PROJECT Historians’ Library and Residence

ARCHITECT Dowling Architects

TEXT Zaven Titizian

PHOTOS Henry Dowling & Paul Dowling

“During the construction of the library, I often felt like a medieval bishop,” joked Robert Jan van Pelt—an architectural historian and tenured professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture. “I had sold the last of my religious treasures, all for the cathedral envisioned by my master builder, Paul, in whom I had absolute faith.” 

Architect Paul Dowling laughed when I told him that. He had spent the last five years designing and building a private library and residence extension for Robert Jan and fellow historian Miriam Greenbaum. Paul was more humble when describing the project, which for him is “a simple building to house a complex client—and a deeply meaningful library.”

A Simple Building and a Complex Client

The design of the detached, backyard library began, like most projects do, with a simple list of requirements. It should safely enclose the historians’ collection—a sober fonds focused on Holocaust history, concentration camps, and military barracks. It should have a space for Miriam and Robert Jan to work, with accessible storage for ongoing research and oversized folios. Finally, it should include a small washroom, and a sofa for the occasional overnight guest.

In addition to these programmatic requirements, there were other, less tangible requests that arose from conversations between Paul and the historians. Sometimes this came in the form of a literary excerpt—for instance, a description of the snug, seafaring cabin of Dr. Clawbonny from Jules Verne’s The Adventures of Captain Hatteras—or a personal memory, like of the German bunkers Robert Jan played in as a child. These musings inspired, rather than prescribed, what would become characteristic elements of the library such as its deep wall section, horizontal slot window, and shell-like enclosure.

Paul worked extensively with physical models to conceptualize the contemporary design within the compact yard of the historians’ existing single-storey home—a white stucco residence which has stood in the historic community of Galt in Cambridge, Ontario, since the 1860s. The bungalow was originally built as a domicile for the farmhand who tended the properties of a large hilltop residence nearby. Paul sought to honour the patinaed quality of the existing site by choosing materials and finishes intended to age over time and weather alongside the home. Paul saw working in model form as an important first step in the project’s realization, with a clear progression of tactile design development that continued through fabrication drawings and mockups towards a building which is comprehensive in its approach to details, materials, and site context.

While some designers might pass off work to a contractor once the initial design is complete, for Paul, this is when “most of the invention begins—and it’s too interesting not to be involved in that part of the work.” For the past 30 years, Paul and his partner, Catherine Dowling, have used their home and studio as a testing ground for architectural experiments. By combining their self-build experience with knowledge of construction management from past projects, they created a company called BUILD to act as the design–builder for the library. Paul said that the project size and client–architect relationship was perfectly aligned for them to take on this role. It allowed them to do the majority of concrete, framing, roofing, and millwork construction themselves, and facilitated in situ design decisions while working alongside skilled tradespeople for the excavation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and steel fabrication.

The library itself is a simple rectangular volume located along the long edge of the deep, narrow yard. A corrugated metal roof folds around a white-oak-batten-clad frame and cantilevers out over the fenestrated ends. Site-cast concrete foundations are revealed across the hillside site and extend into patios below the exterior overhangs. The primary entry is partially sunk below grade to mediate the sloping site. Central to the project is a large slot window running more than half the length of the building, looking out over a wild, rocky garden and stealing views and speckled shade from the neighbouring trees.

Partway through the construction, Robert Jan and Miriam decided that they would leave their home in Toronto and settle permanently in their Galt residence. They expanded Paul’s scope to include an extension to their home, adding a washroom with a shower, stair access to the basement utilities, and relocating the front entrance to a red cedar volume at the side of the house. The library was temporarily put on hold, but the newly enclosed space became Paul’s workshop during the pandemic.

From this library-turned-workshop, Paul could mock up one-to-one details in situ as the finishing touches were being made to the library. Paul sketched plans for the residence extension on the stud framing of the library for his clients. He remembers holding up full-scale mockups of the library’s custom wood mullions, giving Robert Jan and Miriam a sense of how materials would react to the lighting on site. “I think it is the experimentation involved in the making that appeals to us so strongly,” Paul explained. “Being influenced by both materials and workmanship, to discover how we can achieve architectural ideas of form and experience. It’s difficult to achieve that working only on paper or the computer screen.”

Entering into the finished library is like stepping into a Willem van Haecht painting: it feels both intimate and infinite. Books pulled flush with the built-in millwork shelves look like masonry blocks stacked from floor to ceiling, holding up a slatted wood soffit. The warm,
unfinished Douglas fir bookshelves flank either side of a single, uninterrupted axis that runs from one end of the library to the other. The space is furnished by a patchwork of rugs and Dutch armchairs laid out over the polished concrete floor. Carved into the poché of bookshelves is an interior niche divided by a structural board-form concrete wall which separates a daybed from a massive black walnut desktop, set perfectly flush with the central slot window.

Exemplifying the kind of thoughtful diligence that went into each detail of the construction is the bespoke shutter system for the slot window. Paul recalls that “the glazing was much too large for any kind of traditional folding shutter, but sliding, overhead panels could be recessed into [the] thick wall section.” Since the shutter needed to be as light as possible, it was built like a hollow core door, using lightweight interior framing, 1/4” Douglas fir plywood skins, and a bottom edge reinforced with aluminum plate to provide lateral stiffness. 

The shutter design is based on traditional counterweighted sash windows, though the main challenge came from its long horizontal proportions. Threaded rods extend down into the panel framing and connect to stainless steel aircraft cables, which run over ball bearing pulleys to a bundle of steel reinforcing rods. Racking is prevented by spring-loaded wheels that run in tracks along each vertical edge. “[The shutter] was particularly satisfying to see in place, as the design evolved over a long period of time, and I kept coming back to it over the course of the project,” says Paul.

The building’s enclosure is also particularly clever. Based on Passivhaus standards, Paul included insulation in the framing layer and a robust smart vapour control membrane, which protects against condensation, allows drying of the assembly, and provides a very airtight enclosure. Similarly, the heated concrete slab rests on a thick layer of EPS foam insulation to allow a continuous thermal break at walls, roof and floor. The bookcases comprising the long south wall are hung from the service framing, which in turn rests on the floating slab. “Minimal thermal bridges occur where wood beams supporting the upper bookcases connect to primary structure at the east and west walls,” Paul explains, “and insulated foundations for the concrete and wood interior shear walls project through the concrete slab.” Temperature, fresh air, and humidity are controlled to residential standards with a heated floor, energy recovery ventilator, and cooling unit.

There is a simplicity to the building that only comes from a patient, uncompromising attention to each detail—all in service of a greater whole—without ever losing sight of the complexities that make the project so meaningful.

A Deeply Meaningful Library

Paul and Robert Jan both teach at the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture, which is only a ten minute walk from the library. From its inception, the library and residence were intended to extend themselves, at times, to the school, its students, and visiting scholars. Prior to the library’s design, Paul had helped set up a design-build program for the university. For the library’s construction, Paul hired several undergraduate students who were involved in the design–build program, and mentored them through various phases in the project.

The consensus that emerged when I spoke to some of these students was that they learned more from their time under Paul—helping pour foundations and set concrete, framing and enclosing the library, and crafting millwork details—than they had at any other point in their academic career. The experience had a profound impact on the students, many of whom have gone on to become successful advocates for the importance of designing through craft.

