Every two years, the prestigious Governor General’s Medals in Architecture recognize and celebrate outstanding design in recently built projects by Canadian architects. The competition, established by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts, continues a tradition initiated by the Massey Medals in 1950. Here are this year’s winners.

SFU STADIUM

ARCHITECT Perkins&Will

LOCATION Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia

Erickson Massey’s original masterplan for SFU’s Burnaby campus included concrete bleachers in front of the Lorne Davies Complex (LDC)—housing gyms, a fitness centre, and a pool—to provide seating for sporting and cultural events. Deemed too expensive at the time, the seating was never constructed, and the campus has lacked this critical community-building space. 

In 2012, the Simon Fraser Student Society passed a vote to collect an annual levy from students to fund the construction of new student facilities, including a stadium. The resulting design takes inspiration from the terraced planes of the original masterplan, and maintains the LDC’s key experiential element of uninterrupted views to the south from its pool deck. The stadium is conceived as a minimal intervention synchronized to the structural rhythm of the LDC, and topped by a canopy that floats above the seats.

The stadium is designed to host events throughout the year, and to be a sheltered public space when not in use. Mass timber panels are both the finish and structure, creating a warm place of welcome to the campus. The seating area has been used as a marshalling space for sports camps, an outdoor lecture theatre, and an informal hang-out space for students. During events, the facility offers a variety of viewing experiences, from formal seats to more casual areas for socializing.

The jewel of the design is the canopy over the central seating area—a structure that seems impossibly thin for the span it covers, and is supported by slender columns that almost disappear in the background. As a minimalist element, it frames clear views to the field, with a supporting structure that sits above the plane of the soffit. The wood surface amplifies the noise of the crowd, enhancing the spectator experience and providing inspiration to the players.

Jury Comment :: The jury appreciated the quiet and clear response of the SFU Stadium project to its context and purpose. The main architectural feature of the project is the canopy that shelters the stadium seating. The design’s simplicity was well executed and was an elegant choice given the context of the brutalist backdrop of the Lorne Davies Complex Building. The jury noted the efficient use of materials including CLT and the handsome honest detail of the structural approach. In a time of excess, the SFU Stadium illustrates restraint and elegance that will no doubt remain functional and beautiful for many decades to come.

CLIENT Simon Fraser University | ARCHITECT TEAM Max Richter, Abu Benjaman, Paul Cowcher, Nic Dubois-Robitaille, Jana Foit, Bojana Jerinic, Horace Lai, Sarita Mann, Gavin Schaefer, Elsa Snyder, Kim Stanley, Laurence Renard | BUILDING ENVELOPE Perkins&Will | STRUCTURAL Fast + Epp | MECHANICAL Introba | ELECTRICAL WSP | CIVIL Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd. | CONTRACTOR Chandos Construction | CODE GHL Consultants | A/V IBI Group | SUSTAINABILITY Perkins&Will | AREA 2,776 m2 | BUDGET $21 M | COMPLETION June 2021

GROW

ARCHITECT Modern Office of Design + Architecture (MODA)

LOCATION Calgary, Alberta

GROW is a 20-unit housing project in the inner-city neighbourhood of Bankview, Calgary. It’s also an urban farm: its zigzag sloped roof is topped with 0.6 acres of rooftop gardens that act as a place for residents to meet, walk the dog, and get a breath of fresh air.

To further support social interactions across generations and demographics, GROW’s rental units suit a range of ages and family sizes, including small (42 square metre) studios, medium-sized (56 square metre) condos, 1.5-storey lofts, and large (79-93 square metre) two-storey townhomes. This arrangement potentially places a retired couple next to a young family with children, or a single student next to a young professional, building resilience and social connections through proximity.

The development’s formal strategy evolved from its restrictive setbacks and steep slope, with six metres of elevation change from the northwest to the southeast corner of the site. The architects responded by placing the parkade at grade, pushing units at the rear of the building up to create a terracing effect that provides equal access to light and view for all of the units. Offsetting the terraced bars opens up the development’s generous outdoor amenity space.

In most multi-unit buildings, the only opportunities for social interaction occur in shared corridors and at the mailboxes. At GROW, residents can participate in all facets of the rooftop garden, which is managed by a local, not-for-profit urban farming collaborative, or simply enjoy spending time in the outdoor space. Trust is built through the shared ambition to cultivate and care for a resource that benefits the community. 

Lead architects Ben Klumper and Dustin Couzens describe the devel­opment as “unusual in Calgary, where private/speculative devel­opment drives housing provision, and cost-cutting takes precedence over community growth.” But, they add, “if GROW’s approach […] were to become more prevalent in our inner-city communities, and we were to focus on building social capital in tandem with real estate capital, we could create more equitable, inclusive and diverse inner-city urban spaces.”

Jury Comment :: GROW creatively reimagines the typology of a multi- unit residential complex and offers a much-needed new take on collective living. The jury praised the project’s form, program, and organization as a sensitive response to its suburban context. In particular, the clever sculpting of the topography of the ground and the roof levels provides the building with an animated communal stepped garden. The jury also recognized the significance of the project’s contribution as a new case study to the “missing middle” housing crisis.

CLIENT Andrei Metelitsa | ARCHITECT TEAM Dustin Couzens, Ben Klumper, Nicholas Tam, Cara Tretiak | INTERIOR DESIGN Modern Office of Design + Architecture (MODA) | LANDSCAPE Modern Office of Design + Architecture (MODA) | URBAN FARMING CONSULTANT YYC Growers (Rod Olson) | ENERGY MODELLING EMBE Consulting Engineers (Moortaza Bhaiji, Paul Caicedo) | ENVELOPE/SUSTAINABILITY Williams Engineering (Hillary Davidson) | CIVIL Richview Engineering (Robin Li) | STRUCTURAL Wolsey Structural Engineering (Danny Wolsey) | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL TLJ Engineering Consultants (Kevin Vig) | BUILDER RNDSQR + BMP Construction + Signature Properties | AREA 1,806 m2 (Interior) / 856 m2 (Exterior-Urban Farm) | BUDGET $4.78 M | COMPLETION July 2020

PUMPHOUSE

ARCHITECT 5468796 Architecture

LOCATION Winnipeg, Manitoba

Winnipeg’s historic James Avenue Pumping Station was slated for demolition after 14 failed attempts to revive it. Taking on a role outside of the usual scope of architects, 5468796 Architecture developed an unso­licited conceptual design paired with a financial pro forma, and presented the business case to an existing client. This combination eventually led to the building’s successful preservation.

Two design interventions made the project financially viable: repurposing the capacity of original gantry crane rails to suspend a floating floor above the preserved pumping equipment below; and building a residential block on the 13-metre-deep sliver of land between the historic building and Waterfront Drive. A larger residential building was also placed on the opposite end of the pumping station.

In the completed project, the pumping equipment remains in its found state, free of complicated programming. Above, a flexible office floor plate opens fresh views of the equipment, enhanced by floor-to-ceiling glazing. New skylights pierce the roof, bringing natural light deep into the expansive space. 

Materially, the upper level of the pumping station is grounded in the straightforward, industrial quality of the place. Steel studs and stiffening bars are repurposed as supports, allowing for thinner glazing, reducing embodied carbon by half, and increasing construction speed and affordability by removing the need for specialized installers. 

The residential blocks are offset from the existing building, creating new laneways that respect the original pumping station envelope, reference the human scale, and expand the ground floor commercial frontages. Barrier-free access points are nestled along these paths, and the massing makes room for an outdoor amphitheatre, a number of public plazas, and a pair of footbridges suspended between the residential blocks and the heritage building. 

The mid-rise residential buildings bookending the site have Nail Laminated Timber (NLT) technology composing the floors and ceilings, nodding to the Exchange District’s century-old warehouses. Rethinking the norms of multi-unit residential design, they include a skip-stop configuration and open-air egress. The vibrant exterior passageways act as sites for neighbourly interaction and encourage a sense of shared ownership over communal space. Open-air stairwells provide unobstructed vistas to the city, park, and river. 

Blending historic revitalization and sustainable development, this multi-faceted, mixed-use development has brought back a historic structure using practical innovation, and gained the support of heritage advocates, neighbouring residents, and the community at large.

Jury Comment :: The jury noted the excellence of this sensitive and convincing rehabilitation, which demonstrates a deep understanding of the site’s potential and qualities, proposing adapted programs and additions integrated into the logic of the existing elements. Using the load-bearing capacity of the gantry crane rails to support a new floating floor frees up floor space and highlights the architectural qualities of the building and the industrial equipment as artifacts of the former use. The densification of the site with two new residential buildings ensures the feasibility of the project. The jury also appreciated the way in which the apartments are distributed by external walkways, offering to each of them double exposure and through-ventilation.

CLIENT Alston Properties | ARCHITECT TEAM Emeil Alvarez, Pablo Batista, Brandon Bergem, Ken Borton, Jordy Craddock, Donna Evans, Ben Greenwood, Ralph Gutierrez, Johanna Hurme, Ainsley Johnston, Jeff Kachkan, Stas Klas, Lindsey Koepke, Matthew Kurtas, Kelsey McMahon, Colin Neufeld, Sasa Radulovic, Anika Thorsten, Matthew Trendota, Shannon Wiebe | LANDSCAPE Scatliff + Miller + Murray | INTERIORS 5468796 Architecture | STRUCTURAL Lavergne Draward & Associates | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/CIVIL MCW Consultants | ENERGY Footprint | CODE GHL Consultants | SURVEYOR Barnes & Duncan | CONTRACTOR Brenton Construction Corp. | AREA 7,108 m2 | BUDGET $22 M | COMPLETION December 2023

NEIL CAMPBELL ROWING CENTRE

ARCHITECTS MJMA Architecture & Design | Raimondo + Associates Architects

LOCATION St. Catharines, Ontario

Located in the Port Dalhousie community of St. Catharines, Ontario, Henley Island and its two-kilometre racecourse on Martindale Pond have been the epicentre of Canadian rowing since 1903. The site has hosted the yearly Royal Canadian Henley Regatta and rowing competitions for Olympic Trials, the Pan Am Games, and World Championships. 

The new Neil Campbell Rowing Centre (NCRC) continues Henley’s tradition as a venue for elite competitions, while also serving as a year-round training centre for athletes. The project demonstrates how simple, elemental, and respectful design can support a broad spectrum of uses, while also achieving both Net Zero-Energy and Zero-Carbon Emission benchmarks.

Built on a gentle promontory, the NCRC reconfigures a previously ill-defined staging area. Its signature mass timber roof is topped with photovoltaic panels, and uses Canadian glue-laminated (GLT) and cross-laminated timber (CLT) products. It is supported by a light steel column structure and a centralized service core. Steps running down to Martindale Pond serve as seating, but also allow spectators and children to dip their toes in the water. The facility rests on 15-metre-long screw piles that extend down to bedrock.

The biased and overhanging roof, extensive glazing, and steps to the racecourse give the NCRC a striking visual identity. Its linked interior and exterior spaces offer ample space to host events. With its sliding doors open, it becomes a pavilion—a central space for viewing races and gatherings. 

The building’s design inverts the opacity of the typical boat shed and introduces aspects of the glass house, reimagining these traditional typologies to create a new functional and social amenity that elevates the experiences of athlete and spectator alike. 

Jury Comment :: The Neil Campbell Rowing Center illustrates how a powerful singular gesture against a natural backdrop delivers a flexible program in a beautiful, restrained manner. The jury appreciated the clear construction and use of mass timber, Passivehaus envelope detailing, PV array and other sustainability features as well as the architect’s ambition to meet Zero-Carbon and Net Zero-Energy aspirations. Although programmatically relatively simple, the design is well considered to ensure that the simplicity was rigorously executed.

CLIENT 2021 Canada Summer Games/Canadian Henley Rowing Corporation | ARCHITECT TEAM MJMA—Robert Allen, Dan Kronby, Tyler Walker, Ted Watson, Tarisha Dolyniuk, Tim Belanger, Andrew Filarski, Matt Lamers, Monica Leung, Timothy Lai. RAIMONDO + ASSOCIATES—Emilio Raimondo, Brad Augustine, John-Alexander Raimondo, Jeff Visentin, Brennan Klys, Carrie Rose | INTERIORS MJMA Architecture & Design | STRUCTURAL Blackwell | MEP Smith + Andersen | CIVIL Upper Canada Consultants | SUSTAINABILITY Footprint | CONTRACTOR Aquicon Construction | AREA 527 m2 | BUDGET $7.2 M | COMPLETION February 2022

CHURCHILL MEADOWS COMMUNITY CENTRE AND SPORTS PARK

ARCHITECT MJMA Architecture & Design

LOCATION Mississauga, Ontario

Located in Mississauga, Ontario, the Churchill Meadows Community Centre and Sports Park transforms a 50-acre former agricultural field into a richly textured park centered on a pavilion-like building. 

The Community Centre is ringed by extensive glazing, and its entrance elevation is clad in white standing-seam metal, modulated with bold faceting that opens up the building’s form towards approaching visitors and the sky above.

Interior spaces are arranged into two bars running the building’s length. The eastern bar holds the changerooms at grade, with a teaching kitchen, multi-purpose rooms, and a fitness area on the mezzanine level above. To the west, a wider bar houses the triple gymnasium, lobby, and aquatics hall. Here, the sculptural ceiling’s inverted peaks diffuse natural light from a series of sawtooth skylights, with an overall effect evoking serenely lit caverns.

In the lobby, a generously proportioned switchback stair provides clear wayfinding to the mezzanine level, and allows for views to the pools, gym, and park. 

The fully glazed park-facing elevations to the west and south boast a striking exterior canopy that extends and makes visible the building’s mass timber structure. The canopy is clad in an expanded aluminum mesh that protects the wood from the elements, while filtering light to mitigate glare inside the lobby, pool, and gym.

MJMA also completed the park’s masterplan and the design of the park’s initial phase, allowing for an exceptional programmatic and formal integration of community centre and park. The building is set diagonally with respect to the urban grid, with its four elevations facing each cardinal direction, and the playing fields and courts are aligned with it for optimal solar orientation. Parking areas are pushed to the north and south ends of the site, so that park and building can occupy an uninterrupted car-free zone. The park includes a covered walking track that rings the building, and sports fields and courts spread across a landscape whose gently rolling hills, made from soil reclaimed during building excavation, offer elevated seating and viewing points. At virtually every point inside the building, the facility’s primary program spaces are transparent to the outside. The experience throughout is accompanied by panoramic views through the array of glulam columns into the park.

Jury Comment :: The Churchill Meadows Community Centre and Sports Park is a welcome addition to the community of Mississauga, Ontario. With the Community Centre at the heart of the design, the building creates spaces of safety, accessibility, and equity for all users. The scale and massing of the building creates a new landmark in the suburban landscape, with the expression of materials and structure being key. A nuanced understanding of light and transparency between the inside and outside creates a delightful play of shadow and light.

The jury was taken by balance between sensitivity and pragmatism, the consistency of concept and detail, and the durability of the execution.

CLIENT City of Mississauga | ARCHITECT TEAM David Miller (FRAIC), Chris Burbidge (MRAIC), Tyler Walker (MRAIC), Ted Watson (FRAIC), Tarisha Dolyniuk (FRAIC), Tim Belanger, Andrew Filarski (FRAIC), Robert Allen (FRAIC), Obinna Ogunedo, Leland Dadson, Kris Vassilev, Darlene Montgomery, Jasper Flores, Caleb Tsui, Natalia Ultremari, Jeremy Campbell, Caileigh MacKellar, Kyung-Sun Hur | STRUCTURAL Blackwell | MEP Smith + Andersen | CIVIL EMC Group | LANDSCAPE MJMA Architecture & Design | SUSTAINABILITY Footprint | INTERIORS MJMA Architecture & Design |  GRAPHIC DESIGN/SIGNAGE & WAYFINDING MJMA Architecture & Design | CONTRACTOR Aquicon Construction | AREA 6,827 m2 | BUDGET $51 M | COMPLETION September 2021

KING CITY LIBRARY AND SENIORS CENTRE

ARCHITECT Kongats Architects

LOCATION King City, Ontario

Stretching out like an open hand, the King City Library and Seniors Centre is a multigenerational community hub: a place to meet, share stories, exchange knowledge, and access information. 

