Allan Teramura, FRAIC, was recently named the 77th president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada following a formal ceremony. Teramura, an Ottawa-based architect, is an advocate for healthy and sustainable Aboriginal communities.
The investiture ceremony, which took place at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health in Ottawa, welcomed close to 120 guests, including RAIC members, the RAIC board of directors, representatives from Parliament Hill, government departments and First Nations communities, as well as professionals with an interest in the built environment. The keynote address was delivered by the award-winning Canadian author Joseph Boyden.
“As architects, I think we would all agree that losing traditional building crafts and knowledge of ways of organizing physical space can be as corrosive to a society as the loss of a spoken language,” said Teramura during his investiture speech. “The built environment in Indigenous communities tends to be discussed in terms of housing issues, but in my view, the problem is compounded by the absence of cultural identity, and this is seldom discussed.”
“At a time when talk of reconciliation is growing, our profession is in a position to – and, therefore, is obligated to – look at ways to help address injustices, not by imposing our ideas, but by listening and promoting the professional competencies that already exist in Indigenous communities,” he continued.
Teramura received the President’s Medal from RAIC’s 2015 president, Samuel Oghale Oboh, FRAIC.
“Architects are well positioned to assist Canada to achieve its targets in terms of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Teramura, in a press release, on the topic of continuing Oboh’s work on this issue. “The building sector is ready and able to do its part.”
