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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For architecture aficionados, a highlight of each summer is the West Vancouver Art Museum’s annual West Coast Modern Home Tour. For this frequent attendee, the 2023 tour was haunted by the ghost of Arthur Müdry’s late great Beaton house—a 1965 paean to Pacific forest that met an untimely end when it was sold and demolished in 2018. When the Beaton house was part of the tour, Müdry told me in a subsequent interview: “Nature is sacrosanct… One of the sins of our time is that when we find beauty in nature, we never know how to live with it in the right relationship.” 

Müdry’s belief in the sanctity of nature resonates in his 1989 Chun House, on this year’s tour. Like its predecessor, this gem was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as by Müdry’s fascination with gothic architecture.

Surely one of the other architectural sins of our time is the price-per-square-footage-driven disappearance of mid-century modern classics. The preservation of our modernist heritage is one of the annual tour’s noble aims. But it also appeals to a certain generational looky-loo longing from those of us on the wrong side of real estate history, to see what once-middle-class homes sited in majestic wilderness actually looked like.

The fundraiser is part of a West Coast Modern Week that includes lectures and events, and is presented by British Pacific Properties, a developer involved with West Vancouver since 1931. Preternaturally nostalgic, the tour celebrates an architectural moment before the city of West Vancouver’s demographic sea change, and is as much a festival of old guard culture as it is a preservationist cause. 

And yet, as one wanders through the vaulted ceilings, natural light, and stunning views from every angle of the Chun home, it’s easy to imagine these homes that seem to levitate off the gorgeous landscape as the cathedrals of our time.

This is perhaps most literally true of Paul Merrick’s boathouse on this year’s agenda, which he designed as an extension of the luxury Sewell’s Landing apartments in Horseshoe Bay. Merrick says the arcing structure was inspired by Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. 

But it’s the sacredness of both nature and the single-family home that pervades the tour. Wolfgang Gerson’s 1967 Itzinger-Meuldyk house in Caulfeild—down the hill from an of-the-era Erickson and perched on a steep, forested site—honours its mid-century roots even as it transcends them. It was opened up to the spectacular view of Howe Sound by architect and owner Jason Wexler and his wife when they removed a brick fireplace in the living room, bringing the outdoors in. 

Rather than a sense of exposure to the elements, Donald Manning’s 1955 post-and-beam house in the British Properties, elegantly renovated by Georg Koslowski in 1978 and by ABC last year, feels like a sleek sanctuary cocooned by forest.

The owners of the 1957 Ron Thom Carmichael house have replaced a wall in the dining area with foldable glass panels to reveal an ocean view, and moved the original door to create a light-filled hallway. The respectful updates still allow the hexagonal plan to express a sense of tightly choreographed domesticity. The perfectly sited home has the magical effect of bringing the geometry inside the visitor, as they tour this mid-century looking glass, gazing out across the harbour at the downtown micro-lofts they call home.

Hadani Ditmars is a journalist, author, and photographer.

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Within the heart of British Columbia’s Squamish Valley is the newly built Leon Lebeniste Fine Furnishings & Architectural Woodworking industrial facility. The 2,700-square-metre purpose-built facility, designed by Hemsworth Architecture, emphasizes quality and sustainability, rare attributes for an industrial space. The three-storey building sits within the natural landscape of Squamish and reflects the longstanding traditions of craftsmanship and manufacturing in the region.

A specialized custom furnishing and woodworking practice, Leon Lebeniste had outgrown their previous, smaller facility, and was in need of a larger space for manufacturing and design. Leon Lebeniste founder Jon Hewitt reached out to architect John Hemsworth of Hemsworth Architecture after seeing Hemsworth’s BC Passive House Factory project in Pemberton. Hewitt envisioned a local hub for makers and creatives to gather. “We care about design, and we wanted to work in a place that reflected that. We also wanted it to be approachable, where people could come by and it could be a gathering place for makers in Squamish.”

During the design and construction process, Hemsworth Architecture took a collaborative approach with Hewitt. Provided with a clear vision for the space and specific goals for the workspace, Hemsworth Architecture was able to take the brief and provide recommendations with a focus on sustainability.

The new Leon Lebeniste building is nestled within the mountains of British Columbia’s Squamish Valley, in the industrial district of the town of Squamish. A premier destination for world-class adventure activities, the town is popular with outdoor athletes, and has in recent years evolved to attract increasing creative talent with its close proximity to Vancouver. This new design and production space for Leon Lebeniste fits into this growing shift. Offering more than a typical cookie-cutter development, the building is intentionally designed to have a meaningful and positive impact for its occupants as well as for the broader community.

In contrast to similar facilities in the surrounding industrial district, the Leon Lebeniste building’s main facade features a long strip of floor-to-ceiling glazing, allowing views into the production facility from the outside. “Industrial spaces tend to be a black box,” explains Hemsworth. “Instead, we chose to open up the ground floor to create a real relationship between the exterior and interior. We designed this in a way to bring in the community, so that when people are passing by day or night, they have a view into a local workspace.”

Beyond the front-facing window, the rest of the exterior is clad in vertical red cedar slats, treated with a natural preservative to extend their life and minimize maintenance, and custom profile metal panelling.

Walking into the Leon Lebeniste building, the shop floor is revealed from the entranceway, creating a sense of openness and transparency. A large staircase leads to the floors above which provides a sense of scale and allows in additional natural light from the upper floor. The factory itself occupies the entire main floor, and includes an automated five-axis milling machine, custom veneer production, and a traditional millwork layout and assembly area. The space was thoughtfully custom-designed with the required machinery in mind, to ensure the workspace would accommodate both the current and future equipment needs. High ceilings and extensive glazing bring in ample natural light and create a sense of spaciousness throughout the main factory floor.

The office and design spaces on the mezzanine level above the production floor offer additional space for work and collaboration. Overlooking the production floor itself allows for a holistic sense of the operation, avoiding a separation between the office and production staff.

“Even though the design process is technologically driven, you still need a direct relationship and access to what’s going on on the shop floor,” explains Hemsworth. A small kitchen and communal space are also included on this floor, allowing for staff to come together and encouraging mingling between all employees.

The top floor features additional industrial and office spaces, designed with the goal of sharing the building with other makers and environmentally focused creators in the Squamish community. A future public cafe with a rooftop patio and a living green roof open to exceptional views of the Stawamus Chief is planned to further situate the building within the mountainous landscape. The top floor is instrumental in serving as an incubator for small, local companies specializing in innovation, design, and production.

Natural materials are emphasized throughout the structure, with mass-timber cross laminated timber (CLTs) used for the floors and roof, and a Glulam post and beam structure throughout. All interior and exterior walls are wood framed, with all wood products used in the construction sourced from sustainability-focused producers in British Columbia. By prioritizing the use of renewable mass timber and wood throughout the entire building, the embodied carbon of the project is significantly lower compared to similar industrial buildings in the area that typically use tilt-up concrete construction.

Another advantage of building with CLTs and Glulam is that they are approximately 1/5 of the weight of concrete, enabling the building to perform significantly better from a seismic perspective. The use of wood also pays homage to the history of Squamish as a timber-based town.

Rather than simply standing alone, the building is intentionally built to provide a positive impact to the greater community of Squamish and the evolution of this growing town. What’s more, the building has also served as a clear example within the greater Canadian architectural context of how the progressive use of timber-based construction has become a viable option for building owners as they confront the challenges of climate change.

