Professor Brigitte Shim has been recognized with one of the country’s highest honours in the fields of arts and science: election to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) as a 2024 Fellow.

Every year, a select group of artists, academics and scientists are inducted into one of the RSC’s three Academies—the Academy of Arts and Humanities, the Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Science—on the basis of their impact, both nationally and  internationally, on their respective disciplines. 

Professor Shim, who has been teaching at the Daniels Faculty since 1988, will be elected to the RSC’s Academy of Arts and Humanities. 

There are currently 2,524 Fellows in the Society, which has been recognizing creative excellence in Canada since 1882.

Professor Shim was selected, according to the RSC, for “an exceptional body of design work that is committed to craft, tectonics, site and ecology.” Also cited was her “ongoing commitment to advocacy, mentorship and teaching.”

“She is one half of a collaborative partnership,” the Society says, referencing her longtime personal and creative alliance with husband and fellow architect A. Howard Sutcliffe, “addressing built work that tackles multiple scales [in] architecture, landscape, interiors, furniture and hardware—all developed to a high standard, with craft, rigour, sense of place, mastery of proportions and placemaking.” 

Professor Shim co-founded her practice, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, in 1994. She and Sutcliffe have since been recognized with 16 Governor General’s Medals and Awards for Architecture, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Gold Medal in 2021 and an American Institute of Architects National Honor Award. 

Her induction into the RSC, which was announced last month, will formally take place at a ceremony in Vancouver on November 8. A total of 104 new Fellows are being inducted this year.