Liz Wreford and Peter Sampson from Public City Architects

More or Less, the Work of Public City.

PUBLIC CITY is a transdisciplinary design studio practicing architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and public art across Canada. The firm is owned and led by Liz Wreford and Peter Sampson.  Public City is known for its whimsical body of work usually characterized by strong uses of colour and a playful repurposing of found objects and story.

Public City is a recipient of the Governor General’s Medal in Architecture, the CSLA National Award of Excellence, the RAIC/CSLA Urban Design Award, Canadian Architect Awards, and the AZ Award to name a few. Azure and The Globe & Mail have both named Public City one of Canada’s top emerging design practices of the 21st Century.  In 2022, the firm won an international competition to design the 2SLGBTQI+ National Monument in Ottawa. Public City is currently shortlisted for two other major design competitions in Calgary and Toronto. The firm’s work was recently published in Macleans, The Globe and Mail, Landscape/Paysages, and in Leslie Jen’s recent book, Canadian Architecture, Evolving a Cultural Identity.

With offices in Winnipeg and Toronto, Public City is committed to the emergence of a design-based national dialogue on urbanism as a critical part of Canadian identity, policy, and well-being.

This lecture is co-hosted by the Department of Architectural Science (DAS) and the School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP) and is part of the Hemson Simpson Lecture Series.