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Stay updated with our latest Ottawa architecture insights and projects in our News section. Engaging blogs await!

News From Award Winning Architects - Linebox Studio

In someone else's words.

News

Walk down a street you love in Paris, Copenhagen or Amsterdam and look up. Chances are you're looking at five or six storeys: a café at the sidewalk, homes stacked above, windows open to the street, a courtyard tucked somewhere behind.

That scale isn't an accident. It's the backbone of the most liveable cities in the world. It's also the piece Ottawa has been missing, and it's the building type we're most excited to be designing right now.

 Missing middle housing is the range of homes between detached houses and high-rise towers, from multiplexes to mid-rise apartment buildings. Linebox Studio, an Ottawa-based architecture and interior design firm, is designing repeatable prefab mid-rise residential models for developers across Ottawa, Gatineau and beyond. We believe mid-rise is the key to more liveable, sustainable and affordable neighbourhoods in Canada's capital region.

Missing middle housing is everything that sits between the detached house and the tower: multiplexes, stacked townhomes, courtyard buildings and mid-rise apartments. For decades, zoning and financing pushed North American cities toward the two extremes. The middle got skipped.

As architects working in Ottawa, we see the result every day. Established neighbourhoods struggle to add homes gently. Families get priced out of central areas. Main streets don't have enough neighbours to keep their shops busy. Filling the middle is how a city grows without sprawling outward or towering over itself.

Why do the world's best cities build mid-rise?

Haussmann's Paris is lined with six- and seven-storey buildings that hold shops, offices and homes on the same block. Copenhagen's Vesterbro and Nørrebro are built from five- and six-storey perimeter blocks wrapped around shared green courtyards. Amsterdam stacks its homes four and five storeys high, shoulder to shoulder along the canals.

None of these places needed towers to become dense, walkable and loved. They found a scale where density and intimacy live together. You can still recognize a friend on the sidewalk from a fifth-floor balcony, a point Danish urbanist Jan Gehl has been making for decades. That relationship between building and street is what we design for.

What does mid-rise development bring to a neighbourhood?

A well-designed mid-rise building is generous to its neighbourhood. Here's what it brings:

Why is mid-rise important for cities? The case is just as strong at that scale. Mid-rise makes better use of the pipes, roads and transit Ottawa has already built. It brings more homes to market faster than a tower. And it's one of the most carbon-efficient ways to house people, especially when it's built in timber and other low-carbon materials.

Prefab mid-rise models: beautiful buildings, built to repeat

The missing middle won't be filled one bespoke building at a time. So Linebox Studio is working with several developer clients in Ottawa on a family of prefabricated mid-rise residential models: buildings designed to be repeated across different sites, quickly and with care.

Prefab lets much of the building be made in a factory, with tighter quality control, less waste and shorter time on site. For developers, that means a more predictable path from approval to move-in. For neighbours, it means less disruption.

But repeatable can't mean forgettable. Each model is designed to adapt: to corner lots and mid-block sites, to different unit mixes, to the character of the street it joins. The goal is simple. These should be places people genuinely want to live, with good light, thoughtful layouts and a real presence on the street.

As a One Planet Living Certified firm, we build sustainability into every model from the start, favouring low-carbon systems and materials sourced within 400 km of the site wherever we can.

Why Ottawa needs more mid-rise housing now

Ottawa has every ingredient a great mid-rise city needs: strong neighbourhoods, a growing transit network, a downtown ready for new life and a housing need that isn't going away. What's been missing is a building type that can show up again and again, at a scale that makes streets better.

That's the work we're doing now, and we think it's some of the most important architecture in the city. If you're a developer, landowner or housing provider looking for a mid-rise residential architect in Ottawa or Gatineau, we'd love to talk about what the middle could look like on your site.

Explore our mid-rise residential work · Get in touch

Is missing middle housing the same as mid-rise?

 Not exactly. Missing middle covers the full range between houses and towers, from triplexes and stacked townhomes to mid-rise apartment buildings. Mid-rise is the upper end of that range and the scale that shapes most great urban streets.

Why build mid-rise with prefab construction?

 Prefab moves much of the work into a factory, which means tighter quality control, less construction waste and less time on site. A repeatable model also gives developers a more predictable path from approval to occupancy.

Can prefab mid-rise buildings be beautiful?

 Yes. Linebox designs each model to adapt to its site, unit mix and street, so repetition shows up in efficiency, not in sameness.