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Pergola Garden, officially unveiled last May, is a device for contemplating the age-old struggle between man and nature. Commissioned by Richmond’s public art program, in partnership with the city’s parks department, the project speaks to Polymétis’s previous interventions that marry the built environment with new ecologies, such as their Three Arches project in the midst of a Mississauga wetland.

“Over time,” says Nicholas Croft, Polymétis co-founder with his partner Michaela MacLeod, in a recent phone interview, “nature always wins.”

The project is sited on a former tree nursery turned park, now surrounded by a forest of new condominiums and suburban tract housing. Constructed in weathered steel, steel cable and yellow cedar, the parabolic canopy fulfills many functions. It acts as a giant trellis for white chocolate akebia, a flowering climber that will eventually overtake the structure as it grows, and doubles as a theatrical set piece for the park—a natural stage for events, performances, and happenings. It was designed, says Croft, to attract insects, birds, and bees, creating a micro ecology system expressing “the inner life of vegetation.”

As one leaves the park’s children’s playground and approaches Pergola Garden, perched next to a timber building housing the geothermal system for the surrounding condominiums, it appears as a stand-alone sculpture. But as one enters under the canopy, it becomes a dynamic frame for nature that shifts as the light and weather change: a moveable spatial feast.

Three ovoids offer slices of sky and opportunities for airplane and eagle viewings (the site is a five-minute drive from the airport). At once a study in solidity and transparency, groundedness and flight, the design was inspired by the low elevation of the Richmond flood plain and the highly sedimented tidal flow of the Fraser. “We wanted it to feel like something that had emerged naturally from the earth and was revealed through erosion,” notes Croft.

As one moves through the shape-shifting choreography of the installation, there are memorable individual moments. One mise-en-scène suggests that the steel cables juxtaposed against the patinaed steel are musical strings of an ancient lyre; another recalls the bridge one must cross from Vancouver to enter the rapidly developing suburb, or the old industrial hangars that line the Fraser River. (The latter are quaint remnants of a time when industries that produced things trumped price per square footage.)

The sprigs of akebia climbing up the weathered steel and offset by glulam cedar trim offer a simultaneous sense of decay and new life. The effect is reminiscent of the last scenes of the 70s sci-fi flick Logan’s Run, when Michael York and his girlfriend, seeking sanctuary, meet Peter Ustinov in a once grand edifice overrun with vines and cats. 

At the edges of a city famous for its money laundering, real estate prices and destruction of homeless encampments, Pergola Garden raises the question: what will remain here in a century? Will the floodplain rise and drown the vacant condos until all that is left is wildlife? Meanwhile, the fragrant akebia, creeping a few more metres every year, will gradually strangle the steel, and keeps silent watch.

Hadani Ditmars is a Vancouver-based journalist, author, and photographer.

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ARCHITECT Rhone & Iredale Architects

TEXT D’Arcy Jones

In 1965, Vancouver was a frontier town in ways that seem far-fetched today. That year, BC Hydro hired Rhone & Iredale Architects to work on one of the largest dams in the world—all because chairman Dr. Gordon Shrum liked a wooden sundeck they designed for his son. The task for the design fell to 27-year-old Andrew Gruft, who later became an architecture professor and photograph collector, before passing away last year.

From their office in an ex–bawdy house overlooking then-polluted False Creek, Rhone & Iredale had some 80 projects on the go. Thirty-seven-year-old Rand Iredale was more of a mentor and systems nerd than an artist, preoccupied with the science of building, Gantt charts, and adopting computer drafting before anyone even knew what it was. He and Bill Rhone led an office that took pride in delivering, despite youth and inexperience. The duo shared a dogged faith in delegating design, encouraging their project architects to run everything.

Prodded by the office’s notorious Friday pin-ups, Gruft detailed an iconic industrial newel cap that controls ten massive water-fueled generators that still produce about 30% of BC Hydro’s electrical output. Located on the Peace River, the dam and accompanying structures marked the end of an era where British Columbia’s smaller communities were often powered by diesel generators.

Unlike many tired modernist buildings of the late 1960s, the generating station’s design was boldly forward-looking. That clairvoyance was in tune with British Columbia’s twenty-year Bennett government, which was investing in an electrified future that still won’t peak until natural gas is lumped together with coal as one more outdated fuel.
The building draws on so many sources and bundles so many aspirations that it would have been slightly out-of-step with other modern architecture even on its opening day when 3,000 well-dressed guests went 600 feet underground to watch the ribbon get cut.

Mother Earth’s hydrological cycle is a perpetual motion machine. Before tapping a river’s flow, a dam needs enough vertical drop to create strong and constant water pressure for its turbines, so most are built on ancient waterfalls or rapids. As massive as the W.A.C. Bennett Dam is, its siting and function are fitted to a plateaued and channelized waterway that was always there. Nestled into the leeward side of the two-kilometre-long earth-filled dam, the generating station appears Palladian and toy-like. From the approach, only its pagoda-shaped top is visible. The decision to treat the BC-Hydro-blue roof as a fifth elevation is the first clue that the whole project was considered as a single cohesive entity, with repeated proportions and materials that defer to the grandeur of the dam and the Williston Lake reservoir.

Industrial architecture is hardly ever public, so it rarely offers more than the facts. But BC Hydro wanted this project to be different, by simultaneously showing the public how electricity was produced, and by ennobling the technicians who ran the show. To visit this building is to experience optimism writ large. When new, there was much mention of how the generating station was supposed to look like a transformer. That comparison is fine, if incomplete, and twee. The design’s robust vocabulary references historical Asia, water’s movement, the sky, modernism in South America, and engineer-centric infrastructure. These precedents were massaged into an edited whole, to communicate a fully formed vision.

The Shrum Generating Station has four glassy fronts at ground level. The back face looks out over a humming high-voltage stockyard, where electricity is corralled before being wired south. Its two side faces have flowing arrays of scalloped skylights above subterranean workshop and storage areas, creating a nuanced quality of light that is almost too good for service spaces. The project’s biggest miss can be blamed on conventional operating hours: the public cannot approach the building at night, when the electric glow that comes up and out from the building is warmly evocative of the power being created underground.

The entry is through a stoically symmetrical front façade, between sturdy tapered concrete legs. From there, visitors are welcomed into a relaxed and lively little lobby, with possibly the wildest cross-section in all of Canadian architecture. These contrasting qualities reflected the times, however unconsciously. The building was created smack dab in the middle of an epoch when adults stopped wearing neckties and heels, and threw out hats that weren’t hard or billed. Its design hinted at the next decade’s showy brutalism, but kept it at bay by throwing in enough humility and scale to prevent visitors or staff from fixating on any one element at the expense of others.

Beyond the lobby, the building’s interior has been modified over time to accommodate the advent of computers and tighter post-9/11 security. Pride in human achievement has always been a meaningful cultural glue, so the visitor experience was carefully choreographed for maximum effect. I first saw the generating station in 1980, when the visitor’s centre was still on the highest level. A round hole in the floor let tour-goers observe engineers one level below, watching gauges and flicking switches at a semi-circular desk straight out of Star Trek. From that top floor, an elevator in a free-standing round concrete shaft took visitors underground to the generating floor, where they could see electrical production in action. Cheeky touches of vivid blue and red detailing at the lighting, handrails, and microphone stands are reminders that this warehouse-like volume was only partly conceived by the expressive architects, who had to negotiate with the dam’s main engineers to have at least a small voice.

