn't a nice-to-have, it's a primary health determinant. Acoustic quality shapes stress levels and sleep. The presence or absence of outdoor space, shared amenities, and well-designed thresholds between public and private life all have measurable effects on how people experience their homes. The best residential architecture takes all of this seriously and considers it as a coherent spatial thesis about what it means to live well.

As housing supply becomes the defining urban policy challenge of this decade, there's a real risk that quantity crowds out quality. We'd argue the false economy is obvious: buildings that don't support the wellbeing of their residents cost more in the long run; in social services, in turnover, in the erosion of neighbourhood quality. Designing for human flourishing isn't a luxury tier of housing. It's the right baseline. 

Can Architecture Actually Foster Wellbeing?

The Living Places Question: Can Architecture Actually Foster Wellbeing?

CLV's second adaptive reuse project with architects Linebox Studio

Article by David Sali, Ottawa Business Journal

The developer that transformed a vacant commercial building on Albert Street into an apartment complex is poised to launch its second office-to-residential conversion project in downtown Ottawa".

https://obj.ca/clv-group-to-convert-laurier-building/

CLV Group to convert former office building into apartments

Building is close to ideal for adaptive reuse

A new business networking event organized for women by Ottawa business leader Melissa Reeves, COO Linebox Studio

Article and photo by Caroline Phillips, Ottawa Business Journal.

A new business networking event organized for women by Ottawa business leader 

 lived up to its name by giving this morning’s attendees just the lift they needed to get on with their day feeling energized, motivated and ready to take on the world".

https://obj.ca/working-title-hosts-new-womens-networking-event-boost/

Boost! A New Women's Networking Event

Boost! New Women's Networking Event

Article by Dave LeBlanc, the Architourist. Globe & Mail

Link to the complete article in the Globe & Mail

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/article-horizontal-homes-dance-with-an-old-church/

"Horizontal Homes" dance with an old church

A new innovation hub in Canada's largest tech park (en anglais uniquement).

Getting the chance to design spaces at Hub350 was a bit of a dream. The project is a nearly 13,000 square-foot space, forming the entry to Kanata North, Canada’s largest technology park. In truth, it’s a very logical fit for us. But that didn’t lessen the impact of the win.

Linebox has somehow always been fortunate to be present at the precipice of Canadian tech greatness. When we designed Shopify’s headquarters, we saw their meteoric rise happen so fast, we had to design another space for them just to accommodate their growth. Of course, now famously, with the onset of the pandemic, they exited the in-person work-space realm and shifted (perhaps permanently) to remote work. For some, that’s understandable. And far be it for us to question the genius mindset that impels that ship. But at the same time, while we may have all seen some of the benefits of remote work, the majority of us have also come to understand the price of an absence of human contact. There's a mental toll that many have experienced, yes. But there’s a societal, industry and opportunity cost, too.

Hub350 addresses that head-on. It wasn’t conceived to combat any of this. After all, who knew the next tech disruption would be in tackling an emerging work pattern brought on by a global pandemic?

None-the-less, the brand new ecosystem for industry at 350 Legget Dr, less than half and hour from the Parliament Buildings in downtown Ottawa, is our latest office canvas.

Unlike the headquarters we’ve designed for Shopify, ElementAI, Klipfolio, BenchSci and GSoft, the new Hub350 won’t serve a single company. It will serve a community. The design seizes the opportunity to meld minds from industry, academic and finance worlds. In the heart of Kanata North, there will now be a place for burgeoning businesses, entrepreneurs, newly-minted and future generations of skilled workers and investors to co-exist and collaborate. There is something about being in physical presence with others that, despite brilliant emergent IT, humanity just can’t replicate in the virtual world. Zoom meetings don’t allow for the accidental interaction that happens when in a meeting place designed to filter in experts and professionals from the 550 companies that surround the space or the 33,000 employees that work for the myriad of tech sectors they represent.

We’ve mapped out every office feature that has provided the winning model that’s helped propel tech start-ups to tech giant status and applied it to something like a community nerve centre. Open-concept meeting rooms allow for interaction with capacity options, while inviting the buzz of the energetic hub to keep the sessions lively. Smaller private offices deliver places for focus. Lounges offer the all-important down-time and a venue for more casual run-ins that so often end up being the forum for a brilliant solution. Soundproof booths can be used for powering through detailed work or sharing an idea whose genesis isn’t yet ready for public consumption. Seating areas and with presentation-style seating host a range of activities from relaxation to life-changing pitches made by founders intent on impressing potential investors. And to take the services and ideas to the wider world, there’s a full-service media studio. Producing stories and broadcasting promotional materials from a state-of-the-art studio like the one onsite rounds out the experience that will be available to so many Ottawa region individuals and businesses.

We’re excited by the depth of this project. Queen’s, Ottawa U, Algonquin College, Carlton U, Salesforce, Telus, and RBC are all anchor partners.

Having a physical space to foster businesses, thoughts, dreams and ideas with like-minded people is the legacy that will generate so many more industry-leading powerhouses. If the pandemic has proved anything, it’s that people need the inspiration of others to light and relight that spark that urges the germ of an idea into a grander success that solves problems, feeds mouths and changes lives. That’s a powerful thought that we don’t forget when we’re designing. Culture matters. And the way a space accommodates it can encourage it immeasurably.

The Kanata North Technology Park houses the second biggest sector in the City of Ottawa, just after the government in the downtown core. The ability to attract and retain knowledge workers relies on the type of thinking that is conceived at Hub350. In fact, it’s innovations like this initiative, that will drive tech talent from around the world to converge in the nation’s capital, increasingly tipping the balance of tomorrow’s technological generation in Canada’s favour. Being a part of it is an honour and it gives us endless confidence in the future of the Ottawa market.