Ingenium Centre, in Ottawa, conserves and showcases our national science and technology collection—entrusted to Canada’s three museums of science and innovation. The building—a mega cabinet of curiosity—reveals this eclectic collection, fusing Canada’s past to its future. Through spatial strategies, it also fosters collaboration and synergetic partnerships between parallel, local, and national institutions.

Completed in 2019, Ingenium Centre houses over 130,000 3D and 1.2 million 2D artifacts, which were previously stored in the warehouses of three museums—the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Consolidating them, the new building provides purpose-built storage and conservation fluency, while also accommodating additional repository space for the National Gallery of Canada. Aside from its vast archive, the lively building includes a Research Institute, Conservation Laboratories, a Digital Innovation Lab, Conference Rooms, a Resource Centre, workshops, and workspaces for 175 staff, actively conserving the pieces to inform the future.

Equipped with world-class, museum-quality interior environments and a dynamic urban presence, the architecture takes advantage of every opportunity to showcase the artifacts throughout its facility. Inside, a public lobby and its sculptural staircase offer exhibition space, a vertical gallery that snakes up through the building. The animated south façade is cut and pulled open, revealing some of the pieces. Moreover, the building is carved at the entrance, with oversized garage doors—designed to exhibit rolling out historic trains, activating the museum’s landscaped, civic plaza.

An urban landmark, Ingenium Centre is situated next to Canada’s Science and Technology Museum (both soon-to-be incorporated as part of an upcoming Science Park in Ottawa). The playful façade of the building features Ingenium colours as signifiers, representing the three constituent collections, and offering a polychromatic backdrop to what is a comprehensive campus in Canada’s capital for creativity, discovery, and learning.