A W.A.C. Bennett-sized dam will never happen again. Every viable site for substantial hydroelectric power generation in British Columbia will be used up once Fort St. John’s Site C dam opens in 2024. Hydroelectric power may go boutique, with waterwheels and small tributary turbines. Or hydroelectric generation might go underground, like at the Nant de Drance and Linthal pumped-storage facilities in Switzerland, where a large reservoir flows through turbines to a smaller one, using 20% of the generated power to pump the water back up to the top, re-using it over and over. This kind of closed-loop power production may be more practical once electricity rates increase, or after the more visible hydroelectric options are exhausted throughout spacious Canada.

Meanwhile, the Shrum Generating Station is, to this author’s eyes, the most soulful and humane of Rhone & Iredale’s major works. The building had eclectic influences because Gruft brought so many to the table. The resulting design is hard to categorize as it bobs between affecting your head or your gut. Fifty-four years later, this project on the Peace River continues to dignify the invisible, expressing the circumstances of its creation while timelessly doing its own thing.

D’Arcy Jones is the director of Vancouver-based firm D’Arcy Jones Architects.

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The infrastructure required to process water—both as it enters our cities and homes, and returns to our lakes and streams—is vital to our everyday lives, and often taken for granted. Buildings that elevate this infrastructure underscore the importance of water, and the right to clean water for all. Through architecture, these often invisible systems enter the public eye, and begin to solidify the place of waterworks in our collective consciousness.

Stormwater Facility by gh3*

Toronto, Ontario

TEXT Elsa Lam

The most recent project by Toronto-based architecture and landscape firm gh3* is actually one of its first. Architect Pat Hanson and her team were awarded the contract to design a stormwater facility on Toronto’s waterfront in 2009—just three years after their firm was established. The initial design, for a stone-clad building half the size of the present facility, came in over the budget at the time, and was subsequently put on hold.

Since that time, the development of the east waterfront area has progressed by leaps and bounds. A larger facility was required, to not only handle stormwater runoff from the Canary District as per the original remit, but also from the developing East Bayfront and part of the Portlands.

After an initial filtration that removes debris, urban runoff from these areas travels to a 20-metre-diameter, 90-metre-deep shaft at the west end of the site, marked at ground level by a supersized radial grate. From here, it’s siphoned into the main treatment plant—a path visualized by surface paving patterns—then cleansed for a return trip into a separate outer ring in the shaft. The purified water is deposited into the nearby Keating Channel.

The treatment plant itself houses two floors of equipment—flocculation tanks, fine sand filters, UV purification—all wrapped in a sculptural form. “It’s conceived as a series of manipulations of a simple volume, to show the shedding of the water,” says architect Pat Hanson. She adds that the involvement of Waterfront’s Design Review Panel pushed the design to become even more “expressive in showing the passage of the water.” This resulted in an integrated gutter that traces the path of rainwater from the roof, down the walls, and into a drain along the building’s perimeter. The canted roof is further accentuated by a triangular skylight and an array of chevron snow guards.

Because the industrial nature of the facility created latitude for experimentation, the construction is the inverse of a typical wall section: the exterior is a 400-mm-thick cast-in-place concrete wall, with insulation and a rainscreen concrete block wall on the inside. In the past year since its opening, the exposed concrete has taken on some hairline cracks, which Hanson says are to be expected, and don’t affect the concrete’s strength. Over time, she expects that it will continue to acquire patina, with the once-pristine surface picking up urban pollution and the gutters darkened by water stains. “Once it gets dirtied up, it’s fine,” says Hanson. “It falls into line with the Gardiner [Expressway] and railway tracks, it fits in.”

The facility is currently surrounded with chain-link fences and hemmed in by adjacent construction sites. But in a few years, it will develop a public presence. The urban plans for the area include re-routing Lakeshore Boulevard to run directly in front of the site, bringing cyclists, pedestrians, and car traffic alongside a large window that invites views of the machinery inside. A new plinth, planned for the south side of the building, will create a public plaza centered on the sculptural landmark, looking over the road towards Lake Ontario.

CLIENT Waterfront Toronto and Toronto Water | ARCHITECT TEAM Pat Hanson, Raymond Chow, Elise Shelley, Richard Freeman | PRIME CONSULTANT RV Anderson | STRUCTURAL / MECHANICAL / ELECTRICAL RV Anderson | LANDSCAPE gh3* | INTERIORS gh3* | CONTRACTOR Graham Construction | WASTE WATER WSP | SOILS & ENVIRONMENTAL GHD | AREA 600 m2 (building); 6460 m2 (site) | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION May 2021

Galt Water Intake by Smith Vigeant architectes

Montreal, Quebec

LOCATION Montreal, Quebec

ARCHITECt Smith Vigeant Architectes

tEXT Odile Hénault

PHOTOS David Boyer

A recently unveiled building, which punctuates Montreal’s eight-kilometre-long Promenade de l’Aqueduc, is intriguing. It stands out as an unusual object in a park, particularly striking on foggy days and at night, when it turns into a giant lantern. Officially a water intake station, this project is a far cry from the industrial, corrugated metal-clad buildings that usually house municipal infrastructures. Its striking presence was celebrated by the Ordre des architectes du Québec in its 2022 Awards of Excellence.

The 35-metre-long, 12.5-metre-wide, 9-metre-high box is set on a park-like promenade much appreciated by the neighbourhood’s residents, who kept a close watch over the project from the moment the City of Montreal’s Drinking Water Division made its intentions public. Smith Vigeant architectes, who were selected from a shortlist of three firms, fully understood what was at stake in terms of public acceptance. And they started dreaming. “We wanted to create a significant gesture that would go beyond the building’s function,” says architect Daniel Smith. “We were looking for a visual signature that would enliven the public space, while reminding passersby what a precious resource water is.”

The building plays an essential role in Montréal’s drinking water system, acting as a first clean-up station for raw water drawn from the St. Lawrence River. Four screening devices operate 24 hours a day, catching algae, branches, and other debris carried by the river. The only manual operation performed in the fully automated water intake facility is cleaning the screens on a regular basis. Once the water has gone through this primary process, it is channeled towards an underground conduit that leads to the Atwater Water Treatment Plant, 900 metres away. Ultimately, water treated in this plant will reach 40% of Montreal homes.

The program stressed the need for a highly secure and energy-efficient facility, which resulted in heavily insulated walls and a green roof. The planted roof not only addressed energy issues, but also was seen as one way of compensating for the loss of park space on the ground, a concern strongly voiced by the Borough of Verdun’s residents. Another major factor that impacted the shape and height of the building was the close proximity of high voltage power lines on the site.

The concept chosen by the architects appeared in their very first sketches, where they played with stripes of colour meant to represent the ever-changing nature of water. The green roof was present from the start, as was a dark mineral base, today made of concrete bricks in three tones of anthracite grey. The initial poetic intention remained paramount for both the client and the architect. “The building’s appearance and its impact on its immediate surroundings were top priorities,” says Daniel Smith.

The four façades in the windowless structure were clad with 30-centimetre-wide horizontal aluminium bands, painted in seven distinct shades, from almost white, to turquoise, to dark blue. Roughly 60 centimetres in front of this first layer is a second skin, made of vertical translucent glass panels. The superimposition creates a subtle shimmering effect and, rather unexpectedly, gives the façades a pixelated appearance.

