What future-ready, cold climate envelope design can look like

The 2026 Building Envelope Design Competition invites students and professionals to explore what future-ready, cold climate envelope design can look like for multi-unit residential buildings (MURB) in Manitoba.

Participants are asked to design a Tier 3, NECB 2020–compliant envelope assembly for a theoretical MURB, demonstrating how emerging performance standards can be achieved without sacrificing architectural intent, occupant comfort, or real-world constructability.

This year, Environmental Design students Owen Tintor, Elena Dobrowney and Chloe Card were awarded second place for their submission in the competition.

Practical solutions suited to Manitoba’s climate

The competition exists to accelerate design and technical capacity within the architecture, engineering, construction, and building science community; support readiness for evolving building and energy codes; encourage innovative, integrated envelope design; and showcase practical solutions suited to Manitoba’s climate.

As Manitoba prepares for higher-performance building standards, establishing practical and climate-appropriate envelope solutions will be key to successful code adoption and industry readiness.

Chloe Card explains her team’s winning entry.

We feel incredibly fortunate to have worked on the design of a building envelope for a theoretical multi-unit residential building (MURB) in Manitoba. Our proposal achieved Tier 3 performance under the NECB 2020 performance path, addressing the challenges of our cold Manitoba climate for residential design.

Our high performance envelope is made of structural CLT, a low thermally conductive, dense material. The face is clad in vertical cedar wood sliding alongside brick, responding to Winnipeg’s low-rise residential guidelines, featuring a playful roofline and clerestory windows.

The windows create sensitive permeations for daylight to enter the space. Light enters the bedroom through private high horizontal windows coupled with a full-height opening, providing both privacy and connection to the outdoors.

To maintain control layer continuity and reduce thermal bridging, the living area was extruded to align flush with the central core, making the balconies fully integrated within the building mass for added privacy, shelter and reducing thermal bridging in the corner conditions. The envelope has a rear ventilated cavity that ensures long term performance.

We’re deeply grateful to the team at Sustainable Building Manitoba, the jury, our instructor Jessica Piper and everyone who came to this wonderful event!