Sustainable Buildings Canada (SBC) is set to bestow its Lifetime Achievement Award to Birgit Siber, a long-time principal at Diamond Schmitt Architects.

The honour will be presented during SBC’s Green Building Festival on October 8, 2019, in recognition of Siber’s contributions to sustainable building through her advocacy, research, innovation, and design excellence across a range of building types.

“This award is for exemplary devotion to the cause of greater sustainability in the built environment,” said Mike Singleton, SBC Executive Director.

Siber has been with Diamond Schmitt Architects since 1996, where she became a principal in 2003. In addition to leading the design installation of the first large-scale living wall biofilter in Canada at the University of Guelph Humber campus, she drove the launch of ecoMetrics, an energy-use benchmarking databank and analysis tool to highlight and inform strategies for energy-use reduction.

In her role as a project architect, Siber has left her mark on institutional and laboratory projects throughout Ontario. Recent highlights include the LEED Platinum certified CANMET Metallurgical Materials laboratory in Hamilton, which received the 2015 AIA COTE Top 10 Award for sustainable design; and the LEED Gold certified Lazaridis Hall at Wilfrid Laurier University, which was awarded a Civic Trust Award (UK) and SCUP Excellence in Architecture Award (USA) in 2019.

Outside of the firm, Siber sits on the Toronto 2030 District Advisory Board and the RAIC Committee of Regenerative Environments (CORE), and chairs the office sustainable design committee. She is also a popular speaker at international sustainability conferences across Canada, where she contributes significantly to discussions on biophilia, resilience, energy literacy, and net-zero energy.

“I think of architecture as a team sport, a creative and complex opportunity to work collaboratively towards sustainable design solutions,” said Siber.