One of the most evocative spaces of this intake station is the narrow corridor running between the façades’ glass and metal skins. Inaccessible to the public—as is the rest of the building—this service corridor will somehow remain as a fleeting presence, only to be seen by technical staff.

In its own modest way, this small intake station is linked to a remarkable tradition of architecturally significant infrastructural works. It may not be as eloquent as the grand Italianate Atwater Water Treatment Plant (1918) or as Toronto’s Art Deco R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant (1941), which inspired Michael Ondaatje’s novel In the Skin of a Lion. But Montreal’s new water intake facility does emphasize the importance of investing in public architecture, however humble its function.

Quebeckers, who seem to live under a collective delusion that water is an unlimited resource, are among Canada’s highest users—and wasters—of domestic water. Hopefully, this rather unique project will help raise awareness of the essential role water plays in our lives and of the importance of using it wisely. Let us also hope the leadership shown here by the City of Montreal will have an impact on future infrastructure projects across Quebec and the rest of the country.

Architectural writer Odile Hénault is a regular contributor to Canadian Architect. 

CLIENT City of Montreal drinking water division in collaboration with the borough of verdun | ARCHITECT TEAM Daniel Smith (MRAIC), Anik Malderis, Mariana Segui, Jennifer Dykes, Stéphan Vigeant, Sabrina Charbonneau | STRUCTURAL / MECHANICAL / ELECTRICAL Hatch | CONTRACTORS Procova and CRT | AREA 381 m2 | BUDGET $3M | COMPLETION June 2021

Clayton Water Reservoir by Local Practice

Hazelgrove Park, Surrey, British Columbia

TEXT Courtney Healey

Water is life. Throughout human history, people have built systems that capture and convey this life-sustaining force allowing communities to grow and flourish. Today, while inter-jurisdictional uncertainties continue to complicate the provision of safe drinking water on First Nations reserve lands across Canada, bringing clean water to new municipal settlements like East Clayton in Surrey, BC, is a complex but achievable endeavour. Turning that infrastructure into poetry is next level.

The need for the Clayton reservoir dates back to 1996, when Surrey City Council identified East Clayton as a suitable area for new development. But it was only over the past decade that dense new subdivisions started rolling out across this former agricultural area and the shared unceded traditional territory of the Katzie, Semiahmoo, and Kwantlen Nations, who have been its stewards since time immemorial.

Designed by Local Practice, a Vancouver-based firm co-founded by Michel Labrie and Matthew Woodruff, the Clayton Reservoir earned a 2019 Canadian Architect award. Since its completion in 2020, it has largely fulfilled the design team’s goal: “to create an object of integrity without attention seeking,” in Woodruff’s words. He says that infrastructure like this is “foundational for a stable society‚“ and “should make visible the necessary work of living with dynamic natural systems.” Indeed, the water that feeds the reservoir is in constant motion, flowing from mountaintops through a vast downstream system of dams, water mains, and pump stations managed by Metro Vancouver, the body responsible for regional water service. Clayton is one of over 20 storage reservoirs near the end-point of the system, which fill up overnight to meet peak early morning demand. The increased storage capacity at Clayton will help the community weather increasingly warm and dry summers.

Woodruff’s involvement with the Clayton reservoir started in 2010, with a feasibility study that located the structure at the north end of a new park. This early decision was key to the project’s success, creating a strong edge to the green space, and making room for sport fields and other outdoor amenities. The reservoir will eventually double in size to meet demand as the neighbourhood is fully built-out, and Local Practice’s design accommodates this expansion through a mirroring of the plan to the north.

Design decisions are few, but effective at bringing down the perceived scale and mass of the reservoir. Rounded corners ease the eye around the edges, while a strong horizontal datum humanizes the height. Two patterns of undulating precast cladding modulate the surface, with a light gray billowing convex surface above, and a dark gray concave scalloped surface below.

Beyond its essential work, the Clayton Reservoir serves as a quiet backdrop to Hazelgrove Park. On sunny days, it acts like a movie screen, its surface alive with shifting sunlight, clouds and the shadows of waving trees. It’s a calming architectural presence, with a materiality that offers subtle visual cues to the important work going on behind the facade. Investing in infrastructure and making it visible is a noble goal. It would be wonderful to celebrate the delivery of clean water through beautiful infrastructure like this to all communities across Canada.

Courtney Healey is an architect and writer living and working on the unceded traditional territories of the xwməθkwə’yəm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwəta?l (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

CLIENT Metro Vancouver | ARCHITECT TEAM Evelyne Bouchard, Geoff Cox, Heidi Nesbitt, Justin Power, Maddi Slaney, Mallory Stuckel, Matthew Woodruff (MRAIC), Melanie Wilson | ENGINEERING LEAD AND PRIME CONSULTANT Associated Engineering (B.C.) Ltd. | CONTRACTOR Westpro / Pomerleau | LANDSCAPE space2place | GEOTECHNICAL Golder & Associates | AREA 3,500 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION Fall 2020

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Last August, a new tourist attraction opened in Malahat First Nation, just north of Victoria, BC. The Malahat SkyWalk is a 600-metre walkway that spirals up over the treetops, leading to a viewing deck with panoramic views of nearby mountains and sea inlets.

Unlike recent lookouts such as New York City’s Vessel, the SkyWalk relies on a gentle ramp, rather than stairs, to elevate its visitors. “A ramp makes it into a more pleasant experience, whether you’re pushing a baby stroller, or you’re two years and you want to walk it yourself, or you have some mobility issues regardless of age,” says architect Brent Murdoch.

There’s a satisfaction in making your way up the tower through your own efforts—an experience that can’t be matched by an elevator or gondola. The design carefully calibrates that experience, starting with a pleasant arrival through the forest that leads you on a curated walking experience through the trees that lands partway up the tower. A modest five percent grade takes visitors up a widening spiral to the upper lookout. Along the way, they encounter a variety of play areas—slides, a water feature, a climbing net—creating appeal for anyone who visits. The structure’s impeccable construction and detailing are notable. So is the structure’s careful interaction with its landscape, from its considered placement on the site, to the choreography of views along the ramp.

The structure is also an inviting introduction to Malahat First Nation, on whose territory it sits. Silhouettes of local animals, and panels pointing out unique characteristics of flora and fauna accompany visitors on the way up, while didactic panels at the top highlight local birds and environmental factors that impact the region. Information on topics such as moon cycles and sea life blend Indigenous knowledge and Western science. Tourism on Indigenous lands—especially when presented with such generosity and craft—are a form of conciliation, creating places where knowledge and natural beauty can be shared between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Mutual respect between Malahat First Nation and non-Indigenous team members characterized the entire design and construction process. The idea for the SkyWalk originated with non-Indigenous business partners David Greenfield and Trevor Dunn, experienced resort developers who led the creation of the Squamish Oceanfront and Sea to Sky Gondola near Whistler. They approached Malahat First Nation with the idea for the spiraling walkway, forming a win-win partnership that would yield an approachable tourist attraction while providing opportunity for the Nation to build its profile and capacity.

Coincidentally, Kinsol Timber, one of the West Coast’s leading manufacturers of large-scale timber structures, was located two kilometres down the road from the site. That allowed for the project to draw on local materials as well as local labour. “They were exceptional, and the logistical convenience was stratospheric,” says Murdoch.

“Malahat SkyWalk encompasses the foundational pillars for circular economic success. Environmentally sound, socially proactive, and honour of the lands, its people, and culture. The project sets the bar high for future development projects within Malahat’s traditional territory,” says Angela van den Hout, the Nation’s Director of Economic Development.