Robert Jan and Miriam hope that the library can continue to be a teaching moment for young prospective architects at the university. It is one of only a few examples of exemplary contemporary design in Galt, and a demonstrably successful precedent for a process that we rarely see in Canada: the architect working as a craftsperson. Paul’s slow and exacting process is an important counterpoint to the aggressive, rapid development that otherwise surrounds the library. After the time I have spent with Paul and this project, I can’t help but return to what Robert Jan said when we first met. Maybe there is some truth in that joke. Maybe the role of master builder hasn’t been completely lost to history.

Zaven Titizian is an architectural designer, writer, and researcher based in Tiohti:áke (Montréal), Canada. His M.Arch thesis at the University of Waterloo was supervised by Robert Jan van Pelt.

CLIENT Robert Jan van Pelt and Miriam Greenbaum | ARCHITECT TEAM Paul Dowling, Catherine Dowling, Henry Dowling | STRUCTURAL Blackwell | CONTRACTOR BUILD  (Paul Dowling) | STUDENTS Mark Clubine, Joshua Giovinazzo, Magnus Glennie, Joshua MacDonald, Sarah Mason, Ethan Paddock, Salman Rauf, Yannik Sigouin, Conrad Speckert, Jonathan Subendran, Levi Van Weerden, Colin Williams | AREA 43 m2 (library); 27 m2 (new addition to residence)  | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION December 2021

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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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What sleight of hand is required to create a richly comprehensive book, when the subject is just four small projects? Meticulous writing, excellent documentation, and a magician’s mindset. In Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata, author Leslie Van Duzer is as adroit with the written word as a magician is with deceptive banter. The Vancouver-based architecture professor (and former director of UBC’s SALA) draws on her background as an educator and onetime magician’s assistant to conjure up a book aptly described as “a hybrid between an architectural monograph and a magic instruction book.” Starting from the evocative cover, Van Duzer’s precise yet poetic text and book designer Pablo Mandel’s rhythmical graphic layout draw us in and lead us through each project.

Almost, Not. The title itself sets the scene with a bit of mystery—almost, not what? It invokes images of thwarted expectations and upended suppositions. But it also summons visions of surprise and astonishment as assumptions are turned upside-down. In the context of the book, Van Duzer defines “almost” as “a delightfully destabilizing oscillation between certainty and uncertainty, curiosity and astonishment, past and present experience, delaying any automated consumption.” In Almost, Not, the author delivers this delight not only through the precision of the text and the thoroughness of the documentation: she also reveals the designers’ techniques for developing their architectural tricks—like turning a column into a closet, or a cupboard into a door.

The book introduces the work of Atelier Nishikata, an architecture firm little known outside of Japan. Since 2000, partners Reiko Nishio and Hirohito Ono have crafted their practice with care, rigor, and intention. Their goal is not to deceive but rather to create architecture that “transcends its physical boundaries and its visual image when it fully engages the body and its spatial imagination.” Despite the limited number of built projects, the ideas, methods, and designs of Atelier Nishikata offer plenty for us to contemplate.

Almost, Not is composed of three parts. First, we are introduced to the firm’s approach to design and the processes and techniques they employ to create the desired “experiential complexity” of their projects. The author compares the architects’ methods to those of magicians and lets us in on various techniques that both use to create the desired effects of their constructions. For example, repetition-variation is used to produce the effect of déjà vu, or category-jumping creates the effect of detour. Van Duzer also reminds us of other artists and architects who also have employed similar techniques.

Descriptions and documentation of the four projects comprise the body of the book. All are small private residential buildings or renovations, and all involve the trickery of transformation, whether it is converting four rooms into five, or using a material typically found on the roof as an exterior wall finish. Each “almost-ordinary” project tests our assumptions about familiar elements and spatial configurations. Is a cabinet really a cabinet when it opens to reveal a window? Yes, but no. Is a framed opening of an adjacent building’s vent cap truly an appealing view? Well, yes, almost. With careful observation and a few hints from the author, the initial visual simplicity of Atelier Nishikata’s designs gives way to surprising spatial and experiential complexity.

The final component of the book is a conversation between the author and the architects. Nishio and Ono discuss the impetus for their partnership arising from the dissatisfaction they felt with projects earlier in their careers. Nishio was disappointed that “a transcendence of the physical realm” never materialized in the final construction, and Ono had moved from architecture into the realm of contemporary art, thinking that it would allow him to gain insight by considering architecture “from a distance.” Both designers felt “something was missing” and recognized that “thinking deeply in the design process was essential.” That recognition led them to a decades-long quest to observe rigorously, study ferociously, and design precisely.

The ending conversation includes discussion of the architects’ major influences and also broaches subjects of long-standing architectural debate, which play important roles in Atelier Nishikata’s thinking and design. On the topic of four-dimensional space (a concept akin to Henri Bergson’s “duration”), Nishio states, “You cannot exceed physical limits without physical things.” And regarding honesty in architectural expression, author Van Duzer notes, “There is often a gap between what one sees, what is expressed and what is required.” Ono responds, “We think the disclosure of tricks like this presents an honest attitude to the distance between structure and expression.” The magic of Atelier Nishikata’s designs is in the gaps between perception and reality in the physical expression of their ideas.

While Van Duzer lets us in on the magician’s process but not their actual tricks, she does reveal both the underlying strategies and the resulting effects of Atelier Nishikata’s projects—the architectural tricks that cause us to suspend belief and allow a transcendence of the physical realm, the architectural equivalent of levitation.

Is it all illusion? No, there is no real trickery in Almost, Not. The book completes what it sets out to accomplish. And like any good magic show, it leaves us asking a few questions. Are words and images truly able to present the full spatial experience intended by the architects, or are such cerebrally and spatially complex projects impossible to understand without physically being in the spaces? How does this practice fit within other architectural practices in Japan? How have other Asian architects employed similar tricks and techniques in their work? The helpful comparisons in the book primarily rely on examples from North America and Europe; understandable given the author’s expertise in the work of Adolf Loos, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Rudolph Arnheim and the architects’ stated interest in Loos, Mies, and Louis Kahn. With lingering questions and intriguing images, Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata inspires us to search for the magic in other designs—the possibility for hidden windows, surprising spatial configurations, and dislodged components—and reminds us that such enigmatic architecture can be profoundly revelatory.

Mira Locher is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba and has worked as a professional architect in the U.S. and Japan. She is the author of four books on Japanese architecture, gardens, and design: Super Potato Design, Traditional Japanese Architecture, Zen Gardens, and Zen Garden Design.

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Vancouver-based Leckie Studio is a 20-person practice founded by architect Michael Leckie in 2015. The studio operates across a range of scales and typologies, including architecture, interiors, product design and environmental design.

During his architectural internship, Michael Leckie worked at firms including Patkau Architects in Vancouver and Atelier 66 in Athens, Greece, developing an appreciation for modern regionalist practices in different parts of the world. Leckie Studio’s work is primarily located in the Cascadia Region (also known as the Pacific Northwest), with completed projects in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

In the midst of global mediatization, the studio writes that it “strives to continually reassess the notion of modernism, meaning and truth.” In architectural terms, it uses an approach informed by critical regionalism, creating places grounded in both site and context.