Kongats Architects was initially retained to investigate the program and feasibility of a facility that would replace the existing library. The study and its public consultations identified the benefits of a shared public library and seniors centre as a place for community building, and a configuration that could realize operational savings.

The resulting building is centered on a welcoming core, whose intimate, wood-lined study rooms contrast with glazed, light-filled reading rooms that offer views to the surrounding landscape. Program areas across the two-level building include a senior’s centre with flexible event spaces, collaborative meeting zones, a digital media and ‘make-it’ lab, exterior reading balconies and patios, and dedicated areas for adult collections, local histories, children and teens. 

The entry from King Road was re-envisioned as a welcoming public space, where the curved façade of the building symbolically embraces community markets, book fairs, and barbeques. Elements of the interior spill out to entice potential patrons. Sustainability initiatives are also interwoven throughout the site and building: stormwater is managed on site through bioswales, natural daylighting is provided to all occupied areas within, and operable windows allow for cross-ventilation.

At a moment when libraries are perceived to be under threat from a shrinking public realm on one side and digitization on the other, the King City Library and Senior’s Centre creates an innovative and vital “third space” that is neither home nor work. It’s a place where the community benefits from intergenerational learning and making, and has wide access to well-curated information. 

Jury Comment :: The King City Public Library and Seniors Centre provides a multi-generational community hub for residents of King City that integrates two vital urban functions—an urban social space and a seniors’ centre. The jury noted the social and cultural value of the combined program. The jury discussed the contextual approach, material detailing and the sustainable strategies which included bio-swales, natural daylighting, natural ventilation and optimized heating and cooling systems.

CLIENT King Township | ARCHITECT TEAM Alar Kongats, Paul Dolick, Paula Prada, Carolanne Bedard-Reid, Adam Troter, Stephanie Leboeuf | STRUCTURAL/ MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL/AV/IT  WSP | CIVIL MGM | LANDSCAPE Brook McIlroy Inc. | COST A.W. Hooker & Associates Ltd. | AREA 1,951 m2 | BUDGET $10 M | COMPLETION September 2020

GARDEN LANEWAY HOUSE

ARCHITECT Williamson Williamson Inc.

LOCATION Toronto, Ontario

Facing a service lane in the west end neighbourhood of Roncesvalles, Toronto, the Garden Laneway House reimagines the possibilities for small-scale urban densification.

The four-bedroom home accommodates a family of five, and its ample spaces and light-filled rooms counter the stereotype that laneway homes have limited space and unappealing sightlines, and lack privacy. 

The house was designed to feel like a primary home, clad in a rotated brick façade that brings beauty to the laneway. The front door is recessed under a carport canopy clad in charred cedar, ensuring privacy from the cars that access the garages surrounding the home. Inside, the house’s program is flipped upside-down from a typical home. The primary suite is on the lowest floor and enjoys a large lightwell, the teenagers’ bedrooms are on the ground floor, and the living spaces are on top. A skylight above the stairwell ties together the levels, and the main living area and rooftop deck enjoy picturesque views of the neighbouring treetops.

Material innovation maximizes the interior space. The use of a cold-formed steel joist system increased ceiling height by four inches on each level and left room to run the services directly through the supports, eliminating the need for dropped ceilings. Smart home lighting and zone-specific radiant heating and cooling systems enable the house to run efficiently, while providing an added level of comfort for the family, achieving a TEDI of 27.50 kWh/m2/yr.

This project provides inspiration for how laneway and garden suites can allow property owners to unlock value in their backyards, while encouraging increased density in well-established neighbourhoods.

Jury Comment :: Nestled between garages and an alley, Garden Laneway House is a true gem, with whimsical yet quiet architecture that more than compensates for the site’s lack of context. In an often-overlooked typology, the jury was delighted by the effectiveness and efficiency of the space layout, complemented by the strategies implemented by the design team to achieve the project’s spatial qualities such as the views and natural lighting. This project is exemplary in its approach to small-scale urban densification. The jury was also impressed with the overall quality of its construction and details, particularly the beautiful brick facade providing a playful texture contrasting with the banality of the laneway.

CLIENT Suzanne and Jeff Wilkinson | ARCHITECT TEAM Betsy Williamson, Shane Williamson, Javier Huerta, Dimitra Papantonis, Steven Chen, Nassim Sani, Christina Vogiatis, Silas Clusiau | INTERIORS DESIGN COLLABORATION Suzanne Wilkinson Interiors Inc. | CONSTRUCTION Jeff Wilkinson, Wilkinson Construction Services Inc. | STRUCTURAL Atkins + Van Groll, faet lab | MECHANICAL McCallum HVAC Design Inc. | AREA 214 m2 | BUDGET $1.25 M | COMPLETION  May 2022

31 SCARSDALE ROAD

ARCHITECT Suulin Architects Inc.

LOCATION North York, Ontario

31 Scarsdale Road is an adaptive reuse of a warehouse and office complex in Don Mills, Toronto. The original light-industrial development was part of the area’s modernized approach to the Garden City. Over time, the complex became an ungainly assemblage of three buildings. It included a one-storey warehouse built in 1962, a one-storey rear warehouse/showroom added in 1977, and a two-storey front office/showroom added in 1985. These additions were joined, but functioned and appeared as separate, disparate buildings.

Together, the architect and client created a brief to unite the parts into a cohesive whole, while balancing the technical aspects of sustainability with the cultivation of social spaces. The rear building would receive a second-storey addition and be converted into the client’s headquarters. The other two buildings would be modernized and subdivided into tenant spaces that celebrate the contemporary workplace with natural materials.

The project was designed to LEED Platinum standards, though it was not certified. An early decision to retain and expose the structure of all three buildings minimized the amount of new construction and associated embodied carbon. The existing structure of steel and precast concrete provided the basis for the added layering of new materials. At the rear second-storey addition, exposed Douglas Fir decking softens the existing open-web steel joists. The front building’s precast cladding was stained to integrate with the new precast concrete panels at the back, which were made with a high fly-ash content.

The new workspaces were organized around two new light-filled interior courtyards, which allow for sunlight and views to the surrounding pine trees. The central atrium in the middle building connects four tenant spaces, providing a circulation hub with generous, light-filled common social spaces. In the rear building, a similar double-height atrium with a feature stair is an expansive connecting space, surrounded with breakout spaces and adjoining a cafeteria with a rooftop deck. Energy usage is reduced through passive design elements, such as the wood fins and deep canopies. 

Coupled with the continuity of natural light, these architectural features knit the buildings into a harmonious whole, and create a new sense of place and connection, while paying homage to the building’s industrial origins. As industrial mid-century buildings reach the end of their life cycle, this project is a valuable case study in how these buildings can be adapted to meet current needs, while raising the bar on building sustainably.

Jury Comment :: The jury appreciated 31 Scarsdale Road foremost for its important recognition that the preservation and renovation of existing building stock is one of the most important choices societies can make when considering sustainable building. Putting forward sober means and passive bioclimatic strategies, the project is well executed with straightforward details that create a light-filled environment.

CLIENT Withheld | ARCHITECT TEAM Amy Lin, James Chavel, Andrew Hart, Valerie Arthur | STRUCTURAL Blackwell | MEP BK Consulting | ENERGY MODEL Technosim | AREA 3,989 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION February 2017

THÉÂTRE DE VERDURE 

ARCHITECT Lemay

LOCATION Montreal, Quebec

The Théâtre de Verdure is an iconic venue in the heart of Montreal’s Parc La Fontaine. The original amphitheatre and modernist stage opened in 1956, but was shuttered in 2014 due to obsolescent equipment.

To bring art back to the centre of the park, the venue required a complete overhaul. The vision for the new Théâtre de Verdure is based on the relationship between landscape and architecture, and the dematerialization of architecture to showcase the site, making art and culture accessible and visible to all.

The new theatre is built on the footprint of the previous structure, with the stage delicately placed on an island at the end of the park’s artificial lake, and the stones from the old theatre salvaged for sitework. The approach to the theatre has been completely reworked, with multiple access points from which the stage gradually appears through the trees. The theatre’s 2,500 seats are set in tiers within a natural amphitheatre. 

From the stage, the curtain opens to a theatre set against the backdrop of landscape—sober, modern, dynamic—in harmony with the historic memory of the place and Montreal’s unique cultural identity.

All of the theatre’s elements are embedded in the landscape, from its stage and backstage to its lake-view dressing rooms, storage rooms, control room, reception, rest areas, and green room. Support functions are carefully concealed under the seats, and multifunctional service areas extend out towards the park, enhancing the heritage character of the site and inviting exploration both inside and outside this urban oasis. 

In line with the City of Montreal’s sustainable development policy for buildings, the design aimed to promote general well-being, while having a minimal impact on the environment. The theatre’s existing canopy was preserved, and local species were selected for new plantings.

When the stage lights come up, theatre takes on the scale of the landscape as the performance resonates out and into the park, and art and place come alive together.

Jury Comment :: The redevelopment of Montreal’s Théâtre de Verdure has breathed new life into Parc La Fontaine and created a public amenity which is positively contributing to the urban landscape of the city once again. The building becomes a theatrical play in itself, with the observer becoming an active participant in the way one experiences the journey through the park, with glimpses of and through the building. The idyllic setting is enhanced by the theatre being set on the water. This creates the illusion that the building is delicately floating, creating transparency and capturing views of nature beyond. The well-considered laying of materials and lightness of structure makes this project a delight to experience and a sensitive addition to the park.

CLIENT Ville de Montréal | ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE TEAM Eric Pelletier (MRAIC), Maria Benech, Marie-Eve Parent, Valérie T. Gravel, Yanick Casault, Marc-André Lemaire-Perreault, Maryse Ballard, Arnaud Villard, Francois Ménard, Jean Deslauriers, Eric St-Pierre, Philippe Lafrance, Daniel Smith, Alejandro Mendoza Vazquez, Donald Lavoie | LANDSCAPE Lemay | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Bouthillette Parizeau | STRUCTURAL Calculatec | CIVIL Marchand Houle | THEATRE Trizart Alliance | LIGHTING Ombrages | FORESTRY Nadeau Foresterie | CONTRACTOR AXE Construction | AREA Site—7,825 m2; Building—635 m2 | BUDGET $11.5 M | COMPLETION June 2022

PROMENADE SAMUEL-DE CHAMPLAIN PHASE 3 

ARCHITECT Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker

LOCATION Quebec City, Quebec

The recently concluded third phase of the Promenade Samuel-De Champlain, completed fifteen years after the inaugural phase by the same design team, offers a continuation of the design language, while evolving to provide distinct and enhanced visitor amenities.

The site transforms what was previously a desolate expanse of highways and rail corridors into an urban boulevard with a significant recreational and cultural riverfront. The primary goal of the project was to return the river to the people of Quebec. The architectural vision embraced a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach, encompassing all scales from the masterplan down to urban furniture and signage.

Drawing inspiration from the area’s history rooted in the timber trade and shipbuilding, the architectural language centres on wood. Phase 3 also includes an urban beach that is open and accessible to all, reminiscent of the beloved Plage du Foulon that animated the area in the previous century.

The design of the beach area’s Pavillon des Baigneurs is composed of two elongated rectangular volumes. The first volume, in granite, extends from the curvilinear beach wall, while the second, fashioned from wood, sits atop the granite base, offering panoramic views of the landscape. The strategic use of high-performance glass blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior, while the interior’s white wood pays homage to the sunny character of coastal locales.

A seamless connection is created between the infinity pool swimming area, the shallow Mirror of Water, and the river, offering the illusion of bathing and strolling within the river’s embrace. A sandy beach and sea lyme grass plantings contribute to a resort-like landscape, tailored to the unique character of the waterway.

Flanking the beach, the promenade unfolds with areas including picnic platforms, gardens that mimic the coastal meadows, a dockside trail that highlights a restored marshland, and architectural elements such as the Pavillon de la Côte, the Frontenac Quay, and the Pavillon de la Voile. Biodiversity was restored to this neglected area with the planting of 1,055 trees, 28,950 shrubs, and 117,000 native herbaceous plants. 

The outcome of this multidisciplinary effort is a project seamlessly woven into its environment—and a place that has been a resounding success among visitors. The Promenade Samuel-De Champlain is a source of collective pride and identity, offering users a meaningful, enjoyable experience while making positive contributions to public health, ecology, biodiversity, and climate action.

Jury Comment :: The Promenade Samuel-De Champlain – Phase 3 project continues the requalification of the riverfront on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, in front of Quebec City. Initiated fifteen years ago, the project has enabled the transformation of a heavy industrial zone bordered by traffic infrastructures.

The jury appreciated the clarity of the architectural intentions, their sobriety, and the remarkable quality of execution of the interventions. The architecture takes full account of the river landscape and engages in dialogue with it. The jury underlines that only the collective support of a strong development vision, endorsed and supported by successive governments over time, has enabled the coherent and integrated realization of such a major urban project, which the population has rapidly embraced.

CLIENT Commission de la capitale nationale du Québec (CCNQ) | PROJECT MANAGER Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) | LEAD DESIGNER (ARCHITECTURE, URBAN DESIGN, LANDSCAPE) Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker—Réal Lestage, Eric Lizotte, Caroline Beaulieu, Lucie Bibeau, Grégory Taillon, David Gilbert, Mélissa Simard, Luca Fortin, Maria Benech | ARCHITECTURE Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker | CONSORTIUM – LANDSCAPE Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker, Option aménagement et Williams Asselin Ackaoui | PARTNER Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable | ENGINEERING AtkinsRéalis, WSP, Tetra Tech | PROCESS ENGINEERING François Ménard | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER Pomerleau | CONTRACTORS Construction BML (Station de la Côte, station de la Voile and Boulevard); Construction Deric (Station de la plage, mirror of water and the swimming area); Construction Citadelle (Pavillon de la Côte and Pavillon de la Voile); Bauvais & Verret (Pavillon des Baigneurs) | AREA 150,000 m2 (Promenade) + 1,200 m2 (Buildings) | BUDGET $135 M | COMPLETION July 2023

ÉCOLE DE L’ÉTINCELLE, UN LAB-ÉCOLE 

ARCHITECTS Agence Spatiale – APPAREIL Architecture – BGLA Architecture

LOCATION Chicoutimi, Quebec

Located in the Chicoutimi district north of Quebec City, the École de l’Étincelle exemplifies architecture rooted in its context. The design reimagines the conventional school as a welcoming, accessible environment for children. Built to resemble of grouping of vernacular house forms, the design aims to create a reassuring and familiar home-like atmosphere. 

Inside, the school is divided into three distinct sections. The section facing the street houses administrative offices on the ground floor and kindergarten classrooms on the garden level, linking the youngest students directly to the playground. 

The central section redefines the traditional library as a community learning hub. This area is designed to be open to locals outside of school hours. In the middle, bleachers serve as gathering and collaboration spaces. To one side, the Creative Lab is a maker space equipped with the latest technology. On the other end, the Culinary Lab is a place where produce harvested from the school garden can be cooked and shared with students and the community.

The final section, containing classrooms, is articulated as three smaller peaked-roof houses, each an intimate mini-school for a single grade. Collaborative spaces at the centre of each classroom cluster mimic public squares to encourage mutual support and teamwork. Sunlit interstitial spaces connect the houses and open to the courtyard, inviting informal gatherings.

