Habitat: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Climate

Edited by Sandra Piesik (Thames and Hudson, compact edition 2023)

Vernacular architecture is generally understood as referring to domestic, native and Indigenous structures. So it is perhaps of little surprise that in our contemporary scape—dominated by forms of monolithic scale and proportion—methods of producing vernacular architecture have often been overlooked and marginalized. Yet, as a strand of construction indebted to a rich history of making, the vernacular’s sphere of influence can be seen as an important response to the growing climate crisis. Habitat: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Climate, assembled by architect-author Sandra Piesik, offers an insightful overview of age-old methods of production, and supports and celebrates present-day efforts that follow in their wake. 

Unconcerned with its own behemoth scale (the framing as a ‘compact’ edition referencing a shrinking from an earlier version with larger type), Piesik’s text navigates the breadth of global vernacular construction, convening an encyclopaedic collection of references with considered commentary. Ordered around climatic typologies—tropical,
dry, temperate, continental, and polar—the book provides concise introductions by regional experts, inviting consideration of a world foreign to many who operate within the narrow scope of contemporary architecture. Crucial to the book is the vast array of photos that support the edited essays; although these have a somewhat domineering presence, they are effective in facilitating an understanding of how the texts should be read. Through the displayed architectures, the kaleidoscopic nature of the vernacular shines: the volume surveys a truly global footprint, from the global South to Iceland and the Arctic, and from rural environments to Brazil’s favelas. 

The integrated essays penned by experts span a legion of fields. A text by Anna Yu Mainicheva, ‘Homesteads of Northern and Central Russia’, appears in the continental section alongside a contribution from Aldona Jonaitis examining the ‘Indigenous Dwellings of America’s Subarctic and Northwest Coast’. Beyond challenging political barriers, this careful placement of content plays a significant role in articulating the volume’s ambition, demonstrating relevance across a global scale. Similarly, words by the likes of Ronald van Oers point to the dynamism within the vernacular; his case study surveys the plethora of influences on chattel houses and the timber architecture of the Caribbean. Texts by Canadian scholars Tammy Gaber and Miriam Ho are also included, looking respectively at vernacular architecture in Turkey and Kazakhstan.

Towards the book’s end, an appendix—perhaps better understood as a sixth ‘chapter’—offers a modern account of the vernacular by presenting contemporary references. Francis Kéré’s Gando Primary School Complex represents arguably the most lauded example. However, less celebrated—yet equally impressive—works include Hollmén Reuter Sandman Architect’s Rufisque Women’s Centre, and Architype’s Enterprise Centre at the University of East Anglia. Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons’ Muir Craig Cottage is also included in the mix. These aid in providing a rich register of the vernacular, and, yet again, evidence its global multiplicity. Despite a somewhat muted presence against the dazzling imagery, the short texts that accompany these examples facilitate an ease of understanding, supporting the volume’s ‘lessons to be learned’ approach. Like the short essays in the main section, the pockets of texts throughout the book work hard and add depth. 

In sum, Habitat: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Climate is a well-constructed compendium. The volume provides a highly considered overview of the vernacular, while retaining a format which is both approachable and inviting. While perhaps imagined to be read across its breadth, the weight of the tome makes it even more valuable as a reference document. For those committed to a different kind of architecture and a non-extractive approach, this book is a useful starting point, ably demonstrating that a ‘new’ way of thinking can be found in the ‘old’. 

As appeared in the November 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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Members of British Columbia’s zero-carbon buildings community recently came together to recognize six individuals, projects, and organizations for their leadership in reducing embodied carbon pollution in the province.

Embodied carbon emissions are produced during the production and transportation of building materials, including steel, concrete, insulation, and glass, during construction and when a building is demolished.

Through its Carbon Leadership Forum British Columbia (CLF British Columbia) program, the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre hosted the second annual BC Embodied Carbon Awards in Vancouver on April 18, 2024. The awards aim to showcase and celebrate leadership and inspire others to reduce embodied carbon in their projects.

The BC Embodied Carbon Awards were made possible through program funding from the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre and City of Vancouver and event sponsors RJC Engineers (Gold), Perkins & Will, hcma, Third Space, and CLF Toronto (Silver), and reLoad Sustainable Design, Carbon Wise, and Equilibrium (Bronze).

The judges for each of the six categories, which are all members of the CLF British Columbia Volunteer Group, handed out the awards at the Ventura Room in Vancouver.

The winners include the following.

Organizational Commitment to Change: ZGF Architects
This award recognizes a company or organization that has shown exemplary leadership in reducing embodied carbon in British Columbia’s built environment.

Public Sector Leadership: University of British Columbia
This award recognizes a British Columbia-based local government, public sector organization, or non-profit organization that has demonstrated exemplary leadership in reducing embodied carbon in British Columbia’s built environment.

Large Buildings: North Island College Student Housing, HDR Architecture
This award recognizes a large new development or a substantial renovation of a large building that demonstrates excellence in low-embodied-carbon design and construction . The relevant local government or permitting authority must classify the recognized building(s) under Part 3 of the building code.

Small Buildings: Phoenix House, Carbon Wise
This award category recognizes excellence in low-embodied-carbon design in a small new project such as a single-family home or laneway home, or a substantial renovation of an existing single-family home or smaller building. The relevant local government or permitting authority must classify the recognized building(s) under Part 9 of the building code.

Commitment to Circularity: Renewal Development
This award recognizes exceptional initiatives and projects that embrace and tangibly advance circularity or circular concepts within British Columbia’s buildings sector.

Strengthening the Practice: Anthony Pak
This award recognizes a building sector professional who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to reducing embodied carbon across British Columbia’s built environment. Note: This is a nomination-based award.

“As all levels of government look to accelerate the delivery of housing, it becomes even more critical to consider the carbon impacts of more high-rise buildings and greater use of high-carbon materials such as conventional concrete,” said Lisa Dominato, councillor, City of Vancouver and chair, climate action committee, Metro Vancouver:

“These award-winning projects and organizations have shown us that addressing embodied emissions through the lifecycle of a building is an essential, strategic, and cost-effective way to reduce emissions while creating new housing and commercial space, local and regional economic development, and jobs. We are grateful to the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre and its Carbon Leadership Forum British Columbia program for their work to bring together and strengthen the diverse community of practitioners leading the way on climate action within the building sector in Vancouver and BC.”

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Winner of a 2024 RAIC Architectural Journalism and Media Award

Jim Taggart left architectural practice in 1993 to pursue parallel interests in writing, editing and education. He started as a freelance writer whose byline soon became a regular fixture in various professional and trade magazines. In 2002, he was appointed as a contributing editor by both Canadian Architect and Wood Design & Building magazines. 

When publisher Don Griffith left Wood Design & Building in 2005, he and Taggart conceived a new publication for the growing Canadian green building movement. Sustainable Architecture and Building Magazine (SABMag) began in 2006, with Taggart as founding editor. 

Over more than 80 issues of SABMag, Taggart has helped accelerate the evolution of sustainable architecture in Canada. Meanwhile, his wood advocacy has included more than 100 seminars across North America and internationally, as well as a similar number of articles and case studies.

Aimed at advancing sustainability practices, SABMag includes construction details and focuses on the challenges and opportunities presented by projects. “Ideas are one thing, but realizing them can be quite
a challenge,” said Taggart in a podcast interview with Craig Applegath of DIALOG. “We feature only Canadian buildings, so when an architect wants their client to aim higher, they can share an example of best practice from SABMag.”

Taggart’s book Toward a Culture of Wood Architecture (Abacus Editions, 2011), which won an Independent Book Publishers’ Silver Award, was a catalyst in the adoption of mass timber construction in Canada.
Its success led Taggert to co-author, with Michael Green, the book Tall Wood Buildings: Design, Construction & Performance (Birkhaüser, 2017 and 2020). “Beyond the prerequisite for third-party certified forest management, it is new products and technologies, building science and fire engineering that really underpin the whole tall wood initiative,” writes Taggart. “We see this book as adding momentum to the evidence-based approach that will ultimately inspire market confidence and drive industry transformation.”

His writing has also broadened the national conversation on sustainability, expanding its early focus on the “hardware” of high efficiency building systems, to embrace the “software” of societal values and priorities. He has incorporated these values into the criteria for the annual Canadian Green Building (SAB) Awards, for which he is the professional advisor. His e-book The Architecture of Engagement (Abacus Editions, 2020), winner of an Independent Book Publishers’ Gold Award, drew on his years of work at SABMag to argue for a more human-centred approach to sustainability. It argues that more holistic approaches to the design of buildings and communities are required to achieve a truly sustainable built environment. The book offers both the conceptual framework and a portfolio of case studies from across Canada to illustrate how these new approaches can be successfully realized in built work.

Jury Comment :: Jim Taggart is a Canadian architectural journalist who has made remarkable contributions to the field over the past decades. For his entire career through architectural publications, he has advocated for innovative architecture, and pushing the boundaries of sustainability and green building. Taggart has also been promoting Canadian architecture’s technical and civic potential for a long time. We acknowledge him for his dedication to learning, sharing knowledge, and creating forums for public discourse that benefit us all. His contributions have brought awareness to entire generations of architects and donors.

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Toronto-based WZMH has launched its digital online recladding guide at BuildGreen Atlantic, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

For over 60 years, WZMH has been designing office towers and has amassed over three decades of experience in renewing these buildings.

The WZMH Recladding Guide focuses on how building envelope redesigns can revitalize an aging office tower by updating its performance and appearance, while also enhancing occupant comfort.

The guide explores the “why’s” and “hows” of recladding and presents multiple case studies. Additionally, it outlines WZMH’s proven, seven-category suite of recladding options, ranging from the tactical replacement of one element, such as cladding panels or glazing, through to a complete reskinning.

WZMH principals Nicola Casciato and Harrison Chan and WZMH strategic business development lead Jennifer Davis recently presented a seminar at BuildGreen Atlantic based on the recladding guide’s content.

While the need to replace building components nearing end-of-life is often what prompts building owners to undertake a recladding project, projects of this type are an increasingly important means of achieving an expanding range of objectives.

“A recladding is a real opportunity to give a building a new voice in many different ways – from an aesthetic standpoint, from a sustainability standpoint, and from a user comfort standpoint,” states Casciato in Remake It Better.