The studio’s designers believe that architecture has the potential to transform mundane realities in positive and meaningful ways. This is evident in a start-up venture co-founded by Michael Leckie, The Backcountry Hut Company. The company sells prefabricated building systems that take a “kit-of-parts” approach, giving clients a balance of support and agency in the design and construction of small shelters. The resulting buildings can range in size from a 10-square-metre A-frame cabin to a 185-square-metre two-storey dwelling. Leckie Studio’s associated research into mass timber prefabrication has opened up multiple other opportunities, including custom structures for remote worksites and demountable community pavilions.

Leckie Studio is often purposefully modest in its approach, espousing German designer Dieter Rams’ maxim, “Less but Better.” For the Ridge House in Portland, Oregon, it created a compact three-storey home that replaced a larger traditional house with failing foundations. The architects were challenged to create a much more spatially efficient version of its predecessor, within the budget that had originally been allocated for a renovation and addition. The resulting home offers a range of spatial qualities, richly compensating for its smaller size in comparison to the original house.

In Full House, a single-family residence in Vancouver, the studio created an intergenerational home that can be reconfigured to operate across a variety of family configuration scenarios. The architecture is easily reconfigurable to accommodate a range of programmatic scenarios. It can transform from being one large, five-bedroom intergenerational home to two discrete dwelling units: a three-bedroom suite and two-bedroom suite, or a four-bedroom suite and one-bedroom suite.

The firm has completed other notable residential projects in both rural and urban settings. Camera House, in Pemberton, B.C., uses a series of vaulted rooms to focus daylight and frame views of the surrounding forest and distant mountains. In the Vancouver Courtyard House, a home with a long, narrow floorplan is given unexpected visual depth through the introduction of a central, three-sided courtyard.

Social and urban sustainability are at the core of Bricolage, the team’s second-place entry to the City of Edmonton’s 2019 Missing Middle Infill Design Competition. The project proposes stacked rowhouses with an equal mix of affordable rental studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom units. Studio units can be internally connected to the dwellings above or below. The City of Edmonton has awarded Leckie Studio the opportunity to proceed with the proposal, with anticipated completion in 2024.

Currently under construction is the Arts Student Centre at the University of British Columbia, a compact three-storey building that will provide a new home for the Arts Undergraduate Society. The cylindrical form is a response to the building’s idiosyncratic site within a continuous campus commons, and simultaneously at the corner of an intersection.

Leckie Studio takes an integrated approach to environmental sustainability, aiming first and foremost to create lasting, resilient designs. The practice pays close attention to the sourcing of materials that go into its projects, seeks out techniques that prolong the lifespan of wood while reducing the necessity for chemical treatments, and collaborates with contractors who prioritize sustainability in their construction practices. Leckie Studio’s multi-family residential and institutional designs integrate passive energy and natural daylighting, while its single-family residential designs are informed by Passive House standards.

For the IDS Vancouver installation Untitled (392 Sheets of Plywood), the studio created a sculptural enclosure where visitors could take refuge from the trade show floor. The space was loosely bounded by 392 sheets of pine plywood, which were assembled through interlocking, friction-fit connections. After the show, the structure was dismantled and subsequently re-purposed with minimal material waste.

Working with colleagues Rodrigo Cepeda and Clinton Cuddington, Michael Leckie is the co-founder of the non-profit Cascadia Architecture Foundation, which aims to serve as a platform for critical discourse in architecture, landscape design and planning throughout the Pacific Northwest. Leckie also recently led a graduate level design studio at the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

Jury Comments :: In a short time, Leckie Studio Architecture + Design has produced a diverse collection of exquisite projects which demonstrate their extraordinary commitment to regionalism and their skillful understanding of materials, all evidenced by the enthusiastic support of their clients. Their work demonstrates careful attention to craft, materiality, and the specificity of place. The various projects enter an elegant dialogue with nature, and the use of wood contributes to this integration.

Leckie Studio’s beautiful and well-executed buildings show a depth of research, craft and understanding of materiality. They have also demonstrated a commitment to sustainability with their focus on research into sustainable prefabricated mass-timber construction. With their lovely DIY cabin, they offer a refreshing option for the construction of small remote cabins, incredibly accessible to anyone with basic building skills. Their work displays a high degree of conceptual clarity and attention to detail in executing an impressive breadth for a young firm, spanning from private residences to public buildings. There is no doubt: Leckie Studio has a bright future ahead.

The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC). 

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Architects Brigitte Shim and A. Howard Sutcliffe, the founding partners of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, are designers of some of the finest architecture in Canada. Universally respected by architects, academics and students as well as the general public, their work opens people’s eyes to the beauty of architecture and landscape; to materiality and craft; and to light and spirituality. And at the same time, their work serves as a counterpoint to much of what is happening in both the world and in architecture today. In an increasingly frenetic and digital world that promotes instant gratification, Shim and Sutcliffe focus on slow experimentation through hand sketching and drawing, testing by building physical models at all scales, and the study of context and culture to “unlock” and “shape” their projects. Although they refine the local through the lens of the global, most of their studio’s preoccupations stem from their love of Canada and its varied seasonal landscapes.

Shim and Sutcliffe are Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC), Honorary Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (Hon. FAIA) and elected members of the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA). In January 2013, they were both awarded the Order of Canada “for their contributions as architects designing sophisticated structures that represent the best of Canadian design to the world.” The practice has received numerous national and international awards and extensive media attention. Their archives, including some 9,176 drawings and 160 maquettes, are held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.

“Over the past quarter of a century, these architects have made an absolutely fundamental contribution to Canadian architectural culture, and the 15 Governor General’s Medals for excellence that they have received over the past 25 years surely testifies to the consistent calibre of their practice,” writes historian Kenneth Frampton. “In my view, Shim and Sutcliffe are among the top 20 architects practicing in the world today.”

“Brigitte and Howard are architect’s architects,” writes architect Brian MacKay-Lyons. “In my view, theirs is one of the few Canadian architectural firms whose work consistently enjoys the respect of the architectural community worldwide.”

The Shim-Sutcliffe studio is intentionally small so that the duo can be personally responsive to the processes of experimentation, design and execution. They regard their studio as a laboratory for experiments at many scales and durations, and for explorations in not only buildings, but also furnishings, lighting, hardware and landscape. Shim and Sutcliffe have always considered their entire body of work as their larger project, and each individual project constitutes an investigation and exploration towards the greater whole. Time is a material in their practice, and each project draws on the experience of previous work and contributes to the next. Projects are realized through research, rigorous sketching, drawing, model making and documenting. Clients are often collaborators on this journey. Several have commissioned multiple projects over long periods of time—most notably Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan, whose four Point William commissions, completed over almost two decades, have been documented in The Architecture at Point William (ORO Editions, 2020).

