Lola Sheppard

Lola Sheppard’s research exists at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. It privileges architecture as a mutable territory that is formed out of and responsive to its history and environment.  The work posits that the role of the architect is not simply problem solver or designer, but cultural, environmental and spatial detective, bringing to light the forces at work within a site-specific climate and geography, and able to look for synergies between issues and opportunities.  Much of her research and teaching is focused on the role of architecture, infrastructure and the public realm in rural and remote communities, with a particular focus on Northern Canada. She has worked with Indigenous partners in Northern Ontario and Nunavut on numerous built and research-oriented projects.

Lola founded Lateral Office in 2003 in partnership with Mason White.  Lola is also co-editor of the journal Bracket: Architecture, Environment, Digital Culture.

Lola was awarded the RAIC Young Architects Award in 2012, and Lateral Office was awarded Holcim Prize for Sustainable Construction (2021 and 2011), the Emerging Voices from the Architecture League of New York (2011) and the Professional Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts  (2010). Lola has held grants from the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Lola is co-author of Many Norths: Spatial Practice in a Polar Territory (Actar 2017) and Pamphlet Architecture #30 titled COUPLING: Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism, (Princeton Architectural Press 2011). She is co-editor of the Bracket [Goes Soft] and Bracket [at Extremes], (Actar 2013 & 2016).

Lateral Office's work has been presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2021, 2014), the Oslo Triennale (2019), the Seoul Biennale (2017) and the Chicago Biennale (2015). Lola's writings have been published in Yale Perspecta 53: Onus (2020), Canadian Modern Architecture: 1967-Present (2019), Inuit Studies Journal (2021), Canadian Architect Magazine (2021), Disegno Magazine (2021), among other venues. She lectures and has served as a guest critics in schools across North America and Europe including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, McGill, Bartlett, KU Leuven, Amsterdam, Delft, among others.

Email
416.526.3377
Office: ARC 2012