Embedded Files
Shim is an architect in Canada, and is known to be one of the most respected architects across the country. She has actually been labeled as one of the most innovative and intelligent designers out there, alongside her partner Howard Sutcliffe. She is from Jamaica and also comes from a big Chinese family, which speaks volumes, especially being an architect in Canada. Brigitte has gotten two degrees from the University of Waterloo and has graduated with an environmental designs degree and an architectural degree. She uses her environmental designs that she learned from University to incorporate that into her architecture work to create a more sustainable living environment using buildings. She is known to have one of the best Canadian designs in the world due to her talent and as well as her partnership, which means she works extremely well and intelligently designs things to be called ‘sophisticated’. Brigitte has worked all over the world, such as Russia, United States and a couple of parts in Asia. Ms. Shim was a visiting professor at a Polytechnic in Switzerland and has taught a broad range of architectural environment designs. All and all, in summary, she is one of the most intelligent and well respected architects here in Canada, she is a smart worker and is very passionate about environmental designs. Shim has served internationally, national and local design juries as an advocate for her design excellence.
Brigitte was born in Kingston, Jamaica in December 1958, and had moved here to Canada in 1964 to study architecture and get the education she needed. Shim highly values the interlocking of architecture and nature, which is the reason why she moved to Canada, creating and designing multiple spaces that are sustainable and safe. It’s ironic to think that, because just over 40 years ago before she came to Canada, or before she was even born, the Chinese exclusion act was at play. In the Chinese exclusion act, the Canadian government had forced Chinese immigrants to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was a hard and dangerous working job, and had made them do multiple other dangerous jobs with poor salaries. They had also restricted those Chinese immigrants from letting their own families into the country, which was just atrocious and horrible. Brigitte comes from a Chinese background and has also had experience being born in Jamaica, she comes from two very different cultures and ones that weren’t all that welcome in Canada.
Shim is still alive and striving, holding the title of being one of the most innovative architects across Canada, and I feel as though they need to be here at this point in time. She works with some of the most respected figures in Canada (Ron Thom, Arthur Erickson, Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg). The reason why she has shaped history and Canada is because she is a mixed person of colour working as one of the most highly respected architects in Canada and in Canadian history. It would be a lot more tough had she come any earlier to Canada, she wouldn’t have been shown the respect she has today because of her ethnic background. She shapes the way architecture should be made, and highly values how she can incorporate nature within her architectural designs, making more environmentally friendly designs for the future of our country and Earth.
I am confident that Shim will continue to impact Canada and history today, being a women of colour, and also changing our buildings with unique and intelligent designs to hold on to that environmental designs aspect such as the Lane House, using large pivoting panes of glass and an extending living space to the outdoors for temperate months (changing from mild to warm summer or cool to cold winters). The Steel House is also one of her designs, being that using certain materials to regulate a certain temperature within the building and even the pool outside. Brigitte, even though may be a pretty modern day figure, I know will be able to change Canada’s ways and how we can view architecture and engineering. Ms. Shim is able to teach and has taught globally her ways of including environmental designs within her own works, and which I think really inspires her hometown in Jamaica. She was and will be able to change Canada, especially being a mixed person of colour. Other than her identity itself, she has designed multiple structures within Canada, some of which I have already mentioned, but they are intelligently designed because of her ways in environmental designs. I feel like she will be able to set a standard to most architects and learn to be more sustainable, being able to create a path for Canadian citizens to have more buildings that can regulate heat and cool down in a more eco-friendly way, and going as far as to creating her own furniture with her crew using materials that are more environmentally friendly.
Page updated
Report abuse