Sutcliffe is an exceptional artist, for whom architecture is his medium, and drawing is his means of expression and exploration. According to Austrian curator and educator Elke Krasny, Sutcliffe’s work is “drawing architecture into existence.” She uses the word drawing in its duality: “Drawing into existence—understood as the process of bringing about and causing to exist—refers to the larger idea of the architecture of insistence which causes architecture to be. Drawing architecture into existence, as Shim-Sutcliffe connect site, material, and spatial composition, has resulted in each of their buildings to become a precedent that manifests in built terms the uniqueness of the response to each of their sites, be they located in high-density urban contexts or sparsely populated natural environments.” For Sutcliffe, a detail is not simply a detail, but rather a distillation of a bigger conceptual idea, and his daily focus involves following these details to “draw out” the aliveness of the architecture so that it speaks to its purpose, its context, and to the senses.

Education of the next generation of architects is also fundamental to Shim-Sutcliffe’s belief in engaging in and fostering design excellence in Canada and globally. Shim is a full-time tenured professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, where she has taught since 1988. She has also been a visiting professor at several Canadian universities, including at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design, McGill University’s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, and the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture. In addition, Shim has been an international invited visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture, The Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Design, University of Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning, and The University of Auckland’s National Institute for Creative Arts and Industries, among others. Both Shim and Sutcliffe have lectured and served as design advocates on architectural juries around the world.

Shim’s teaching at the Daniels Faculty and elsewhere always goes beyond simply presenting studio exercises, but addresses pressing issues that are fundamentally shaping the future of our cities and our environment. For example, in 2003, in collaboration with Donald Chong, Shim led a Masters studio focused on Toronto laneway architecture. The research was embedded in a morphological and typological understanding of urban form, as well as including a consciousness of current housing practices and public policy. The resulting publication, Site Unseen: Laneway Architecture and Urbanism in Toronto, was the recipient of a 2003 Award of Excellence for Visions and Master Plans from the City of Toronto Architecture and Urban Design Awards, advancing the intensification of laneways across the city. Juror Bruce Kuwabara commented, “Rigorous and well-presented, the body of work is groundwork for the real thesis—which is about changing the City’s policies regarding laneway architecture. The award also recognizes the research capability of a school of architecture as a generator of intellectual capital and creative equity for a city.” 

Over the years, Shim has also generously given her time and energy to numerous causes and organizations that raise up the profession and honour those who lead by example. She is on the advisory council of BEAT (Building Equity in Architecture Toronto), which supports greater diversity and inclusion in the profession. Since 2007 she has also served on the Master Jury and subsequently the Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. A program near to her heart, it celebrates outstanding architecture, landscape and heritage projects from around the world that address design excellence combined with quality of life.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Brigitte Shim emigrated to Canada in 1965. She met Sutcliffe at the University of Waterloo, where both graduated with degrees in environmental studies in 1981 and architecture in 1983. In 1981, Shim also began apprenticing with architect Arthur Erickson in Vancouver. Upon graduating, she worked with Baird/Sampson Architects in Toronto (1983-87).

A. Howard Sutcliffe was born in Yorkshire, England, and emigrated to Canada in 1964. After graduating from the University of Waterloo, he worked in the studios of Ronald Thom (1984-85), Barton Myers (1985-87), and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (1987-95). At these firms, he contributed to national and international competitions, as well as to built projects including Kitchener City Hall. In 1991, Sutcliffe was the inaugural winner of the Canada Council’s Ronald J. Thom Award, given for early design achievement.

One of Shim and Sutcliffe’s earliest collaborations, the Garden Pavilion and Reflecting Pool (1988-89) in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto, was created to accompany a 1960s modern house by Ron Thom. The project demonstrates many of the duo’s lifelong interests and passions: attentiveness to the demands of the topography and setting, reciprocity between built form and landscape, and links between the physical and spiritual. The garden cascades down into a wooded ravine, interweaving pathways, bridges, fountains and landscape to create a dynamic processional route that merges interior and exterior spaces, culminating in a weathering steel pavilion. Within this project are many rich spatial and material explorations—of the sort that Shim and Sutcliffe have since continued to investigate and interrogate.

Occupying a derelict site, Shim and Sutcliffe’s own residence, the Laneway House (1991-94) is one of the first of its kind in Toronto. It showcases the duo’s ability to look beyond the current condition of sites to see their hidden potential. The 17-foot-wide home’s living space includes an eight-by-eight foot pivoting window, which opens onto a compact courtyard garden with a fountain running year-round. Inside, the house feels airy, and demonstrates that thoughtful design with humble materials such as concrete block can create a livable home with warmth, flexibility and compactness. It includes design elements that the architects have continued to explore in later projects, such as slender cruciform columns, handrails made from steel pipe rail and folded steel sheet, and an intentionally oversized hearth.

The couple established their practice, Toronto-based Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, in 1994. One of their first works as a firm was the Craven Road House (1996), a live-work urban infill residence that fuses the intimacy of a Toronto Victorian worker’s cottage with the robustness of an industrial loft. Marine plywood and wood siding clad the exterior, creating an abstracted yet tactile insertion into an existing neighbourhood. The firm later added a pavilion-like studio to the property. The house and the studio were recognized with separate Governor General’s awards in 1997 and 2010.

Shim and Sutcliffe was first able to extend their practice’s architectural thinking to the urban scale at Ledbury Park (1997), in north Toronto. Here, the studio transformed a flat, undifferentiated suburban park into a new topographic landscape that connects the park with the neighbourhood, the architecture with landscape, and the users with Southern Ontario’s extreme climates. The site integrates a small recreational facility with a swimming pool, a skating canal, sports fields, and walking paths. The duo designed fountains, lamp poles, and benches so that Ledbury Park demonstrates public architecture in the best sense—elevating both the locale and its activities by making them inviting and accessible. The project received a Governor General’s Award in 1999.

For Moorelands Camp (2000), on Lake Kawagama, Ontario, Shim-Sutcliffe used glulam wood-frame construction combined with steel rods to create a seasonal dining hall that is filled with natural light—a luminous clearing in the woods. “This is a modest project that exhibits a very strong spatial and tectonic idea. These qualities are further buttressed by a careful repertoire of appropriately straightforward fabrication details,” commented Governor General’s Awards juror George Baird.

Another set of notable projects emerged from Shim-Sutcliffe’s tenure as the College Architects of Ron Thom’s Massey College at the University of Toronto. From 1995-2014, the studio was responsible for overseeing the repairs, upgrades and renovations necessary to maintain the building and ensure its evolution while maintaining Thom’s core vision. Their work as stewards of the college included utilitarian aspects, such as HVAC upgrades and barrier-free access, as well as renewing public spaces such as the Robertson Davies Library, St. Catherine’s Chapel and a new West Gate. These alterations are neither emulations of nor juxtapositions with Thom’s work, but rather didactic “conversations” demonstrating the architects’ shared preoccupations as well as their distinct but complimentary approaches.

Cultural spaces in which to experience art weave through much of Shim-Sutcliffe’s body of work, including the Corkin Gallery in the historic Distillery District (2004), the Frum Collection of African Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2008) and Integral House (2009). Each displays a high-level aspiration to architectural excellence and commitment to craft and detail that enhances the art it contains.