Who designs mid-rise and missing middle housing in Ottawa?

 Linebox Studio is an Ottawa-based architecture and interior design firm working across Ottawa, Gatineau and beyond. We design mid-rise and high-rise residential, missing middle infill, affordable and transitional housing, commercial office space and adaptive reuse projects.

Missing Middle Housing in Ottawa: Why Mid-Rise Is Where the City Happens

Linebox Studio won two trophies at the 2026 OHBA Awards of Distinction on September 29, 2026. Zed House won Custom Home, 5,000 sq. ft. and over, and 360 Laurier won Lobby Entrance. It was the first time we had ever entered.

The Ontario Home Builders' Association hands out these awards each year to the best new homes, renovations and interiors in the province. This year set a record, with more than 600 entries competing for 51 trophies at the gala at Blue Mountain. Plenty of those entries came from the province's top architects and designers, many working in the Toronto market. So yes, a few of us may have done a small happy dance on the drive home.

Zed House: a floor plan shaped by daylight.

It started with a wonderful brief. Our clients wanted a home where they would never need to switch on a light during the day, in any season. The catch was a narrow lot, which usually means long, dark middles.

Our answer was to pull the core out of the centre of the house and bend the plan into a Z. That move gave us far more exterior wall, so light reaches deep into every room, and it lets the house turn its back to the neighbours where privacy matters. Inside, a curved oak stair, the Garden of Light and a terrazzo kids' bathroom give the family plenty to smile about.

Photography by Kevin Belanger Photography.

360 Laurier: an office tower learns to be home

360 Laurier Avenue West, an adaptive reuse project by CLV Group Developments with Linebox Studio, won Lobby Entrance. The project converted a 1960s downtown Ottawa office building into residential apartments.

Turning a whole office tower into homes is one of the most satisfying puzzles in architecture. Floor plates built for cubicles have to become kitchens, bedrooms and places to unwind. Reusing the existing structure also keeps a huge amount of embodied carbon out of the landfill.

The lobby is where residents feel that change first. We designed it as a warm, detailed room where people actually want to linger, with a sunken lounge and a co-working café that give the building a social heart. 

These two projects could hardly be more different. One is a family home on a tight lot, and the other is a 1960s tower with a brand new life. What they share is the reason we do this work.

Good architecture starts with listening. A family says they love daylight, a developer wants residents to feel at home the moment they walk in, and our job is to find the move that makes it happen. Sometimes that move is a floor plan shaped like a letter of the alphabet. Sometimes it's seeing a lobby in an office building that nobody else pictured.

We care about craft and we sweat the details, because the people who live in these spaces feel every one of them. Design matters. Humans matter.

What awards did Linebox Studio win at the 2026 OHBA Awards of Distinction?

 Linebox Studio won two trophies: Custom Home, 5,000 sq. ft. and over, for Zed House with Sanchez Homes, and Lobby Entrance for 360 Laurier with CLV Group Developments.

When and where were the 2026 OHBA Awards of Distinction held?

 The gala took place on September 29, 2026, in Blue Mountain, Ontario. The Ontario Home Builders' Association received more than 600 entries for 51 trophies.

 Zed House is a custom home at 113 Northwestern Avenue in Ottawa, designed by Linebox Studio. Its Z-shaped floor plan brings daylight into every room on a narrow lot while protecting privacy.

 360 Laurier is an adaptive reuse project in downtown Ottawa that converted a 1960s office building into residential apartments. It was developed by CLV Group Developments with design by Linebox Studio.

 Linebox Studio is an architecture and interior design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario, working on custom homes, multi-residential projects and adaptive reuse. The studio was also named Firm of the Year (Gold) at the 2026 Grand Prix du Design.

A huge thank you to our clients for trusting us with big ideas, to Sanchez Homes and CLV Group Developments for being such generous partners, and to Kevin Belanger Photography and Serre Media for capturing the work so beautifully. And to our team: this one is yours. Every drawing, every late revision and every detail you fought for shows up in these rooms.

Ottawa captures nine trophies at the 2026 OHBA Awards of Distinction

Linebox Studio Wins Two 2026 OHBA Awards of Distinction

Linebox Studio is partnering with Metcalfe Realty to explore converting 85 Albert Street, a downtown Ottawa office tower, into residential units.

