Three Banks of Experts to Enhance the Quality of Design and Architecture Projects

Since December 2019, the Montréal 2030 Agenda has encouraged all Montréal central departments and boroughs to implement initiatives that aim to fulfil the goal of quality and exemplarity in design, architecture and spatial planning all across the city. To that end, the Bureau du design has developed a range of tools to support and facilitate the adoption of processes conducive to design quality.

Professional consultants and experts to support design quality procedures (DQP)

Competitions, workshops and design review panels are rigorously prepared, efficient processes that make excellent decision-support tools. Professional consultants provide support and guidance to departments and boroughs in developing, overseeing and holding these processes across all design and architecture disciplines. Comprising more than 15 people, the Bureau du design’s pool of professional consultants aims to promote this role, which is essential for guaranteeing the transparency, fairness and impartiality of the competition, workshop or panel process.

Jury and design review panel members

With an eye to diversifying the professional and social profiles of members of juries and review panels organized by the City, the Bureau du design issued a call for expressions of interest in the spring of 2021. Close to 90 applications were received from experts in various fields of design and planning interested in filling roles as members of design competition juries or review panels. These professionals have extremely varied skill sets in areas such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, interior design and industrial design, as well as project management, ergonomics, sociology, urban planning and environmental science.

The pool of experts resulting from this call for expressions of interest constitutes a rich bank of resources from all planning and design disciplines, practitioners and theoreticians alike, whose work has an impact on Montrealers’ living environments. Ensuring a range of backgrounds, experience and education will better position us to make certain that future juries and panels reflect the multitude of points of view that must be considered in development, construction, space design and creative projects.

Designers for temporary and transitional uses of public spaces

For the second year in a row, a request for qualification was issued to professionals in all design and architecture disciplines with a view to creating a new pool of multidisciplinary teams pre-qualified for future requests for proposals and professional services contracts to be awarded for transitional or temporary design projects for public spaces. Be it for implementation of your winter projects or work to be carried out next spring or summer, it is time to consult this pool of designers and award your contracts to begin the design of your transitional or temporary facilities.