Sacred spaces designed by the firm demonstrate Shim-Sutcliffe’s commitment to embedding the spiritual in architecture and landscape. At Congregation Bet Ha’am Synagogue (2008) in Portland, Maine, the building’s section shapes how light enters a powerful spiritual gathering space. The Atherley Narrows Bridge project (unbuilt) addresses concepts of spirituality and preservation of the 5,000-year-old Mnjinkaning fishing weirs. The Residence for the Sisters of Saint Joseph (2014) progresses from communal spaces for collective worship and ministry, to private spaces for individual contemplation, where elderly sisters can receive dignified care. The Wong Dai Sin Temple (2015), in Markham, is asymmetrically balanced on a long-spanning cantilever—an elegant allusion to the Taoist community’s commitment to spiritual development through the physical practice of tai chi. In 2020 the duo received the Culture and Spirituality Forum Award for Outstanding Achievement for their “demonstrated sensitivity to spirituality in their built and unbuilt works.”

Shim-Sutcliffe’s works are all distinguished by their attention to detail. The architects frequently design hardware, fixtures and fittings for their projects, and they enjoy collaborating with local fabricators and craftspeople to realize their vision. The HAB Chair, originally designed as a prototype for a Lake Muskoka boathouse, has since 2004 been produced by Nienkämper, and in that year received the Chicago Athenaeum and Museum of Architecture and Design’s Good Design Award. As their long-time clients Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan describe it, since their very first projects, Shim and Sutcliffe have consistently exhibited “a very high standard of design, sensitivity to building in harmony with nature, scrupulous attention to every last detail, and meticulous concern for execution.”

“Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe have created a truly outstanding body of work which they will continue to expand in years to come,” writes architect John Patkau. “Their accomplishment is a gift of great value to Canadian culture.”

“The poetic quality and independence of their design work, their thoughtful and holistic consideration of site, materiality, typologies, the senses, and their inventiveness have made Shim and Sutcliffe exemplars of architectural practice in Canada,” writes Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director Emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. “To me, it is clear that they are abundantly worthy of being awarded the Gold Medal of the RAIC and stand as strong exponents of Canadian values.”

Jury Comments :: By their relentless pursuit of excellence, Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe have produced a significant body of exceptional design works covering architecture, landscape, interior, furniture and hardware—all developed to an incredibly high standard, with craft, rigour, sense of place, and mastery of proportions. Their work demonstrates a dedication to material expression and exquisite detailing across multiple scales, in addition to creating an intimate connection with each site.

They continue to be an inspiration to other architects by demonstrating that exceptional projects are possible and by their tireless commitment to advocacy, teaching and mentoring.

We wish to recognize them as a powerful collaborative duo, whose commitment to craft, tectonics, site and ecology will have a lasting impact on Canadian architecture.

The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC). 

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Architect Anya Moryoussef is the director and founder of Anya Moryoussef Architect (AM_A), a practice started in 2016. Her professional career includes award-winning work with firms in Canada and abroad. She demonstrates a commitment to design excellence and innovation in the practice of architecture, and serves the profession and the community through teaching, mentorship and speaking engagements.

Moryoussef graduated from the Master of Architecture program at the University of Waterloo with Commendation and Honours, achieving the highest academic standing in her undergraduate degree and receiving the RAIC Student Medal for Outstanding Thesis.

Following graduation, she apprenticed with Sarah Wigglesworth Architects in London, UK. Her work included the designing the jewel-like Bermondsey Bicycle Storage, working on the multiple-award-winning Sandal Magna Primary School, and designing and directing a studio at the Bergen Arkitektskole in Norway.

Returning to Toronto, she joined a small design-forward firm with a focus on residential projects, where she became the firm’s first associate. “My role was to take the vision of a house, as established by the partners, and turn it into a livable, enduring, beautiful place to live,” writes Moryoussef. “I was taught that this takes craft, vision, collaborative relationships with consultants and builders, and a close understanding of the client.” Half of the projects for which she was the project designer or architect were recognized with awards.

As the firm grew in size to 20, Moryoussef found herself in a more managerial role, and left to craft a practice on her own terms. “These terms were: do ambitious work, support my soon-to-be growing family with my income, and make buildings,” she writes. “I did not regard these expectations as grand, but I soon learned how grand they were with the prospects that faced me as a sole practitioner starting from the ground up.”

“The work I found was predominantly domestic. The scopes were limited. The disjunctions between budgets and aspirations were seemingly irreconcilable. But the clients, and their existing homes, were full of promise: they were the assets. On the surface, they were everyday people with modest means who had sought out an architect to uplift their daily lives; looking more deeply, I saw the drama, potential and beauty in their visions of themselves and their lives.”

Moryoussef’s steadily growing body of completed projects is distinguished by design quality and vision, combined with immense livability. One of her first solo projects, the Studiolo, is a laneway annex for a screenwriter. “I saw the client as he saw himself and, like an actor in a role, I put myself in his shoes and imagined the setting: a place for one, with pathway, entryway and doorway leading into it that are all at the width of a single body,” recalls Moryoussef. The slender entry leads to “a desk whose placement, against a wall washed with light from above, focuses his solitude.”

“The enjoyment I have received from working in the Studiolo is immense,” says the client. “The interplay of light and shadow throughout the year make the space seem alive. It revitalizes my creative spirit every time I enter it and sit down to work. It is an ever-changing environment, with the one constant being an overriding sense of creative possibility.”

For Greenwood Semi I, Moryoussef renovated an Edwardian house for a small family, carefully calibrating the relationship between modern and heritage elements. “We kept the existing thresholds, entirely or partially, of the original five rooms of the ground floor,” writes Moryoussef. “We observed the spaces as discrete, but changed their dimensions and relations to each other though millwork interventions and the placement of lighting. Framed interior views—through the enfilade, peek-throughs, and mirrors—were implemented to create a sense of privacy and intimacy but also togetherness (along with a bit of life as theatre).”

“Many spaces are beautiful, and many spaces are livable, but not many spaces are both,” the clients comment. “As we use our space each day, we continually appreciate the way in which our home enhances and embraces the way that we live. Anya’s intensive attention to all layers of the conceptual, philosophical, aesthetic and practical architecture of our space has made a house our home.”

Moryoussef’s Craven Road Micro House, completed for a retired public school teacher, is a one-storey, 17-foot-wide house that is given ample light and spaciousness with a careful arrangement of windows, including a sawtooth roof.

“I conceived of a home filled with light, air, and the passage of time,” writes Moryoussef. “I obsessed over every inch to give Laurel small luxuries like a separate bath and shower and proper entryway to take off her shoes and hang her coat; I sourced salvaged kitchen appliances from a demolition site and simplified the millwork so that she could afford trees. I studied window placements to ensure light came in from all directions, but seldom directly, and that Laurel could look outside, but the outside world could not stare in.”

“It’s a simple idea, constructed with ordinary building materials—but a beautiful idea that’s executed beautifully,” wrote Alex Bozikovic of the house in the Globe and Mail. “Judging from this house, [Anya Moryoussef] can turn something small into something very grand.”

Jury Comments :: Anya Moryoussef’s work and intellectual approach are distinguished by the sensitivity and clarity of the goals she seems to have set for the profession of architecture. Throughout her career, Moryoussef has demonstrated an enduring commitment to design excellence along with the skills to achieve not only well-designed buildings, but to design architecture that addresses the principles of social justice and social equity. 

From simple pavilions to homes and public buildings, her work has shown itself to be highly attuned to her clients’ needs and budgets, while time and again creating designs of a high calibre, precisely detailed, and beautifully executed. Moryoussef is an immensely talented and determined architect who has demonstrated the success of clear and focused commitments to the pursuit of design excellence and a deep connection with her clients. Her designs exhibit incredible skill, restraint, and innate understanding of materials.

