Our week of giving hearty congratulations to local businesses continues with a look at two firms that have both produced incredible design work in Halifax and beyond, on projects both large and small. For our client shout out, we’re looking to Dartmouth’s Connor Architects and Planners, or CAP as they're better known to us.

CAP has been designing beautiful residential, commercial, and institutional structures since 1989, first in partnership with CBCL, and since 2001 as an independent firm. While the buildings that CAP designs are beautiful, functional, and sensitive to their surroundings, CAP’s commitment to energy efficient design is what has impressed us the most. While an understanding of the importance of energy efficient design has been spreading through the architecture and construction sectors in recent years, CAP has been a leader in this field for over two decades. Here at Amplify we love great design, and we love environmentally conscious business models even more. For successfully combining the two since the day that they opened, Connor Architects and Planners deserve a hearty congratulations from us, and from everyone concerned about protecting our environment and our energy resources.

The second design leader we’re recognizing should be well known to anyone who has visited Spring Garden Road in the past few years. Halifax based Fowler Bauld & Mitchell, working in partnership with the Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen, are responsible for designing Halifax’s gorgeous new central library. Designing such an important public building would be difficult in any city, but especially so in Halifax, where citizens can often be extremely vocal in their opinions on any new additions to the skyline. FBM has seemingly done the impossible by designing a building that is striking and innovative, and that has been widely embraced by the public. By creating a design that’s capable of overcoming our often powerful resistance to all things new, Fowler Bauld & Mitchell have earned one serious shout out from us, and from our city.

(Today's title quote courtesy of Paul Rand.)