, an Ottawa-based architecture and interior design firm founded in 2007, is working with 

 — a 1976-built, 89,000-square-foot office tower in downtown Ottawa — into residential units. The project is one of several office-to-residential conversions under consideration in Ottawa's downtown core as commercial landlords respond to softer office demand and the city's push for more housing.

85 Albert Street sits between Metcalfe and Elgin streets in downtown Ottawa and last underwent a major renovation in 2007. Current tenants include law firms, a fitness facility, and the Haitian embassy. Metcalfe Realty has owned the property since its original construction in 1976.

Why 85 Albert Street Is a Strong Conversion Candidate

According to Linebox Studio founder and principal architect 

, the building's rectangular floor plate makes it well suited to residential conversion — a shape that allows for efficient unit layouts, a common advantage in older, simpler office towers built before more complex commercial floor designs became standard.

The building also benefits from its adjacency to 

, another Metcalfe-owned office property next door. The two buildings could potentially share amenities and ground-floor retail space if both move toward residential or mixed-use programming, creating efficiencies that a standalone conversion wouldn't offer.

Because Metcalfe Realty has owned 85 Albert Street since it was built, Reeves noted that the ownership team has a detailed, first-hand understanding of the building's structure and systems — reducing the risk of unexpected conditions once interior demolition begins, a common cost and schedule risk in adaptive reuse projects.

Commercial real estate professionals have pointed to buildings like 85 and 116 Albert as reasonable candidates for repurposing given where they sit in their life cycle and their downtown location, which is attractive to residents. At the same time, industry observers note there's no immediate pressure on Metcalfe Realty to relocate existing tenants, giving the company flexibility to evaluate whether the office leasing market recovers before committing to a residential conversion — a costly and complex undertaking.

City policy has also shaped the timing of these decisions. Cash-in-lieu of parkland fees — payments developers make to the city instead of dedicating land for greenspace — are set at 2% of land value for office buildings, compared to 5–10% for residential developments. Before a recent fee freeze, office-to-residential conversions in most parts of Ottawa required developers to pay a 10% cash-in-lieu rate, one of several financial levers the city has used to encourage adaptive reuse of aging office stock.

As of this writing, conversion remains one option under consideration for 85 Albert Street rather than a confirmed plan. Metcalfe Realty could also pursue renovation aimed at retaining office tenants, depending on how the commercial leasing market develops.

Linebox Studio will continue to share updates on this project as plans progress.

 This post draws on original reporting by David Sali for the 

"Metcalfe Realty mulls plan to convert office tower"

 for additional commentary from Ottawa commercial real estate brokers.

Linebox Studio is an Ottawa-based architecture and interior design firm specializing in high-rise and mid-rise residential development, adaptive reuse, and mixed-use design across Ottawa and Gatineau.

Linebox Partners with Metcalfe Realty on Potential Office-to-Residential Conversion at 85 Albert St, Ottawa

Metcalfe Realty mulls plan to turn Albert Street office tower into residential complex

Linebox's second large-scale adaptive-reuse project launch!

Article published in the Ottawa Citizen May 4th 2026. Article by: 

We're proud to have completed our second large-scale office-to-residential conversion in downtown Ottawa and our second with the incredible team at CLV Group. What was once a vacant government office building is now 139 rental homes, breathing new life into the heart of the city.

Adaptive reuse isn't just good design. It's the right response to the housing crisis, to climate commitments, and to the future of our cities. Projects like this save hundreds of truckloads of concrete from landfill, cut carbon emissions by over 50% compared to ground-up construction, and bring community back to neighbourhoods that need it.

Converting Office to Residential at 360 Laurier

Converting Office to Residential - 360 Laurier

What does it take to transform a 60-year-old Brutalist government office tower into a place people are proud to call home? For Linebox Studio, the answer lies in embracing the puzzle. Our second office-to-residential conversion in Ottawa's downtown core, 360 Laurier Ave. W., in collaboration with CLV Group, is a masterclass in adaptive reuse architecture: preserving the building's precast concrete structure (and its considerable embodied carbon), reimagining dead-end floor plates as amenity spaces, and engineering creative solutions for windows, plumbing, and natural light where no residential architect would have thought to look. The result? Nearly 140 new rental homes added to Ottawa's housing supply, with 28% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a new build of comparable size.