She has earned the respect and admiration of her peers through her joy for her work, her design achievements, and her devotion to architectural education. Moryoussef is already giving back to her profession, sharing her knowledge and experience with the next generation.

The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC). 

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In a Scottish accent sanded down by nearly three decades of living in Toronto, architect Will Hudson promises we will see “some funny fish” in the neighbourhood we are approaching for a site visit. The older homes in this Mississauga suburb are large and serve up a cheery potluck of ranch styles on generous lots. The newer residences are gargantuan and incline toward Versailles variations, with just enough Bond-villain lairs tossed in to keep things interesting.

A few years ago, a mutual acquaintance recommended Hudson Architecture to the owners of a 1940s hacienda-style house in this neighbourhood. They wanted an addition that would connect them, year-round, to the beautiful mature trees on their front lawn and across the street, where a hydro corridor running parallel to the roadway fortuitously precludes the materialization of a McMansion. Another architect had proposed stacking some new boxes on top of their existing home. Underwhelmed, the owners sought an alternative. Hudson had one, but wondered whether it was too “out there” to share.

The house’s main façade was chock-a-block with arches: a row of arches pierced the courtyard-delineating wall that spanned from the garage on the left to what was then the master bedroom on the right, and a triplet of arched windows added another smidgen of ¡ole! to the master bedroom’s front wall. The idea that seized Hudson—to the point, he admits, of being unable to formulate any other compelling options—was to sweep away all the little arches and sub in one soaring, central arched volume. Nervously, he presented the concept. The clients said yes on the spot.

Working with heavy timber fabricator Timber Systems and YCL Structural Designs, Hudson designed an atrium addition supported by glulam horseshoe arches, each fabricated from paired members that were craned in, seated on base plates, and joined at the crown through concealed flitch plates. The cedar-lined front arch cants outward, forming a canopy that provides some shade on the southeast exposure. The construction also included more conventional renovations to the largely retained original house.

Getting the drywall and lighting just right on the arched ceiling was challenging, but the result is a remarkably serene space for living and dining, with church-like proportions and spectacular views of trees and sky. In the living area, located just inside the front entry, the tall coated-steel doors balance the transparency of the glazing. The sense of openness in even the most exposed part of the atrium is ‘pavilion’, not ‘fishbowl’. Over long family dinners at the central dining table, the owners enjoy how natural light streams in through the front of the house at the start of the meal and then glows through the opposite end of the atrium as the sun sets.

Hudson particularly liked the existing house’s original clay tile roof, which was restored in the renovation. He chose the atrium’s powder-coated steel tiles to complement it. “In fact, I liked a lot about the house,” he says with a trace of a smile. “All it needed was an airship parked in the courtyard.” Surrounded by 21st-century palaces, the new atrium is indeed a lighter-than-air intervention.

Pamela Young is a Toronto-based writer and communications manager.

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A 1966 Erickson/Massey home is for sale in West Vancouver, the nation’s de facto museum of West Coast modernism. But in one of Canada’s wealthiest postal codes, real estate is often the enemy of architecture, with dozens of mid-century marvels demolished in the past decade, in spite of preservationists’ valiant efforts.

Consider the 1965 Beaton residence by Arthur Mudry, celebrated in the pages of Wallpaper magazine before being unceremoniously demolished by an offshore buyer last year. The owner said they wanted to build something “new”—before changing their minds and leaving nothing but a levelled masterpiece and a vacant waterfront lot.

The West Vancouver Museum, a tiny shrine to the city-by-the-sea’s best examples of post-and-beam, does its best to keep the faith. Dozens of exhibitions in the past several years have showcased architectural photography by the likes of Selwyn Pullan, and a series of books extolls the region’s residential gems. But the museum is rather like Don Quixote tilting at price-per-square-footage windmills. (The now-demolished Beaton house was part of the museum’s annual Modern Homes tour, that shows off mid-century classics, in 2017. The Fuldauer was slated to be in the Covid-cancelled 2020 tour.)

Hopefully, the architectural pedigree of Erickson’s Fuldauer House (1966) is deliberately flaunted by the firm that has listed it. West Coast Modern, a three-man outfit fronted by young archiphile Trent Rodney, has made its website into a virtual homage to the late great Erickson and to the mid-century West Coast moment in general.

Its goal is to seek out buyers who will preserve rather than demolish. “A home should lift the spirits” is their earnest motto.

Happily, in the case of the Fuldauer house, there is still much that does life the spirit, despite significant alterations over the past several decades.

It has retained the structural language of Erickson’s original rhythm of post and beam, in spite of its vertical cedar board and batten slats having been replaced by raised seam metal cladding and roofing.

The home’s storied past includes residents who were race-car driving wheeler-dealers and Hollywood stars. The current owners, originally from mainland China, lovingly restored the property they acquired in 2016 and are hoping to find a buyer who will appreciate its bones.

In spite of some design dilution, the residence, set on almost an acre of landscaped gardens and streams, still has some genuine Ericksonian moments. While the original woodsy Shinto vibe of the place has been replaced by slicker additions, there is still some sense of sanctuary.

Cedar planks and greenery lead to a garage-turned-entranceway, and the south-facing glazing on the main floor opens up onto a swimming pool added sometime in the 90s. But the spine of skylights on the main floor still unifies the space in a simple, yet powerful gesture.

And there is a moment in the master bedroom that beautifully expresses the Ericksonian indoor-outdoor aesthetic. A series of specular surfaces—including a Japanese-style inner courtyard garden with pond—bring the outside in and make the room a device for both containing and reflecting the sublime West Coast landscape.

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The current global pandemic has quickly transformed our spaces, affecting how people are living, working, and moving through their day-to-day lives. Kasian’s team has been working on redesigning these environments and proposing pilot projects to pivot for use in the pandemic and in a post-COVID world. Here are some of our team’s observations on how spaces are changing and how we must innovate for the built environment in a post-pandemic future.

Challenges for developers and commercial building owners and operators

Public and private meeting spaces of all sizes can be nestled within mixed-use, residential, and suburban neighbourhoods, occupying a variety of underutilized spaces. That said, there is pressure to return to commercial office workspaces—or at least to return with a hybrid of remote and office work.

For new and existing commercial office developments, the use of elevators, washrooms, and lobbies needs to be reconsidered to respect physical distancing requirements. Localized use of stairs between floors should be encouraged, reducing the demand on elevators, particularly in offices that occupy multiple floors. We are working to analyze space plans for washrooms and other dedicated spaces with flexible solutions in mind. Consideration include provisions for single washrooms, two doors—in and out—flowing from water closets to vanities, curved entrances without doors, and technological solutions such as touchless fixtures, occupancy sensors, and self-cleaning stalls.

Rethinking office floor plans for employee flow will reduce dead-end corridors. In several of our projects, we’re implementing circular flows, favoring one-way walkways.

