UPDATE September 2024: As part of our commitment to the advancement of Truth and Reconciliation, and in response to Call to Action #82 as highlighted in the White Goose Flying Report, we continue to work towards establishing a permanent memorial to commemorate all Indian residential school, day school and inter-generational trauma survivors and the children who never returned home. To achieve this, we are pursuing a two-stage procurement process, a design competition, to select a qualified team who will design the future Indian Residential School Memorial.

We are pleased to announce that the first stage of IRSM Design Competition, the Request for Pre-Qualification (RFPQ), is now open and accepting applications.

We invite architects, landscape architects, professional artists, and other related design professionals, either as individuals or teams, to compete in a Request for Pre-qualification (RFPQ) to be shortlisted.

To be considered for pre-qualification applicants need to review the RFPQ through our SAP Ariba public posting and submit an application before November 5, 2024.

It is imperative that this project be Indigenous-led, and for this reason we’re searching for a lead designer who has verifiable Indian, Inuit or Métis status and lived experiences of the Indian Residential School system: as survivors, day-school survivors, inter-generational survivors, or 60’s scoop survivors or in general, Indigenous, Inuit or Métis Peoples in Canada. If the future design concept includes architecture or landscape architecture, it is an asset if other members of the design team are also Indigenous.

Responses to the RFPQ will be reviewed by an evaluation committee and overseen by The City’s Professional Advisor to select up to five (5) shortlisted design teams. Once design teams are shortlisted, we will launch stage 2 of the procurement process, the design competition itself.

UPDATE May 2024: We are excited to announce that we have moved to the next phase of the Indian Residential School Memorial Project.

Through the remainder of 2024, The City will be pursuing a two-stage design competition to secure a qualified Indigenous lead designer for the Indian Residential School Memorial. Individuals or design teams are welcome to apply; this includes professional Indigenous artists. This work builds on the extensive public engagement that took place in fall 2022, where we received hundreds of contributions from IRS survivors, descendants, families, and community members on the location and design of the memorial. The feedback from this engagement is available in a What We Heard Report, and was shared with Council and the community in May 2023.

The first step of this work was the formal announcement of this upcoming design competition through a Notice of Proposed Procurement, which outlines what assets and qualifications the future lead designer will need to be successful.

The next steps will involve two stages: 1) a Request for Pre-Qualification (RFPQ) to shortlist eligible design teams that demonstrate Indigenous leadership, experience, and capacity, and; 2) a Request for Proposals (RFP) to invite the shortlisted teams to submit their design concepts for the memorial.

The design concepts will be evaluated by a jury of Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts and will include a community engagement component. The winning design will be announced and construction will begin thereafter.

Through Partnership with The Confluence Historic Site & Parkland (formerly Fort Calgary), which was secured in September 2023, the future memorial will be located near the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers, a historically significant site for Indigenous Peoples of this area.

The relationship with the Indigenous community will lead the design and location of the IRS memorial with a strong Indigenous perspective. The City of Calgary wants to ensure that the engagement process is inclusive and collaborative.

Express your thoughts and feelings on a preferred location and design of the memorial by responding to the questions in the tabs for Location, Design and the temporary Memorial.

to make arrangements.