Office-to-residential conversion isn't a straight line, it's a complex, evolving design challenge that demands ingenuity at every turn. From uncovering asbestos on day one of demolition to negotiating a year-long encroachment agreement just to add windows to the building's west façade, every obstacle became an opportunity to design smarter. Linebox's approach working 

 the bones of the building rather than against them is how we turn aging, underutilized office stock into vibrant, livable communities that strengthen Ottawa's downtown core. Read the full story in the Ottawa Business Journal. 

https://obj.ca/long-road-to-converting-360-laurier-ave-into-apartments/

From Cubicles to Community: Inside the 360 Laurier Ave. Office-to-Residential Conversion

What happens when clients challenge you to rethink everything? You get Ottawa's first residential Cross Laminated Timber home — a 2024 Housing Design Award winner that treats sustainability not as a feature, but as a foundation.

Located in Champlain Park, the Northwestern CLT House was shaped — literally — by three majestic trees on site: two bur oaks and a sugar maple. Rather than work around them, the design was sculpted to them. A 12-foot protection radius around the front oak. Hydro-vacuumed roots wrapped in burlap. The rear of the home raised on piers to avoid root damage. Every decision was made with the same question: 

can we make it better? Can we make it last longer?

"Construction is a very wasteful, resource-intensive and environment-damaging activity. Our goal was to partially offset this negative impact by building something that lasts a very long time."

Cross Laminated Timber is an engineered wood product that captures carbon, insulates beautifully, and performs structurally as an alternative to concrete. In this home, CLT wasn't just a structural choice — it became the soul of the interior. Exposed panels line the walls. The staircase spine reveals it as the home's central connective element, running from basement to rooftop patio overlooking the Ottawa River.

Triple-paned windows, a heat pump, extra insulation, and locally sourced Canadian materials round out a home that is as honest in its construction as it is beautiful in its design. The result? A space so quiet that, as builder Antonio Sanchez of Sanchez Homes put it, "you could have a truck go by and it's so quiet."

The project was recognized at the 2024 Ottawa Housing Design Awards — winning in the custom home category, with additional finalist recognition for the exterior and kitchen. It has now received a full editorial feature, and we couldn't be more proud of what this collaboration produced.

The Northwestern CLT House was designed by Linebox Studio architect Josée Anne Pronovost, built by Sanchez Homes, and engineered by Bautechnik and Moses Structural Engineering.

Ottawa's First CLT Home Was Designed Around Its Trees

One of only 5 international projects selected as finalists.

 - one of the world's most prestigious global architecture and design programs - in the 

Now in its third edition, the Archello Awards brings together an international jury of 120 architects and designers to evaluate more than 1,000 entries across 66 project categories. From that field, five finalists were shortlisted in each category, followed by a month-long public vote that spotlighted standout projects, innovative building products, and contributions from leading firms worldwide. In each category, one winner was chosen by the jury and one by popular vote.

Being recognized among this small group of projects, from across the globe and across every scale of practice, is a meaningful milestone for our studio and a reflection of the care, craft, and intention that went into every decision at Ruby Cottage. Thank you to everyone who supported and voted. We are grateful, and we remain inspired.

Ruby Cottage: a finalist in the Archello Awards

Ruby Cottage named a finalist in the Archello Awards 2025

What does it mean to design a building that belongs to its landscape?

The best buildings don't look like they were placed on a site. They look like they grew from it. That's not a romantic notion; it's a design standard. Site-responsive architecture starts from the premise that every piece of land has a logic: a topography, a climate, a material culture, a view. The architect's job is to read that logic carefully and respond to it honestly. When that happens well, the result is a building that feels inevitable, as if nothing else could have stood in that spot.

Linebox Studio recently developed three distinct cabin concepts for a multi-unit retreat development on a 132,000+ sq/m waterfront lot along the Gatineau River near Mont-Sainte-Marie, Quebec. Same site, same zoning, same material palette - three very different answers to the question of what it means to belong to a place. One concept plays with vertical contrast: a steeply pitched gabled roof rising from a cantilevered concrete base, cedar-clad and dramatic. Another goes tall and lean, a vertical vernacular expression with a soaring two-storey interior. The third goes horizontal - a long, low single-storey form that follows the landscape rather than competing with it.

What unites all three is a commitment to architecture as a response rather than an imposition. The green roof that slows the wind and softens the silhouette. The earth-bermed wedge that pulls daylight deep into the section. The covered threshold that stages the transition from outside to in — compression, then release. 