The Next Big Thing

Mississauga Urban Design Awards 2023

The awards celebrate excellent and innovative urban design projects transforming our community.

Voting for the People’s Choice Awards begins on June 1, 2023.

Introducing the jury for the 2023 Mississauga Urban Design Awards

The jury will select the recipients of the Award of Excellence, Award of Merit and Healthy By Design.

Caroline Kim

Senior Associate, Bousfields Inc.

Caroline is a licensed architect with over 20 years of experience in architecture and urban design. She has worked on a wide range of public and private sector projects and brings a unique perspective to community building. Caroline has worked on development projects, master plans, precinct plans, secondary plans and urban design studies. She possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture and a Master’s Degree in Urban Design.

Jane Welsh

Project Manager for Environment, Toronto City Planning

Jane is an environmental planner focused on developing new, progressive solutions for climate change and resilience. She is a Canadian Society of Landscape Architects fellow and Chair of the CSLA Committee on Climate Adaptation. Jane was also the president of the OALA. She holds a Master of Science in Planning from the University of Toronto and a degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph.

Lesley Pavan

Senior Consultant, Perry Group Consulting Ltd.

Lesley is a Senior Consultant with over 30 years of municipal planning experience. She is also the former Director of Development and Design at the City of Mississauga. At the City, Lesley oversaw development approvals, the Zoning By-law and design projects. Shortly after retiring from her position at the City, she joined Perry Group Consulting to provide strategic advice to municipalities aiming to use digital technology to modernize their processes.

Martin Reid

Councillor Ward 9 Mississauga

Martin is the Ward 9 Councillor in the City of Mississauga and the Region of Peel. A lifelong resident of Meadowvale, Martin has dedicated the last two decades and countless hours of volunteer service to his ward. Known for his ability to engage with residents and his admiration for welcoming beautiful spaces, Martin is looking forward to reviewing urban design projects that are helping transform Mississauga, making the city a wonderful place to live, work and play.

Tara Marchelewicz

Architectural Designer at Section Architects

Tara is an architectural designer. She is passionate about the communal experience of the built form and the dynamic potentials of the urban scale. At the University of Toronto, Tara studied Architecture, Art History and Psychology. She continued her studies at the Yale School of Architecture, where she earned a Master of Architecture in 2018.

Nicholas Brandon

Associate Medical Officer of Health, Region of Peel

Dr. Nicholas Brandon is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine physician and one of the Associate Medical Officers of Health at Peel Public Health. He is also an Assistant Professor in Clinical Public Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Submissions open until April 21

Jury announced

People’s Choice Award voting opens

People’s Choice Award voting closes

Winners of all awards announced

Types of awards and judging criteria

The Mississauga Urban Design Awards are a bi-annual program that recognize three awards of distinction listed below. Over the next few months, the distinguished jury will review all projects submitted for consideration. Following the review process, the jury will bestow the number of awards of each category, if any, at their discretion.

Award of Excellence

Given to projects that demonstrate excellence across all judging criteria

Award of Merit

Given to projects that demonstrate excellence in one or more of the judging criteria

Healthy by Design

Given to projects that exemplify the six Healthy Community Design elements

The Mississauga Urban Design Awards includes a People’s Choice Award. This award is given to the project voted by the public as its favourite design project.

People’s Choice Award

Given to the project that receives the most votes from the public through online voting.

Every nomination will be reviewed for excellence across several criteria, including:

Citywide significance

Considers whether the project contributes to the City’s design objectives as related to city image, visual identity, vistas, skyline, streetscapes, recognition of sites and location opportunities.

Community significance

Considers whether the project contributes to the quality of the environment within a community which demonstrates regard for the context of the locale, enhancing a sense of place, personal health, and safety, or reinforcing a unique history.

Living green

Considers whether the project demonstrates an integrated approach to design which supports environmental and sustainable site and building practices, while providing benefits to the community and supporting active modes of transportation, walkability and green infrastructure.

Innovation

Considers the degree of creative response to program requirements and site constraints, considering sustainable best practices, including LEED and Low Impact Development, with the ability to influence trends.

Context

Considers the relationship or blending of built form and spaces with existing and planned development, and respect for and enhancement of the area’s character.

Execution

Considers the quality of construction materials and the interpretation of design into reality and how it supports the City’s Strategic Plan and the five Strategic Pillars for Change:

Move: Developing a transit-oriented city
Belong: Ensuring youth, older adults and new immigrants thrive, ensure accessibility
Connect: Completing our neighbourhoods
Prosper: Cultivating creative and innovative businesses
Green: Sustainability and environmental considerations

Healthy by Design

Considers whether the project contributes to the creation of walkable, sustainable and complete communities by demonstrating inter-related healthy development elements: density, service proximity, land use mix, street connectivity, streetscape characteristics and parking.

“Design excellence is essential in shaping the identity of our places and raising the quality of life in our communities.”

Sharon Mittmann, Manager of Urban Design

M City illustration by Core Architects

Award categories

The Mississauga Urban Design Awards invites a broad range of nominations, including:

Urban elements

A standalone object, public artwork, small-scale building component or landscape element which contributes significantly to the quality of the public realm.

This includes infill housing, additions, public art on public or private lands, street furniture, light fixtures, canopies, signage, walkways, stairways, or other unique design element.

Private project(s)

A building or group of buildings in all types and scales that achieve urban design excellence and is precedent setting for a project of its type. Submissions should address how the project contributes to successful city-building through its contextual relationship, design quality and measures of sustainable and healthy design. Submissions may include residential, employment, commercial, mixed-use, heritage restoration and adaptive re-use buildings, parks, private open spaces, or plazas.

Public project(s)

A building or group of buildings that serve the public and are accessible to the public. All building types and scales are eligible.

This includes education, healthcare, recreation, cultural, community, civic buildings, heritage restoration and adaptive re-use buildings, bridges, parks, streetscape, public or private open spaces, plazas, landscaped areas, or stormwater facilities.

Award winners stand shoulder to shoulder nationally and internationally, and are recognized for excellence in design.

Lakeview illustration by Sasaki

About Mississauga Urban Design Awards

Mississauga is emerging from a period of transition. Once a collection of villages, the city has matured into a vital and connected urban community and it took careful planning and ambitious design to get here. The City set out a bold vision in our Strategic Plan to inspire the world as a dynamic and beautiful global city for creativity and innovation, with vibrant, safe and connected communities.

Established in 1981, the City has the longest running Urban Design Awards program in Ontario celebrating accomplishments in design for over 40 years. In 2023, the City is celebrating the Next Big Thing: design that is forward thinking, innovative and bold.

Past winners in this prestigious program include:

Lakeview Village Public Art Program

2021 Award of Excellence

Located along a multi-use trail, and intended to promote the future use of the site. The integrated art installation contributes to the vibrancy of the public realm. The installation has provided colour and hope during the pandemic and turned into a major tourist attraction (2021 Jury Report)

Mississauga Celebration Square

2011 Award of Excellence

Celebration Square was recognized for being an example for other cities of how to revitalize a central urban space. It has gone on to receive other laurels, including the Rick Hansen award for Accessible Design (2011 Jury Report)

Absolute World Tower

2013 Award of Excellence

The Absolute World Tower redefined the downtown skyline, and exceeded conventions in residential tower design. The project dared to be different and set the stage for an architecturally sophisticated, cosmopolitan Mississauga (2013 Jury Report)

Stay tuned for when the Mississauga Urban Design People’s Choice Award voting opens in June.

Contact us

If you have any questions, email us at urban.design@mississauga.ca.

For more information about the Mississauga Urban Design Awards program, you can view examples of previous submissions and program winners.