The Sq’éwqel Community School (formerly Seabird Island School), located on the Seabird Island First Nation near Agassiz, British Columbia, has been named a 2026 winner of the Prix du XXe siècle by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC).

The Prix du XXe Siècle celebrates design quality and enduring excellence, recognizing the design of the original architects and/or firms and the on-going stewardship of the building’s owners.

The Sq’éwqel Community School, designed by Patkau Architects and completed in 1991, is a celebrated work of wood architecture recognized for integrating Salish cultural traditions with environmental design.

By making the school a part of the village common space, interaction between the school and the community is encouraged. At the same time, the extreme winter winds which are funnelled between the mountains down the river valley from the north are mediated by the large mass of the school.

In mediating between the extreme winter winds from the north and the favourable exposure toward the south, the mass and scale of the school undergo a transformation. On the north, large sculptural volumes are closed diverting the winds much like the mountains which surround the site. To the south the scale is small, the building open under generous eaves. A complex, more tectonic quality not present in the sculptural forms of the north is introduced here through the use of a variety of struts, beams and trellises.

Today, the school remains a touchstone in discussions of socially responsive architecture in Canada. It illustrates how built form can participate in reconciliation—not as a symbolic gesture alone, but as a lived, daily environment shaped by and for the community it serves.