He was lead architect on the Vale Living with Lakes Center for freshwater restoration and research in Sudbury, which won the Holcim Foundation Awards 2008 Bronze for North America. The Holcim Foundation Awards prize provided much needed recognition for the project and helped to further secure capital funding to complete construction. Construction was completed in 2011. The project includes multiple sustainable design principles and was designed to meet LEED Platinum certification. Most importantly, the building was designed to help heal the landscape that was damaged by over a century of industrial damage.

JLR is a multidisciplinary firm of architects, engineers, and planners in northern Ontario. After joining the firm in 2004 Jeffrey Laberge has become an associate owner and heads the architectural group at the Sudbury office. The firm’s multidisciplinary work includes institutional, municipal, and commercial projects that focus on sustainable design within a northern climate.

Jeffrey Laberge is a founding member of the board for Laurentian University’s School of Architecture (LAL). The school opened its doors in September of 2013 to its first class of 70 students. The curriculum is grounded in northern issues of place/landscape, First Nations, and sustainability. Students experience co-op placements within northern industries as well as design firms around the world. The students learn directly from First Nations communities and are taught by in-house elders from local First Nations communities.

The LAL project is principally an urban re-development project. Applying research developed by the Waterloo School of Architecture on mid-sized cities, the steering committee developed the project with a goal to re-vitalize downtown Sudbury. Over the past thirty years, downtown Sudbury suffered the same fate as most mid-sized cities in Canada, its downtown was void of residents and its commercial value slowly declined. The LAL project offered a unique solution to this problem, and although the school has only just opened, downtown Sudbury has already begun to experience a significant change.

He has extensive experience in the institutional, educational, commercial, municipal, recreational, and urban design fields. He focuses on a multidisciplinary, integrated design project delivery process from initial concept to final occupancy.

Jeffrey Laberge studied fine art at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and studied architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.