From the top of the SkyWalk, it’s clear that this project has hit the mark in a multitude of ways. Two worlds—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—have come together to create a landmark centered on sustainability, accessibility, a celebration of the natural world, mutual prosperity and land stewardship. It’s a hopeful place that allows your mind to contemplate many expansive concepts related to land, water and sky as you travel towards an inspiring view of the inlet.

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PROJECT Pearl Block, Victoria, British Columbia

ARCHITECT D’Arcy Jones Architects

TEXT Paul Koopman

PHOTOS Ema Peter Photography

A four-storey rowhouse sits quietly on a tree-lined collector street in Victoria, BC, enjoying the camouflage of the foliage and a comfortable proximity to similarly sized townhouses and single-family detached homes. The building’s mass—rendered in deeply textured dark taupe stucco—presents as a series of articulated boxes that gently recede from the sidewalk and the mature London planes of Shelbourne Avenue. Confident, yet subdued, the design of Pearl Block finds balance in a modulated and family-friendly approach that builds on the typology of the rowhouse, incorporating elements that are at once new and historical. 

Completed this year, Pearl Block resulted from a collaboration between D’Arcy Jones Architects and Aryze Developments. D’Arcy Jones is a Vancouver-based practice that has made a name for itself designing single-family homes in the BC mainland; Pearl Block is the studio’s first multi-family housing project. Aryze started out as a Victoria-based custom home-builder, and then branched into development out of a desire to provide affordable urban infill housing, helping to counteract the city’s housing crisis.

Because of its triangular lot shape, Pearl Block’s site was considered a poor building site and had sat vacant for 65 years. Those constraints made it exactly the kind of project Aryze wanted to take on: a place where they could see the potential overlooked by others. They sought to create an attainable alternative to detached single family homes on the site, creating a set of high-quality, well-constructed places for families who admired modern architecture but could not afford a custom home.

To address the site’s geometric particularities, they engaged D’Arcy Jones Architects, who proposed a cluster of six rowhouse units in a sawtooth pattern, positioned around a common forecourt. Stucco was the choice of exterior finishing from the start, and was chosen to emulate the stucco of traditional Victorian homes built at the end of the 19th century. Initially, the City of Victoria’s Planning department was not on-side with the development: they found the stucco heritage approach to be antiquated, and objected to the “form and character” of the design. But they were won over after a favorable review by the local Architectural Design Panel, and a surprising show of support from the project’s neighbours.

In describing the public approvals process, D’Arcy Jones says that  the general public has an understandable fear of change, yet “too often, both sides are not respectful enough of one another.” In the design of projects like Pearl Block, he aims to make his buildings appealing to modern-minded residents and neighbours alike—blending newness and craft in a way that aligns well with Aryze’s commitment to using traditional building methods paired with innovative construction techniques and intelligent design. Jones adds, “Architecture has a responsibility to be good on other people’s terms.”

The site planning of Pearl Block exhibits solid urban design principles. First, the size and massing of the building matches the neighbourhood scale, yet confidently positions itself within the language of modern architecture. The design carefully considers neighbours’ access to natural light and restricts overlook into their yards. Jones likens the projecting wing walls of the façade to horse blinders, designed to focus residents’ views toward the street, rather than peering into neighbours’ lots. Pearl Block’s front doors likewise face the street, with garage doors turned towards the side yard. Large windows from the second-floor living rooms further enhance a connection to the front, adopting the “eyes on the street” approach promoted by urbanist Jane Jacobs. 

The exterior of Pearl Block is modern, yet it avoids current design preoccupations with tight, shiny facades. Instead, this architecture evokes a strain of modernism more in line with the coarse walls of Marcel Breuer or the rougher period of Le Corbusier. The rhythm of the stucco panels and recessed windows expresses bulky proportions, producing a play of deep shadows across the façades. The exposed concrete base further adds to the sense of massiveness.

Approaching the units on foot, one is aware of the continuous cantilevered soffit above the main entrances and garage doors. According to Jones, this cantilever was necessary to accommodate vehicle turning clearances. The result is a common portico that protects the doors from rain and behaves as a threshold between the public and private realms. Near the entry, a stocky plywood guardrail guides residents up to the second floor.

At the main living area on the second floor, it becomes evident that the units are L-shaped in plan. The kitchen faces a large sliding glass door and enclosed balcony to the south, while the living area faces east, towards the street. Although compact, there is a subtle dynamism to this space, thanks to multiple natural light sources and the dual orientation of the room. Jones points to his interest in creating “nooks and crannies” in contrast to the linear spatial experience common in townhouse and multi-family designs. He describes space in terms of solid and void, adding that people respond to this on an emotional level. “So many apartments are a version of the glass tube,” says Jones, adding that having multiple spaces—rather than a single large one—allows more possibilities for family life.

Sleeping areas are grouped on the third floor. Here, the designer and developer have opted for three smaller bedrooms rather than two larger ones, citing the benefit of an extra room for a child’s bedroom or small study. Jones describes the project as “working with minimums.” People who are accustomed to a master bedroom with room for a couch, he says, would find these bedrooms too small.

Continuing up the stairs, a large operable skylight opens to the roof. Here, the sense of compression experienced on the bedroom floor gives way to open sky and a wood-enclosed roof garden the size of the entire floorplate. Jones describes this space as the “yard” of the house. Cedar-lined perimeter walls extend five feet tall, designed to match typical fence heights in the city.  There is a sense of spacious luxury here, paired with privacy thanks to the tall enclosing walls.

Jones describes his design process as working from the inside out. For him, the design of bedrooms begins from the position of the bed and moves out from there; dining areas begin from the table; and so on. The scale and proportion of rooms comes first, and it’s only after the interiors are resolved that exterior design is explored. He adds that his studio is constantly drawing, that drawing is like thinking out loud. “We are only going forward,” says Jones: he encourages his studio to avoid rebuilding work in reaction to unexpected site conditions, instead choosing to adapt the design to meet new conditions.

As in all of Jones’ projects, there is a sense of careful consideration to details and materiality in Pearl Block. “We are never too busy to let anything be,” says Jones. Indeed, there is persistence at work here: a continuity of line and simple elegance that does not rely on the use of expensive materials.

Jones speaks about his desire to introduce both newness and history into his designs as if they are two sides of a coin. Ancient forms of housing inspire his work. “How people live hasn’t changed much,” he says. “I think the average person could go into a house in Pompeii today and would appreciate the experience of rooms and the hierarchies. They could move into them with modern details and be super comfortable—it would feel as fresh as if it was made yesterday.”

“A lot of people, if they are really honest with themselves, would like a door on the street and a relationship to the street. They’d like to have some kind of garden, not have someone above and below them, and not ride an elevator,” says Jones. “The rowhouse is an ancient building block and if everybody did it, everywhere, we wouldn’t need all these towers, which I think are not that appealing. I think people are sometimes looking for an overly complicated, magical design solution: but the solution is already done, and it exists in the rowhouse.”

Paul Koopman, MRAIC, is a Senior Project Architect at Cascadia Architects in Victoria.

