Ottawa Business Journal celebrated the launch of its Best Offices Ottawa 2026 program with a party at the Burovision showroom on September 24, 2026, bringing together local business and design leaders to look at how workplaces in the city are changing.
Who was there and what they talked about
The event was organized by Ottawa Business Journal, and OBJ publisher Michael Curran moderated a discussion with Gillian Oxley-Harper of Burovision and Astrid Sanchez of Gensler. The panel dove into findings from Gensler's Global Workplace Survey 2026, giving attendees a look at how office design is evolving beyond the desk-and-cubicle model that used to define Ottawa's business parks.
Holding the launch at the Burovision showroom itself was a fitting choice. Burovision is one of the firms behind the workplaces featured in this year's program, and the showroom setting let guests see design ideas in person rather than just hear about them from a stage.
The three workplaces in the spotlight
This year's Best Offices program is built around three featured workplaces: Fasken's new Ottawa office, built by Marant Construction; CIRA's new headquarters; and the office of Bellai Alliance Construction, designed by Burovision.
For a city whose office market has spent the past few years adjusting to hybrid work and shifting downtown vacancy rates, showcasing real, local examples of workplace redesign matters. Ottawa companies making the decision to invest in physical space right now are effectively betting that the office still has a role to play, and the Best Offices program is OBJ's way of surfacing what that bet looks like when it pays off.
What the Gensler survey adds to the picture
The panel's discussion of Gensler's Global Workplace Survey 2026 gave the launch party a research backbone rather than just a design showcase. Pairing a global survey with three concrete Ottawa examples let Curran, Oxley-Harper and Sanchez talk about workplace trends in the abstract and then point to a building down the street that was already putting those ideas into practice.
Why it matters for Ottawa
Ottawa's office towers and business parks have been a quiet story throughout the return-to-office debate, with local firms making individual calls about what their space should look like rather than following a single citywide trend. Programs like Best Offices Ottawa give those decisions a public airing, letting other Ottawa businesses see what a law firm, a national organization and a construction company each concluded when they redesigned their own workplace.
Sources: Ottawa Business Journal
