Laurie Aves, Principal at Christine Lintott Architects Inc.
VICTORIA – When it comes to female empowerment and gender visibility, the team at Victoria-based architecture firm Christine Lintott Architects Inc. (CLA) may stand out as something of an outlier in the industry.
“We’re actually two-thirds women here, which is unusual for a firm of our size,” notes Laurie Aves, Principal at CLA.
Founded in 2009 by Christine Lintott, CLA is an award-winning architecture firm recognized for its commitment to thoughtful, community-focused design that drives meaningful change. Over the years, the firm has grown into a tight-knit collective of creative and collaborative practitioners. United by a shared dedication to sustainable design and regional relevance, the team brings passion and purpose to every project.
CLA’s diverse portfolio spans the non-profit, public, and private sectors, covering a broad spectrum of scales and building types. Whether working on a community housing project or a public institution, each endeavour is approached with the same core intention: to create spaces that are inclusive, meaningful, and built with accountability to the people who use them, just like the staff themselves.
That sense of purpose seems to have naturally attracted a high number of women, and Aves, who has been with the firm for over 15 years, has given considerable thought to why that might be.
“Having a female principal, and now two female principals since I’ve joined ownership, I think really appeals to a lot of women and I feel like it snowballed a little bit too by word of mouth with people enjoying the culture here,” explains Aves. “We’re a really inclusive and collaborative culture, and so a lot of our hires have been through people just reaching out because somebody’s recommended that they talk to us.”
Aves’ own path into architecture was inspired early on by her father, a journeyman carpenter who later launched his own renovation company. Spending time working alongside him during her childhood gave her a deep appreciation for the built environment. From a young age, she found herself analyzing spaces and imagining ways to improve them, an instinct that naturally led her toward a career in architecture.
After more than a decade with CLA, Aves is set to apply to receive her Broadly Experienced Applicant certification through the Architectural Institute of British Columbia this October, marking a major personal milestone. Coinciding with her achievement is another significant step forward for the firm itself: CLA is in the process of obtaining its Just certification.
“Just certification is important to us because it really aligns with our values of trying to have diversity, inclusion and equity. These things provide a really good balance between work, life and health. We feel the certification would create transparency to the outside world to the values that we hold dear,” says Aves. “It also gives us a little bit more rigour and sort of a metric that we could measure our success against.”
The Just label, a voluntary disclosure tool from the International Living Future Institute, measures a company’s performance in areas such as equity, employee well-being, and social justice. For CLA, this certification underscores a long-standing commitment to creating an admirable workplace and by extension, a built environment that reflects the firm’s deeply held ethical values.
It’s clear that CLA is about much more than aesthetics. The firm approaches every project with an integrated design philosophy aimed at crafting spaces that are responsive, responsible, and reflective of local narratives. Whether the team is engaged in master planning, architectural design, or construction administration, their focus remains firmly on community impact.
“We’re not just about creating beautiful architecture, we’re trying to make positive change in the community, and our vehicle is through architecture. Our focus is equally on addressing environmental, social, and cultural issues through our projects whenever we can, and so we’re interested in collaborating with people who want to make change as well.”
In a traditionally male-dominated industry, CLA demonstrates what can happen when core values guide both design and team culture, creating spaces, and a workplace, that foster real transformation.
