Toronto architect Sheena Sharp, the recently elected 94th president of the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), set her sights on a career in the profession when she was just eight years old.
Toronto architect Sheena Sharp, the recently elected 94th president of the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), set her sights on a career in the profession when she was just eight years old.
The die was cast when she caught a glimpse of a cottage in the Laurentians that had been designed by an architect client of her father’s, then manager of a bank branch in downtown Montreal.
“There was this fantastic cottage clinging to the side of a rock,” she recalls.
“It was three storeys from the top of the rock to the bottom. The lowest level opened onto a patio and a dock. That’s what got me interested in architecture.”
Now a principal in Coolearth architecture inc., Sharp launched her career in the late 1980s after completing a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at the University of Manitoba and later, a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Washington.
After receiving her initial degree in 1982, she worked as a research assistant on energy efficiency and daylighting projects.
Sharp, who has had a longstanding interest in computers and the technology’s potential application to architecture, landed a position at Toronto’s Young + Wright Architects Inc. after completing her master’s degree in Seattle in 1987.
“When I came to Toronto, I got a list of firms that were working with computers,” she said.
“Young + Wright was at the top. I had an interview the next week and was hired.”
During her 16 years there, Sharp variously served as a project architect, production team leader and information technology manager. She was an associate in the firm from 1999 to 2003.
Her first large environmentally sustainable project was the $20 million addition and renovation for the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, where she acted as project architect while at Young + Wright.
In 2003 she established her own firm, Sharp Architects. Five years later, Sharp and partners Elias Ampas and Martin Poizner opened Coolearth. The firm’s focus is environmentally sustainable design. Coolearth also has an office in Parry Sound, Ont.
Projects include a $3.5 addition and renovation to the offices of the District of Parry Sound Social Services Administration Board. The project is a candidate for LEED Silver certification.
The firm has also designed a cottage on the coast of Nova Scotia that utilizes passive solar design principles to reduce the need for mechanical cooling, heating and daytime artificial lighting.
That building is under construction.
Another project, as yet unbuilt, is a 3.5 storey, three-unit, “net-zero” infill townhouse development, part of a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. sustainable housing initiative.
Since her university days, Sharp has witnessed an evolution in technology — from ink on mylar to computer-aided design and now Building Information Modeling (BIM).
While Coolearth is using BIM, and Sharp believes the technology is poised to revolutionize the building industry, she says “it isn’t quite there yet.
“The tools are there, but we have to make it sing.”
Elected to the OAA’s governing council in 2006, Sharp has been part of a team that has led the organization in a transition to an updated licensing process, an increase in membership and greater responsiveness to issues in the construction industry.
She hopes to continue this process through the association’s contributions to government policy on energy, heritage, culture, housing, procurement and building safety regulations.
At OAA, Sharp has served on numerous committees, including the sustainable built environment committee.
“One of the things we’ve tried to do is search out the people who are the true stars,” she says. “We have some amazing people sitting on this committee, including people who are not in the profession.”
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