Teeple Architects wins 2023 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence
Teeple Architects in a collaborative partnership between Two Row Architect (Prime), and Low Hammond Rowe Architects have won a 2023 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence for The National Centre for Indigenous Laws.
The University of Victoria’s new National Centre for Indigenous Laws (NCIL) is dedicated to the study and practice of Canadian Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders. Situated on the northwestern edge of the campus, on the traditional territory of the lək wəŋən peoples, the NCIL expands the existing Fraser Law Building and becomes the face of the Faculty of Law.
The design honours its host, the Coast Salish peoples, and welcomes students and visitors from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities from across Turtle Island and beyond. Its slender, organic form touches lightly upon the land. Trees that were felled for its construction were first blessed by local Elders and then reused as mass-timber columns for the building. Its mass-timber roof slopes upward from the north entrance towards the forest to the south, expanding to the height of treetops.