Today, there is an acute awareness of cleanliness and sanitization, making touchless fixtures more common, along with a preference for finishes such as white tile, porcelain, or stainless steel. There has been a rise in handwashing awareness over the years, and now we understand it as a critical hygiene requirement. Statistics Canada reported that during the first week of the COVID-19 stay-at-home order, the most purchased item was hand sanitizer—up 639% from last year. For interior design, this means implementing more easily accessible sinks and touchless, integrated hand drying in common areas.

Connectivity and power requirements have been changing at offices as well as at residential properties, as we see an increase in the need for Wi-Fi and outlets to power robotic and Artificial Intelligence (AI) residential technologies. We anticipate an ongoing increase in touchless, motion, occupancy, and heat sensors in office spaces. These smart building tools will help towards achieving sustainable design goals, and lowered energy costs.

For developers and owners, there may be more recognition of resilient building types such as the WELL Building Standard, Evidenced-Based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC), LEED, as well as biophilic design. We can expect that new standards will be driven by our current circumstances. There is a willingness, during this time of disruption, to consider more thoughtful design that will make spaces more effective, more productive, and less expensive to build and operate over time.

Multifamily housing in mid- and high-rise buildings

In high-rise and mid-rise buildings, we can design stairwells for more frequent use, pair elevator cores and stairs for localized access, and increase stairway egress to decrease pressure and reliance on elevators. In the case of a future pandemic, decentralized floor plates and the creation of podium, mid-, and upper level sections would make work-from-home orders more comfortable for tenants, with more options for comfortable separation.

As remote work becomes the new normal for many, there will be a greater demand for flexibility in shared spaces. Using modular and multi-use furniture systems in smaller suites adds flexibility to homes. One example is a pull-down wall bed that features a flip-down home office desk surface. Dividers can change the shape and character of spaces with sliding doors, barn doors or ceiling-hung curtains, transforming meeting space during the day into a dining area in the evening.

There is an increased demand for more flexible homes to accommodate new uses and multi-generational families as we see a growing need for childcare, elder care, and aging in place. Affordable, properly equipped and comfortable senior care homes will be increasingly challenging to achieve. We expect that this will lead to more multigenerational housing, including larger projects with economies of scale and shared resources.

Improving ventilation and increasing the size of balconies would allow for more infection control measures—including access to more space and fresh air.

We need better integrated architectural exterior green space for mixed-use dwellings. Roof terraces at the top and mid-levels of high-rise and mid-rise buildings can facilitate outdoor access for tenants without adding to floorplates.

Staying apart in shared amenity environments

We have a unique opportunity to change the function and character of amenity spaces in multi-family and mixed-use developments. With social distancing rules, there is a temptation to create large, open spaces where people can stay apart in the same room. But if a space feels out of scale, people will feel lost within it.

Open areas could be designed with flexible interior ‘cabins’ that are prefabricated, moveable, and scalable. This type of design gives residents flexibility of use and a sense of being together while still physically separated.

E-commerce deliveries need more than a mailbox

Storage for deliveries is an existing problem that has intensified during the pandemic, due to a sudden surge in demand for e-commerce products and other touchless delivery services. Demand is also increasing for secure, temperature- and humidity-controlled storage for multi-family residential communities. Review of ceiling heights for delivery vehicles inside parking structures should be considered by developers and building owners. Building these into mixed-use and multi-family developments—or retrofitting them into existing communities—makes sense for both residential and commercial tenants.

Forbes reports that as of April 21, 2020, there has been a 129% year-over-year growth in U.S. and Canadian e-commerce orders, and a 146% growth in all online retail orders. In the Consumer Insights Survey, PwC Canada found a link between working from home and digital shopping behaviours. 49% of those working from home have an Amazon Prime account, while only 30% who do not work from home have one. Digitally focused, contact-free shopping experiences can help customers feel more comfortable, and we must rethink our designs and shared spaces to accommodate this.

Another option, off-site, might be instituting larger community drop-off and pickup zones—similar to post office box locations, but functionally operating like a concierge service. Some at-grade amenity spaces could be transformed into drop-off and delivery areas. Proposals could be made to local government and city planners to designate delivery areas as part of amenity zones, making them a desirable feature of buildings.

Accelerating changes with architecture and design for a post-pandemic future

The way we choose to build our homes, our communities, and our environment will shape our society for generations to come. We are living through a time that many have called unprecedented, when in fact we have survived and thrived despite past outbreaks and pandemics. We have an opportunity to make positive changes and innovate with our architecture and interior design.

Success will come from collaboration and sharing of knowledge and will manifest in a consistency of solutions for permanent, lasting change. Our workplaces and homes will adjust, and we can acknowledge that this pandemic has accelerated improvements that were already in motion. As architects and interior designers, we are the drivers for a once-in-a-generation shift to shape our spaces in new ways. 

Yvette Jancso is an Associate Architect with Kasian bringing over 25 years of experience in the fields of architecture and urban design.  

Christine Craik is an Associate, Senior Interior Designer with Kasian. She has been working in the design industry for over 20 years, specifically in senior living, multifamily, and geriatric healthcare design.

Arezoo Talebzadeh is a Senior Project Architect with Kasian, focusing on soundscape within the built environment.  

Desiree Geib is a designer focusing on projects within the commercial sector at Kasian.

Kasian is the Design Lead for the deployment of up to ten Mobile Health Units (MHU) across Canada. Designed to house up to 100 beds each, these fully transportable units that can be set up in empty ice arenas. They will be deployed to major urban centres, smaller towns, and remote communities to provide targeted care for persons with acute respiratory diseases.

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ARCHITECT Marianne Amodio + Harley Grusko Architects (MA+HG)

PHOTOS Janis Nicolay

Viewing life through a pandemic lens means that, when encountering any new space, I quickly imagine what it might be like to isolate there for months on end… possibly with children, roommates, or parents. The design of our cities, and in particular our housing, has never felt more important to both our physical and mental health. Meanwhile, the global pandemic has revealed these two goals to be frustratingly at odds. Physical health depends on keeping our distance, while mental health begs for close contact. Can we design for both?

Healthy social connections are central to the work of MA+HG Architects, a Vancouver-based studio led by partners Marianne Amodio and Harley Grusko. The duo is partial to the term “social density,” a phrase that’s used in psychology to represent the number of people in a given space, and thus the number of interpersonal interactions likely to occur. In recent years, Amodio and Grusko have made a name for themselves delivering unconventional housing solutions that promote social interaction, from co-housing to micro-units and missing-middle-scale developments.

In typical multifamily developments, outsized importance is placed on privacy—ensuring everyone gets their own unimpeded sliver of sky or ground, often at the expense of neighbourly connections. At Union, MA+HG’s recently completed five-unit housing development in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood, the emphasis was on creating social density, in balance with privacy.

Union encompasses the restoration of an existing heritage house and the construction of a new infill building of roughly equal size. From the outside, the project resists any easy distinction between units. There are no fences or tall hedges to demarcate one home from another, and big windows and terraces overlook an open and meandering landscape.

When the owner and self-described patron of the project, Mira Malatestinic, bought the quirky old house with her mother in 2014, she saw it as an opportunity to create a multi-generational village where they could both age in place. Malatestinic felt a great responsibility to the “Big House,” as she calls it, and its many past inhabitants. “There was a lot of love poured into this house over the years, and love needed to be put back in,” she says. A longtime supporter of the arts, Mira also wanted to bring a fresh contemporary design sensibility into the historic neighbourhood.