DEVELOPER & BUILDER Aryze Developments | ARCHITECT TEAM D’Arcy Jones, Jesse Ratcliffe, Jessica Gu, Rebecca Boese | STRUCTURAL RJC Engineers | CIVIL Westbrook Consulting Ltd. | MECHANICAL AME Group | ELECTRICAL AES Engineering | LANDSCAPE Biophilia Collective | INTERIORS D’Arcy Jones Architects | AREA Six 3-bedroom homes ranging from 111 to 164 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION November 2020

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PROJECT Grosvenor Ambleside, West Vancouver, BC

ARCHITECT James K.M. Cheng Architects

TEXT Sean Ruthen

Discussions of the “missing middle” often focus on densifying single-family lots, or sites made by consolidating a handful of lots. But occasionally, the opportunity arises to develop a larger infill parcel in an existing neighbourhood. If done right, this can result in much-needed housing while enlivening the public realm.

This was the case with a project our firm, James K.M. Cheng Architects, recently completed after a decade of work. Grosvenor Ambleside occupies a 180-metre-long waterfront site in West Vancouver. For many years, the site had been home to a gas station, several single-storey retail buildings from the 1950s and 60s, and surface parking. It also housed an aging Ron Thom-designed police station that’s since been replaced with a newer facility elsewhere. The site sloped down to the south, where built-up railway tracks created a 1.2-metre-high visual barrier to beach and ocean views.

For our team, the idea of a new development here was an opportunity to inject new life into the aging neighbourhood block, improve access and enjoyment of the waterfront, and create a much-needed heart for the neighbourhood. We were working on a number of other master plans at the same time as Ambleside, including the 14-acre former TransLink bus barns site in central Vancouver, now set to become a new community for over 2,000 people, and an eight-acre strip mall in Coquitlam, being transformed into a transit-oriented development. Our office thinks of these projects as acts of “urban mending”—where an outdated commercial or industrial area is reworked as part of a more sustainable community.

For Ambleside, it was no small feat to see the 98-unit mixed-use development project through to reality, starting with a complex land assembly process led by Grosvenor, and followed by a robust public engagement process—perhaps the most comprehensive of the many that our team has seen in the past 40 years. A development of this density on a prime waterfront site would simply not have been possible without the support of the community—from the residents of the District of West Vancouver to the long-time locals around Ambleside Beach.

From the beginning, it was clear that the project needed to do more than provide high-end condos for its residents: it needed to create a strong public realm that would serve the entire community. Raising the ground floor to the level of the railway tracks was a first strategic move in this direction: it allowed for the commercial units (and not just the residents above) to enjoy views of Stanley Park and the Georgia Strait, while also providing flood protection against the annual King Tide and rising sea levels.

Early on during the public consultations, the team also settled on a terraced building form and a mid-block breezeway. The terraces help preserve views for neighbours in a small cluster of apartment blocks across the street, while the breezeway opened views to the beach for passing pedestrians and cars on Marine Drive. The upper floor condos pivot slightly from the ground floor street grid to align with the area’s overall north-south orientation, further opening up views and minimizing the building’s bulk.

The mid-block passageway quickly evolved into an all-weather living room for the community, complete with a transparent glass-and-wood canopy spanning 60 feet between the buildings. Tree Snag, a 30-foot-tall sculpture by Douglas Coupland, occupies the central space, complementing other works around the site by the same artist. Original paintings by the late Gordon Smith, who passed away in early 2020, adorn the residential lobbies. The developer, Grosvenor, has also forged partnerships with the Kay Meek Art Centre and other local arts organizations for Christmas performances and other special events to take place in the sheltered outdoor space.

The development also aims to contribute towards housing availability and sustainability. The 98 high-end, home-like units are the kind of places intended to appeal to aging boomers interested in opting for a lower-maintenance condo with waterfront views, and a chance to live in the ‘five-minute city.’ Such occupants could produce the knock-on effect of freeing up nearby existing houses for use by families. Currently, West Vancouver is Canada’s wealthiest municipality, with an average household net worth of over $4.45 million dollars—but much of that is tied up in the value of under-occupied homes that were purchased at much lower prices, and that owners can’t afford to relocate from without an alternative such as Ambleside.

On each floor, deep overhangs contribute to solar shading and weather protection while protecting each unit’s views; extensive planters allow for the capture and slow release of rainwater before being discharged at ground level. Nodding to the area’s West Coast Modern legacy homes, Grosvenor Ambleside sports long horizontal lines, wood parallam beams in the breezeway, generous glazing, and stunning views of the water and mountains.

Herman Hertzberger once wrote about the warp and weft of urban design. He commented that architecture and its surrounding context—the roads and infrastructure that support each building—combine and complement each other in a successful design. We see our work at Ambleside and other large sites around Metro Vancouver as part of this greater whole. These projects participate in an ongoing revitalization of the city’s infrastructure, mending city streets while introducing new building fabric.

At Ambleside, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, both for residents and for the greater community. Through public engagement and a shared vision of how we wish to live together, we believe that beyond providing housing, we’ve forged a strong public realm in this key community site—a place from which we can stand back to look at the state of our world, and find our way back home.

Sean Ruthen, FRAIC, is the current RAIC Regional Director for BC and Yukon, and a senior architect at James K.M. Cheng Architects.

CLIENT Grosvenor | ARCHITECT TEAM James KM Cheng (FRAIC), Adeline Lai, Don Chan, Dennis Selby, Ingolf Blanken Barbosa, Luc Melanson, Stanton Hung, Sara Kasaei, Ashley Ortlieb, Fang Hsu, Bruce Yung, Candace Lange | STRUCTURAL Read Jones Christoffersen | MECHANICAL Integral Group | ELECTRICAL Smith + Andersen | LANDSCAPE DESIGN ARCHITECT SWA | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OF RECORD Durante Kreuk | CIVIL Binnie | SURVEYOR Butler Sundvick | INTERIORS Mitchell Freedland Design | CODE LMDG Building Code Consultants | ENVELOPE RDH Building Science | GEOTECHNICAL Thurber Engineering | ACOUSTICS BKL Consultants | SUSTAINABILITY Integral Group | WAYFINDING Bunt & Associates | CONTRACTOR Ledcor Group | AREA 24,619 m2 | BUDGET $347 M | COMPLETION Spring 2021

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The Williams Lake First Nation government administration building is a dynamic two-storey hybrid mass timber facility located in the central interior of British Columbia.

Designed by Thinkspace, with the chief and counsel of the Williams Lake First Nation, the project is the administrative home for the 857 members of the T’exelcemc, or Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN), offering a full range of services, including education, healthcare and economic development. The building, which serves as headquarters for the Nation’s elected leadership, also includes council chambers, cultural exhibit space, and an archeological laboratory.

This 17,700 sq ft building was designed to be spatially efficient. Despite its modest size, the use of transparency, light, and thoughtful programmatic distribution ensures an impressive presence. The design challenge was to represent past values and placemaking, while simultaneously creating a warm and modern feel that embodies contemporary WLFN values and identity. Selecting an exposed mass timber structure and choosing to use wood extensively throughout the space makes that vision come to life. 

The wood landscape inside and outside the building acts as an armature, providing ready-made framing for artwork and cultural objects. Careful attention to detailing and connections create a clean aesthetic, complementing and supporting the desire for a modern, efficient building that is representative of the T’exelcemc identity. 

The building planning diagram combines an interconnected two-storey linear atrium with a one-storey gallery, council chamber, and research wing. The parti for the massing and program allows the two interlocking volumes to create a clear and identifiable entry that connects indoors and outdoors while still making the exhibit space at the entryway a focal point.  

