Ottawa Architecture Week: Festival of Design and Imagination is an annual week-long festival that welcomes everyone to explore architecture, urbanism, art and design in Ottawa. It is presented by the Ottawa Regional Society of Architects (ORSA) with the help of local volunteers and businesses.
OAW 2025 THEME
Mapping the Market: Spatial Anchors & Planned Histories
The ByWard Market stands at the intersection of history and possibility. One of Ottawa’s oldest neighborhoods, it has long been a site of cultural exchange, architectural layering, and collective memory. But as the city grows and development accelerates, we are called to ask:
How do we honour the past while imagining a future that is inclusive, sustainable, and rooted in place?
This year’s Ottawa Architecture Week (OAW) explores the idea of mapping memories in the ByWard Market—not only as a way of preserving what was, but as a strategy for guiding what could be. Buildings, streets, and public spaces carry stories: of commerce and community, of migration and resistance, of celebration and loss. What happens when these physical anchors are altered or erased? And how can new design practices, planning approaches, and community engagement tools ensure that the future of the Market remains rich with meaning?
Bringing together architects, urbanists, artists, and storytellers, this conversation around the OAW events will reflect on the Market’s evolving identity and look ahead to what it might become. We invite everyone—from long-time residents to first-time visitors—to join in reimagining the ByWard Market not just as a historic site, but as a living, breathing urban landscape where memory and innovation can coexist.
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Potential Panel Discussion Questions:
How does memory live in the built environment, and how can design make space for it?
What stories of the ByWard Market are at risk of being forgotten, and how can we preserve them while planning for the future?
How can mapping memory serve as a tool for inclusive and equitable redevelopment?
What role might architecture play in fostering continuity between past, present, and future?
How can emerging technologies—like augmented reality, digital archives, or participatory mapping—help bridge memory and imagination in public space?
Who gets to decide what memories are preserved in a rapidly changing urban core?
September 29th - October 3rd.
More info to come.
Let’s start the conversation.
About OAW: Festival of Design & Imagination
Ottawa Architecture Week is a public forum that explores the ways in which architecture and urban design affect our daily lives. Throughout the week, we celebrate the role of architecture and the related trades in a way that is fun and engaging. We strive to bridge the gap between the architectural community and the public, in order to facilitate a constructive dialogue on the relationship between the built environment and Ottawa’s people.
Each annual edition is curated around a trending theme relevant to the architectural profession and the Ottawa–Gatineau community as a whole. The program features a variety of public events that include talks, exhibitions, installations, workshops, film screenings, tours, and panel discussions.
Past editions:
OAW 2024 - Vacanc(it)y
OAW 2023 - City of Play: Play in the Capital?
OAW 2022 - Re|claiming normal: connecting post–pandemic
OAW 2020→2021 - Never normal: Lessons from adversity
OAW 2019 - Under water: Weathering the new normal
OAW 2017 - Beyond 150 — “technically beautiful” yet?
OAW 2016 - Next Stop: 150 — Ottawa’s Pedestrian Revolution
OAW 2015 - The City & The Capital
OAW 2014 - Topics on intensification
OAW 2013 - Architecture week
OAW 2012 - Architecture week
OAW 2011 - Gimme shelter
About ORSA
Ottawa Regional Society of Architects is a non-profit volunteer organization that represents the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) within the community. ORSA works to raise the profile of the architectural industry and has given voice to the local architectural profession for over 100 years.
ORSA Membership includes registered members of the OAA, as well as people involved in related industries. ORSA also welcomes members of the general public who have an interest in architecture and want to further their involvement in the architectural community.
ORSA is committed to presenting an informed opinion on issues affecting architecture in the National Capital Region, as well as to increase public awareness of the social importance of architectural design.
For more information, visit the ORSA website.