Chan adds that growing emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations, in combination with an increasingly holistic concept of sustainability, has recontextualized recladding. “As recently as a decade ago, our clients were primarily interested in recladding for reasons related to capital repair work and perhaps also rebranding,” he said. “These are still important considerations, but now ‘net zero’ and ‘carbon’ are often the words that kick-start the conversation.”

The guide’s five case study buildings are all located in Toronto’s Financial District and illustrate how WZMH’s approach to each recladding project is tailored to client objectives and existing building conditions.

An example of this is 121 King Street West, a 25-storey tower that opened in 1984. The impetus for recladding was to replace overly reflective glass that was mirroring interior views back to the building’s occupants, rather than affording clear views to the outside. The recladding, completed in 2023, resolved this issue, while also improving airtightness and updating the building’s appearance through the replacement of its horizontal spandrels. On this project, as on many other WZMH recladdings, most of the renovation work was done from the exterior via mast-climbing platforms, enabling the building to remain occupied by its tenants throughout construction.

Another case study, the 16-storey 1960s Bell Canada building at 76 Adelaide Street West,
involved completely removing the deteriorated main façade and reskinning it with large, curved
glass panels. Inspired by the geometry of sound waves, the building’s striking new look
embodies the dynamism of telecommunications.

Throughout Remake it Better, comments from WZMH’s in-house recladding experts, building
envelope specialists on case study project teams, and Cadillac Fairview Senior Director Carlo
Guido – a client team lead on the 95 Wellington Street West case study building – highlight the
evolving and expanding rationale for recladding in the era of ESG, net zero, and
decarbonization

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The sky on that Friday morning last August was a bright, bright yellow. I went outside to find my neighbours milling about on their driveways and pointing to smoke billowing above the hills to the north. Close to 10 pm the night before, the McDougall Creek wildfire had jumped the lake and started two new fires—the Walroy Lake wildfire in Kelowna, and the Clarke Creek wildfire in Lake Country, where I live. Together, the three fires were labelled the Grouse Complex. Now the Clarke Creek wildfire was heading straight for my neighbourhood.

No one panicked, but everyone began the process of loading pets, suitcases and keepsakes into their vehicles. Some of us put lawn sprinklers on our roofs. Long before the police came through our subdivision, pounding on doors and ordering people to evacuate, most of us were packed and gone. I was one of 35,000 people to leave. Later that same day, as the fire worsened, smoke filled the valley, the Kelowna Airport was closed, and first responders began heading for the Okanagan from around the province, across the country and even from distant parts of the globe.

The power of the patch

The problem, however, began decades before the summer of 2023. Much of it has to do with the way we have managed—or mismanaged—our forests. According to Paul Hessburg, Senior Research Ecologist, Pacific Northwest Research Station, our forests used to be much more ‘patchy.’ As he notes in a TEDx talk titled “Living Dangerously in an Era of Megafires,” the forest fires that have historically been part of the natural environment were smaller, more localized, and less intense because of what he has dubbed ‘the power of the patch’. 

Now, those patches have been connected with flammable development, but also by more forest. Our emphasis on fire suppression has been so successful that forests across the United States and Canada have filled in with a dense mat of trees that often touch one another. The lack of intermittent, small fires has also clogged the forest floor with dead and dying trees—fuel for larger fires. Moreover, the forest floor has become filled with a ‘duff’ layer of pine needles and dead grass. This duff layer not only acts as kindling, but also inhibits the growth of the fire-resistant grasses that used to grow between the trees.

 All of this means that when fires do occur, they are massive, intense and volatile.

John Betts is the Executive Director of the Western Forestry Contractors’ Association, an industry association headquartered in Nelson, BC, that represents tree planters, contract wildfire fighters and independent forestry consultants. He frequently works with regulatory bodies to increase public safety and awareness. “We are learning,” he says, “that fire-adapted forests are dynamic. They rely on fire to maintain themselves. When we suppress fire, as we have now done for decades, we change their structure and composition. These ecosystems are now so out of composure they burn with far more destructive intensity and severity.”

Betts notes that many of the fires we are currently experiencing are “crown fires,” which occur in the tops of the trees, rather than “grass fires,” which burn on the forest floor and are much less dangerous, because they’re neither as high, nor as hot. As he notes, “There is now enough fuel and enough trees to keep the fire in the crowns.” He explains that, “It’s a question of flame length, or the height of the flames. The crowns can’t carry the fire unless there’s enough energy coming up from the floor. We need to bring the fire down to the ground, and then deny it fuel.”

Particularly spectacular—and deadly—is when a tree “candles,” or bursts into flames. When multiple trees candle, they can create a crown front. Fires are ranked from 1 to 6, with a rank 6 fire being the most intense. Rank 4 and above is when the crown is involved. Fortunately, the fires in Kelowna and Lake Country never rose above a rank 4, but the McDougall Creek fire may have achieved rank 6 in the forest and rank 5 in built-up areas.

While climate change is not the root cause of these fires, it has exacerbated the situation with droughts, higher temperatures, higher winds, and the migration northward of insects such as the pine beetle, which have killed thousands of trees that are then added to the forest floor. As such, climate change has extended the fire season by 40 to 80 days.

The result is enormous fires. In the past, the Clarke Creek fire in Lake Country at 373 hectares and the Walroy Lake fire in Kelowna at 733 hectares would have been considered large fires. But these were dwarfed by the immensity of the McDougall Creek fire, at 13,970 hectares. In 2023 alone, 61 fires burned a total of 71,971 hectares—or 720 square kilometres, an area larger than the city of Toronto—in the Penticton Zone, which runs from the American border to Lake Country. 

From wildfires to interface fires

The AEC industry needs to pay attention, in order to avoid seeing our work go up in smoke. According to Hessberg, “more than 60 percent of all new housing starts [in the United States] are being built in this flammable and dangerous mess.” As Betts puts it, “We have energized the landscape and put our infrastructure at risk.” As I drove down Highway 97 to stay at my son’s house in Kelowna and watched the smoke rising from my neighbourhood, I really didn’t have much hope that my house would be standing the next day.

When a fire is burning away from human settlements, it is described as a wildfire. But when that wildfire approaches people and structures, it becomes a wildfire-urban interface fire, or simply, an interface fire. Wildfires and interface fires have their own unique characteristics, and are often fought by different kinds of firefighters. Craig Moore is the owner of Rider Ventures, an Indigenous-owned company with a focus on fire and flood protection. He’s a structural firefighter, which means he usually deals with buildings and infrastructure, rather than wildfires. This year alone, throughout the province, his company has protected 3,500 homes with only three losses—one of which was an outhouse. “The nemesis of a structural firefighter,” he explains, “are the little nooks and crannies of a building where embers can get trapped underneath building materials.” Embers are a formidable nemesis. They can easily jump or “embercast” two to five kilometres, and with a good wind, they’ve been known to travel up to 16 kilometres. 

Structural fires burn differently from wildfires. Wildfires move quickly through a forest at 23 kilometres per hour or more, depending on factors such as the wind. But structures, such as our homes, can burn for over 24 hours. As our communities become denser, structures larger than houses are also at risk. Jason Brolund is the Fire Chief for West Kelowna, which was particularly hard hit by the McDougall Creek fire, with 70 homes affected by the fire. As he notes, “I never thought I would be protecting an apartment building in an interface fire.” They saved that building and hundreds of others, including a newly completed water treatment plant. His experience points to the kind of fires we may encounter with greater frequency in the future.

Sadly, the Okanagan is no stranger to fires large or small. Two decades earlier, the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire consumed close to 26,000 hectares of forest. During the 2017 Nighthawk fire, the evacuation alert line was right along my back fence. I had my car packed, but that time, I did not have to evacuate.

Getting FireSmart about buildings

Yet there is hope. Everyone I spoke with emphasized the importance of programs such as FireSmart, which sets out construction and maintenance guidelines for increasing the fire-resilience of buildings. Larry Watkinson, the Fire Chief for Kelowna, even went so far as to say, “The FireSmart principles are a game changer. They’re the most important thing a homeowner can do.”

FireSmart Canada was founded in 1993, and includes programs designed to engage not only homeowners, but also local governments, Nations, children, and homebuilders. “Homebuilders,” says Rachel Woodhurst, Program Lead for FireSmart BC, “are one of the most critical pieces of the FireSmart puzzle.” This is because decisions made during construction—particularly in terms of materials—can be critical in ensuring that a house is resistant to wildfires. This means encouraging the use of materials such as fibre cement siding rather than vinyl siding or cedar shakes; shingles that are rated Class A (which is the highest level of fire resistance); and even energy efficient windows (which are also more fire resistant). Details, too, are critical. External vents in homes, for example, should be covered with non-flammable screens to prevent embers getting into the attic.

The landscape around a building is also important. Locating easily combustible cedar hedges and juniper bushes close to your house is, according to Chief Watkinson, “like placing a blowtorch next to your home.”  Wooden fences and woodpiles, if too near to a building, clogged gutters, and a yard full of pine needles can all be equally dangerous. Woodhurst noted, “90% of the risk to your home is in the roof and what’s directly against the house.” At the same time, FireSmart suggests that trees anywhere on your property should be spaced three metres apart, and be trimmed so that no branches are less than two metres above the ground. 

Given that FireSmart Home Assessments are free in British Columbia, it seems a service that every homeowner in a forested area should take advantage of. In writing this article, I learned that my house—with cedar shakes, vinyl siding, juniper bushes and over two dozen large, untrimmed pine trees—would probably be classified as “fire stupid.” Nonetheless, on Saturday morning, the day after I evacuated following the fire warning last summer, one of my neighbours shared photographs from their security camera that showed my house was still standing. The sense of relief I felt was overwhelming.

Other forms of infrastructure can also make a difference. Burying utility lines underground is one positive step municipalities can take. As Watkinson says, “Power poles can fall and compromise aboveground operations. We need to get things in the ground, so we can work above.” The McDougall Creek fire destroyed over 400 power poles and more than 25 kilometres of power lines, leaving 1,200 people without electricity.