The Chalet, a distinctive element of the program, is a space for children with special needs. It includes a small living room, kitchen, and dining area, providing a safe space for discussions, building trust, and developing social skills.

The landscaping extends spaces for learning and discovery beyond the school walls. Designed with the area’s northern location in mind, the U-shaped layout creates a microclimate with a sports track, an outdoor classroom, a vegetable garden, individual and group play zones, and a sheltered area for use during inclement weather. The design encourages free, open-ended play by enhancing the site’s natural topography with mounds and surfaces for climbing and sliding. 

Jury Comment :: Stemming from the new Quebec elementary school program, which is based on the development of spaces that enable a diversity of learning activities and promote collaboration, the École de l’Étincelle proposes an original solution, organized around the courtyard. The jury notes the interest of this organization, which favours intuitive orientation for children wherever they are in the school, and offers, on the first floor, a direct relationship between each classroom occupied by the youngest pupils and the outdoor space. The scale of the building, divided into modules reminiscent of a house, contributes to the children’s sense of ownership and comfort. The jury salutes the substantial use of wood (structure, exterior cladding, interior finishes, integrated furniture), which gives the school a strong identity and helps reduce its carbon footprint.

CLIENT Commission Scolaire des Rives du Saguenay | ARCHITECT TEAM Stéphan Gilbert (BGLA), Kim Pariseau (APPAREIL Architecture), Étienne Bernier (Agence Spatiale), Lydia Lavoie (BGLA), Marc-Olivier Champagne-Thomas (APPAREIL Architecture), Johanie Boivin (previously with Agence Spatiale), Jérôme Duval (Agence Spatiale), Pascal Drolet (BGLA) | CONTRACTOR AMEC Construction Inc. | ENGINEERS LGT (now WSP | LANDSCAPE Collectif Escargo + Rousseau Lefebvre | ENVIRONMENT/SUSTAINABILITY Martin Roy & Associés | MEP Pro-Sag Mechanical Inc | ARTIST Mathieu Valade | AREA 3,577 m2 | BUDGET $16.75 M | COMPLETION March 2023

CABOT CLIFFS: CLIFFS RESIDENCES, HALFWAY HUT, AND PRO SHOP

ARCHITECT FBM Architecture | Interior Design

LOCATION Inverness, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Located on the rugged west coast of Cape Breton Island, Cabot Cliffs is among the most celebrated golf destinations in the world. The design of the walking-only links course, by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, is profoundly sensitive to its dramatic landscape, and to the experience of topography, views, vegetation, and wind, in tandem with the game itself.

The architecture at Cabot Cliffs echoes this sentiment with its relationship between landscape, building, and human play. This begins with sensitivity to the historical and cultural context of the area. The region was once home to extensive coal-mining activity; the demise of the coal industry destroyed the livelihood of the town and left a contaminated landscape. The Cabot golf courses (Links and Cliffs), and the associated tourist economy, have brought employment to the region. New development at these courses bolsters the community’s resilience by creating a year-round construction industry. Wood construction is very much a part of the vernacular of rural Cape Breton, and this material selection allowed the buildings to be constructed from local products, by local tradespeople.

The brief for the project was to design eight seasonal holiday homes with four-to-five-bedroom suites, a Halfway Hut to provide refreshment along the course, and a Pro Shop. Additional buildings, including two-to-three-bedroom homes, a restaurant, and a thermal bath, are to be added in the future. 

To allow for the seamless addition of these future programs, an incremental and adaptable approach to the architecture was adopted. A kit-of-parts of typological forms was developed, comprising single-storey gabled sheds, bedrooms, and kitchen/living/dining rooms, joined together by flat interstitial roofs. 

In the first phase, these forms are arranged in various combinations and orientations, creating unique dwellings that sit playfully on the site while remaining similar in materiality and scale. Cedar shingle walls and galvalume roofs scatter across the sand dune and fescue grass landscape. Black masonry fireplaces punctuate the horizon, providing cozy spaces to watch the course while linking the earth to the vast sky. The planting around the homes, considered an extension of the links landscape and part of the larger ecosystem, uses drought-tolerant fescue grass to reduce the need for intensive irrigation.

The houses’ interiors offer a rich spatial experience, where the corridors linking spaces expand into full-height gabled volumes that bring daylight into gathering and sleeping spaces. The communal kitchen/living/dining areas create dynamic social spaces, while each home is oriented to provide privacy with doors and windows that open to refreshing ocean breezes and decks.

The modern aesthetic of the homes underscores the idea that a large house can still feel like an airy seaside cottage and, when combined, they create a village at the edge of the ocean.

Jury Comment :: The jury noted the contextual response and materiality, as a refreshing departure for this landscape-driven recreation residence. The simple wood vernacular traditions of Cape Breton aligns with the dramatic landscape. The jury also noted the social connections offered by the communal kitchen, dining and living areas, which allows this village to go beyond typical recreation properties. The result is an architecture that is rooted in the place, offering a connection with the natural setting – complete with natural pathways and views to the ocean. The sustainable approach includes regional construction that employed local craftspeople, vernacular plantings to control erosion and low irrigation plants. The jury also noted the innovative kit of parts assembly that can be replicated to support incremental growth.

CLIENT Cabot Links at Inverness LP | ARCHITECT TEAM Susan Fitzgerald, Peter Kolodziej, Kaitlyn Labrecque, Alicia McDowell, Stavros Kondeas, Rita Wang, Stephen Hewitson, Ben Griffiths, Shawn Doyle, Danny Goodz | STRUCTURAL BMR Structural Engineering | CIVIL Strait Engineering Ltd. | MECHANICAL CBCL Limited, MCW Consultants Ltd.| ELECTRICAL MCW Consultants Ltd. | CODE Gerard Donahoe, RJ Bartlett Engineering Ltd. | LANDSCAPE Outside! Planning & Design Studio | MASTER PLANNING Ron Krater Studio | INTERIORS Jill Greaves Design Inc. | CONTRACTOR Lindsay Construction, D.J. MacLean & Sons Contracting Ltd. | GEOTECHNICAL Janega Engineering | AREA Accommodation—2,275 m2; Halfway hut—57 m2; Pro shop—200 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION October 2023

The post 2024 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture appeared first on Canadian Architect.

There is constant foot traffic at the corner of Erb Street West and Caroline Street North, an intersection at the edge of downtown Waterloo, Ontario, close to both the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. That’s how I originally came to know this area, meeting it on-foot as a self-important undergrad taking the scenic route home from the WLU library in the mid-aughts. In overt ways, the place contributed to my education, and it has followed me around ever since.

Of the buildings on this corner, four have been recognized with Governor General’s Awards for Architecture. The first of these was given in 1986 for a renovation and expansion of what was then the Seagram Museum; the most recent was given in 2014, for a new building: the home of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The other two award-winners are the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery (awarded in 1997) and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (awarded in 2006). Over the 38 years from ’86 to the present day, the surrounding neighbourhood has densified significantly, defining an area now referred to as “Uptown Waterloo.” Within this context, the intersection of Erb and Caroline acts as a transition for pedestrians between a well-used public park and the nearby commercial thoroughfare of King Street. 

There are other places where you can find similar high densities of nationally recognized architectural projects (the University of Toronto’s Mississauga Campus springs to mind), but Erb and Caroline is distinct in that it isn’t a campus presided over by a single client group or mandate. Its buildings were each designed for different organizations, all of them with their own missions, goals, and personalities; and this is legible within the finished work. It’s as though clients and designers quietly conspired that nothing would cut it for this corner except for thoughtful, elegant buildings. 

The Seagram Museum—the site’s original award-winner—was designed by Barton Myers Associates, and is a deeply unusual mash-up of postmodernism and adaptive reuse. I don’t levy that as a criticism; it’s more-or-less a statement of fact about a project that I like. The building also includes one of the most indelible spaces that I’ve ever encountered: a five-storey atrium ringed by preserved barrel-racks from the Seagram distillery’s adjacent historic warehouse. The wood is rich and warm, and the place has a welcoming intricacy about it, like a now-stagnant Rube Goldberg device that could conceivably end its protocol by pouring you a glass of rye. 

The Seagram Museum closed in ’97, but the building still stands today. It was repurposed as an early home for CIGI (before the completion of their more recent facility) and then repurposed again as commercial office space for a couple of Waterloo’s well-known tech companies. Happily, the Museum’s original atrium is still there.

Of the four Governor General’s Award-winning projects at the Erb and Caroline intersection, the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery (Patkau Architects) is unquestionably the project that I know the best. That knowledge comes honestly from time spent with the building. I volunteered at the gallery as a student in my 20s, helping to take down and set up exhibitions. Then, I was hired as a part-time bartender for weddings in the space, and then hired again as the gallery’s Marketing and Development Assistant (my first “real job” out of university). 

When I say that I know the Gallery, I mean that I’ve helped to repaint its walls in exhibition grey. I’ve worked in its offices. I’ve tended bar in its cylindrical concrete interior gallery. I’ve been there late at night and early in the morning. Throughout all that time, the design of the place never stopped working on me. The building made the art better, and the art returned the favour. The people too (in my estimation) recognized they were working in a special environment and allotted their care accordingly. 

The Gallery was a spectacular venue for events. Only a few years after Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, I bartended a wedding between two men who shut the place down dancing together in one of the happiest moments that I can ever remember witnessing: the slow-dancing couple, laughing under the lights within this elegant space, surrounded by ecstatic onlookers. I was only an observer, but I remember it still. Part of that comes down to history. Part of that is sentimentality and the genuine happiness of the moment. In my mind’s eye, that scene was also beautifully framed by the space.

By chance, when I visited last year, the Gallery was in the midst of a show to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The place was largely as I remembered, in a way that made me conscientious of how much I had changed (me now in my late 30s, nervous about my two boisterous young children in a gift shop full of highly breakable items). This will always be one of the best tricks of the built environment: it moves through time ever-so-slightly more slowly than we do: “I’m an aging mortal, but these custom wood doors are just how I left them.”

The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) is a building in two distinct parts. The original structure, completed in 2004 and designed by Saucier + Perrotte, was awarded a Governor General’s Medal for Architecture in 2006. In 2012, the Institute was expanded with an addition-renovation project designed by Teeple Architects: the Stephen Hawking Centre, an award-winning project in its own right.  

I largely remember the original PI building from the outside, looking in at night. I remember a sense of “we’re all still up at this hour” solidarity with anybody I observed working out in the facility’s first-floor fitness centre, or puttering away in their meticulously considered office modules. The latter are visible as distinct rectangular “particles” when viewed from outside. Looking at the Institute in this way taught me lessons about how the details of a workplace can be better designed for its functional purposes. Within PI’s offices, walls were painted as chalkboard, a medium (apparently) unmatched for considering problems in theoretical physics. I think about this every time I have occasion to set up a new workspace for myself, and I’ve never managed anything half as clever. Chalkboard paint walls are more common now than they were at the time, but PI is their best potential use. There’s something beautiful about extremely advanced physics problems that you don’t get in other chalkboard paint applications (like say, coffee shop menus or a child’s bedroom accent wall). There’s also an admirable clarity to the original building. It puts something normally inaccessible to people on display in a way that is appealing, making the incomprehensible feel legible, inviting even.  

Shortly after the completion of PI, Waterloo was recognized as the world’s “Top Intelligent Community 2007.” Not all the credit for this belongs to the buildings at Erb and Caroline, but a couple of them were mentioned in the press release I found on CIGI’s website. I remember the news being mentioned in a staff meeting in 2007 when I was working at the Gallery. Even though I’m prone to cynicism, I wore this news like a mental badge of honour. 

The CIGI building, designed by KPMB, is a well-considered addition to the site, clearly caring about both its context and being a respectful neighbour. CIGI is a non-partisan think tank founded by former Blackberry execs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, and operates collaboratively between Waterloo’s two universities. Influenced by campus design, the building boasts handsome materials and a robust structure that feeds its sense of belonging on this site. In seeing the finished building for the first time last year, I thought about its designers, and their determination to realize a continuity of design excellence for this special place. I think they were successful. 

What does it take to cultivate this type of distinct little corner? There are the obvious things—the backing of willing money, decades-worth of time, and a continuity of focused attention by talented designers. The culture and history of Waterloo is also a contributor to the overall DNA of the place. The intersection is a veritable history lesson in how a former industrial site can evolve beautifully into a place focused on technology and academics. You could also see it as a city’s architectural expression of the importance of art, governance, science, and technology. I think both outlooks are valid. There is something utopian about the place, and I chalk that up to the architecture. 

Personally, this intersection served as my introduction into the workforce. Moreover, it showed me the care and importance that people place upon their wildly different professional disciplines, across hundreds of years of history: from distillery barrels to theoretical physics. The corner framed this notion with some of the best designed buildings that this country has to offer. To the extent that a street corner can shape a personality, I think this one transformed me for the better.

Jake Nicholson is a writer based in London, Ontario, with extensive experience working on proposals for architectural and engineering firms.

The post Insites: Architecture Corner appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Every two years, the prestigious Governor General’s Medals in Architecture recognize and celebrate outstanding design in recently built projects by Canadian architects. The competition, established by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts, continues a tradition initiated by the Massey Medals in 1950. Here are this year’s winners.

60_80 Atlantic Avenue

LOCATION Toronto, Ontario

ARCHITECT BDP Quadrangle

60 and 80 Atlantic are a pair of linked office buildings that stand in the heart of Toronto’s Liberty Village, a former industrial zone located between the 19th-century Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and the Gardiner Expressway. Comprising the adaptive reuse of a historic building and a contemporary expansion, the project offers sustainable, contemporary workspaces, along with urban connectivity, within a quickly gentrifying historic neighbourhood.

In phase one, the 1898 brick building at 60 Atlantic—originally built as a wine warehouse—was repurposed as a three-storey mixed-use building and urban catalyst. Its Corten-steel and glass addition contains a new circulation spine and washrooms, addressing today’s accessibility standards. The glass-wrapped stairway towers transform into illuminated beacons at night. An oversized graphic denotes the historic building’s street address, number 60, a reference to the industrial neighbourhood’s tradition of signage painted on warehouses. A sunken courtyard serves as a patio for the brewpub that resides on the basement level, breathing new life into the neighbourhood.

The five-storey office building constructed in phase two continues the narrative, with a refined material palette and reimagining of the brick-and-beam typology for the 21st century. Mass timber—primarily glulam and nail-laminated timber (NLT)—is used for the structural framework of 80 Atlantic, creating Canada’s first contemporary mass timber office building outside of British Columbia. Steel and concrete have been integrated into the structure to provide additional strength and fire protection where necessary. The glass curtainwall along the south façade overlooks the courtyard and showcases the exposed mass timber inside.

80 Atlantic links to 60 Atlantic, creating a three-walled public gathering space for office workers, neighbours and passing pedestrians. Universal accessibility is provided by the sloping plaza between the two structures and the interior ramped entrance corridor at 80 Atlantic, visible through its glass façade. The plaza is framed by walls clad in porcelain tile, Corten steel, and glass curtain wall, establishing visual connections between outdoor communal space and indoor workplaces. Parking and service entrances are sequestered at the rear of the buildings, reinforcing the street front as their public face.

With its two complementary structures forming an architectural diptych, 60_80 Atlantic Avenue enriches and revitalizes the neighbourhood.

:: Jury ::  The jury respected the deft use and juxtaposition of architectural intervention in this project. The integration of existing elements with the addition and adaptation of the required modern spaces highlighted a successful architectural process within the constantly evolving built environments around our cities.