An open design in the administration space allows for transparency, light, and artwork dispersed throughout the building’s volumes, thanks in large part to the atrium. Clerestory glazing brings natural daylight to both levels of the administration zone. The workspace is flexible and adaptable, and consists of both open and closed offices. Wood is always visible, and part of the day-to-day experience for staff.

Wood was chosen for the building for cultural, aesthetic, biophilic, and constructability reasons, but also because of its sustainable properties. Locally- and regionally-sourced wood products significantly reduced the building’s carbon footprint, and will sequester CO2 for its lifespan. In terms of operational sustainability, the building incorporates state-of-the-art mechanical and HVAC design, complete with dynamic heat recovery, maximized ventilation, and sophisticated control systems. Lighting controls and LED fixtures exceed ASHRAE standards while simultaneously reducing energy consumption. High-efficiency windows naturally expose southern sunspaces and create a warm environment while reducing the need for additional lighting or energy draw. Xeriscape landscaping will reduce water consumption, conserve natural flora, and contribute to local animal habitats. The pond beside the building was preserved after turtles, a sacred species for the T’exelcemc, were discovered there. 

This innovative, inspired building serves a highly functional purpose, but it also makes a profound statement. It speaks to the pride the Williams Lake First Nation has in its heritage and culture, an awareness of the land and natural resources, and the importance of defining its own identity within a physical context.  

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The Canadian Wood Council’s Wood WORKS! BC program recognizes excellence in contemporary design and building with wood in Vancouver at the virtual 16^th Wood Design Awards in B.C. Many design and building professionals joined the virtual event, including architects, structural engineers, members of project teams, local government, industry sponsors and guests.

Winners and nominees of the Wood WORKS! BC 2020 Wood Design Awards were honoured and recognized for their leadership and innovation in structural and architectural wood use.

BC Provincial Minister Katrine Conroy (Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development) provided a special message, congratulating the award winners while also outlining some of the forest industry changes her government is currently working on. She also mentioned a number of high – profile wood buildings in BC that are expected to get underway soon.

There were over 50 nominations in 9 categories for the 2020 awards – with nominations from all over the province, as well as some international project submissions from as far away as Taiyuan, China. All projects illustrate distinctive and unique qualities of wood such as strength, beauty, versatility, and cost- effectiveness while showcasing a variety of wood uses.

“With wood now recognized for its ability to significantly reduce greenhouse gas impacts in our built environment and increase construction efficiency, it now plays a leading role in the current design and building revolution. The continued exploration of new frontiers with wood is the foundation of our

awards program and the projects presented here this evening provide a view into the future,” explained Lynn Embury-Williams, Executive Director of Wood WORKS! BC.

This year’s winners in the wood design categories include:

Residential Wood Design: Perkins&Will, Vancouver, BC, for SoLo in the Soo Valley, BC

Multi-unit Wood Design: Studio 531 Architects, Vancouver, BC for Cubes in Courtenay, BC

Commercial Wood Design: Proscenium Architecture and Interiors, Vancouver, BC for MEC Vancouver Retail Store in Vancouver, BC

Environmental Performance: Public Architecture and Communication, Vancouver, BC for UBCO Skeena Residence in Kelowna, BC

Institutional Wood Design: Small: dk Architecture, North Vancouver, BC for the Skeetchestn Health Centre in Savona, BC

Institutional Wood Design: Large: Lubor Trubka Associates Architects, Vancouver, BC for the Tsleil-Waututh Administration and Health Centre in North Vancouver, BC

Western Red Cedar: HDR Architecture Associates, Penticton, BC for the Lakehouse in Summerland, BC

Wood Innovation:  Perkins&Will, Vancouver, BC for the Pavilion at Great Northern Way in Vancouver, BC:

International Wood Design: Michael Green Architecture, Vancouver, BC the Catalyst Building in Spokane, Washington, USA 

Two Jury’s Choice awards were also awarded. The first award went to Waymark Architecture in Victoria, BC for the Charter Telecom Headquarters located in Victoria, BC. The second Jury’s Choice award went to Francl Architecture Inc. in Vancouver, BC for the West Village District Energy Centre located in Surrey, BC.

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Sara Jacobs, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia, has received a Graham Foundation grant for her project Landscapes of Racial Formation: Warren Manning in Atlanta, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama.

Landscapes of Racial Formation examines how landscape architectural practice was folded into the racial formation of the United States in the early twentieth century, according to the Graham Foundation website. Jacobs’ archival and site-based research examines the relationship between landscape architect Warren Manning’s white supremacist environmental atlas, “A National Plan” (1919), and city plans Manning implemented for Birmingham and Atlanta, in 1919 and 1922, respectively.

A significant designer who completed over 100 built projects, Manning was a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a long-time employee of Fredrick Law Olmsted. The research looks at how Manning’s representation of landscape intersected with Progressive era anxieties to legitimize the design of racialized urban landscapes in Birmingham and Atlanta. Examining how Manning naturalized eugenic-based racial segregation in these cities reveals how white supremacist logics are enacted through the making of landscape, a legacy that landscape history has yet to fully address.

Sara Jacobs holds a master’s in landscape architecture from Harvard University and doctorate in the built environment from the University of Washington. is assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia. Jacobs writes and draws about how socioecological relations become legible through landscape to work toward just land futures. Her research considers how practices of care, biopolitics, and race and racialization within historic spatial processes shape the politics of landscape practice in relation to social and ecological life.

Jacobs’s design work has been recognized internationally, including from the American Society of Landscape Architects, and her research has been supported by the Clarence Stein Institute for Urban Landscapes, Garden Club of America, and Center for Land Use Interpretation. Her writings appear in the Journal of Landscape Architecture, Landscape Architecture Frontiers, and the SITE Magazine. Jacobs was previously the Thaler Visiting Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia.

Jacobs is one of 71 grant recipients selected from nearly 700 applicants to the current cycle of the Graham Foundation Grants to Individuals.

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Sitting lightly upon a forested knoll overlooking the Soo Valley in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains, Perkins and Will’s performance-led project  is not a typical alpine home.

Designed for Vancouver-based developer, Delta Land Development, the home is a prototype for low-energy systems, healthy materials, and prefabricated and modular construction methods intended to inform larger projects.

With Delta Group’s intention to pioneer a future zero emissions approach to building, Perkins and Will designed a prototype that demonstrates a unique approach to building off-grid in a remote environment where every choice has consequences.

The home expresses a restrained material palette while generating more energy than it uses, eliminating fossil fuels and combustion from its operation. Challenging conventions in both aesthetics and construction, the prototype acts as a testing ground for low-energy systems, healthy materials, prefabricated and modular construction methods, and independent operations intended to inform the approach to larger projects such as Canada’s Earth Tower.

A Passive House certified building, wood was chosen as the primary structural material and is authentically expressed and exposed in its entirety throughout the home—a ‘temple to douglas fir’.

Given the valley’s extreme climate, the design team knew it was critical to have an ‘enclosure-first’ approach to ensure energy efficiency and outstanding comfort.

“With the goal of Passive House certification, we applied a two-layer approach to the enclosure—an outer heavy timber frame acts as shield, resisting the weather, while the heavily insulated inner layer acts as the thermal barrier,” says Perkins and Will.

“To make certain the house functions with exceptional thermal performance and air tightness, we conducted detailed thermal modeling of each weather condition. With the addition of double height glazing opening the home up to the valley’s incredible views, the home has achieved PHI Low Energy Building certification.”