Firefighting heroes

While every firefighter I spoke to praised the FireSmart program, there is no escaping the fact that the hundreds of first responders who descended on the Valley were the real heroes who saved thousands of homes in the McDougall Creek fire. On the east side of the lake, only three homes and two outbuildings burned in Kelowna, and only three homes and one detached garage were destroyed in Lake Country. The west side of Lake Okanagan suffered most: 70 homes were affected in West Kelowna, 20 were lost in the Westbank First Nation, and approximately 100 structures were destroyed in the Trader Cover and Okanagan Resort areas—including the historic Okanagan Resort itself. But as Darren Lee, Fire Chief for Lake Country said, “It could have been so much worse.” By comparison, the 2017 Nighthawk fire in Lake Country covered only 55 hectares but destroyed eight homes, and the Okanagan Mountain Park fire in 2003 burned 239 homes.

It is also little short of a miracle that there was no loss of life. All of this is a tribute to the crews who worked day and night to protect our communities and ourselves. In one extraordinary example, someone posted a video from their security cam of police fighting backyard fires with garden hoses.

The combination of social media and security cameras provided ongoing, accurate, and sometimes unsettling information about the fires. On Sunday, one of my neighbours posted an image of firefighters in their backyard, while another showed flames burning to the edge of a road near my house. At the same time, websites livestreamed the daily press conferences that began on Monday, and provided links to interactive maps that showed areas under evacuation alerts. 

Over the life of these fires, firefighters came from all over British Columbia and Canada, while others arrived from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. But in the first 24 hours of the inferno, it was only the local fire departments that were available to fight the blaze. 

Brent Penner, Deputy Fire Chief Lake Country, provided me with a detailed description of the personnel and equipment involved in fighting the Clarke Creek fire. On that first Friday they had 12 vehicles fighting the fire—a mix of fire engines, tenders or water trucks, bush trucks (for rough terrains) and ATVs. The firefighting crew included 47 on-call members from the community and eight career firefighters. 

On Saturday, the City of Kelowna was covered in a thick blanket of smoke, the airport remained closed, and travel to the valley was banned. The Air Quality Health Index rose to 11 indicating a Very High Risk—the top of the scale. I foolishly went outside for a few moments, and immediately became short of breath.

As the weekend wore on and the fire ramped up, equipment and personnel poured in and the totals rose to 26 vehicles with 82 personnel—and these were only the ones fighting the structural fires in Lake Country. In Kelowna, there were upwards of 500 structural firefighters on the ground by Day 2 of the Walroy Lake fire. Overhead, small planes, water tankers and helicopters helped to direct and lessen the intensity of the fires, for instance by slinging “mud” (fire retardant) along ridgelines. 

The cost of wildfires

I mention these developments in detail because they emphasize how much time, effort, equipment and money are involved in a fighting these fires. Across the province, between April 1 and October 31 of last year, there were 2,245 wildfires, which burned 2.84 million hectares of land. While the final numbers are still coming in, the provincial government estimates that it will have spent close to $1 billion in 2023 fighting wildfires—a staggering $762 million over the budgeted amount. And that’s just the beginning. The McDougall Creek fire alone caused over $480 million in insured damage. Just north of the Okanagan in the Shuswap area, the Bush Creek East wildfire, which was burning at the same time, destroyed 270 structures and caused an additional $240 million in insured damage. 

The Insurance Bureau of Canada has declared the BC wildfires of 2023 to be the most expensive natural disaster in the history of the province, and the 10th costliest natural disaster in the history of Canada. The costliest natural disaster was also a wildfire—the one that consumed Fort McMurray in 2016 and cost $4.3 billion in insurance claims.

Sadly, much of this would never have occurred if we had taken action earlier. As Betts says, “We are grappling with the inertia of the status quo.” After the fires of 2003, British Columbia commissioned the “Firestorm 2003: Provincial Review,” which recommended better forest management procedures, removal of fuel hazards, and community fireproofing programs. It took another series of disasters in 2017 and another report (“Addressing the New Normal: 21st Century Disaster Management in British Columbia”) with many of the same recommendations before things began to change in earnest.

Mitigation measures do take place across the province, and they continue apace today. The province allows for both Indigenous cultural burning, which has been practiced for centuries for both cultural and environmental reasons, and prescribed fires, which are aimed at replacing catastrophic wildfires with more frequent, less intense fires. Both kinds of fires reduce the accumulation of forest fuels.

These methods can be effective. Southwest of Kamloops, Logan Lake (pop. 2,000) is a pioneer in wildfire mitigation. It was recognized as Canada’s first FireSmart Community in 2013, and the measures implemented there, a combination of prescribed burns and preventative maintenance, are widely credited with saving the town from the Tremont Creek wildfire, which burned 63,500 hectares in 2021. Typically, communities receive a few hundred thousand dollars from the provincial government for such measures—this, of course, pales in comparison to the cost of a major wildfire. 

Becoming stewards

Even with mitigation measures, however, the danger will not go away. As Chief Lee warns, “As our community grows, the risk grows. We need to become stewards of the land.” The fact is, that we live in a region where fire is an inevitable—and even necessary. It’s part of our ecosystem, and we need to design our homes and infrastructure accordingly.

On Friday, August 25th, I was allowed to return home. The same day, the airport was reopened. My neighbourhood was intact, but driving northward I passed many charred and burnt trees, and a number of destroyed structures. My home was untouched, but there were large, muddy boot prints on my back porch that showed how close the fire had come. Firefighters had thrown flammable items from the porch, such as chair cushions, into my backyard and away from my house. On October 18th, all the fires in the Grouse Complex were officially declared to be out. Hiking around my neighbourhood that month, I noticed that new grass had already begun to sprout, and deer and other wildlife had returned to burned out areas.

Future fires, if not completely avoidable, can be effectively mitigated and greatly reduced in terms of cost and damage through inexpensive preventative measures. To achieve this, however, many different disciplines need to begin cooperating. As Lee says, “Fire departments and the forest service can’t do it by themselves. Builders, architects and developers need to be integrated into the system to make it work better for everybody.”

Dr. Douglas MacLeod, FRAIC, is the Chair of the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University.

 
As appeared in the April 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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A Brock researcher is aiming to shape the future of sustainable construction through the use of engineered bamboo, a material that’s considered “unconventional.”

With funding from a Government of Canada Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s (NSERC) Discovery Grant, Amir Mofidi, associate professor of engineering, is using advanced techniques to fabricate new forms of engineered bamboo as both an economical and practical alternative for construction purposes.

“When thinking about construction materials, the industry predominantly relies on steel and concrete, which are high in carbon emissions, and faster growing soft wood timber, which requires 30 to 40 years to grow,” said Mofidi.

Mofidi, who is internationally recognized for rehabilitating existing concrete structures, noted that a common sustainability approach in the construction industry is to prolong the lifetime of existing buildings, bridges and other structures.

“The construction industry moves quickly, so it’s important to innovate the supply chain with alternatives for fabrication with highly renewable resources,” said Mofidi.

Giant bamboo is a fast growing, strong and durable material that comes in the form of hollow cross sections that can be as wide as 250 millimetres. They can grow to minimum heights of three to four metres and some species can even grow as fast as one metre a day and may only need four to five years before they are mature enough to harvest.

Mofidi noted that bamboo’s hollow shape limits its use in construction. As a result Mofidi is pursuing the possibility of growing non-invasive bamboo species in a laboratory that can survive in -20C to -30C weather with the goal of finding a species strong enough for construction that can be grown locally outdoors.

“We are mindful of the need to protect surrounding agriculture and have selected varieties that have their own root structures,” said Mofidi. “Ultimately, we want to develop partnerships with the Niagara farming community and provide an economically justifiable crop.”

It’s important to note, however, that these crops are not to be confused with bamboo species commonly planted in residential yards, that have a reputation for invading neighbouring properties. Mofidi highlighted that in many countries, farmers will plant a row of non-invasive bamboo around their fields to protect against insects and flooding.

“The giant bamboo is an impressive plant with potential that is not fully recognized yet,” said Mofidi. “There are even varieties with roots that can purify contaminated water.”

While modern kitchens and bathrooms often use engineered bamboo for cabinetry in the form of tiny strips shaped together, bamboo has been used in traditional architecture in China and East Asia for thousands of years.

“The realization that giant bamboo has the potential to become the construction material of the future came to me a few years ago while in discussion with two undergraduate students,” said Mofidi.

The students approached Mofidi because they wanted to do research relevant to their backgrounds in Hong Kong and Central Africa, which are both areas known for the use of bamboo in construction.

“I knew concrete and timber, but bamboo was a new field of research for me,” said Mofidi. “Sustainability in construction is something that fascinates me, and I quickly realized there is huge potential here.”

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The gracious Spanish hospitality and beautiful backdrop that is València were once again the settings for the 2023 editions of Feria Hábitat València and Home Textiles Premium by Textilhogar.

This year’s edition took place in the eight halls at Feria Valencia across 96,000 square metres of commercial exhibition space. The exhibition featured a total of 881 international companies and brands and welcomed 45,026 visitors over the course of the four-day event.

This year, visitors came from 80 countries, including Portugal, France, Italy, the U.S., Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, Morocco, Nigeria, the U.K., Russia and Ukraine.

From the thoughtful incorporation of sustainable materials to items with unique backstories, this year’s edition of Feria Hábitat in València, Spain, featured over 800 exhibitors and thousands of industry professionals and interior design afficionados that gathered to see the latest designs throughout the course of the four-day event.

Here are a few products that stood out.

Bold by Studiopepe | Sancal

This new collection, designed by Studiopepe, features bold, extra large dimensions (hence the name) and aims to create fluid transitions in interior spaces. According to Sancal’s website, the irregular outlines in this sculptural piece “pay homage to the charismatic and casual Memphis style.” This piece comes in a variety of tones which can add a pop of colour to an otherwise neutral-coloured space.

Gatsby Doble Base Table | Vondom

Vondom, known for its outdoor furniture selection, showcased their new Gatsby collection at this year’s event, which includes the doble base dining table, designed by Ramón Esteve and recalls Art Déco lighting. Meant to be reminiscent of the roaring ‘20s (given the name and its backstory), this collection aims to represent the classic American novel’s iconic mention of “the American Dream.” This table can be a great option for hosting outdoor events since it can accomodate multiple seats.

Boom Sofa | Plust

While other items from this collection have already been introduced, the Boom sofa made its debut this year. The sofa features a curved shape that provides a modern look and is part of the collection designed by Marco Gregori. While the Boom collection was launched in 2022, the sofa and coffee table were new additions showcased at the fair. The products in this collection feature designs meant to encourage socialization and conviviality and are made with plastic mixtures. The pieces can also be illuminated from within.