CLIENT Hullmark Developments Ltd. with partner BentallGreenOak on behalf of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada | ARCHITECT TEAM Richard Witt, Michelle Xuereb, Jan Schotte, Wayne McMillan, Kaz Kanani,Will Marenco, Andrew Foote, Derek Towns, Court Sin, Caroline Robbie, Andrea McCann, Julie Sumairski, Kathy Roudsary, Diana Smiciklas, Dyonne Fashina | CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT (80 ATLANTIC) Eastern Construction Company Ltd. | CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT (60 ATLANTIC) First Gulf | STRUCTURAL Read Jones Christoffersen | MECHANICAL & ELECTRICAL (80 ATLANTIC) Smith + Andersen | MECHANICAL & ELECTRICAL (60 ATLANTIC) Integral Group | HERITAGE Philip Goldsmith Architect | LANDSCAPE Vertechs Design Inc. | ENVELOPE RDH Building Science Inc.- | SUSTAINABILITY RWDI | BUDGET $38 M | OCCUPANCY June 2020

The Brearley School

LOCATION New York City, New York

ARCHITECT KPMB Architects

PHOTOS Nic Lehoux

How can design create a platform for asserting the intellectual and physical presence of the girl in our society—and her potential to transform the world?

Brearley’s mission combines outstanding academics with a higher purpose to nurture the intellect and character of young girls, preparing them to be leaders and innovators of social transformation. The design of its first new building in over a century began in 2014, and was well-timed with the rise of young women’s voices: that same year, Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize and Emma Watson addressed the United Nations on gender equality.

The original 1929 School building stands on the bank of the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The 12-story masonry fabric building blends in with the residential neighbourhood, but its program is invisible to the street. By 2014, the facilities were outdated, space was at capacity, and there was no room for expansion. The strategy was to expand by adding a new, free-standing building just one block west. The design creates a ‘gateway’ into the expanded Brearley campus and is extroverted compared to the original school. The masonry façade features bold geometry, and the transparent two-storey street base improves safety and street animation in the neighbourhood.

The design objective was to unlock the power and potential of the Brearley program and community with a flexible, interconnected, light-filled, multi-purpose learning landscape. The plan organizes the program in ascending order from community, to teaching, to exercise and play. A cafeteria, library, and a 600-seat auditorium are located on the lower levels. Spiral stairs interconnect classrooms, art and science labs, and makerspaces in the middle levels. Upper levels feature a gymnasium and culminate with a rooftop playground.

The eco-friendly, LEED Gold-compliant building is meant to act itself as a teacher. Students participate in the sustainable design features: they plant and maintain the green roof as part of the science curriculum, monitor rainwater collection, and activate natural ventilation to reduce mechanical system use by up to 800 hours per year. The design inspired the school to advance the adaptive reuse of its original building, with the goal of creating a net-zero campus by 2050.

Brearley was one of the few private schools in New York City to remain open and functional during the pandemic. 800 people attended daily and stayed healthy. The well-proportioned classrooms, fresh air, efficient filtration systems, operable windows, wide hallways, and interconnecting stairs facilitated COVID-19 protocols.

Kinesthetic learning—using paper and pencils, and reading books instead of watching screens—is at the core of Brearley’s pedagogy. When the virtual and the real are out of balance, this project reminds us that architecture must support human well-being with beautiful, tactile, light-filled, well-ventilated spaces for gathering, learning, creativity, and collaboration.

The pandemic exposed significant inequities, and reinforced the need for the education and empowerment of women for a sustainable future. Every design element advances Brearley’s mission to cultivate confident, independent leaders.

:: Jury ::  The implementation of a school in a dense urban environment presents significant challenges. The jury noted well distributed vertical functions without affecting the fluidity of movement while simultaneously creating collaborative spaces. The new tower is finely integrated into the urban fabric both by its massing and the composition of its facades, creating a gateway to the campus. This project is a bold urban redevelopment project that showcases student life activities on the street: a sign of hope for the future.

CLIENT The Brearley School | ARCHITECT TEAM Marianne McKenna, Luigi LaRocca, David Constable, Lucy Timbers, David Smythe, Carolyn Lee, Talal Rahmeh, Alistair Grierson, Thom Seto, Lukas Bergmark, Lily Huang, Ramin Yamin, Joseph Kan, Peter Kitchen, Rafaela Ahsan, Jessica Juvet, Ilana Altman, Jordan Evans | STRUCTURAL/ENVELOPE Entuitive | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/PLUMBING Thomas Polise Consulting Engineers | CODE CCI | AV/IT/SECURITY TM Technologies | ACOUSTICS Longman Lindsey | THEATRE ACOUSTICS Sound Space Vision and Stages | LEED Steven Winter Associates | CLIMATE ENGINEERS Transsolar | SIGNAGE Entro | BUDGET $67.2 M| OCCUPANCY September 2019

Forest Pavilion

LOCATION Winnipeg, Manitoba

ARCHITECT Public City Architecture Inc.

PHOTOS Lindsay Reid

Forest Pavilion is a four-season structure constructed on Treaty One land in the floodway zone of the Red River, at Crescent Drive Park in southwest Winnipeg. Conceived as a multi-functional civic asset, it was designed and built on a very tight budget over six years.

In addition to providing three new public washrooms, Forest Pavilion includes three new types of outdoor rooms designed to address the impacts of a changing climate on urban parks. The Shade Room is a roofed hallway through the Pavilion, providing respite from increasing summer temperatures. Adjacent to it is an insulated room with passive ventilation, providing a tempered space for warming up in winter, and for sheltering from the driving rain or hot prairie wind in summer. Lastly, an open-to-the-sky gathering room centres on a freestanding fireplace. Framed by five-metre-tall screen walls, this room serves as an outdoor/indoor cultural and casual gathering area. Forest Pavilion embraces its own hearth.

The Pavilion is the first civic structure of its kind to apply FEMA flood-protection design standards. This starts with its siting: Forest Pavilion nestles in an existing clearing atop the highest point in the park. All materials below the floodline can be completely submerged without decay: stainless steel doors, frames, and fasteners are used below the flood protection level. The concrete base is designed with upstands to raise framing sole plates, and concealed pressure relief strategies in the walls keep water moving. A reduced number of right angles in the plan also helps the structure to shed flowing water. To further eliminate obstructions, the project uses large swinging wall panels, and avoids floor-mounted fixtures.

No trees were felled in the construction of Forest Pavilion. Adding to the Pavilion’s sustainability, the construction included hot-dipped galvanized steel chosen for its durability, and rough-sawn fir that was sourced and milled using sustainable harvest practices. The timber components of the structure are mechanically fastened, so that individual pieces can be easily replaced if necessary. The design also includes super-low-flow plumbing fixtures, LED lighting, occupancy sensors to reduce energy consumption, and native plantings.

Highly visible from throughout the park, the Pavilion dissolves day to night from a wooden form to a lantern-like void. Its vibrant chartreuse Venetian plaster interior offers a dramatic welcome to visitors at night—a porch light in the forest. The vertical fir screen that wraps interior and exterior rooms has a syncopated rhythm, referencing the way space, light, and forms appear through a forest. The design folds this phenomenon into a single form, then sculpts away portals for views and access.

Forest Pavilion serves as a hub that supports visitors of all kinds: caregivers and kids at the nearby playground, cyclists passing through, friends meeting to socialize, cultural groups gathering to mark a special event, and people playing sports all year long. Its program goes beyond established past uses and conventional ideas about park pavilions. Rather, as a multi-functional civic asset, it creates opportunities to respond to Winnipeg’s emerging cultural and climatic landscapes.

:: Jury ::  This pavilion is a space that redraws the forest. Its permeability and playful forms create a contemporary palisade. An archetypal Canadian pavilion in the forest, it creates a microcosm in its interior courtyard. The jury also highlighted its relation to the forest and its spatial continuity.

CLIENT City of Winnipeg | ARCHITECT TEAM Peter Sampson (FRAIC), Andrew Lewthwaite, Dirk Blouw, Tim Horton, Russell Krepart | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE TEAM Liz Wreford, Taylor LaRocque | STRUCTURAL Wolfrom Engineering | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL MCW Consultants Ltd. | BUILDER Marrbeck Construction | BUDGET $1.2 M | OCCUPANCY January 2021

The Idea Exchange Old Post Office

LOCATION Galt, Ontario

ARCHITECT RDH Architects (RDHA)

PHOTOS Tom Arban

The Idea Exchange Old Post Office is situated upon the traditional territories of the Neutral, the Anishinaabeg, and the Haudenosaunee Peoples, at the edge of the Grand River in downtown Galt, Ontario. The project goal was to transform a dilapidated heritage post office into Canada’s first “bookless” library, offering all age groups free access to an array of public spaces for learning, making, performance, and other creative endeavours. It also aimed to establish a new community hub, complete with a contiguous café for meeting and socializing.

Anchored along the bank of the Grand River, the project revitalizes a heritage-listed 1885 masonry post office that had fallen into disrepair. It adds an 835-square-metre transparent pavilion that wraps around the original building and stretches out over the water, revealing the public programs offered within. These programs include the café—which doubles as a reading room and public presentation area—a black box theatre, film and audio recording suites, gaming areas, a children’s learning level, and spaces for sewing, carpentry, and 3D printing.

The existing Neo-Gothic post office, designed by the architect of the Parliament Buildings, Thomas Fuller, carries municipal, provincial, and federal historic designations. Although an expression of its time, the building had virtually no connection with the river. Consequently, the designers embraced the idea that the project could restore this important remnant of settler heritage, while also repairing a lost opportunity to establish a strong human and environmental connection.

The downtown site benefits from views across, up, and down the river, towards major cultural facilities such as the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, the main branch of the Idea Exchange, two large cathedrals, and a new performing arts facility. The glass addition to the post office is conceived as a transparent, glowing, contemporary pavilion floating atop the Grand. Its material vocabulary of transparency brings light into the various levels of studios and public gathering spaces.

Housed within a heritage structure in constant dialogue with its contemporary addition, the Idea Exchange Old Post Office projects the life and vitality of a progressive public library program to the street, the river, and the city beyond.

:: Jury ::  The architects integrated contemporary volumes into a historic building with boldness and attention to the fine detail of the junctions between the new and existing structures. This creates a continuity by contrast. Lightened views among common spaces over the water and the gesture of daylight washing the historic façades create an interesting and coherent program.

CLIENT City of Cambridge and the Idea Exchange | ARCHITECT TEAM Tyler Sharp, Bob Goyeche, Juan Caballero, Simon Routh, Soo-Jin Rim, Ivan Ilic, Gladys Cheung | STRUCTURAL WSP/Halsall | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Jain Associates Ltd. | CIVIL Valdor Engineering | ACOUSTICS Aercoustics | CODE L.R.I. | COST AW Hooker | CONTRACTOR Collaborative Structures Ltd. | BUDGET $12.8 M | OCCUPANCY October 2018

INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL HISTORY AND DIALOGUE CENTRE

LOCATION University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

ARCHITECT Formline Architecture

PHOTOS Andrew Latreille Photography

In 1993 Alfred Waugh, a full status member of the Fond Du Lac Denesuline First Nation, became the first Indigenous graduate of UBC’s architecture school. His mother carried the difficult experience of attending a Northern Alberta residential school. The Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC)’s unprecedented program and its careful siting in a vital setting drew on this knowledge, and its forms were developed in consort with Elders and Indigenous representatives from across the country.

The IRSHDC is much smaller than the Brutalist and Collegiate Gothic campus buildings surrounding it; there was early agreement on its modesty of scale and the use of wood as its primary construction material. Space planning required interior and exterior spaces to be equally conducive to large gatherings and solitary moments of reflection, with a design emphasis on serenity and directness. The integration of natural light, a selection of culturally resonant finishes and details, and a close link with natural surroundings were all thought central to the healing process, so the flanking decks and garden are essential components of its conception.

Buildings promoting human rights tend towards being either monuments or library-archives. While it has elements of both of these, the IRSHDC aspires to something more—a site that facilitates the social act of reconciliation. A much-appreciated new oasis near the main libraries of a mega-university, the IRSHDC is a place of memory, repose and contemplation. The building’s lower level is largely devoted to a public gallery called the “Vault of Memories” with interactive wall displays where citizens—Indigenous and not—can call up photographs, videos and biographies of the students and the places they lived. The entire layout turns around the emotional process of confronting a difficult past, with a sunken garden and natural wetland adjacent, seen against the backdrop of a tiered landscape. Visitors can pass from displays to garden and back again as they wish. Upstairs are meeting rooms with support staff available for counselling and dialogue with visitors, and where programs to advance reconciliation are devised. IRSHDC’s urban design provides a quiet park for pauses by harried students, while bringing its mission of memory to the core of a contemporary institution.

Because it was to serve all the diverse range of Canada’s First Nations, symbols and materials were selected to evoke a pride of culture for Indigenous peoples from many different cultural heritages. Walls and floors are constructed from spruce-pine cross-laminated timber, while the wooden roof structure has an asymmetrical butterfly wing shape, selected to provide clear spans, extensive overhangs, and a low roof profile at the highly visible campus core. Charred cedar planks double as markers of scarring, contrasting with a visually porous Douglas Fir glulam curtain wall that brings north light through the interior. Rainwater is collected from this roof, then descends down along a glass and copper-lined scupper to the garden pond. Copper was a high-status material for many Canadian First Nations and Canadian public buildings; the rainwater is an analogue for the tears shed in remembering. The main public stair features a garden view at one side and is brightened at the top by sparkling clusters of LED ring lights. Its inside wall, lined with woven Western Red Cedar strips, is an interpretation of traditional woven baskets.

:: Jury ::  This project deals with the difficult topic of reconciliation and trauma and addresses it in an architecture that challenges the common aesthetic perception. The community-driven process brings symbolism and generates dialogue through its overall assembly of elements. The jury felt the project delicately balanced this complexity.

CLIENT University of British Columbia Properties Trust | ARCHITECT TEAM Alfred Waugh, Manny Trinca, Vince Knudsen | STRUCTURAL Bush Bohlman & Partners | MECHANICAL Smith + Andersen | ELECTRICAL Applied Engineering Solutions | LANDSCAPE PFS Studio | ENVELOPE JRS Engineering | CODE LMDG | MASS TIMBER SPECIALIST Structurlam Products LP | WOOD SPECIALIST Nicola Logworks | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER BIRD Construction | BUDGET $2.7 M | OCCUPANCY July 2017

JULIS ROMO RABINOVITZ BUILDING & LOUIS A. SIMPSON INTERNATIONAL BUILDING

LOCATION Princeton University, New Jersey

ARCHITECT KPMB Architects

PHOTOS Adrien Williams

Princeton University is simultaneously grounded in the past and continuously evolving to respond to future needs. The Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building & Louis A. Simpson International Building at 20 Washington Road represents the latest generation of campus development. It prioritizes the repurposing of an existing building to advance the university’s sustainability plan, while fulfilling the master plan vision to create a new social sciences and humanities neighbourhood.

The original Collegiate Gothic building (1929) housed the Department of Chemistry and was expanded with several additions over time, resulting in a labyrinthine arrangement of spaces including large laboratory classrooms and mechanical areas. The challenge was to balance the preservation and restoration of the heritage exterior with the complete transformation of the interior into a light-filled, interconnected environment for the Department of Economics and International Initiatives. The resulting place was envisaged as a focal point in the new academic neighbourhood.

The building is located on the seam where the historic west campus meets the contemporary east campus. The quads and pathways that weave Princeton’s campus together inspired the transformation of the interior into a microcosm of the campus. A network of generous circulation corridors with gently sloped ramps resolve transitions between different levels of the Collegiate Gothic building and a 1964 extension. Porcelain tiles provide ease and safety of mobility and wayfinding, matching the bluestone of Princeton’s classic cobblestone pathways. Indiana limestone, argillite, white oak, low-iron etched glass, and custom steel details complement the heritage fabric and character.