As an ‘off-grid’ home, a number of systems are required for its operational independence. With the goal to eliminate fossil fuels and combustion from its operation, the team incorporated a photo-voltaic array, geoxchange system, and hydrogen fuel cell as a backup energy storage solution. Although it reduces efficiency, the site’s topography, along with the snow accumulation in winter, led them to mount the 32kW array vertically on the south façade.

Complementing the home’s solar generation, Perkins and Will also provided future provision for wind power. The house collects and treats its own drinking water and processes its wastewater. Solving the challenges provided by the site’s remote location and seasonal construction window, the team commissioned local builders to prefabricate modular building elements off-site.

“This was essential to allow for a quick erection of the building in the summer season while decreasing the amount of equipment and materials needed to be delivered to the site—reducing the project’s embodied carbon footprint,” says Perkins and Will.

To minimize site disturbance, the modular prefabricated home is set on a light structure above the uneven terrain, reinforcing its relationship to the site as a ‘visitor’, allowing nature and the site to remain the focus.

The interior of the house features only six materials, with douglas fir celebrated throughout as both structure and finish. With a commitment to promote health and well-being, the firm purposely chose materials that were reviewed against its Precautionary List, rounding out their  holistic approach to sustainability by eliminating harmful substances.

As part of the design process, the detailing of the building prompted a research initiative completed by the Vancouver studio, “Increasing Understanding of the Role of Thermal Bridging in Building Performance and the Design Process”.

The house sits between the traditional territories of the Lil’wat and Squamish First Nations, with evidence of occupation in the valley for centuries. Development in the broader region began in the 1970s in the present Resort Municipality of Whistler, beginning as an ‘off-grid’ settlement of avid cross-country skiers, naturalists, and outdoor adventurers. With a historical forestry-based economy, today the popular skiing and hiking area is found amid stands of second-growth forest. Contributing to the local economy, the design team states that all timber cleared on the project  site fed into the local forest industry.

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Two Canadian architecture firms—HCMA Architecture + Design and PHAEDRUS Studio—have received American Institute of Architects (AIA) International Region Awards, in the Architecture and Interior Architecture categories respectively.

Located within a downtown Toronto industrial brick-and-beam building, PHAEDRUS Studio’s Thor Espresso received the AIA’s International Honor Award for Interior Architecture. The design responds to two distinct interfaces of a corner retail space while also enhancing the experience of its historic shell.

With expansive stainless steel portals that emphasize the existing structural bays, the café presents a unique and refined architecture that interweaves functional and expressive elements.

“Despite its modest typology, Thor Espresso presents an innovative experience that pushes the boundaries of hospitality design, both aesthetically and technically,” says PHAEDRUS Studio.

HCMA Architecture + Design received the AIA International Honor Award for Architecture for the Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre in Surrey, BC. Both a destination training facility and a venue for regional, national and international competitions, the centre meets stringent FINA standards for sporting events in its 10-lane, 50-metre Olympic-size competition pool, equipped with a dive platform.

With seating for up to 900 spectators, it is a premier destination for competitive diving, swimming, synchronized swimming and water polo events.

“The project vision was to design and build a world-class aquatic centre to attract people from everywhere, while expressing the community’s ambition for Surrey. Inclusivity and universal access help to support a diverse culture. Intended to accommodate the needs of its growing community, the aquatic centre plays a vital role as the area develops and the master plan vision, which HCMA also helped to develop, is realized,” says HCMA.

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Located in Vancouver’s Killarney neighborhood, Johnston Davidson Architecture (JDA)’s Vancouver Fire Hall No. 5 is the city’s first fire hall collocated with housing, and sets a precedent for future public building projects.

After serving the Champlain Heights and East Fraser Lands communities since 1952, the replacement of the hall provides the community with colocated housing. The combination of programs is the first of its kind, and delivers for the needs of both fire hall staff and residents. 

The new fire hall’s design aims for LEED Gold. It combines concepts of sustainable architecture with the specific programmatic needs of the Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services (VFRS). It also brings increased density to the area, and creates effective use of City land through the addition of four stories of two- and three-bedroom homes for women-led families.

The 21,000-square-foot fire hall includes three apparatus bays and supporting spaces, including personal protective equipment (PPE) storage, a hose tower, offices, a lounge/day room, kitchen, dormitory, washroom facilities, fitness room, and a community room which doubles as a VFRS training room. This meeting space serves as an interface between VFRS and the community, allowing for bookings by community groups, and use for activities such as CPR and first aid courses, blood pressure clinics, and training for volunteer emergency groups.

The 36,000 square feet of housing within the project was realized in partnership with the YWCA. It includes 31 suites, along with amenity rooms. Communal rooftop outdoor spaces include urban agriculture opportunities, picnic tables and a play area. The housing has a separate, secure entrance from the fire hall.

Architecturally combining two extremely different user groups on a small site—while providing each of them with their own identity—was one of the largest challenges that faced the design team. Issues around security, privacy, shared facilities, and combined services were some of the complications which were addressed during the design. Additionally, protective services facilities in Vancouver need to be designed to post-disaster standards. As a result, the entire building must be able to withstand seismic forces 1.5 times those required for a regular structure.

Throughout the building, accessibility, natural lighting, exterior views and operable windows improve livability for users and reduce energy demand. The housing component of the building is constructed in light wood frame, which adheres to the BC Wood First Act. The wood is harvested locally from sustainably managed forests.

Combining the two programs on a site already owned by the City offered exceptional value, and kept the cost per square foot down in comparison to similar facilities in Vancouver. This successful combining of needs and increased value frees up and allows for improved allocation of citywide resources.

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As of November 26, 2020, the Architectural Institute of British Columbia (AIBC) is officially part of the Ministry of Attorney General. The change was announced on December 1 in a letter from the Office of the Superintendent of Professional Governance (OSPG).

Previously, the AIBC was under the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training. The transition of ministries is consistent with a July 14 letter from the Government of British Columbia to the AIBC.

“Over the past three years, Government has shared your concerns about deficiencies identified in the legislation that governs the profession of architecture,” says the July 14 letter. “Specifically, the Architects Act does not provide the legislative tools the AIBC requires, including the lack of a Duties & Responsibilities section, restricted disciplinary options, and static qualification requirements.”

“At the same time, Government has invested significant resources and effort to create modern professional governance framework including legislation and oversight to provide greater tools and support to other regulators currently under the Professional Governance Act (PGA) within the natural and built environment. Recognizing Government’s investment in the Professional Governance Act (PGA) as the oversight legislation, and the supporting Office of the Superintendent of Professional Governance (OSPG) as the oversight body, and, more importantly, recognizing that the PGA contains all the items that were being considered as amendments to the Architects Act, Government will be moving the AIBC from my Ministry to the Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG) and then transition to the PGA, and the oversight of the OSPG.”

“This transition does not change the AIBC’s core function, mandate, or operations – the AIBC will continue to exist, and will continue to regulate the profession of architecture in British Columbia in the interest of the public,” explains the AIBC on a webpage dedicated to the transition.

The AIBC’s website explains that The Architects Act is outdated and in need of modernization. The newest professional regulation legislation in British Columbia is the 2018 Professional Governance Act,  which was designed to ensure that the highest professional, technical and ethical standards are being applied to resource development in British Columbia. The legislation sets consistent governance standards across the professions it governs.

Once fully in place, the Professional Governance Act and its associated regulations will replace the Architects Act. Until then, the Architects Act is still in effect.

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