December 2020
The RAIC Foundation is pleased to announce a new student scholarship to be launched in the 2022-2023 academic year. The Vince Catalli Scholarship in Sustainable Design Innovation has been created to promote and encourage innovative, practical, scalable and transferable approaches to sustainable design among the next generation of architects in Canada.
Endowed by a generous donation from Vince Catalli, this award will be open to students in the last two years of a professional degree program in a registered school of architecture anywhere in Canada, or in Part III of the RAIC Syllabus Program.
Vince Catalli studied architecture at Carleton university, then worked as a student and intern in the offices of KPMB, WZMH and Leonard Koffman. While facing employment uncertainties in the unpredictable economy of the 1990s, he attended an OAA conference where he had what he calls 'a light-bulb' moment
Listening to a lecture by William McDonough, Vince learned about the concept of Cradle to Cradle design, the circular economy, the complexity and opacity of supply chains and the harm being done through the use of toxic substances in consumer goods. From that moment on, he decided to devote his career to the promotion of sustainable design. After an intensive process of self-education, he started his first consulting firm, By Design Consultants in 1994. Finding himself ahead of the green building curve, he began initiating projects of his own
As market transformation began in the late 1990’s , Vince worked on consulting contracts with public and private sector clients till 2005, then later spenT time with architects HOK as their Business Development Manager and with the Canadian cement industry as their first Director of Sustainability. His recent major contract was with the federal government, developing a strategic framework for the identification and implementation of a climate change resilience plan for the Parliamentary Precinct in Ottawa.
Asked why he chose to endow a scholarship of this kind, he replied:
“I always valued my architectural education because it caused me to think, to problem solve with people and enabled me to work on very tangible things that positively affect people’s lives. It is all very rich and gratifying and I want to encourage the next generation to find and develop a similar passion.”
Vince will be actively involved in the first few years of the scholarship, promoting it to architectural schools and acting as professional advisor to the jury
The RAIC Foundation would like to extend its profound thanks to Vince Catalli for initiating this scholarship and looks forward to working with him as the scholarship program unfolds.
Please consider a monthly donation to help us expand our offerings to students, interns and young professionals. Donations can be made through the RAIC Foundation website at raicf.ca under the Donate tab. For more information about the RAIC Foundation and other ways in which you can become involved, please contact me at raic.foundation@raicf.ca.
Jim Taggart FRAIC
Executive Director
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