Each department required its own identity within the whole. Economics is housed in the 1929 building, with an entrance through the heritage vestibule on Washington Road. Two single-storey glass pavilions are discreetly set on the roof of the Washington Road elevation to provide desirable and much-needed meeting and event space. International Initiatives occupies the 1964 addition, which features a new stone entrance and atrium overlooking Scudder Plaza, the Fountain of Freedom, and Robertson Hall. A significant yet subtle intervention, it has had a huge impact on reactivating one of Princeton’s significant outdoor spaces. Along the building’s edges, the landscaping strategy harkens back to the Beatrix Farrand design that shaped the grounds in the first half of the 20th century.

Princeton was the first Ivy League university to develop and implement a bold sustainability plan. This project exemplifies adaptive reuse as an act of social and environmental sustainability, by repurposing 86% of the existing building and having all new additions occur within the existing footprint. The insulation of the heritage masonry walls, combined with high-efficiency mechanical and electrical systems, significantly reduces energy consumption. All the heritage windows were replaced with operable windows that preserve the original glazing’s proportions and character. While the pre-design target in 2011 was LEED Silver, the design has achieved LEED Gold standards.

The adaptive reuse and transformation of 20 Washington Road evolves Princeton’s legacy as one of the world’s most beautiful, enduring campuses. The tectonics and details, along with an emphasis on high-quality, low-maintenance materials, reflect a tradition of long-term thinking while playing a role towards achieving a net-zero campus by 2047.

:: Jury ::  The careful design of this project promotes a respectful relation between historic building preservation and contemporary architecture. The building creates generous spaces, brings abundant light into an interior courtyard, and creates a truly livable space.

CLIENT Princeton University | ARCHITECT TEAM Bruce Kuwabara, Shirley Blumberg, David Jesson, Mark Jaffar, David Smythe, Lynn Pilon, Gabriel Fain, Annie Pelletier, Ya’el Santopinto, Elizabeth Paden, Victor Garzon, Clementine Chang, Carolyn Lee (associate), Dina Sarhane, Rachel Cyr, Kristina Strecker, Samantha Hart | STRUCTURAL/ENVELOPE Thornton Thomasetti | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/PLUMBING/FIRE PROTECTION AltieriSeborWieber | CIVIL Van Note-Harvey and Associates | CODE/FIRE AND LIFE SAFETY Phil R. Sherman, P.E.| COST Vermeulens | SPECIFICATIONS Brian Ballantyne | ACOUSTICS/AV Cerami & Associates | ELEVATOR Van Deusen | LIGHTING Tillotson Design Associates | SIGNAGE Entro Communications | HERITAGE Jablonski Building Conservation | SUSTAINABILITY Atelier Ten | LANDSCAPE Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates | PROJECT MANAGER Lorine Murray-Mechini | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER Barr & Barr | BUDGET Withheld | OCCUPANCY April 2017

LES ROCHERS

LOCATION Magdelen Islands, Quebec

ARCHITECT La Shed Architecture

PHOTOS Maxime Brouillet

Les Rochers is located on the west point of Havre Aubert Island, the southernmost of the Magdalen Islands, a site with the most beautiful sunsets. With their sculptural silhouettes, the house and guesthouse overlook the territory and offer a contemporary reinterpretation of the Magdalen Islands home. With its two simple volumes clad with cedar shingle façades, the project integrates respectfully with the landscape, echoing the materials and scale of regional vernacular buildings.

A starting point for the design is the traditional gable roof house. Adjusting the geometry, La Shed breaks the proportions and creates asymmetric forms, a playful nod to the houses of the Islands, where the silhouette is thrown out of balance by the tambour—a covered structure often added to the front entrance of local houses. The tambour acts as a depressurizing airlock to protect houses from strong winds, a response to the Islands’ climatic conditions.

In Les Rochers, the two buildings embed the tambour within their volumes, each in their own way. The main house is more upfront about the inspiration of the tambour in its silhouette, whereas the guesthouse includes it completely beneath an extension of the roof. Even if their forms are distinct, the two houses are harmonious. With their variegated profiles, the two buildings echo the rugged cliffs surrounding the Islands.

The interior architecture of the two residences is steeped in the aesthetic of seaside houses. The guesthouse, with its exposed structure, recalls a rustic fishing cabin and has a casual atmosphere. The main house, which  is slightly larger, is more refined, and stylish but restrained. Light tones are dominant; the lines are rich and delicate. True to their practice, La Shed is engaged in a dialogue that is intimate and sensitive to its context.

Adjacent the houses, terraces follow the topographic curves of the terrain. These sinuous forms bring to mind the meeting of cliffs and sand. Like the docks that welcome ships, the wood platforms tie together architecture and landscape. The boardwalks that lead to the houses recall those used to cross sand dunes to reach beaches.

Views, orientation, and the dynamics between the two houses guided the site plan. The residences have been placed so as to offer the most beautiful views of the surroundings, while taking care to not compromise the privacy of occupants. The fenestration hints at the breathtaking panoramas seen from within, and reinforces the impression that the buildings are like living paintings.

As with all of La Shed’s projects, the custom design of the architectural elements and a precise and sensitive attention to detail help create a strong, coherent and beautiful project. Striking a balance between charm and simplicity, Les Rochers offers a warm and welcoming atmosphere and spectacular views that enrich the space and those who inhabit it.

:: Jury ::  This project underlines the importance of architecture in everyday life; how simple gestures accentuate the many things a living space can have. The design of these two houses reveals the essence of the home in its simplest expression, using a contemporary language imbued with historical symbols.

CLIENT Private | ARCHITECT TEAM Renée Mailhot, Sébastien Parent, Yannick Laurin, Dahlia Marinier-Doucet, Samuel Guimond, Anthony Bergoin, Olivier Bérard, Clément Stoll, Kevyn Durocher, Romy Brosseau, Pierre-Alexandre Lemieux, Cédric Langevin, Guillaume Fournier | BUDGET Withheld | OCCUPANCY June 2020

Point Wiliam Cottage

LOCATION Point William, Muskoka, Ontario

ARCHITECT Shim-Sutcliffe Architects

Point William Cottage is a laboratory for living, offering a rich spatial experience that moves fluidly between interior and exterior spaces, while demarcating a place in the Canadian landscape.

Located on the Canadian Shield, Point William is one of three slender peninsulas jutting into Lake Muskoka, and carries a rich geographic and cultural history. This project draws inspiration from the building culture of this part of Ontario: from sophisticated Muskoka boats and elaborate Victorian cottages, to underwater infrastructures made from heavy timber. The cottage replaces an existing 1960s building that occupied the tip of the peninsula, and is sited to reveal a large rock outcropping that was covered by the previous structure.

The modern house has always been linked to the remarkable experiments that define the modernist project. In a similar spirit, Point William Cottage begins with architecture, and then expands its territory to include landscape, furniture, lighting, hardware and fittings. Design invention, material exploration, and a sense of delight take place at multiple levels. The scale of a door handle and of an architectural section are explored simultaneously.

The building’s exterior palette combines local granite, weathered atmospheric steel, untreated ipe wood, and bronze-clad windows—all choreographed to create four distinct elevations, which are syncopated to respond to each orientation and program. The material palette was selected to ensure longevity, gracious aging, and anticipation of weathering over time.

The building’s spatial sequence begins with an entry porch, framed by a series of deep weathering steel fins that straddle indoors and outdoors on one side, and weathering steel panels washed by natural light on the other. Canadian granite is pulled inside, defining the floor plane, while the skylit ceiling plane is shaped by natural light sweeping across Douglas fir panels. The cinematic space created by the deep weathering steel fins continually frames and reframes views of the landscape.

Light is manipulated and sculpted through the articulated sections in this project. The reflected ceiling plan is an important dimension of this building, contributing a rich spatial sequence of interrelated and overlapping spaces. Several J-shaped double-glazed windows create poignant moments of transition throughout the project. The living area is located at the water’s edge and is designed to act as a light reflector, with high vertical clerestory windows contrasting with panoramic windows below.

Through its sculptural form and careful material selection, Point William Cottage fuses its built form with its land form, creating a special place on the Canadian Shield.

:: Jury ::  This cottage stood out for its attention to design details at multiple scales. The creative fabrication and craft echoes characteristics of an organic Art Deco architecture. The building itself belongs to the natural context and is adjusted to the topography, giving it a naval quality-a sunken vessel on the shore.

CLIENT Private | ARCHITECT TEAM Brigitte Shim, Howard Sutcliffe,  Stephane LeBlanc, Zachariah Glennon | STRUCTURAL Blackwell Structural Engineers | MECHANICAL BK Consulting Inc. | ELECTRICAL Dynamic Designs and Engineering Inc. | BUILDER Judges Contracting | CONSTRUCTION CONSULTANT VMF Structures Ltd.| INTERIORS Shim-Sutcliffe Architects Inc., Chapi Chapo Design Inc., Karen Petrachenko | HARDWARE Upper Canada Specialty Hardware Ltd.| CUSTOM MILLWORK Millworks Custom Manufacturing (2001) Inc. | CUSTOM METALS FABRICATION JSW Manufacturing Inc., NorStar Aluminum Products Ltd., Mariani Metal Fabricators Ltd., Millworks Custom Manufacturing (2001) Inc. | CUSTOM STONEWORK CB Marble Craft Ltd. | CUSTOM FURNITURE FABRICATION Millworks Custom Manufacturing (2001) Inc., 2 Degrees North Inc., Kai Leather Product Design | CUSTOM HARDWARE Rocky Mountain Hardware Inc., Canadian Builders Hardware Mfg. Inc. | CUSTOM 3D PRINTED HARDWARE Shim-Sutcliffe Architects Inc. | CUSTOM WINDOWS AND DOORS Tradewood Windows + Doors Inc. | A/V Entertaining Interiors | LIGHTING AND ELECTRICAL Morrow Electric Ltd. | LANDSCAPING Ted Smith Construction of Bala Ltd., Brackenrig Landscaping | BUDGET Withheld | OCCUPANCY May 2017

RECEPTION PAVILION OF THE QUEBEC NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

LOCATION Quebec City, Quebec

ARCHITECTS Provencher_Roy | GLCRM Architectes

Provencher_Roy and GLCRM Architects’ reception pavilion for the Parliament Building of the National Assembly of Quebec is a quiet, but transformative addition that revolutionizes how citizens engage, experience, and participate in their democracy. The original Parliament—a Second Empire stone edifice designed by Eugène-Étienne Taché—is an important civic icon, presenting stately beauty and an iconic facade. But its monumental style and opaque materiality made the building forbidding, and its lack of public space made it inaccessible to citizens. In these ways, the building undercut the democratic ideals it stood for: participation in government, openness, and transparency.

The team approached the pavilion as an opportunity for change, opening the building to the people of Quebec and granting them their rightful place at the National Assembly. With sweeping spaces for public gatherings and events and a new transparent entrance, the pavilion creates an open, inclusive, and lively hub that invites diverse communities to gather at the heart of their government. As an embodiment of Québécois civic ideals and as a community anchor, the pavilion has become a place of pride for citizens and a destination for international visitors.

To achieve this while deferring to the historic building, the team tucked the reception pavilion beneath the Parliament Gardens and added a transparent entrance nestled between two existing curved staircases. This maintains the original central axis and symmetry, and preserves sightlines to the facade and gardens. Building underground also offered simple, cost-effective ways to incorporate the robust security measures required in government buildings. The approach has become a precedent for similar buildings in Canada.

The heart of the building is the Agora: a forum that welcomes community members for public events and encourages participation in democracy. In form and function, the Agora references the ancient Athenian Pnyx, the assembly place where citizens of the world’s first democracy debated and voted. Since opening, the Agora has hosted events like the Financière des Professionnels Conference for women in finance, Université Laval symposia, and the Quebec City Film Festival—as well as being a setting for public gatherings such as a vigil for the victims of the École Polytechnique massacre.

A spiralling ramp connects the Agora to ground level. A mural along the ramp celebrates Quebec’s symbolic milestones, showcasing figures in modern Québécois history, including Indigenous and women leaders. An oculus lets in natural light, making the space feel bright and welcoming. The oculus also frames a view of Parliament, incorporating the site’s heritage with the interior experience. White floors and ceilings further brighten the space and are accented with wood walls. This materiality makes for a contemporary environment in a universal design language that complements the historic Parliament.

Building underground minimized the project’s environmental impact and allowed over 91% of construction waste to be recycled, while saving on construction and maintenance costs, and ensuring the longevity of the structures.

:: Jury ::  The jury noted that this project highlighted a capacity to add value in a reserved way. The long promenade to access the building ends up in a large gathering space, creating a new agora that is illuminated with natural light coming from a contemporary oculus. This reconnects with traditional public building typologies. The quality of interior spaces and the integration of construction systems in perforated panels create seamless surfaces.

CLIENT Assemblée national du Québec | ARCHITECT TEAM Provencher_Roy—Claude Provencher (FIRAC); Matthieu Geoffrion (MIRAC), Nicolas Demers-Stoddart (MIRAC), Émilie Banville, Daniel Legault, Maïda Beylerian, Sami Bouzouita, Marilina Cianci, Maxime Giguère, Fanette Montmartin, Andres Moreno, Normand Desjardins, Tristan Leahy, Neil Aspinall, Zoey Cai, Karim Duranceau, Maxime Duval-Stojanovi?, Suzanne Essiambre, Charles-Alexandre Lefebvre, Pierre Lussier, Franck Murat. GLCRM Architects—Marc Letellier (FIRAC), François Bécotte, Maxime Turgeon, Shirley Gagnon, Louis-Xavier Gadoury, Jocelyn Martel, Raphaël Hamelin, Réal St-Pierre, Vincent Lavoie, Suzanne Castonguay. | ELECTRICAL/MECHANICAL Cima + | STRUCTURAL/CIVIL WSP Canada | CONTRACTOR Pomerleau | CODE GLT+ | ELEVATOR CPAI Solucore | ACOUSTICS Acoustec | MULTIMEDIA GoMultimédia | SECURITY CSP Inc. | BUDGET $43 M | OCCUPANCY May 2019

Stormwater Facility

LOCATION Toronto, Ontario

ARCHITECT gh3*

PHOTOS Adrian Ozimek

The Stormwater Facility (SWF) treats urban runoff from Toronto’s new West Don Lands and Quayside neighbourhoods. The clients, Waterfront Toronto and Toronto Water, wanted a landmark building that would signal a new and distinctive city precinct. Achieving this demanded a design of conceptual clarity and rigour to meet the strong character of the surrounding area, which includes railway yards to the north, the ramps and roadways of Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner Expressway to the south, and the industrial Port Lands across the Keating Channel. The monolithic, cast-in-situ concrete form is both a complement and striking counterpoint to the infrastructural and aesthetic complexity all around. Even at speed from the Gardiner and Lake Shore Expressways, the building registers as a poetic ellipsis amid the intensity of its surroundings.

A strategically placed opening in the façade reveals glimpses of the building’s inner workings, and a sky window on the south facet of the roof is a luminescent beacon to the city at night. These openings intentionally invite curiosity about the expanding city and its supporting infrastructure, specifically the work being done to keep urban water clean and safe. The building acts as an important catalyst for increased civic engagement and pride.

The project combines three major elements into an integrated urban, landscape and architectural statement. The first is the stormwater reservoir: a 20-metre-diameter shaft covered by a radial steel grate that acts as an inverted siphon to receive untreated stormwater from the surrounding development. Directly above is a working ground plane of asphalt and concrete, with a central channel and surrounding gutters to link the reservoir shaft to the treatment plant. Finally, the most prominent element of the facility is the 600-square-metre stormwater treatment plant itself, where the water is further processed for safe release back into Lake Ontario. The design for SWF takes these constituent parts and unifies them into a whole that renders their infrastructural functions legible, didactic and aesthetically compelling.

