T2 - The Capital-City Duality

A capital city is never just a city. It's a reflection. Ottawa-Gatineau carries a double mandate few regions ever face: G7 national capital and a metropolitan region racing toward 2 million people. It just ranked number one in North America for livability. But rankings capture a moment, not a trajectory, and the transformations ahead are big. This panel unlocks how urban design can find the synergies and surface the tensions between public and private interests, clarify who's actually responsible for what, and catalyze the interventions still to come. Our panelists explore what it takes to plan a capital that carries national identity and federal function, while still delivering the complete, livable neighborhoods residents actually live in. What does the future of the Capital look like, and how do we get there? That's the question this room is built to answer.

Speakers

Moderator: Stephen Willis
Senior Principal, Stantec

Stephen Willis is a Senior Principal in Stantec’s Ontario urban planning team. Steve is a Registered Professional Planner with over 30 years’ professional experience in consulting and in various public sector roles. He is currently Federal Sector lead for Infrastructure in Canada and Regional Growth Lead for Infrastructure, at Stantec. Steve is also a Board member of the Ottawa Board of Trade.
Previously, Steve served as General Manager of Planning, Real Estate and Economic Development for the City of Ottawa, and he also previously served as Executive Director of the Capital Planning Branch of the National Capital Commission.

Emmanuelle van Rutten
BArch, AAA, AIBC, FRAIC, LEED AP BD+C, NSAA, OAA, OAQ, PMP
Partner, Moriyama Teshima

Since joining Moriyama Teshima Architects in 2006, Emmanuelle has led the growth of MTA’s Ottawa office. She has played key roles in many high-profile projects in the National Capital Region, including the Parliament Hill Visitor Welcome Centre, the Canadian War Museum and the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, and served as Project Architect for the West Memorial Building Rehabilitation, the Canadian History Hall renovation and the Beaverbrook Library.

Emmanuelle brings leadership and expertise across a broad range of complex institutional projects, including federal, cultural, heritage, civic and public-sector facilities, from strategic planning and programming through design, construction and project completion. Fluent in both English and French, she is recognized for her exceptional communication and consensus-building skills, successfully leading multidisciplinary teams and navigating complex stakeholder consultation and approval processes with clients, authorities and review agencies throughout the National Capital Region.

Emmanuelle was named a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 2019. She served as Regional Director for Ontario North, East & Nunavut for the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada from 2016 to 2022 and has been a member of the Ottawa Urban Design Review Panel since 2016. She also remains involved with her alma mater, Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, where she periodically lectures and serves as a guest critic.

Patrick Bunting
OALA, CSLA
Landscape Architect, Senior Urban Designer, National Capital Commission
Board Member, Council for Canadian Urbanism

Patrick Bunting is a Landscape Architect and Senior Urban Designer at the National Capital Commission. With more than 15 years of experience across the public and private sectors, he is passionate about collaborative multidisciplinary design, working across scales to deliver projects ranging from detailed site design to large-scale master plans.

Patrick has contributed to the detailed design, delivery, and stewardship of nationally significant and award-winning parks, plazas and urban spaces including: Pindigen Park, the Rideau Canal Esplanade, the Lansdowne Park redevelopment, and the Rideau Hall Forecourt. His urban design and master planning work includes the Ottawa River South Shore Riverfront Park Plan (2018), the Capital Pathway Strategic Plan (2020), the Capital Design Guidelines (2023) and most recently, design-lead and project manager for the National Capital Core Area Plan Vol. I &II (2025/2026).

An advocate for design excellence and the public realm, Patrick serves on the Council for Canadian Urbanism’s board of directors and was recipient of the 2025 OALA Public Practice Award.

Philip Evans
MRAIC, OAA, AAA, AIBC, NSAA, CAHP
Principal, ERA Architects

Philip Evans is an architect, principal and owner at ERA Architects with 25 years of experience in heritage conservation and urban development. Through early-stage feasibility and built form strategy, he helps clients and project teams connect conservation goals with opportunities for development.

His perspective draws on work with rural waterfront communities across Canada through ERA’s SMALL initiative, including Culture of Outports in Newfoundland, alongside ERA’s involvement in federal projects in Ottawa and Gatineau. In Toronto, he helped develop the Cultural Infrastructure Plan and played a substantial role in shaping Port Lands policy on behalf of private stakeholders, supporting site-specific proposals and approvals.

This work informs the Basins Project, through which he explores the role of waterways in shaping cultural landscapes and how this heritage can inform the future of communities. Philip serves on Ottawa’s Urban Design Review Panel.

Rheal Labelle
Partner, Hobin Architecture

A Partner at the firm and a graduate of Carleton University’s School of Architecture, Rheal hails from Timmins, Ontario, and has been with the firm since 2008. His work spans a wide range of project types and scales—from finely crafted custom homes to complex institutional buildings and large-scale master plans. Rheal brings a strong ability to balance design excellence with functionality, material performance, and constructability.

He played a key role in the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park (including the visioning for Lansdowne 2.0), the Zibi/Domtar Lands, Greystone Village/Oblate Lands, and the firm’s winning proposal for LeBreton Flats in 2016. He is actively involved with the ongoing development of lands surrounding the new Corso Italia transit station which include a new school, affordable housing and recreational uses.

Fully bilingual, Rheal has represented the firm in French-language interviews with CBC Canada and the National Capital Commission, notably for the LeBreton Flats and Zibi projects.