Cutout Table | Siru

From the bold colours and unique designs and shapes, Siru’s booth featured an array of interesting products from their new Cutout collection. This collection uses the art of cutting out metal sheeting, which is held together by a light, tubular structure. The shelves provide a unique storage solution making it a great option as a console table. Since it also comes in a variety of colours, it also makes for a great decorative piece that adds a pop of colour in a living room.

TELFS Side Table | Vical

This new contemporary side table, called the TELFS Mesa Auxiliar (which translates to side table) is artisanal-made which ensures each piece is unique. Made from concrete, this table in a grey hue makes it a versatile addition to various indoor spaces. Serving as either a decorative addition beside a couch or in a corner to accentuate home décor pieces, the options for styling this minimalist table are endless.

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Recent surveys point to the need to adapt education and practice to address sustainability challenges.

In an era of momentous change, architecture is facing the challenge of reskilling to design for sustainability. This will necessarily involve both the formal education of architecture students, and the continuing education of architectural practitioners. Adaptive reskilling will involve developing competencies related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, but also addressing converging issues under the umbrella of sustainability: inhabitant health and wellbeing, affordability, accessibility, equity and resilience. The future relevance and vitality of architecture in Canada will hinge on its ability to assume a variety of competencies, all related to design for sustainability.

In 1969, Herbert Simon defined design as “transforming an existing condition into a preferred one.” In making this transition, it is vital that we do not throw out the baby with the bath water. Design must be at the heart of an architectural response to climate change and to the other pressing issues facing society. 

If architects want to be seen as sources of knowledge and authority in the fight for more equitable, comfortable and healthy cities, it will also involve making some serious changes beyond technical reskilling. These will involve choosing optimism, listening to stakeholders and communities, and meaningfully collaborating beyond our disciplinary silos. Clients, regulators, municipalities, manufacturers, constructors and many others in the planning, design, and construction processes will also need to skill up and do better. 

As the Rise for Architecture initiative reports, “Canadians are facing many intersecting challenges that are both impacting—and being impacted by—architecture. The climate crisis, social justice, truth and reconciliation, human health and wellbeing, economic disparity, and political instability can all be hindered or helped by architecture. Yet few Canadians truly understand the impact it has on their everyday lives.”

“These complex challenges, paired with architecture’s obscure policies, restrict meaningful public participation and hinder communities from becoming healthier, more affordable, just, and resilient. For architecture to truly help Canadian communities thrive, we need a new social contract between the profession of architecture and the public we serve,” the report concludes. “We imagine a future where all Canadians are empowered to guide the design of their communities; where social and environmental justice shape every design decision; and where architecture is leveraged to celebrate diverse cultures and contribute to a prosperous future.” 

How do we get from here to there? Recently, two Canadian surveys have attempted to gauge one aspect of where we are at now, by including a focus on climate change competency.

Climate Curriculum

The ClimateCurriculum.ca initiative was launched in 2022 at Toronto Metropolitan University to better understand how students of architecture are engaging with climate change and sustainable design. The first phase involved a web-based survey for Canadian students and instructors; the second phase was the launch of an international poster competition where students graphically presented their ideas about how architecture should engage with climate change. The data collected in the 19-question web survey is the first national data of its kind, and it was inspired by and adapted from a survey by the ARCH4 Change Erasmus+ consortium, led by Tampere University in Finland, with Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark, Bologna University in Italy, Taltech in Estonia, and TU Dublin in Ireland.

The premise of these surveys is the belief that future practice will require a greater understanding of the environmental impacts of architecture, and that future professionals will be asked to design net-zero buildings and understand metrics for embodied carbon and renewable energy. The Climate Curriculum survey sought to understand: will students be ready for their future professional lives in the context of a changing climate, extreme weather, and a focus on higher building performance? Do they feel satisfied and prepared by their architectural education?

The initiative collected 196 survey responses from across all 12 of Canada’s accredited architecture schools, and results were presented in an Issue Paper at the 2022 CACB conference. More than 92 percent of responses either agreed or strongly agreed that sustainable design should be a core part of architecture education, and more than 94 percent of responses either agreed or strongly agreed that sustainable design should be embedded in architectural design curricula. 59 percent of respondents indicated they were being explicitly taught about sustainable design, and more than 88 percent of responses either agreed or strongly agreed that sustainable design provides a creative input or inspiration in their designs. 

Yet just 36 percent of responses either agreed or strongly agreed that they are satisfied by the level and depth of teaching content on sustainable design. Only 45 percent either agreed or strongly agreed that their school successfully teaches sustainable design.

When asked about a number of specific aspects of sustainable design, the overall feedback indicates that students lack confidence that they are well prepared, and want more of the curriculum devoted to sustainable design. In particular, respondents believe there is a gap between what they are taught—and what they feel they need to know, or should be taught. Respondents expressed strong opinions about the connection between architecture, climate change, and sustainable design, but reported they do not have confidence in their knowledge about many key terms and concepts. A climate-centred curriculum should be explicitly part of the education of architects, as has now been mandated in the UK.

The survey also points to the need for educators and accrediting bodies to embed sustainable design in the architecture curriculum, in particular by reinforcing sustainable design concepts in studio. While 74 percent of students believe that successful design studio projects must address sustainable design, only 38 percent feel this aspect of their designs is being formally evaluated. 

Within these responses, there is a lot to be optimistic about. Students overwhelmingly report they are interested in learning more about sustainable design, and incorporating climate action into their curriculum. But until such time as sustainable design and the essential knowledge and skills are clearly defined, it is difficult to formulate fundamental course content. Further, if this learning is not embedded and reinforced across the curriculum—both in lecture and studio courses—then it will remain challenging to assure students will graduate with a high degree of competence in sustainable design.

Canadian Architectural Practices Benchmark Survey (2023)

The RAIC and Canadian Architect’s recent benchmarking survey refreshes a previous 2011 survey, adding new sections related to Indigenous themes and reconciliation, EDI, and climate action. 

When asked: “Does your firm have a formal commitment to leadership on climate action?” one-third of responding practices indicated they did. These commitments varied across a wide range of initiatives, such as LEED, Passive House, 2030 Challenge, net-zero and a diversity of internal policies. Regardless of whether they have a formal commitment, nearly half of the responding architecture firms are engaged in the mitigation of operational and whole life carbon. About a third of firms engage in climate change adaptation, and roughly one in seven firms advocate for climate justice. About one-third of firms indicated they did not engage in any form of mitigation, adaptation or climate justice measures. 

A follow-up question asked: “To what extent do you feel that your organization is engaged in climate action, relative to its capacity to be?” A third of firms believe they apply up to one-quarter of their potential capacity towards climate action. Another third felt they applied between one-quarter to one-half of their potential capacity towards climate action initiatives. 24 percent of firms reported they achieved one-half to three-quarters of their climate action capacity, and 11 percent indicated achieving better than three-quarters of their potential capacity to engage climate action leadership in practice. Based on these responses, it appears that one in ten practices are highly engaged and committed with respect to their potential capacity, about six out of ten are moderately engaged, and that three out of ten are marginally engaged in climate action leadership activities. Another way of interpreting these results is that only about one-third of respondents believed they were working to 50 percent or more of their potential capacity to engage climate action initiatives. 

When asked, “What is your sense of the importance of climate action?” over 80 percent of survey respondents indicated they sensed climate action as being highly to extremely important. Clearly, a vast majority of architecture firms acknowledge the importance of climate action in professional practice.

Finally, respondents were asked: “How would you rate your own climate action knowledge and competency development?” Based on a scale of 0 (Poor) to 10 (Excellent), about one in 10 respondents rated their climate action knowledge and competence as somewhat less than half of what would be considered excellent (0-5). Roughly six out of ten rated their climate action knowledge and competence as ranging from moderate to high (6-8), while some three out of ten rated themselves as possessing a very high to excellent level (9-10). Assuming that self-assessed levels of climate action knowledge are reasonably well correlated with externally assessed levels of competence, there is clearly  justification for improving general levels of expertise. At present, there are no mandatory continuing education requirements related to climate change competence for practicing architects.

The key takeaways from the two surveys? Both architecture students and practitioners believe that climate action is extremely important. Both groups are aware there are gaps in their climate action knowledge and skills, and that they could be learning and doing more about climate action leadership. It is encouraging that some firms reported significant commitments to, and competencies in, climate action leadership. This indicates that a transition toward greater emphasis on climate action and sustainable design is desirable, realistic and achievable.

Moving forward, taking action

Transitions necessarily generate tensions as academia and the profession stretch to adapt to a changing context. In 1970, American futurist Alvin Toffler identified “future shock” as a psychological state of individuals and society, stemming from enormous structural changes in a post-industrial society. The architecture discipline has attempted to buffer many significant changes—globalization, environmental responsibility, sustainability, computational design—in order to preserve the traditional core of the discipline. However, the intensity and magnitude of significant changes have now reached a threshold where difficult choices must be made between core traditions and emerging realities. 

What happens when existing courses compete with climate change competency courses? How can computation and digital fabrication be integrated within design studios? These are difficult challenges that are generating discomforting conversations as they start to happen across architecture schools everywhere.

On the professional front, architecture offices are looking for ways of reskilling their staff while recruiting interns suitably prepared to tackle the 3-Ls: long life, loose fit, and low-impact buildings. Architects need to be able to speak the languages of the various expert consultants that are routinely retained to conduct assessments that inform early stages of design, and later, to ensure compliance with codes and standards. While larger practices can afford to retain resident, in-house expertise, the vast majority of smaller practices need to make tough choices between attempting to learn enough about energy modelling, daylighting, and life cycle assessments to do the work themselves, or convincing their clients to agree to additional fees for specialty consultants that were unheard of over a decade ago. A divide is emerging between architecture practices that have ample resources to engage the sustainability challenge, and those that do not have sufficient bandwidth or access to clients with long-term sustainability goals and the deep pockets to attain these targets. 

The consumers of architecture services are caught in the middle. Many want to build better, but do not have access to a competitive diversity of competent practices with a demonstrated track record. Industry-wide, a lack of post-occupancy evaluation has resulted in a performance gap between sustainability promises and what is actually delivered. This kind of situation would never be tolerated by consumers of automobiles—and the day is nearing when mandatory building performance measurement and reporting will require architects to consistently hit environmental performance targets, in the same way that cars must comply with fuel efficiency and emissions standards.