Programmatically, SWF tells a story of water. The design of the main enclosure references the architecture of a stone well, inverted to manifest as a sculptural form above ground. This modern interpretation of an ancient vernacular is further expressed by etchings in the concrete surface. A system of rain channels runs from roof to wall, to ground plane and into the shaft—a narrative of the larger system of urban hydrology in which the building is embedded.

Materially, both the building and landscape are constructed with exposed concrete, resulting in the abstraction of ground and wall, and environmentally mitigating solar heat gain and extending the service life of the facility. Low energy inputs are achieved with a highly insulated envelope, daylighting, and passive cooling and ventilation. The result is a building whose performance will match its contribution to the broader project of sustainable development in the West Don Lands.

Architecturally, SWF adds to a list of Toronto’s historic infrastructural works—such as the R.C. Harris Treatment Plant, the Bloor Viaduct, and the Hearn Power Station—whose architectural character has helped to both express and define Toronto’s identity at different moments in time.

:: Jury ::  The sculptural form of the facility and the negotiation between scale and connection to the ground were noted by the jury. They felt that these qualities reinforced the power of architecture to intervene in unsuspecting conditions to create beauty around us.

CLIENT Waterfront Toronto and Toronto Water | ARCHITECT TEAM Pat Hanson, Raymond Chow, Joel DiGiacomo, Richard Freeman, Bernard Jin | PRIME CONSULTANT RV Anderson | STRUCTURAL / MECHANICAL / ELECTRICAL RV Anderson | LANDSCAPE gh3* | INTERIORS gh3* | CONTRACTOR Graham Construction | WASTE WATER WSP | SOILS & ENVIRONMENTAL GHD | BUDGET Withheld | OCCUPANCY May 2021

TOM PATTERSON THEATRE

LOCATION Stratford, Ontario

ARCHITECT Hariri Pontarini Architects

Selected from an international competition of 92 entries, the design for the new Tom Patterson Theatre at the Stratford Festival is a striking presence along the banks of the Avon River. The theatre is located on the site of the former Tom Patterson Theatre, a converted curling rink. The new building aspires to be a cultural beacon that defines the next 50 years of this significant cultural institution.

The new building aimed not only to provide what the previous one lacked, but to also pay homage to its memory. The new venue expands the technical capabilities of live theatre and wraps itself in amenity-rich spaces, establishing an immersive, social experience that revolves around and complements the magic of the performing arts.

A shimmering façade ebbs and flows in step with the river. This curvilinear form creates quiet folds and eddies of encounter across a sequence of spacious public rooms that course from one to the next. Panoramic garden and river views dissolve the line between indoors and out.

At the heart of the building, the horseshoe-shaped auditorium is enclosed in curving walls of light-coloured brick. Inside the wood-lined room, 600 custom-designed seats surround an elongated thrust stage inspired by the dimensions of the previous stage. The acoustics and sightlines create an experience of true intimacy and connection between audience and performer.

Craftsmanship and attention to detail serve to impart an emotional resonance that aligns with the festival’s ambition to engage its community. Education programs now have a permanent home in this theatre. For donor patrons, the members’ lounge features a contemporary fireplace in a dramatic space with wraparound glazing that tapers beneath a wood-clad ceiling. The building has a complement of back-of-house amenities, which, like the public spaces and auditorium, are fully accessible.

A 250-seat program space adds versatility: it can extend the lobby, or acoustically enclose a forum for concurrent performances and other events. Throughout the gathering areas, the breadth of the design creates multiple vantage points to heighten the relationship between the interior, the gardens and river. Elevating the building above a passing road allows for uninterrupted views to the natural setting.

Rare for performing arts buildings, this theatre is highly sustainable. It targets LEED Gold certification through carefully integrated energy and water conservation programs within a high-performance building envelope. The double-glazed curtainwall with bird-friendly frit is north-facing, reducing solar heat gain. Durable building materials prioritize renewable and recycled content. To build the stage in the preferred material, a birch tree woodlot was purchased for sustainable harvest. Stage lighting is one of the first energy-efficient, all-LED systems in use. Landscaping of new civic gardens features indigenous and drought-resistant plant species, and new pathways and bike lanes connect with existing routes.

This theatre marks a milestone for the festival as it enters its 70th year. Earlier venues supported the festival’s emergence. Now, the new Tom Patterson Theatre is poised to play a leading role in the festival’s future.

:: Jury ::  The jury lauded this exceptional cultural building located by the water. They noted an excellent integration with the site and promenade. The nature of materials, organic forms and textures promotes sensory perception and contributes to the appreciation of the arts. The elegant assembly creates a calm and inspiring atmosphere inside and outside the enclosure.

CLIENT Stratford Festival | ARCHITECT TEAM Siamak Hariri, Lindsay Hochman, Doron Meinhard, Anne Ma, Jeff Strauss, Stefan Abidin, Miren Etxezarreta-Aranburu, Leandro Abungin, Steve Kang, Anna Antropova, Jimmy Farrington | CONTRACTOR EllisDon | LANDSCAPE Hariri Pontarini Architects with Holbrook & Associates with The Planning Partnership | STRUCTURAL Thornton Tomasetti | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL ARUP | THEATRE PLANNER Fisher Dachs Associates | ACOUSTICS Aercoustics Engineering | A/V Novita Techne Limited | LIGHTING Martin Conboy Lighting Design | LEED RDH | BUDGET $70 M | OCCUPANCY May 2020

Village at the End of the World

LOCATION Upper Kingsburg, Nova Scotia

ARCHITECT Brian MacKay-Lyons, MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects Ltd.

Architecture begins with the land. The site for this project was a seasonal settlement for millennia for the Mi’kmaq First Nation (architect Brian MacKay-Lyon’s ancestors), a safe harbour for early French and Basque fishermen to dry their catch, an Acadian colony in the early 1600s, and a foreign Protestant settlement in the 1750s. The legacy of inhabitation of this place is one of diverse cultures and continuous evolution, with forests giving way to farmlands, then returning back again. With the help of friends, neighbours and colleagues, the architect, over 25 years, has re-cleared the forest and cultivated the soil, revealing its historic ruins and uncovering its 500 years of agrarian history.

Many of the structures that occupy the Atlantic Nova Scotia coastline site are products of an international design/build program called Ghost, which started on the land in 1994. The spirit of collaboration and community engagement born from Ghost has given way to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Today, the village is the centre of a community and way of working that holds at its core the values gleaned from Ghost: working together, economy as ethic, spirit of place, and the critical study of vernacular building practice. Amongst the ruins of the site, a proto-urban village has emerged that serves as a school, farm, and community.

The first Ghost Lab started when, frustrated with the state of architectural education, MacKay-Lyons pulled his students out of school to participate in a two-week event, culminating in the erection a temporary installation on the property he had recently purchased. The glowing structure evoked an archetypal farmhouse, with a sparse wood frame draped in white fabric. At the end of the two weeks, the construction was lit from inside, and served as a venue for a community concert. This tradition continued for twelve years, culminating in an international conference that brought together builders, architects, students, historians and the local community in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, or Samuel Mockbee’s Rural Studio.

Since that time, MacKay-Lyons has operated as the ‘village architect,’ building a collection of more than 40 structures on the site. The village has continued to evolve as the venue for community events, a living school, and an office research laboratory. Structures added over time include a relocated and restored 1830 schoolhouse, a minimalist dwelling for an architectural apprentice-in-residence, and a new community of dwellings. The resulting village is an expression of utopian architectural ambitions, an optimistic act of will, and a form of resistance in the face of the numbing cultural influence of globalization. It is an argument for landscape stewardship through agricultural and architectural cultivation. The village is a place that expresses the unity of life, integrating practice and teaching, family and community.

:: Jury ::  The jury applauded this lifetime architectural achievement, showing the transformational power of architecture on a site. The quality of the individual buildings adds up to more than the sum of its parts and emphasizes the village quality of the 25-years-plus project. It was also the educational dimension of the project that drew the attention of the jury.

CLIENT Marilyn MacKay-Lyons | ARCHITECT TEAM Brian MacKay-Lyons, Talbot Sweetapple, Shane Andrews, Tyler Reynolds, Miranda Bailey, Matthew Bishop, Matt MacKay-Lyons, Jonny Leger, Peter Broughton, William Green, Matt Malone, Trevor Davies, Peter Blackie, Chad Jamieson, Jesse Hindle, Sava Rostkowska, Tony Patterson, Rob Meyer, Mark Cormier, Bruno Weber, Will Perkins, Izak Bridgman | GHOST ARCHITECTS Bob Benz, Francis Kéré, Rick Joy, Marlon Blackwell, Ted Flato, Peter Stutchbury, Deborah Burke, Juhani Pallasmaa, Wendell Burnette, David Miller | GHOST GUEST CRITICS Kenneth Frampton, Tom Fisher, Robert McCarter, Peter Buchanan, Tom Peters  | GHOST PARTICIPANTS Over 300 individuals | ENGINEERS Michel Comeau, Renee MacKay-Lyons, Blackwell Engineers, Andrea Doncaster | BUILDERS Gordon MacLean, Phil Creaser, Gary Kilgour, Robert Schmeisser, Art Baxter | BUDGET Withheld | OCCUPANCY August 2021

The post 2022 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture appeared first on Canadian Architect.

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) and the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) have announced the recipients of the 2022 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture.

The biennial awards recognize and celebrate excellence in recently built—and designed—projects completed by Canadian architects. The 2022 competition continues a tradition initiated by the Massey Medals in 1950, providing an important source of understanding of the nature of Canadian architecture and the regional, cultural, and historic forces expressed in the built environment.

The 12 projects represent a variety of building types and sizes—from a commercial mixed-use space to a cottage to various institutional building configurations. They include a reimagined theatre, a forest pavilion, a stormwater facility, and a history and dialogue centre.

Winning projects come from across the country—from five Canadian provinces, along with two recipients from New York and New Jersey, USA.

The following are the 2022 recipients:

• 60_80 Atlantic Avenue, Toronto, ON, BDP Quadrangle
• Forest Pavilion, Winnipeg, MB, Public City Architecture
• Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, Vancouver, BC, Formline Architecture
• Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building & Louis A. Simpson International Building, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, KPMB Architects
• Les Rochers, Bassin, QC, la Shed Architecture
• Point William Cottage, Muskoka Lakes, ON, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects
• Reception Pavilion of the Québec National Assembly, Quebec, QC, Provencher_Roy & GLCRM Architects
• Cherry Street Stormwater Facility, Toronto, ON, gh3* and R.V. Anderson Associates Limited
• The Brearley School, New York, NY, KPMB Architects
• The Idea Exchange Old Post Office, Galt, ON, RDH Architects (RDHA)
• Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, ON, Hariri Pontarini Architects
• Village at the End of the World, Kingsburg, NS, MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects

Formline Architecture is the first Indigenous-owned architectural firm ever to be awarded the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture. This is the second GG Medal awarded to a design by Alfred Waugh, the first being in 2004 for the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, completed by Waugh as the project designer when he was working for Peter Busby and Associates Architects.

“This is tremendous recognition and a shot in the arm for my fellow status and Métis architects across the country—it means validation from peers that our designs have risen to the highest levels. All Canadians can be proud of this new ‘Indigenuity,’ as I like to call it,” says Formline’s founder/owner Alfred Waugh FRAIC.

Says John Brown, President of the RAIC, “The projects represented in this year’s recipients of the Governor General’s Medals in Architecture illustrate design excellence in a variety of building typologies through their contextual response, sustainability and creativity. The thought and consideration of our award-winning Canadian architects taken in each project demonstrates their ability to produce dynamic spaces that are not only beautiful, but enlivening and enriching, enabling us to learn and grow. The RAIC is proud to empower, advocate and celebrate these architects and Canada’s architectural community as a whole in an effort to create a better world for all.”

“As we honor exceptional building across Canada, it seems only fitting to consider how aesthetics, sustainability and price affect both community and the environment,” said Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts. “Our heartfelt congratulations and thanks to the 12 remarkable projects selected to receive a 2022 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture for their substantive contributions to the art of architecture in Canada.”

The post Recipients of the 2022 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture announced appeared first on Canadian Architect.

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) and the Canada Council for the Arts invite architects to participate in the competition for the 2022 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture.

Awarded every two years, the 12 medals recognize and celebrate outstanding design in recently completed built projects, big or small, by Canadian architects. The Medals are among this country’s most prestigious and coveted architectural awards.

The call for submissions is open to all architects or teams of architects who were the lead design architects. They must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada, and licensed or registered with a Canadian provincial or territorial jurisdiction.

The 2022 jury members are: Dr. Izabel Fraga Do Amaral E Silva, Director of the School of Architecture, University of Montreal; Anik Shooner, FIRAC, President and co-founder of Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes, Montreal; Dr. Patrick Stewart, MRAIC, Principal-Patrick Stewart Architecture, Chilliwack; Christian Benimana, RA, Senior Principal of MASS Design Group & Director of the African Design Centre, Kigali, Rwanda; and Dr. Lígia Nunes, Chair, architecture sans frontières International, Lisboa, Portugal.

Eligible projects are those that were built in and outside of Canada and completed between January 1, 2014, and September 1, 2021. The submission deadline is December 10, 2021, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Applicants should use the RAIC’s  online submission platform for their submissions.

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Drummondville, Quebec
ARCHITECT Chevalier Morales and DMA architectes in consortium

Two hundred years ago, a garrison of soldiers-turned-farmers founded Drummondville, Quebec. Later, a railway bridge was constructed over the nearby St. François River. Beginning in 1919, a series of hydroelectric dams on that same river allowed the city to develop an industrial economy, serviced by rail and powered by turbines.

In recent years, the city has made a difficult economic transition. Drummondville’s new library is a symbol and a synthesis of these redevelopment efforts, embodying the municipality’s forward-looking attitude.

The library is closely connected to a neighbouring ice rink—an important locus of identity for a municipality that is the hometown of over a dozen professional hockey players. A heat exchange loop links the rink’s compressors and the library’s heating system. The rink and its surrounding outdoor space accommodate a variety of seasonal uses, including festivals, day camps, Christmas markets and concerts.

Inside, the building features a vast double-height space with a grand stair, inspired by the local turbines. Ascending the two off-centre helical staircases allows for views towards the exhibition areas, a garden adjacent the periodical lounge, and other parts of the library. A large intermediate landing serves a double function: it provides a literal overview of the library’s collections, while also inviting visitors to pause, converse or change direction.

A duo of reading gardens extends up to the second level, forming an axis that divides the floor into two zones. To the north is the fiction collection; to the south, the adult non-fiction collection. A set of bleachers, set alongside the teen area, connects the youth and adult sections, providing a space for families with a privileged view of the outdoor rink and its winter sports.

The exterior cladding of the building includes a glass envelope that gives the project a smooth, continuous appearance. In order to optimize energy performance, three different types of glass panels are used: opaque glass panels that conceal insulated walls, fritted glass panels to control solar gain, and transparent panels to frame views of the site and provide natural light for work, lounge and reading areas. Perforated steel panels are installed behind fritted and transparent glass panels in select parts of the envelope, creating visual depth and speaking to the city’s industrial past.

:: Jury Comments ::  The jury applauds the local authorities who commissioned this detailed, delicate and well-resolved building. Placed next to a suburban hockey arena, the library uses stylized curves to great effect. The design benefits from robust visual and physical connections that unite architectural experiences inside the library with the landscaping. The all-white interior offers graceful swoops of walls and stairs, all raked by sweeps of natural light.

Read the Canadian Architect review of this project here.

PROJECT TEAM Chevalier Morales architectes—Stephan Chevalier, Sergio Morales, Alexandre Massé, Ève Beaumont-Cousineau. DMA architectes—Céline Leclerc, François Lemoine, Michèle Malette | CLIENT Ville de Drummondville—Marie-Ève Berthiaume, bibliothécaire, service au public | OCCUPANCY September 7, 2017 | BUDGET $21 M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Edmonton, Alberta
ARCHITECT gh3 architecture
PHOTOS gh3*

The Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool is the first chemical-free public outdoor pool to be built in Canada. The project replaced an existing pool and includes a seasonal pavilion and landscaped pool precinct for 400 swimmers.

