Manitoba Hydro Place, designed by Toronto architectural firm KPMB, has won the 2009 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) Best Tall Building Award for the Americas region, one of four regions for the Award. The other winners are in three regions: Linked Hybrid Building, Beijing for Asia & Australasia, The Broadgate Tower, London for Europe, and Tornado Tower, Doha for the Middle East & Africa. One of these four projects will be recognized as the “2009 Best Tall Building Overall” at the 2009 Awards Dinner to be held on October 22nd.
According to the CTBUH website: “Manitoba Hydro Place stands apart as the first of the next generation of sustainable buildings that use simple, time-tested and repeatable concepts in conjunction with science and technology to achieve a “living building” that interprets and reacts to its physical environment. An advancement over the traditional method to achieve energy savings – of isolation from the elements through highly insulated and sealed construction, Manitoba Hydro Place achieves this next generation design by creating architecture that is designed to be responsive to the client’s vision and scope while optimizing the use of passive free energy by establishing “communication” between the inner and outer world, all without compromise to human comfort.”