Stakeholder engagement will be key to a successful transition. Architecture accreditation requirements need to be brought up to date. Professional licensing bodies and educational institutions will have to ensure the ongoing competence of practitioners and instructors, respectively. A more frequent and effective means of reviewing and updating curriculum and continuing education content will need to be instituted. The rate of change must be managed so that the transition is not overwhelming, while still being sufficiently responsive to meet new challenges. Most importantly, the change must begin now.

Adaptive reskilling of architecture—not as we have known it up to the present, but as it needs to evolve in order to manage massive change—is a daunting challenge that schools and the profession cannot afford to ignore. The good news is that the essential knowledge is finite and readily available for dissemination. But letting go of past academic traditions and anachronistic modes of professional practice will not get any easier with time. The recent Canadian surveys indicate a broad awareness that much needs to be done to adapt architecture education and professional practice. This should be celebrated, even if it is accompanied with some degree of shock and discomfort. If architects could transition from drafting tables to computer-aided design and digital fabrication, it is imperative to take the next leap into a rapidly unfolding future. Is there any other option?

Terri Peters is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University. Ted Kesik is Professor of Building Science in the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.

This article is part of Canadian Architect’s series on the Canadian Architectural Practices Benchmark Report (2023 Edition). The full report is available for purchase from the RAIC. 

See all articles in the November issue 

Read additional articles in Canadian Architect’s series on the Canadian Architectural Practices Benchmark Report (2023 Edition):

·        Benchmark Report 2023: The State of Canadian Architectural Practice

·        Benchmark 2023: How’s your firm’s financial health?

·        Benchmark Report 2023: Mixed Prospects

·        Benchmark Report 2023: Architecture and Capital “M” Marketing

·        Benchmark Report 2023: Firm Expectations—Managing Remote Work and Flexibility

·        Benchmark Report 2023: Women in Canadian Architecture—An Update

·        Benchmark Report 2023: Competitive Compensation

·        Benchmark Report 2023: Looking Ahead—Succession Planning and Firm Value

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The Science Collaboration Centre (SCC), a key facility in the revitalization of the Chalk River Laboratories campus in Ontario, will serve as the central planning and collaboration space for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ Science and Technology programs. The mass timber building is designed by architecture firm HDR, as part of CNL IPD NB Poly Party Team.

The SCC is one of three non-nuclear buildings recently built at the Chalk River Laboratories using mass timber, sustainably sourced within Canada. The new complex features a total of 44 meeting rooms, collaborative flex spaces, a university-style auditorium with 200 theatre-style seats, a library space, and a roof-top terrace.

In our earlier article on the trio of buildings, we reported on the innovation of the structural column design in the Science Collaboration Centre. The column includes notches that provide bearing support for the beams, while a vertical channel allows for surface-mounted conduit, which continues along the ceiling in a service pathway framed by a pair of purlins.

On September 6, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) president and CEO, Fred Dermarkar, and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) president and CEO, Joe McBrearty, joined other industry executives and representatives, government officials and special guests to celebrate the grand opening of the new facility with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a facility tour of the new building. Staffing of the building began on September 25, 2023.

The SCC is a six-storey, 9,500 m² building and is one of a series of new ‘enabling’ buildings that are being built at the Chalk River Laboratories site with the aim to revitalize the campus. This is made possible by a $1.2 billion investment over ten years from AECL and the Government of Canada.

The new facility features a modern office space and meeting rooms for approximately 450 employees, and serves as the new home for CNL’s staff library, auditorium and data centre.

CNL’s three new non-nuclear buildings use approximately 3,750 m³ of mass timber as structural material. This is equivalent to taking 800 gas-powered cars off the road or the energy from 400 homes in a year.

The new complex also aims to promote wellness and social governance through the use of other natural elements, light and materials.

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For architects who work with commercial office buildings, these are interesting times. Rising interest rates and the pandemic have led to a surge of commercial loan defaults and property vacancies. Simultaneously, new office construction continues to boom in many major centres, as larger companies shift to higher quality, amenity-rich, and sustainable office buildings. 

As a result, demand for Class A buildings—the most prestigious locations—has remained firm. Demand for mid-range Class B and no-frills Class C spaces, on the other hand, has softened. 

Some city builders see an opportunity to convert this older stock to residential and mixed-use, addressing both the glut in office vacancies and the housing crunch. One of the leaders in this effort is the city of Calgary, Alberta.

‘Made in Calgary Solutions’

While the pandemic shift to work-from-home models triggered new discussions about office conversions in many cities, Calgary’s oil and gas driven boom-and-bust cycles gave it a head start. Alberta’s commercial capital has historically had a high ratio of office space to population, and began struggling with vacancies during the last energy sector downturn, in 2014. By 2020, office vacancy rates had risen to 32%, eroding the city’s property tax base and creating a cash crisis. This galvanized the city to take action. 

“We could have reduced office vacancy by putting server farms into the downtown core,” said Thom Mahler, The City of Calgary’s Director of Downtown Strategy, at the annual convention of the SSHRC research partnership on Quality in Canada’s Built Environment this spring. “But that doesn’t do a lot for the small businesses, because server farms don’t go and buy lunch in the food court. So, it was important to have residential as our first focus.”

Calgary Economic Development worked with developers, community groups, and businesses, including global architectural firm Gensler, to strategize on their underperforming properties. The result, Calgary’s Downtown Development Incentive Program, is the first of its kind in Canada. The program is designed to support revitalization of the downtown core by encouraging the conversion of underused office space into residential units. 

The plan is simple: the city provides grants of $75 per square foot (up to $15M) for the converted space, waives the need for a development permit, and expedites its approval processes. “It’s five months for approvals and $17,000 per unit [in development charges] in Calgary, versus 30-plus months and $100,000-plus per unit in Toronto or Vancouver,” said Veronica Green, Associate, Development, with Slate Asset Management, at a recent Urban Land Institute panel.

Since its 2021 launch, Calgary’s program is well on its way towards its goal to converting six million of the downtown’s 14 million vacant square feet of offices over 10 years, and to increasing the downtown population by 20% in the process. The 10 approved projects will create some 1,237 units of housing, ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments, and including affordable units as well as units that will rent at 20% below market rate.

A Data-driven Approach

To identify and evaluate the top candidates for cost-effective conversions, Gensler turned design thinking into numbers. The firm created a parameterized algorithm that quickly scored each vacant building using factors that make for a good residential conversion—site context, building form, floor plate and core positioning, envelope, servicing. The algorithm identified a dozen downtown structures that would be viable for conversions. Some of the higher-scoring typologies were buildings with closed offices that were originally constructed in the late ’60s and ’70s—they generally have smaller floor plates and good corridor-to-window depth—as well as heritage buildings from the first half of the 20th century, which boast brick façades and punched windows.

Residential conversions bring multi-faceted benefits: higher ceilings, desirable locations, and potentially higher floor space ratios compared to typical new apartment buildings. 

Some of the buildings in Calgary’s roster of conversions have deep building floor plates, and while this isn’t ideal, creative workarounds can be found. Other cities with similar large, converted buildings have repurposed internal areas as bicycle and tenant storage; added lightwells to draw daylight deep into the building core; or made selective exterior massing adjustments to improve light and air penetration. By switching to a decentralized HVAC system, redundant double-height mechanical floors can be converted to amenity spaces and terraces. 

Preserving the building fabric can help create a tangible cultural legacy. “Three of the buildings that have come forward are three of our finest examples of mid-century modern office buildings: the Baron building, the Petro Fina building and the Petro Chemical building,” says Mahler. “So, by offering this [office-to-residential conversion] program, we’ve actually been able to do much more by way of heritage preservation. And these are all along Stephen Avenue, and we’ll be able to do a much better job at telling the story of Calgary’s office history and petrochemical industry through architecture.”

Beyond the Building

The buildings slated for conversion are clustered at the east and west ends of Calgary’s downtown core, creating a positive downstream effect for the wider neighbourhoods. The injection of more residential units is stimulating a broader downtown revitalization, and a need for a different city fabric than what has existed for an office-focused area. 

“We’ve been told by proponents converting these buildings to residential, ‘We’ll do our part, but your downtown is not great for residential amenities. You need to be investing in spaces and places that will make it desirable for someone to sign a lease for these properties,’” says Mahler. As a result, the city has undertaken a slate of capital projects including rebuilding Stephen Avenue and 8th Street SW with better public spaces, new paving, lighting, and better connections for all mobility modes in order to support more diverse, mixed-use neighbourhoods. “Our design philosophy [centres] on how to reconfigure public space to support these residential conversions,” says Mahler.

Calgary’s conversion program has since expanded to support the additional conversion of vacant offices into hotels, K-12 schools, performance spaces, and post-secondary institutions. 

Sustainability needs play an increasingly important role in project economics and city policy. According to Architecture 2030, the concrete used in new buildings is responsible for 11% of global carbon emissions. Adaptive reuse can cut that by up to 80%. Conversion presents an opportunity to upgrade an older structure’s energy efficiency and environmental resiliency. Arguably, the more diverse urban fabric will also upgrade Calgary’s social and economic resiliency.

Challenges

By streamlining permitting and providing robust incentives, Calgary has created a favorable environment for office conversions. Other cities are experiencing a slower journey. Across Canada, few developers and property owners have opted in, either sitting on the sidelines awaiting a market correction, or urging for subsidies to reduce their risk. 

The profitability equation is complex when weighing the cost, risk and future revenue associated with the choices between converting a building, demolishing it and building new, or holding an asset until the next market cycle. The technical complexity, hidden costs, and industry’s inexperience in office conversions all increase development risk. “These are difficult projects to pencil out,” says Stephen Paynter, a Toronto–based partner at Gensler. Educating developer clients to think beyond their usual metrics is a necessary part of the process to encourage developers to gain experience and improve their comfort levels. “More imagination is needed [as a counterbalance to the] condo formula-based approach,” says Paynter. 

Ultimately, while office conversions can get complicated, they generally come in at a lower cost per unit—Gensler estimates a 30% savings compared to new construction—and with a faster completion. In the case of Calgary, the city’s financial incentives cover about a third of the cost of conversion.

Some view the outdated planning policy context and bureaucracy in older, larger cities as contributing to the slowness. In Toronto, a staggering 40 million square feet of new office space is in the approvals pipeline. Yet, there’s also a decades-old replacement rule in the Financial District—if you demolish an office, it must be replaced like for like, by an office—which is stalling progress, according to Veronica Green at Slate Asset Management. “What needs to happen is a softening or a dismantling of some of these municipal or provincial policies, and there must be a clear path to redevelopment, so we can let the market react, address the realities of the supply we have today, and assess future demand.” 