The challenge was to create a large-scale pool with high-quality water control, while also achieving an environmentally healthy, natural filtration process. The design process began with developing a pool technology that cleanses the water through stone, gravel, sand and botanic filtering processes. This inspired a materials-oriented concept for the change room facility. The result is a technically rigorous and aesthetically integrated design: the change pavilion’s gabion basket stone walls visually evoke the idea of filtration.

Canada’s guidelines for public pools are some of the strictest in the world. To realize the project, the architects needed to take a creative design approach grounded in a first-principles, science-based approach to the design challenge. The project was classified as “recreational waters,” with the building permit issued as a “constructed beach with variances”—the variances were the pools.

The project creates a balanced ecosystem where plant materials, microorganisms and nutrients come together within a gravel- and sand-filtering process to create “living water.” There is no soil involved in this process. Filtration is achieved in two ways: through a biological-mechanical system (the constructed wetland and gravel filter) and in situ (with zooplankton). The unsterilized, chemical- and disinfectant-free filtering system uses isolating membranes to contain water as it circulates and is naturally cleansed.

The cleansing process takes place at the north end of the pool precinct. On deck, water passes through a sand-and-stone submersive pond and a planted hydro-botanic pond. Adjacent to these ponds, a granular filter PO4 adsorption unit is enclosed by gabion walls continuous with the building.

In addition to the water filtration mechanisms, the seasonal building houses universal change rooms, showers, washrooms and staff areas.

The swimming program includes a children’s pool, a deep pool, on-deck outdoor showers, a sandy beach, picnic areas, and spaces for other pool-related recreational activities. The project’s materiality creates a fundamental, conceptual connection between the technical demands of the pool and the design of the built enclosure and landscape elements. The dark, locally sourced limestone and steel of the gabion wall construction defines the enclosure’s vertical dimension as filter-like or breathable, as granular and porous. The pool precinct is defined by a planar landscape: flush-to-surface detailing creates seamless interfaces among sandy beach, the concrete pool perimeter and wood decking. The gabion walls of the low rectilinear building terminate with a lid-like flat roof that frames the tree canopy of the park beyond and enhances the sensation of open-sky spaciousness within the pool precinct.

The elemental form and reductive materials ease the user experience and enrich the narrative of bathing in the landscape. The juxtaposition of the constructed elements invokes comparisons with the geology of the North Saskatchewan River and the flat topography of the Prairie lands’ edge.

:: Jury Comments ::  Clear, calm and modest, this project presents admirable restraint and control over form, materials and scale. Every element feels essential and thought has gone into every decision and detail. The pool evokes an elemental walled garden that welcomes the surrounding community. The jury salutes the City of Edmonton for commissioning it. It goes to show that if you support good civic design, you just might get it!

Read the Canadian Architect review of this project here.

PROJECT TEAM Pat Hanson, Raymond Chow, John McKenna, Joel Di Giacomo, Dae Hee Kim, Byron White | CLIENT City of Edmonton | SUPERSTRUCTURE/MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/CIVIL Morrison Hershfield | GABIONS Associated Engineering | POOL ENGINEERING Polyplan GMBH | CONTRACTOR EllisDon | OCCUPANCY July 1, 2018 | BUDGET $14.4 M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Edmonton, Alberta
ARCHITECT gh3 architecture
PHOTOS gh3*

The built environment plays a central role in the sustainability and resiliency of our life on this planet. While climate change impacts many areas, foremost among the resources that humans must learn to use less of—and to care better for—is water.

Many regions of Canada are seeing hotter weather and more energetic storms, overwhelming existing municipal stormwater infrastructure. The Real Time Control Building #3 (RTC 03) is part of the City of Edmonton’s expanded urban ecosystem strategy. RTC 03 plays a central role in reducing untreated run-off and sewage flowing into the North Saskatchewan River.

Situated by the riverbank, on the corner of 84th Street NW and Jasper Avenue just east of the downtown core, the project invests in the design of its site and plant enclosure. It celebrates the importance of municipal infrastructure and recognizes the role infrastructure buildings play in shaping the city.

The facility is engineered for state-of-the-art handling and treatment of urban water, accommodating the dynamic loading of urban stormwater and wastewater. The architecture makes this below-ground process apparent: the form of the main underground shaft is notionally extruded to create the circular enclosure for plant equipment on the surface, and the location of secondary shafts, in-take tunnels, and out-take tunnels is telegraphed through the paving pattern. This imbues the site with an interpretive strategy and signals that RTC 03 is part of a larger, complex system.

The building envelope is made of structural steel and stud framing, a 10” cavity, and an outer skin of angled glass blocks. Using a familiar cladding material in a new way involved technical challenges, such as fabricating zig-zag control joints. The result is a simple, luminous veil laid over the inner workings of the building.

The cavity between the glass block façade and the inner structure acts as a thermal plenum. Through stack effect and mechanical ventilation, air is drawn through louvres at the base of the façade and vented at the roof edge.

The enclosure sits on a tarmac surface, accommodating service vehicles and lay-down areas for the building’s removable roof. The site’s surface water drains to a gutter at the base of the glass block wall, where it is then recirculated into the main shaft.

In addition to the water handling shafts, the building also houses gas monitoring and ventilation equipment, gate actuators, a generator room, noise control mechanisms, a motor control centre, a washroom and base building mechanical rooms.

RTC 03 is a model for civil engineering and architectural projects to lead the way in both performance and public profile. Instead of treating infrastructure as existing invisibly in the background, the design generates attention, curiosity and interest. It prompts us to learn about the essential role of water infrastructure in our urban environment, and raises public awareness of how we interact with our ecosystems.

:: Jury Comments ::  In one sense, RTC 03 is a humble piece of technical equipment—but it is also an intriguing and luminous sculpture in the city. Its precise details support a mysterious architectural experience, not dictated by scale or program. It also has a key function to play in the sustainable management of water resources in Edmonton. In this small but powerful project, the jury saw the potential to transform civic expectations of what engineering infrastructure can be.

PROJECT TEAM Pat Hanson, Raymond Chow, Joel Di Giacomo | CLIENT City of Edmonton | MECHANICAL Vital Engineering | electrICAL AB Electrical | civil V3 Companies of Canada Ltd. | STRUCTURAL Chernenko Engineering | CONTRACTOR Maple Reinders | OCCUPANCY november 1, 2015 | BUDGET $1.2 M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Vancouver, British Columbia
ARCHITECT MJMA and Acton Ostry Architects

How can an aquatic centre effectively train Olympians, serve its community, and enhance the student experience? How can it operate learn-to-swim programs while hosting a thousand-person swim meet? These questions were at the heart of the design of the University of British Columbia (UBC)’s new aquatic facility.

In 2012, UBC sent more swimmers to the London Olympic Summer Games than any other university in Canada, and had the most successful swim team in the country. Meanwhile, the explosive market-driven expansion of the Endowment Lands and burgeoning campus community has created the fastest-growing youth and family population in the Lower Mainland.

The Aquatic Centre was required to meet the needs of both these groups, serving as a high-performance training and competition venue, while simultaneously acting as a community pool. It also strives to engage the surrounding public realm and contribute to campus life for UBC’s students.

The requirement to co-program daily community use with elite-level training and competitions led to a two-sided pool hall design, divided by a line of Y-shaped columns and a continuous skylight. In section, a translucent screen creates a luminous barrier between the two spaces, reflecting abundant sunlight into the leisure-swimming side, while providing the required controlled and balanced light for the competition-pool side.

The 7,900-square-metre program includes a 51-metre basin built to international competition standards, a 25-metre diving well with moveable floor, and a warm water leisure basin. The new facility is fully accessible and inclusive, and provides ideal acoustics for training and coaching communication. All finishes and systems are designed for durability and ease of maintenance.

The facility is designed to LEED Gold standards and will pursue the university’s regenerative neighbourhood goals by integrating with new campus infrastructure developments. The building’s extensive daylighting helps to achieve these goals. Daylight enters through the central skylight, as well as from the perimeter through a continuous ceramic-fritted glazing band on three elevations. Inside, sensors for zoned lighting control respond to natural light levels.

The building also implements innovative water re-use and air quality strategies that are precedent-setting for North American aquatic facilities. Instead of using municipal water, the building deploys a three-compartment cistern to store water from the roof and adjacent transit plaza. The cistern water tops-up the swimming basins to compensate for evaporative loss, allows for grey water flushing, and supplies a site irrigation system.

Chloramine-contaminated air is scoured from the water surface by air delivered from a central bench structure, and returned within the upper edge of the perimeter pool gutter. Developed in coordination with on-campus research, this system is intended to provide exceptional natatorium air quality and mitigate the problems of “swimmer’s asthma.”

:: Jury Comments ::  This campus building stands out for its luminous interiors. Being inside is like being in a white tent on a summer day, all year round. Outside, it transforms swimming into a rambunctious event, drawing in passersby and animating the campus. The clear organization of pools and utility spaces into three zones is intelligently reinforced through the structural organization, especially the sculpted Y-shaped columns and the canted ceilings.

Read the Canadian Architect review of this project here.

PROJECT TEAM MJMA—Ted Watson, Viktors Jaunkalns, Andrew Filarski, Robert Allen, Troy Wright, Ricardo Duque, Tarisha Dolyniuk, Kristin Beites, Janice Lee, Darlene Montgomery, Timothy Belanger, Aida Vatany, Danielle Lam-Kulczak, Luis Arredondo. AOA—Russell Acton, Mark Ostry, Adam James | CLIENT UBC Properties Trust | STRUCTURAL Equilibrium Consulting | MECHANICAL AME Consulting Group Ltd. | electrICAL Applied Engineering Solutions | SUSTAINABILITY Recollective | CONTRACTOR Heatherbrae Inc. OCCUPANCY August 1, 2016 | BUDGET $33.5M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
ARCHITECT KPMB Architects (Design Architect); Architecture49 (Prime Consultant)

The Remai Modern is situated on Treaty 6 Territory, the traditional homeland of the Métis, on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. Its mandate is “to enable transformative experiences by connecting art with local and global communities.” The architecture sought to build on the legacy of the Mendel Art Gallery—the city’s original and beloved centre for art and community engagement. Simultaneously, the building aimed to participate in the realization of a 30-year vision to develop Saskatoon’s south downtown into a vibrant riverfront destination, and to establish the city as a national and international destination for art.

Different scales of consideration influenced the architecture. The dramatic Prairie landscape and its crisp light—which have inspired Saskatoon’s artists, and contributed to art critic Clement Greenberg’s influential definition of modernism—led to a minimalist, abstract expression. The site’s L-shaped footprint and the adjacency of the existing Persephone Theatre drove the massing and orientation. The flat topography of the surroundings and the utilitarian beauty of regional agrarian structures inspired a stable geometry of stacked, rectangular volumes. Inside, the diverse needs of contemporary art prioritized the creation of a generous, continuous public realm and highly flexible gallery spaces.

The public areas and gallery spaces support the Remai’s status as a leading centre for contemporary Indigenous art and discourse, and enable the centre to connect with locals as well as with the larger art world. The four stacked, cantilevered volumes are oriented to engage the city to the east and west, and the South Saskatchewan River to the south. The south elevation spans the entire length of the site, giving the Remai a striking presence on the river. Inside, each level offers dramatic views of the river and access to outdoor terraces.

The exterior is clad with copper-coloured mesh, inspired by the copper roof of the nearby Bessborough Hotel, built in 1932. The mesh provides shading, contributing to an environmental strategy to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent compared to similarly sized galleries.

The architecture simultaneously looks backwards and forwards. It forges a strong relationship with the legacy of the Mendel, and supports the standing of Saskatoon as a creative city dedicated to lifelong learning. Ultimately, it has become the heart of the community—a place where locals and visitors gather to share their worldviews through the lens of art.

:: Jury Comments ::  This imposing museum makes a monumental statement about the continuing importance of art in Saskatoon. The gigantic cantilevered boxes showcase acrobatic engineering and minimal, crisp construction details. The boxes reach out to the sides of the site to capture views across the landscape to the South Saskatchewan River. Overall, it makes a coherent exterior expression out of a complicated program, organized internally around a canyon-like atrium.

Read Canadian Architect’s review of this project here.

PROJECT TEAM Bruce Kuwabara, Shirley Blumberg, Matthew Wilson, Paulo Rocha, Matthew Krivosudsky, Terry Kim, Marcus Colonna, David Poloway, Klaudia Lengyel, Jessica Juvet. Architecture49—Grant Van Iderstine, Ron Martin, Brad Cove, Jim Yamashita, Rick Linley, Jaret Klymchuk, Corrine Golden, Phil Harms, Michael Conway, Geoffrey Bulmer, Calee Gushuliak, Ian Douglas, Daryl Hnylycia, Donna Todd, Neil Hulme | CLIENT City of Saskatoon and the Remai Modern | STRUCTURAL Entuitive | MECHANICAL Crossey Engineering | electrICAL/SECURITY/IT/AV Mulvey + Banani | climate Transsolar | LANDSCAPE Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg | COST Turner & Townsend cm2r | ACOUSTICS Daniel Lyzun & Associates | VIBRATION Aercoustics Engineering Ltd. | CIVIL/TRANSPORTATION mmm Group | code Leber | Rubes | LIGHTING Tillotson Design Associates | FOOD SERVICES Kaizen Foodservice Planning & Design | OCCUPANCY October 21, 2017 | BUDGET $80.2 M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION North Vancouver, British Columbia
ARCHITECT Patkau Architects

For more than forty years, Presentation House Gallery has been a passionately independent showcase for photography and media arts. The North Vancouver institution has recently been reborn with a new building, and now operates under the name Polygon Gallery.

More site-maker than site response, the building offers a vision of urban waterfront renewal where infrastructure is re-imagined and culture outgrows an industrial past. The main mass of the building is lifted from the ground plane, providing open access to both a new public plaza and a sweeping view of the Vancouver skyline, seen across Burrard Inlet.

The building’s iconic saw-toothed profile is clad in layers of mirrored stainless steel beneath expanded aluminium decking. The interplay between the two materials gives the singular mass an ephemeral depth that shifts with changes in daily and seasonal sunlight.

Gallery director Reid Shier requested gallery space free of obstacles, with floors and walls that can be cut into, ceilings from which anything could be hung in any position, access to power and media everywhere, and lighting that could be natural or controlled. The main gallery is thus conceived as an instrument readied for creativity—more studio than museum.

The structural musculature of the building performs the dual purposes of lifting the gallery and providing a clear space. It can be darkened or completely daylit from above with diffuse northern light. Steel purlins provide tracks for lighting, data, media, suspended works and temporary partitions. The robust and easily patched oak flooring features a continuous central channel for ventilation, electrical, and data chases; these are readily accessible from freestanding works. The design allows for temporary partitions of any configuration.

In addition to the main exhibition space, the upper level also includes a large, flexible event gallery for education, outreach and private functions. Its entire southern wall is made of operable glazing, offering a panoramic view of Burrard Inlet and downtown Vancouver. The lower level includes a fully glazed entrance and lobby and supports small retail spaces that help diversify waterfront development. These fine-grained street-level uses make the building a hub for the growing social life of the city’s waterfront. They also help to activate the plaza, making it a new cultural node for North Vancouver. Overall, Polygon Gallery reinforces a sense of local identity for a small city that neighbours a larger, more prominent metropolis.

:: Jury Comments ::  The bold mass and jagged profile of this public gallery hover weightlessly over a glass entry floor. The building creates a generous covered public area on the North Vancouver waterfront, with the form generating interaction between passersby and art-goers, lowering the boundary between elite art activities and daily life. Sensitive to sky and sea, the shimmering façade reflects the changing light outside, while the inside boasts flexible galleries capped by intimidating skylights.

PROJECT TEAM John Patkau (FRAIC), Patricia Patkau (FRAIC), Peter Suter, with Michael Green, Marc Holland, Jacqueline Ho, Thomas Schroeder | CLIENT Polygon Gallery—Reid Shier | CONTRACTOR The Haebler Group, General Contractors and Engineers | STRUCTURAL Fast+Epp—Duane Palibroda | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/LIGHTING Integral Group | cost Alan Nicholson | code Geoff Triggs | OCCUPANCY November 11, 2017 | BUDGET $12 M

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The 2020 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture winners show the value of investing time and resources in quality place-making. A monumental, billowing temple that watches over Santiago, Chile, like a spaceship from the movie Arrival is joined on the podium by a bustling aquatic centre on the University of British Columbia campus. Likewise, a punctilious cottage that glows lakeside in rural Ontario joins a figurative building made to house small boats on the shores of English Bay. Together, these twelve distinguished projects reflect what recent writers have identified as the hallmarks of unpretentious architectural excellence in Canada: hybridity, modesty, modernity.

A renewed willingness to insist on good design among the Canadian polities that commission buildings animates this year’s list. The jury applauds the efforts of both designers and clients to promote well-detailed, thoughtful, beautiful architecture in suburban, exurban and small-city locations. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the box-on-box forms associated with downtown Toronto coalesce into a grandiloquent sculpture high above the South Saskatchewan River. Expanded metal screens contrast with a cross-laminated timber canopy to frame a civil civic space in St. Jérôme, Quebec.

Kudos to Edmonton in this regard. Spurred on by a program of competitions and the guidance of a city architect, good architecture is on the rise in Alberta. A welcoming community swimming pool might be an obvious setting for good architecture. But Edmonton also commissioned architects to design a piece of utilitarian city infrastructure, transforming a wastewater control plant into an urban event—especially at night, when its glass walls light up. The awards for these buildings recognize that half the battle for making good architecture is putting in place a process for achieving it.

Underscoring this campaign for architectural excellence is the ongoing relevance of the library as a node for community development. For several years now, municipalities have promoted skilled place-making in new branch libraries. In Drummondville, Quebec, one such library reorganizes citizens’ cognitive maps of a small city’s central recreational zone. The skating rink and fields become part of an extended promenade architecturale that symbolically accommodates the trajectories of cyclists, hockey players and automobiles. In Brampton, Ontario, a new library-as-civic-hub pushes structure and form to delight and surprise visitors. It includes a deft, spectacular array of devices to modulate natural light, carving out civitas in what once was unmarked suburbia.

Indeed, several winners showed the power of designing for the quality of available light. A small remembrance centre near Edmonton includes a skylight-topped tower; photographs set the charcoal-toned architecture in sparkling snow. And the shiny, jagged envelope of an art gallery on the shoreline of North Vancouver reflects and refracts mercurial waters and cloud-strewn skies.

Some of these buildings are so good that it is tempting to cite them as evidence of the quality of architectural practice in Canada. Yet because the awards program relies on self-nomination, it is tough to generalize from this list of winners. For instance, given the laudable efforts of the RAIC and provincial architectural organizations to promote energy efficiency in building, the jury was surprised that this year’s submissions mostly elide concerns over carbon-hungry practices. The jury also saw little evidence of dynamic housing design in any of its forms: market condominiums, social housing, or even the evergreen prizewinner, the well-detailed secondary home. Likewise, it would be wonderful to see more Medals awarded to projects in the north and east of the country. Perhaps the criteria should be changed to encourage other kinds of submissions—and perhaps Canadians need to invest time, training and resources in commissioning excellence across areas outside of the country’s major cities and their suburbs.

In short, there is no lack of challenges facing Canadian architects. Nonetheless, the projects premiated here—representing a diverse range of ambitious responses to a diverse range of design problems—should give us hope that Canadians recognize the deep value of architectural excellence.

David Theodore was a juror for the 2020 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture. The jury also included Alison Brooks, Johanna Hurme, Renée Mailhot and Isay Weinfeld.

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Kawagama Lake, Ontario
ARCHITECT Shim-Sutcliffe Architects Inc.

This retreat is located on the south shore of the majestic Kawagama Lake, just west of Algonquin Park. It uses natural light to create a strong sense of place: its design is set on a slope, and balances north-facing views of the lake with an invitation for southern light to enter deep into the residence. The project is nestled in a mature deciduous forest, set back from the lake so as to be invisible from the water.

Large, operable south-facing clerestory windows capture and amplify daylight as it enters the main living space. A series of wooden structural trusses shape the space and act as light reflectors, embracing and diffusing the warm southern rays. The clerestories are paired with a long bank of north-facing windows with integrated window benches. This ensures visual transparency from sky to water and promotes cross-ventilation through the seasons.

The residence presents a series of curated views, with each vantage point carefully constructed and composed. A window in a stairwell frames a portrait of trees, a hidden moment of indirect light appears adjacent to the fireplace, and the north windows provide sweeping vistas of the water’s edge.

The building’s exterior combines charcoal-stained wood siding with wooden windows, blending into its woodland surroundings in the summer, while harmonizing with the dark deciduous tree trunks in the winter. Blue panels in front of a firewood stack provide contrast at a moment of transition between indoors and out, while a large green roof links to the forest floor. The interior palette includes a Douglas fir ceiling and walls, paired with larch wood floors.

The fireplace, conceived as an abstract composition, anchors the project. One side of the fireplace is visible upon entry, along with a framed view of the lake. Stepping onto the hearth provides a view along the long bank of north-facing windows, before entering the main space. In the main living area, the room’s section is fully experienced: shaped by its timber structure, intertwined with natural light.

:: Jury Comments ::  Comforting, inviting, and carefully crafted, this project carries on the grand tradition of wooden cabins nestled in the Canadian wilderness. The Haliburton retreat sits half-buried in the sloping terrain overlooking the lake, reducing our perception of the cabin’s bulk. Inside, every inch is scrupulously designed, almost as if the interior were carved out of a single piece of wood. The sculpting of light using wood—such as with the over-sized Douglas Fir fins in the main living area—creates a soft glow that animates the interior and invites you in any season.

PROJECT TEAM Brigitte Shim (FRAIC), Howard Sutcliffe (FRAIC), Andrew Kimber, Andrew Hart | Client Anna Yang and Joseph Schull | CONTRACTOR Derek Nicholson Construction Inc. | STRUCTURAL Blackwell Engineering | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL BK Consulting | SPECIALIZED MILLWORK Two Degrees North | OCCUPANCY September 1, 2014 | BUDGET withheld

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Saint-Jérôme, Québec
ARCHITECT Atelier TAG in consortium with Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes
PHOTOS Adrien Williams

The city of Saint-Jérôme, north of Montreal, is in the midst of reinventing itself as an eco-recreational and cultural hub. Its performance hall actively participates in this process, turning the traditional experience of the theatre inside-out.

Through its placement, the Gilles-Vigneault Performance Hall marks a significant new civic axis and consolidates a portfolio of existing civic and cultural buildings that orbit the site. An open, transparent foyer embraces the public square, and unfolds into a grandstand that extends the theatre’s realm to the outdoors. The design reinterprets the traditional classical theatre archetype, replacing its staid formalism with a porous approach.

Blurring the boundaries between outside and inside, a 930-square-metre wood canopy acts as a unifying gesture. Articulated with origami-like folds, the canopy cantilevers over the plaza, and extends inside as a spectacular ceiling over the lobby.

The expansiveness and contemporary language of the wood canopy pose a counterpoint to the neo-classical spire of St. Jérôme’s cathedral. This calculated urban staging tells the story of a decades-long shift: from the patriarchal, hermetic verticality of 19th-century ecclesiastical architecture, towards the democratic, egalitarian horizontality of contemporary Quebec society.

The iconic presence of the new structure stems, in part, from its imaginative construction. The canopy uses cross-laminated timber as coffered beams, then innovates by creating a folded slab that makes use of the lateral structural rigidity of the system. The pleating forms an efficient, lightweight diaphragm, with folds that conceal mechanical systems. The solution unites architecture, structural and mechanical engineering needs. Moreover, it references Canadian construction culture, the distinct character of the Laurentian mountains, and the fundamental links that exist between natural forestry resources, technical know-how and built heritage.

The main theatre structure is wrapped in an expanded aluminum veil that, through an optical play of layers, softens the imposing volume of the fly tower. Its luminous metallic quality nods to the cathedral’s traditional tin roof, while blurring the boundaries between architecture and landscape.

:: Jury Comments ::  This rugged concert hall works to activate the downtown of Saint-Jérôme, Quebec. Sectionally interesting, the complex exterior shows an industrial grittiness that attempts to grab hold of its surroundings—symbolically and physically. A massive black spruce soffit protects the public in the forecourt, leading them inside to a lobby covered by the same canopy. The interior boasts a graceful concert hall clad skillfully in wood, following an undulating pattern.

Read Canadian Architect’s review of this project here.

PROJECT TEAM Atelier TAG—Manon Asselin (architect principal), Katsuhiro Yamazaki, Jason Treherne, Cédric Langevin. JLP—Nicolas Ranger, Michel Dupuis, Maxime Gagnon, Ariane Latendresse, Olivier Millien, Guylaine Beaudoin, Serge Breton | CLIENT Diffusion En Scène Rivière du Nord Inc.—David Laferrière, General and Artistic Director | STRUCTURAL SDK | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL SMI Enerpro | CONTRACTOR Group Demathieu Bard | LIGHTING CS Design | SIGNAGE PK Design | SCENOGRAPHY Go Multimedia | OCCUPANCY September 29, 2017 | BUDGET $21 M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Edmonton, Alberta
ARCHITECT SHAPE Architecture with PECHET Studio and Group 2 Architects
PHOTOS Ema Peter Photography

One’s memory of visiting a cemetery is marked by time: the position of the sun, the quality of light, the weather on a particular day. Some may visit a cemetery a single time for a ceremony; for others, cemeteries are experienced through ritual trips that span a lifetime. The South Haven Centre for Remembrance memorializes these moments in time, spatially capturing the quality of the seasons through the interplay of light, shadow and darkness.

The unique nature of a non-denominational cemetery services building was coupled with the rare opportunity to position a building within a vast twenty-one hectare site. The architects chose to create a partially submerged landform building, which they conceived as a wandering line in the landscape, providing visual connections to and from the Centre. A thirteen-metre-high tower emerges from this form, making symbolic reference to the surrounding grave sites, monuments and columbaria.

The main entry is through a vestibule that provides a compressed moment of darkness, with oversized steel pivoting doors opening to a luminous interior space. A framed view of the downtown skyline is seen across the winter-garden courtyard. Throughout, the design includes areas for silence, reflection and pause.

The organizational strategy spatially distinguishes between the ephemeral and the permanent. Areas that accommodate short visits are associated with the ephemeral, responding to the natural characteristics of light, sound, weather and seasonal change. The permanent corresponds to burial and the physical records associated with sustaining memory—these areas form the foundation of the building, as they service the memory of the individuals laid to rest in the cemetery.

The building’s overall character considers seasonally modulating light patterns inside, as well as the long, crisp winter shadows that are cast from the building’s edges outside. On the exterior, a combination of black hot-rolled steel panels and charred shou sugi-ban accoya cladding contrasts with winter snow and gives the building a striking presence throughout the year.

Atop the tower, a large triangular clerestory allows diffuse north light to enter the meeting rooms. The form and development of the tower evolved through multiple iterations to optimize the quality of light. Particular attention was given to how light and shadow casts within the tower on the summer solstice. The word “solstice” is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), and the reverence of light and shadow within the tower are celebrated on this annual datum.

:: Jury Comments ::  This building, situated just outside downtown Edmonton, features a simple program housed in intriguing enigmatic forms, dramatized in the contrast of shapes between graveyard tombstones and the burned-timber shapes. On the inside, well-proportioned windows frame views, while on the outside, the building is meant is to be experienced in the round, with multiple readings and surprises. The interplay of light and shadow creates a mood that is at once weighty, mysterious, sombre and serious—appropriate to the notion of remembrance, but without mawkishness.

PROJECT TEAM Dwayne Smyth, Nick Sully, Jessica Mcgillivray, Scott Keck, Kate Busby, Avery Titchkosky, Benjamin Fisher, Bill Pechet, Anneliese Fris, James Townsend, Eric Hui | CLIENT City of Edmonton | STRUCTURAL Fast + Epp | MECHANICAL Clark Engineering | ELECTRICAL Arrow Engineering | LANDSCAPE Design North | CIVIL V3 | SUSTAINABILTY Sébastien Garon | CONTRACTOR Krite Construction | OCCUPANCY January 1, 2019 |
BUDGET $4.5M

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Vancouver, British Columbia
ARCHITECT MGA | Michael Green Architecture
PHOTOS Ema Peter Photography

Located on Jericho Beach in Vancouver, the Dock Building serves a large marina of sailboats. The facility provides washrooms and showers, offices for the Harbour Master, instruction space for children, and a variety of workshops to maintain boats, sails and gear.

The project’s practical working needs, modest budget and prominent siting required a simple solution that honoured the cannery and industrial heritage of waterfront buildings that were found on the site a half-century earlier.

The massing is simple: two intersecting wedge volumes mirror each other to create a lantern to the sea and a lantern to the land. Facing land, a glulam-and-translucent-polycarbonate wall brings light into the workshop spaces and glows along the beach at night. Facing the sea and the marina, a series of garage doors opens to the shop bays, and glazed offices serve for the management of the docks.

A back-lit wood screen above the offices hides the mechanical systems in the high volume of the water-facing wedge. A knife-edge gutter provides an overhang for the shop doors, mimicking the razor-edge forms of the racing sailboats that line the dock.

The building resides on the water’s edge, just where high tide meets the beach. Almost half of the project budget went to the foundation and piles, leaving the design team with the challenge of meeting the project’s functional needs on a tight budget, while delivering a meaningful place to the community.

To meet this challenge, the designers selected economical, yet robust, materials. White standing-seam panels are used for the exterior, harmonizing with the forms and colour of the boats and their sails. The structure is primarily composed of durable, long-lasting timber, including glulam posts and beams, and light timber infill decking and walls. The interior is predominantly construction-grade fir plywood, providing a tough, easily replaceable interior finish. The extensive use of wood makes the most of the budget, but more importantly, demonstrates the benefits of using this flexible, carbon-capturing, sustainable material. Throughout, the project has modest, practical details.

The design team aimed to demonstrate that all projects—from boutique museums to working industrial buildings—can, and should, be realized with grace and architectural dignity. While museums are few and far between, practical buildings like recreational support facilities are a common part of our communities. The designers believe in the importance of celebrating the common: delivering architecture on a shoestring is always possible.

:: Jury Comments ::  This practical facility sits very lightly among the docks, at rest on the Vancouver shoreline like a boat on the water. From its simple form and efficient organization arise an architectural experience that is both poetic and sensible. While modest, it exhibits careful thinking about composition and materials on almost every level. To coin a phrase, sometimes less is more than enough.

PROJECT TEAM Michael Green (FRAIC), Candice Nichol, Mingyuk Chen, Evelyne Saint Jacques, Justin Bennett, Winston Chong | CLIENT Royal Vancouver Yacht Club   | STRUCTURAL Equilibrium Consulting | MECHANICAL/ AME Consulting Group Ltd. | electrICAL Jarvis Engineering Consultants Ltd. | CIVIL/MARINE STRUCTURAL Worley Parsons | CONTRACTOR Heatherbrae Builders | envelope RDH Building Science Inc. | OCCUPANCY September 1, 2017   | BUDGET $3.5M

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