In a recent report on office conversions, the Canadian Urban Institute identified 130 office buildings in 11 cities across Canada as suitable for conversion to residential. There are increasing headwinds: pressure on municipalities to maintain their tax base, concerns over the hollowing out of downtowns, the increasing reach and weight of environmental regulations. As a recent Brookings Institute report titled “Myths about converting offices into housing—and what can really revitalize downtowns” noted, conversions alone cannot solve the problems of excess office inventory or housing demand. Furthermore, thought needs to be given as to causes and consequences. Is this a market failure or a public policy problem? How should the burden and the rewards be allocated among public and private actors? Nonetheless, conversions can contribute to more active and vibrant neighbourhoods in former business districts, while chalking up sustainability gains. 

Calgary has shown itself to be nimble in enabling office conversions, partnering with experts, obtaining city council buy-in, and developing an evidence-based and actionable program with a long-term vision. However, other cities will have differing priorities and policy landscapes. For instance, what level of subsidy is financially viable in other cities? Is an equity interest by the city politically feasible to meet affordable housing expectations? While it remains to be seen what aspects of its program can be adopted elsewhere, Calgary has shown that innovative approaches to city-building are possible, and that architects remain a key voice.

Stephanie Calvet AIA is a Toronto-based writer, and architecture and design consultant.

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Some 20 years ago, I had the privilege of working with architecture students at the University of Toronto to develop a website called Architectural Science Forum. The site was hosted by Canadian Architect magazine, and funded by a generous donation from the late Jim Cassell, then the Senior VP of Arriscraft in Cambridge, Ontario. It consisted of modules on sustainability principles, enclosure, design strategies, design tools, durability and detailing—topics for which scant resources were available at the time. An abridged article on each topic appeared in the magazine, then edited by Marco Polo. 

Architectural Science Forum was based on a simple model of sustainability dynamics. Within each ecological setting, humans evolve cultures as a means of enabling survival. These cultures produce technologies such as language, tools, agriculture, and buildings that improve the odds of survival and quality of life, so long as their impacts are confined within a sustainable ecological footprint.

When technologies become dysfunctional and adversely impact the ecology—such as with the over-combustion of fossil fuels for energy—then an appropriate cultural response and re-crafting of the technologies are needed to restore a sustainable balance. The same may be said about architecture as it seeks to adapt its culture and technologies to emerging existential challenges. Humankind is currently in a restorative loop as we reach the limits of growth. This explains why evidence-based architectural science has become essential in guiding sustainable development: we must be reasonably certain we are making things better, rather than worse.

A major focus of the Forum was the building enclosure. In the early 2000s, thermal insulation levels were commonly increased to promote energy conservation, but as a result, many buildings were experiencing performance problems related to the inadequate management of heat, air and moisture flows. Building enclosure performance problems continue to constitute most claims against practicing architects to this day, but there is now a readily accessible arsenal of modern building science principles and strategies in the design of durable, high-performance enclosures. Similarly, it is fair to say that virtually all the issues and challenges identified back with the turn-of-the-millennium Architectural Science Forum have now been engaged by schools and the profession to some degree. 

But new challenges of great urgency abound. Studio culture continues to emphasize individual expression over the collective collaboration of an integrated design process (IDP). The integrated design process is capable of producing far more sustainable architecture than the linear assembly line model, where the building design is sequentially passed on from one discipline to the next, thus stitching together piecemeal Frankensteins that are kept alive with enormous carbon inputs. We witness the products of this outmoded model of professional practice in the large stock of dysfunctional buildings constructed since the end of World War II, which now represent a burden of deep retrofits and decarbonization efforts to be carried on the stressed-out shoulders and empty wallets of the post-pandemic generation of Canadians.

The decades-long fixation on energy efficiency is only now starting to wane as an appreciation of the critical impact of embodied carbon in buildings on global warming gains ascendancy. It is now recognized that time is running out for climate change mitigation as we approach a critical tipping point in mean global temperature rise. If we fail to meet our greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, then climate change beyond the tipping point will unleash extreme weather events that will drive a widespread need for climate change adaptation. Buildings account for some 40% of global carbon emissions and Canada’s demand for buildings is growing. How can we achieve sustainable development while living within our allowable ecological footprint?

Here then, some 20 years later for the second time around, is a short list of some of the emerging issues and challenges facing the next generation of Canadian architects and architecture educators. Unlike two decades ago, the issues and challenges are not primarily technological—they are cultural.

Climate Change Mitigation Versus Adaptation – Finding the Balance

There is currently a natural tension arising between the need to engage climate change mitigation versus adapting to the demands of a changing climate and extreme weather events. Clearly, we need to reduce our current carbon footprint drastically in the short term to avoid global warming tipping points, and the associated severe climate events we are starting to witness today. But neglecting the need for resiliency carries an enormous carbon footprint as damages are cleaned up, requiring the repair and replacement of buildings and infrastructure. For the built environment, in particular buildings, the question is: do we focus on reducing the carbon footprint of new and existing buildings, or do we look at enhancing their resilience? Can we somehow do both?

While building codes are slow to change, the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events induced by climate change are beginning to adversely impact human health and safety. If codes and standards do not evolve, the insurance industry will impose premiums that reflect the damages and losses to buildings resulting from climate change; in some cases, assets may not be insured at all because the risks are too high. Either way, architectural design will have to address the need for enhanced resilience. But can this higher level of performance be achieved within a sustainable carbon footprint? When answering this question, it is important to appreciate that resilience is not the new sustainability, and while the two concepts are related, they should not be confused. Resilience is like a shock absorber that allows for a safe, smooth ride, while sustainability is the road taken—one that hopefully does not lead to a precipice or dead end. 

Life Cycle Design of Buildings

One way of finding the balance between mitigation and adaptation is to adopt a life cycle approach to the design of buildings. Over the past two years, a growing interest in embodied carbon, non-extractive architecture, and the need for a more circular building industry, has brought forward the importance of life cycle assessment (LCA). Several recent articles in Canadian Architect by Kelly Doran and Anthony Pak underlined the importance of material choices, durability and adaptability for reducing the ecological footprint of buildings.

If the objective in Canada is to achieve a net-zero carbon building stock, this can only be accomplished by taking in the whole life cycle of buildings, from cradle to cradle, within a circular building economy. But no form of life cycle assessment is mandated in our green standards, step codes, or design competitions. 

The concept of a life cycle approach has a cultural component. There is a major disconnect between the reality of the ecological footprint exerted by buildings and the importance placed on their visual appearance, with elegance of form, geometry and composition divorced from performance attributes that render a building sustainable. The predominant focus in design schools on the building as a singular object obscures the fact that buildings are in fact processes—ones that unfold slowly over timeframes that exceed the average life spans of humans. The types of case studies and design exercises needed to impart this overview of architecture as a set of cultural resources, as opposed to art objects or speculative investments, are largely absent.

Strategies and guidelines to inform the early stages of design are also critical to sustainable architecture that delivers high performance, at the lowest life cycle costs, and with the fewest environmental impacts. A large number of green and clean technologies are being innovated, but there is not a corresponding advancement of the lean design basis for truly sustainable architecture. More must be done to revive the elegance of vernacular and passive systems that dominated architecture long before cheap and plentiful fossil fuels swept aside form and fabric with brute-force electro-mechanical conditioning.

Today’s innovation additionally requires the application of evidence-based building science. How do we forecast how sustainable a given project will prove to be over its life cycle? This kind of question can only begin to be addressed by evaluating built and occupied projects. Measuring energy performance, embodied and operational carbon, indoor environmental quality, and occupant comfort and satisfaction can provide critical feedback to improve design and project delivery. This feedback is particularly important for healthcare facilities, where the wellbeing of both the patients and the healthcare providers impacts health outcomes. The quality of buildings ranging from housing and schools to offices and hospitals cannot be significantly improved without measuring and reporting actual outcomes over the life cycle of buildings. Evidence gathering, analysis and synthesis are the backbone of the health sciences, but remain largely ignored in the architecture academy and profession. People inhabit actual buildings situated in communities—not architecture theories nested in urbanist ideologies. Architecture must enter into the 21st century by measuring outcomes that inform evidence-based design.

Mass Customization of Architecture Education

There is much concern about architecture education being out of touch with current realities. And there is even greater concern that our schools are not future-proofing students for careers that will peak several decades after graduation. Meantime, students remain glued to their computer screens instead of engaging in fieldwork that has them experience architecture directly, and more importantly, gather feedback from building inhabitants. Cities are living laboratories that no manner of research funding could ever afford to reproduce, yet there is almost no time devoted in the current architecture curriculum to surveying the built environment. As the title of Phyllis Lambert’s latest book so aptly reminds us, “Observation is a constant that underlies all approaches.”

The reality is that, given the large number of balls students now have to juggle in order to explore just the most basic aspects of contemporary building design, it is only possible to cover what may be termed “shell and core” professional education. The university provides a framework that the graduates must augment, in conjunction with their employers, when they pursue internships. To some extent, this was always the case, but the degree of superficiality in curriculum has dramatically increased over the past several decades, because there is simply insufficient time to engage most of the subject matter in depth. 

Can schools of architecture continue offering a one-size-fits-all professional degree program that is primarily aimed at producing ‘design’ architects? Streaming is a reality after graduation, and many students would benefit from choosing a stream while still in school. Why is the retrofit, rehabilitation and repurposing of existing buildings not given the same emphasis as the design of new buildings? If roughly half the current practice involves existing buildings, then perhaps some courses and studios could be devoted to deep retrofits and repurposing. In the absence of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) and building performance evaluation (BPE), how can we expect to determine if the buildings we produce to protect us from extinction are effective, and as importantly, contribute to enhancing the good life? Measuring the various dimensions of building performance deserves to be studied and students must learn to engage in meaningful field work. 

The risk in architecture’s common future is that it falls victim to untested ideologies. It is widely viewed that architecture must once and for all abandon the elitist Fountainhead mentality and courageously embrace an evidence-based, integrated design process that does not fear evaluating itself according to criteria that are meaningful to the people that inhabit the buildings and the communities where they live, work and play.

It is widely understood that most of the professional development for architects occurs after graduation during their internships. Looking at buildings for guidance, perhaps architecture education should focus on a sound intellectual armature of good bones to provide an adaptive structure for ongoing internship, practice and lifelong learning. Fads and style trends are for the fashion industry, where clothing only needs to last one season—not for buildings that must endure a changing climate, culture and economy for many generations to come. 

Exorcising Architecture’s Existential Déja Voodoo

Will artificial intelligence displace architects? It is more likely that a failure by the architecture discipline to adapt to the realities of our times will devalue and diminish both the academy and the profession. 

Expo 67 and its theme of Man and His World represented a watershed moment for Canada as a nation, but especially for its architecture community. Montreal architect Moshe Safdie’s revolutionary Habitat 67—along with over 60 pavilions designed by some of the world’s leading architects—exposed some 50 million visitors at Expo 67 to a new awareness about the role of the built environment in mankind’s future. Many people view this as the big event of the 20th century that brought Canada out of its colonial closet. The Canadian architecture community was among the groups most highly affected.

The post-Expo 67 existential angst over architecture education has returned today, because of numerous disconnects between societal expectations, the heightened demands of professional practice in the absence of compensating offsets to fee schedules and liabilities, and the anachronistic accreditation requirements that handcuff the architecture academy to deliver relevant programs of professional education.

In 1969, a new model of architectural education was being introduced by Peter Prangnell at the University of Toronto. An overview by Canadian Architect editor Robert Gretton stated, “There is widespread unease that unless architectural education shifts to meet the new demands, other people will assume the task of solving the critical issues facing man and city,” (CA, Feb 1969). One again fears there is a genuine risk that architecture stands to lose its leadership role in the shaping of our buildings and communities, unless it embraces the need for more applied, multidisciplinary research. Even though the same concerns arose in the 1960s, for over half a century, architecture schools and the profession have failed to demonstrate research leadership within their own discipline.

“We’re witnessing new challenges and problems in the built environment,” said Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena in an interview with The Globe and Mail in 2016. “The questions are new, and the starting points are very far from architecture. These are,” he continued, “the forces at play in cities, from migration to insecurity to pollution to inequality. These are problems that do not belong to the architectural realm. They are issues that interest society at large. For architects the challenge is: how do we use our specific expertise and translate these issues into form?”

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be of little assistance to the cause of sustainable architecture if those that command it lack the deep knowledge and understanding of what matters. Garbage in, garbage out—computation is not a God, but a tool, and the resulting work is only as good as the heart and mind of the tool user.

Deploying energy models, simulating daylight, and conducting life cycle assessments will not save architecture from extinction—not any more than having architects perform their own structural analysis, since there are specialty consultants who possess greater expertise and can do this sort of work much better and more cost effectively. While architects need to understand the fundamental concepts and limitations underlying all allied design disciplines, much like orchestra conductors, there is no need for them to be virtuosos on every instrument. Instead, they must be well-versed in the synthesis and integration of multi-disciplinary inputs to the design of buildings.

Appreciation of the ‘big picture’ and the ability to bring lateral thinking, synthesis and integration to design problems is the unique purview of architects, and focusing on these attributes while remaining societally relevant is key to sustaining architecture’s status. This implies a massive shift in how professional practices are structured and operated to respond to shifting societal priorities.

Stewardship, Not Authorship
Much like music, the fine arts and literature, architecture was traditionally concerned with authorship that bestowed credit and intellectual property to architects. The recent shift in thinking that was spurred on by the environmental movement and the more recent life cycle assessment of buildings has made obvious the need for stewardship of our built environment.

In the conventional mode of architecture practice in Canada, architects conceive one building project after another, and subsequently abandon their offspring after they are born. There is still little interest in adopting a cradle-to-cradle approach to architecture practice that embraces the principles of a circular building economy. That’s a missed opportunity, because architects remain most informed and best suited to the role of stewardship over their buildings. Engaging in a full life cycle service approach to their building projects would not only stabilize revenue streams, but also provide a feedback loop on how to improve designs to enhance sustainability. 

Historically, building codes and standards focused on minimum requirements for health and safety. Now we recognize that many aspects of building environments and the environmental impacts of buildings adversely impact not just human health and safety, but wellbeing and resilience. The architecture profession and its allied disciplines must adopt an ethical posture and engage in public education. In ways similar to how the medical profession educated the public about the risks of tobacco smoking, lack of exercise and poor diet, architects must take the lead and vigorously promote the literacy of the average citizen about the social, ecological and economic impacts of buildings, so that appropriate requirements in codes and standards protect the interests of future generations, rather than those of profiteering opportunists.

Competency in Sustainable Design

Urban development is largely made possible by architects who offer architecture and urban design services to private developers and public agencies. Judging by the vast majority of contemporary built works, it appears their basis of design is lingering in the 20th century instead of observing the 3Ls: long life, loose fit, and low impact. Over the past several years, a number of academic and professional surveys have reported the need to enhance climate change and sustainable design competency in the education of architects. 

Here in Canada, Terri Peters from the Department of Architectural Science at TMU has conducted a survey examining issues related to sustainability. Peters’ initial findings indicated the majority of students at the Canadian schools of architecture did not feel they were gaining relevant competencies in sustainability and climate change mitigation/adaptation: “According to the responses, students do not feel confident in their knowledge of sustainable design and climate change issues,” Peters told me. “Overwhelmingly, students say they want more expertise in these issues, and they say they aren’t getting it.” She adds that students are not confident about how to apply their knowledge to design. Increasing the amount of learning content without guidance on how to apply that knowledge leaves students anxious and frustrated.

At the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty, Bruce Mau’s office was retained to conduct a series of interviews, surveys and townhalls to help develop a five-year academic plan. One of the most significant learnings gleaned by Mau’s team was summarized in a call to “Integrate environmental sustainability everywhere.” Their report explains: “Students and faculty see climate change as ‘one of the most important challenges of our time’. Its importance was highlighted as a unifying thread so that each goal could help further the cause. Students and faculty critiqued the unsustainable practices of industry and academia, seeking real change in the operational and academic practices of the faculty.”

An Australasia-wide survey, as reported in Architecture AU, similarly concluded: “The mounting impacts of global warming, as well as the imperatives of decarbonization and disaster mitigation, will have dramatic effects on the design, construction and maintenance of the built environment. Architecture education must adapt to prepare graduates—as well as to reskill professionals—for rapidly changing conditions of practice.”

One of the elephants in the room is a lack of suitably qualified faculty that have training and experience in applying sustainability principles in building design. In all fairness, sustainable architecture is relatively recent and rare, and so much like advances in medicine where practitioners must take supplementary training in new clinical techniques, the same holds true for 21st-century architectural practice. It is difficult to imagine how someone who has never designed a sustainable building could lead a studio in architecture school without some upgrading of their knowledge and skills. This was not an issue when the rate of change in building technology was slow, and studios were delivered largely by senior practitioners with considerable experience and expertise. Today, reskilling for existing faculty, alongside lifelong learning for architecture professionals, is not only necessary—it represents an enormous opportunity for architecture schools to reconnect with the profession, while augmenting revenue streams.

The Future Is Now

20 years from now, it will be obvious whether or not architecture has successfully engaged our common future. In many ways, Canada’s unique geographic, climatic, economic and demographic conditions are at the root of our strength—but only if we are willing to jettison outdated traditions and engage the emerging realities. Across Canada, we have many opportunities and natural blessings to lose if we are unable to transcend the current preoccupation with buildings as objectified commodities. We must learn from our Indigenous Peoples to recognize our buildings as cultural resources to be shared between all peoples and future generations, no differently than our land, water and air. The massive shift in consciousness needed to break away from the artist-patron model of architecture practice can only come about if academics and practitioners work together. We must forge a hybrid, multi-disciplinary view of architecture. Those involved in architecture must also educate the public, in order to promote literacy and citizen participation in shaping our built environment. Equity, diversity and inclusion must be baked into the architecture profession’s public engagement and built environment stewardship agenda.

Architecture should become less self-referential and open itself to other perspectives, other disciplines, and other stakeholders besides its paying clients. Public health and wellbeing are so heavily influenced by architecture and the built environment that it is no longer ethical to ignore conducting post-occupancy evaluations, especially in the case of social buildings such as housing, schools, offices and healthcare facilities. The artist-patron model may continue to make sense for art, which if it causes displeasure can be stored away out of sight and mind. But is it an ethical model of professional practice in architecture, where buildings shape climate and their communities for many generations? To whom does the architect owe the highest standard of care? The planet and the people should certainly take precedence over the client, since as innocent bystanders, they will suffer any collateral repercussions of an economic transaction in which they had no part. And what of the succeeding generations who inherit a built environment in which they had no say? How does architecture education and professional practice reconcile intergenerational equity?

Accepting the new realities is certainly swallowing a jagged, bitter pill. But only by doing so can we move forward with the long overdue process of truth and reconciliation in architecture and its allied disciplines. The technology gods of the 20th century, like our buildings and infrastructure, have clay feet and represent a linear economy that is costing us the earth. Only sustainable processes can yield sustainable outcomes, and this holds true for the future of architecture education and professional practice. For the sake of our ecology, it’s no longer about our technology: it’s all about our culture. 

As a new hire at U of T back in 1999, leading the collaborative research at the turn of the millennium that developed Architectural Science Forum felt somewhat strange. It feels stranger yet, some 20 years later, to be again revealing the big issues and challenges facing the next generation of architects and educators, given that I am not an architect. But after more than 30 years as an educator of architects, a consultant to architects, and a researcher of building science in support of sustainable architecture, I have had numerous opportunities to speak with colleagues, students and the public about pathways to sustainability.
I want to thank the numerous colleagues, students and citizens who shared their thoughts with me and took the time to enlighten me about my misconceptions.
It is also important to acknowledge that almost none of what I discussed in this article is original. Thanks to everyone who contributed their observations, ideas and aspirations. Our collaborative spirit should give us cause for great optimism—so long as we have the courage to adapt and evolve.

Ted Kesik is a professor of building science at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

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When Dub Architects set out to redevelop a block in Edmonton’s warehouse district, just west of downtown, the designers were faced with an intriguing challenge. At the south end, the block was capped by a relatively narrow, 15-metre lot—an undeveloped leftover.

“As a result,” says architect Gene Dub, “you ended up with a wall that had to be a blind wall—you couldn’t put windows in it unless they were set well back from the property line.” Turning that constraint into an asset, he decided to clad the south façade of the new 10-storey building, called The Edge, with an array of 560 photovoltaic panels. 

The massive array generates 80 percent of the building’s electricity. Moreover, it creates a striking presence in the city: a black monolith, adorned with vertical aluminum strips that underscore its sculptural appearance.

In contrast to this solidity, the north wall of the building is entirely glass—comprised of triple- and quadruple-paned units to reduce heat loss. Each floor is bookended by equally airy balconies, constructed with thermal separations in the floor slab and fitted with solar screens facing south.

From inside, the effect is dramatic. For the past four years, Dub Architects has used the top two floors of the building as their office, keeping the space as an open-plan design, with a lightly suspended stair and atrium hovering over a double-height lobby. “It was almost like a Paris garret with north-facing skylights,” says Dub, recalling how the orientation meant that no window coverings were necessary. “You could watch a storm pass from one end of the building to the other—it was a really magical show.”

The dramatic design is facilitated by Dub’s ownership of the adjoining parcel: the block of warehouses has been repurposed as a series of loft condos, and won’t be redeveloped for the next 50 years. Dub himself lives in a suite right next to The Edge, enjoying views of the building from both inside and out throughout most days.

That will soon come to an end, though: MC College’s Edmonton campus, which currently occupies the bottom eight storeys of the building, has enjoyed a high degree of success—perhaps in part because of the visibility of its facility—and will be taking over the top two floors to expand its program.  

This will put Dub Architects on the move again. This time, says Dub, they’ll be moving “to a 1950s building that we’re redoing.” It’s a brutalist-era precast design, he adds, “with sloped glass all over the place.” Doubtless, it’ll be soon transformed into a space that’s as special as The Edge.

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“The hybrid timber floor system is a collaboration between EllisDon and DIALOG, showcasing our shared goal of creating low-carbon construction methods to fight climate change. This system allows us to use mass timber in ways that were traditionally reserved for concrete and steel, like long-spanning structures,” said Mark Gaglione, Director of Building and Material Sciences, EllisDon.

“If deployed at scale, it could benefit the industry by replacing large quantities of structural steel and cement on a project-by-project basis.”

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Globally, two billion additional homes will be required to be built over the next 75 years. This will only add more pressure within the housing sector, which is already responsible for 17-21% of global carbon emissions. Humanity faces the dual challenge of tackling both the housing and climate crises on an unprecedented scale.

That’s why the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) has launched a new report, ‘Sustainable and Affordable Housing’, to spotlight the issues — and most importantly — address how we tackle them on a global scale.

Why sustainable and affordable housing matters

The housing sector plays a crucial role in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2050. But by 2030, an estimated three billion people (or 40% of the world’s population) will be in need of adequate housing units, whether newly built or renovated. In addition to this, human vulnerability is heightening with devastating climate change events – research tells us that at least 85% of the world’s population have been affected by climate change, whilst 100 million people have also been displaced due to man-made conflict.

“According to the UN-Habitat, the world needs to build 96,000 new affordable homes every day in order to house the estimated 3 billion people who will need access to adequate housing by 2030, saysCristina Gamboa, CEO, WorldGBC. “In all geographies around the world, people are facing homelessness, poverty, or living in substandard homes. Those people are at the heart of this flagship report.”

“I am optimistic as always that if we collaborate on solutions, and spark consideration of best practices being implemented, we can accelerate the uptake of sustainable and affordable homes for everyone, everywhere,” says Gamboa.

The terms ‘affordable housing’ and ‘sustainable housing’ have been receiving increased attention for the past decade. However, the misconception that sustainable housing is more expensive, difficult to resource, and time-intensive to deliver is affecting its uptake. The good news, presented in WorldGBC’s new report, is that the knowledge, tools, and technologies to reduce these barriers and allow for the uptake of sustainable housing already exist.

Understanding the array of possibilities and their feasibility can help tackle the housing crisis and the various challenges surrounding it, whilst prioritising climate, health, equity, and resilience.

The aim of the report

The report presents a high-level summary of sustainable and affordable housing in each of WorldGBC’s five regional networks. It profiles the challenges facing the housing sector, and the opportunities available that are driving the uptake of sustainable and affordable housing, illustrated by global case studies. In showcasing a varied range of examples, a consistent message occurs; the challenges faced are numerous, but there is a growing body of evidence for progress and opportunities.

The case study content from each region highlights 15+ cutting-edge built environment projects, making sustainable and affordable housing a reality for all. From 3D printed homes in Kenya, community engagement and collaborative financing models in Nepal, to disaster-resilience retrofits in the Philippines, these case studies demonstrate a commitment towards the right to adequate housing and a sustainable future for populations across different geographies.

Each case study is aligned against a series of high level principles of sustainable and affordable housing developed by the Housing Taskforce representatives from the WorldGBC network. They conclude that sustainable and affordable housing in any, and all, geographies must reflect implementation of the following principles, with consideration of the cross-cutting nature of many of the topics:

1. Habitability and Comfort

2. Community and Connectivity

3. Resilience and Adaptation to a Changing Climate

4. Resource Efficiency and Circularity

5. Economic Accessibility.

This report has been developed by WorldGBC’s ‘Better Places for People’ global programme, consulted and co-created by the Better Places for People Housing Taskforce composed of Green Building Councils, programme partners, industry partners, and expert reviewers.

Read the full report here.

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New Global Policy Principles outline transformative action for policymakers to accelerate sustainability in the built environment

Ahead of the G7 Ministers’ Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment this past weekend, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), and its network of 75+ Green Building Councils, launched a set of principles aimed at guiding national governments to develop effective building policies and programmes to accelerate a decarbonised future.

Sobering analysis from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report tells us there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to implement policies that will keep us within the 1.5°C warming limit. 

Many of the priority topics for the upcoming G7 Ministers Meeting can be addressed by buildings — from achieving both energy security and net zero, to advancing the transition to circular economies. Worldwide, buildings are responsible for 37% of energy related carbon emissions and 34% of energy demand (Source GlobalABC Status Report 2022). With such a significant environmental and carbon impact, leaders and policymakers must recognise the built environment as a key agent of change to close the 1.5°C gap.

WorldGBC and its network have launched the “Global Policy Principles for a Sustainable Built Environment’‘ to support policymakers around the world adopt a holistic approach to built environment sustainability, and ensure that new and updated policies and legislations deliver the transformative action needed to reach the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.

The principles are structured around seven key focus areas: carbon, resilience, circularity, water, biodiversity, health, equity and access. These areas are supported by detailed policy levers to show how they can be effectively implemented through regulation, information and incentives. 

We know from the most recent IPCC report that current government policies will see warming exceed 1.5°C during the 21st century – causing irreversible harm to the environment and our most vulnerable members of society. 

Despite being the largest contributing sector to carbon emissions, the building and construction industry is still not on track to achieve total decarbonisation by 2050 (Source GlobalABC Status Report 2022); meaning the gap between actual climate performance of the sector and its pathway to decarbonisation is widening.

This creates a dual challenge for the built environment — with markets in Asia and Africa expecting their building stock to double by mid-century. Meanwhile other regions are grappling with the challenges of renovating energy inefficient buildings.

“Our sector is in a strong position to deliver resilient development that integrates mitigation and adaptation measures, whilst also addressing other pressing societal issues, including energy security, resilience, health and equity,” says Cristina Gamboa, CEO, WorldGBC. “In this Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement year, and ahead of countries submitting updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2024, it is crucial that political leaders take bold actions to strengthen and implement building policies that deliver transformative change.”

By supporting the delivery of these principles, governments will be sending a clear signal to the market that decarbonised built environments are a priority, therefore enabling industry to deliver more innovative solutions. But governments must take a holistic approach, embracing public funding and influencing financial investment decisions and tools that consider carbon mitigation, resilience and green buildings. 

WorldGBC and its Green Building Council network invite governments to use these “Global Policy Principles for a Sustainable Built Environment” as a tool to review and update existing legislation; as well as offering their support within a local and global context to ensure national policies deliver resilient development that integrates mitigation and adaptation measures, whilst also addressing other pressing societal issues, including: energy security, resilience, health and wellbeing.

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Toronto-based design practice gh3* received two awards at this year’s Civic Trust Awards. The company was honored for their Stormwater Facility project in Toronto, and Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage in Edmonton.

Winning projects were revealed for the 2023 Civic Trust Awards, Pro-Tem Awards, AABC Conservation Awards and Selwyn Goldsmith Awards for Universal Design. The Awards Ceremony saw 300 architects, council leaders and built environment professionals from all over the world come together to celebrate the outstanding achievements of those who have contributed to communities through their exceptional work in architecture, urban design, planning, public realm and public art.

The Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage (KATG) replaces an aging garage built in the 1960’s. The 50,000 m² KATG facility accommodates approximately 320 workers including bus drivers, bus maintenance staff, administration and supervisory staff, daycare, cafeteria and custodial staff.

It houses 300 buses (regular and articulated), and includes 35 maintenance bays with three undercarriage wash bays and four re-fuel bays with exterior wash bays. It also provides 1 level of employee parking below grade. The Edmonton Transit System (ETS) administrative offices occupy 5,000 m² of the project, which was designed to achieve LEED Silver designation.

The Stormwater Facility (SWF) treats urban run–off from the new West Don Lands development. While the project represents state–of–the–art handling and treatment of stormwater, the design for the facility enclosure and site also elevates the spatial role of the infrastructure, evoking other historic infrastructural works—the R.C. Harris Treatment Plant, the Bloor Street Viaduct, and the Hearn Power Station—whose architectural character has helped define Toronto’s identity. The site, on the northeast corner of Lake Shore Boulevard and Cherry Street, houses a facility comprised of four major elements.

Amongst the 2023 winners were a;sp:

• Annesley Gardens, Dublin, Ireland by Metropolitan Workshop for Seabren Development
• Compton & Edrich Stands, Lord’s Cricket Ground, Westminster, London by WilkinsonEyre for MCC
• First Light Pavilion Visitor’s Centre, Cheshire, North West by Hassell & Casson Mann for University of Manchester
• Olderfleet, Melbourne, Australia by Grimshaw for Mirvac
• The Bowline at Bowling Harbour, West Dunbartonshire by rankinfraser landscape architecture for Scottish Canals

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