The Big House had always been a bit of an odd duck. It’s tall, stepped up from the street, and pushed to one side of a 50-foot double-wide lot, with its front door facing into the side yard. All of this makes the house stand out amidst the jumble of smaller homes on narrow neighbouring lots. But after 116 years, the house was in rough shape: full of ad-hoc alterations, layers of vinyl flooring, abandoned chimneys, and a roof that had lost a large dormer somewhere along the way. MA+HG’s work represents a fresh start grounded in this history. As Amodio puts it, the project mediates “between preservation, an acknowledgement of history, and modern construction techniques.”

MA+HG began their work in early 2016 exploring many potential relationships between the Big House and a new infill building. Malatestinic and her family selected a scheme that the architects called “Wildcard.” Malatestinic’s mom quickly nicknamed the asterisk-shaped infill building “the Octopus.” According to Amodio, “the design intention was always that each building stand as a monument to its time; each complementing and contrasting the other.”

The resulting project includes five units that span the full range of sizes and types. Two are contained within the Big House: a 204-square-metre two-bedroom on three levels and a 52-square-metre one-bedroom, garden-level suite. The Octopus contains side-by-side two- and three-bedroom units of 98 and 130 square metres, respectively. A sunken 42-square-metre studio rounds out the collection.

The relationship between the Big House and the Octopus strikes a balance between historic and contemporary styles, and between private and community life. Front doors are located off a central courtyard, while living spaces are turned outward to face either the street or lane. Terraces and patios encircle both buildings and offer opportunities for residents to connect with each other and with the neighbourhood at large. The landscaping, designed by Hapa Collaborative, references the geometry of both buildings and subtly knits the two figures together.

The exterior expression of the Big House—bright pink with multihued fish-scale shingles—is eye-catching and joyful. MA+HG’s monochromatic application of colour, without the typical contrasting heritage trim, gives the house a modern feel. The architects retained the home’s original footprint and most of the exterior framing, adding two modest bump-outs around the kitchen.

In contrast to the pink gingerbread exterior, the interior is white, flush and minimal. The small rooms that comprised the Victorian-era plan were opened up to create an easy and natural flow. The main floor centres on a living and dining area, along with a kitchen with patio doors to the courtyard. The house unfolds in an upward-moving spiral around a handsome stair, made of custom-welded mild steel plate. The second level overlooks the first; sliding partitions make for a fluid connection between its bedroom and den. In the attic, the intersecting lines of the roof and a reinstated dormer dive sharply into the floor, lending the room a crisp geometric appearance. A moon-shaped opening at one end leads to a spa-like ensuite, clad in coppery penny tile, with fixtures set at angle just-so.

While the Big House is an airy volume highly customized for the life of a particular owner, the Octopus is largely built to spec. It’s a workhorse of a building, packed with many useful rooms of all shapes and sizes. According to Amodio, the particular massing comes from “a collision of traditional house forms.” It was also inspired by the property’s immediate neighbour to the east, a 1970s four-plex by architect Joe Wai. Wai designed dozens of similar projects throughout Strathcona, with two, three, or four small homes in stepped and staggered arrangements across different-sized lots. Formally, MA+HG’s Octopus can be viewed as somewhere between these Joe Wai Specials and contemporary projects like Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus showroom, or MVRDV’s many platonic houses.

At their root, the two units in the infill are inverted townhouse plans, with some play back-and-forth along the demising wall. They come alive in section and in the unexpected moments created through shifted and splayed building volumes. Floor-to-ceiling curtain wall at the gable ends frames expansive neighbourhood views, while oblique angles create a subtle feeling of privacy. Hallways, stairs and doorways are set to minimum dimensions, but high ceilings, oversized windows and thoughtful room positioning make spaces feel larger.

A vertical hierarchy of exterior materials helps ground the Octopus to its site. The intersecting roof forms and upper level are clad with standing-seam metal. The ground level is finished with custom board-and-batten charcoal-painted Hardie board siding. The sunken studio unit is formed from cast-in-place concrete that blends into surrounding landscape elements.

As a whole, the project is a study in big contrasts and small moments of synergy—a give-and-take between bold colour and black-and-white, shiny silver metal and intricate wood details, floor-to-ceiling curtain wall and punched sash windows, open volumes and many small rooms. The result is a family of indoor and outdoor spaces across the site that, like friendly siblings, both acknowledge each other’s similarities and make room for each other’s differences.

At a talk for a Globe and Mail series on housing in February, Amodio said: “We want to participate in a culture that creates community through the sharing of spaces, and that relies on maximum human interaction for feelings of joy and belonging.” But just a few weeks later, a global pandemic was declared. How would social density play out in a newly socially distanced world?

If COVID-19 isolation is the ultimate stress test for new housing, Union has passed with flying colours. Malatestinic, who moved in just before the province’s shutdowns, says she “couldn’t be happier to live here during COVID.” She can open the sliding door in her kitchen to talk to her mother, sitting on the upper-floor terrace across the courtyard. She can wave to her young neighbour learning to ride a bike in the side yard. The close-knit development has allowed its residents to stay connected and support each other, while easily maintaining the requisite physical distance.

For Amodio, it comes down to principles of design that MA+HG always strives for in their work: “a multiplicity of individual spaces under the umbrella of shared space, or little pods inside a bigger pod.” Maybe it’s just what people crave at any time—the option to easily engage in collective life and also retreat into a private realm. Union is a happy little pocket of community. It supports the well-being of its residents, a group of given and chosen family. People smile when they pass by. It’s a good neighbour that fits in and stands out from its surroundings.

Courtney Healey is an architect and writer. She would like to acknowledge that this article was produced on unceded Coast Salish territories.

CLIENT Mira Malatestinic | ARCHITECT TEAM Marianne Amodio (MRAIC), Harley Grusko (MRAIC), Lindsey Nette | STRUCTURAL Chiu Hippmann Engineering | MECHANICAL Fluid Mechanical | ELECTRICAL PVE Engineering | LANDSCAPE Hapa Collaborative | CONTRACTOR Terris Lightfoot Contracting | SURVEYOR Hermon Oke + Williams | CODE Celerity Engineering | SPECIALTY TRADES Precision Gas and Mechanical, Rising Force Sprinkler installations, SOL Landscapes, Cast-in Concrete Design, Sutherland Concrete, Casa Madeira Hardwood flooring, BH Woodturning, Alliance Truss, Zebiac House Raising, Stellar Security | AREA 539 m² | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION March 2020

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In 2003, architect Florian Maurer built his personal home in Naramata, British Columbia. The original architecture—which won a Governor General’s Medal in 2006—explored a garden-court concept. It consisted of three detached structures around a generous enclosed garden inspired by Latin-American courtyards. The courtyard controls privacy and views—in contrast to the typical suburban house, where views can be at the mercy of neighbors.

The house was since sold. In 2018, the new owners of the house approached Maurer to design a small addition, to serve as a multi-purpose space and private art gallery. But the architect’s design was never intended to be expanded. With the septic field in the centre of the courtyard and the main house at the edge of a rocky slope overlooking Okanagan lake, no acceptable placement was evident.

Upon a close examination of the property, the slope to the west of the house allowed a low-profile addition to be placed just low enough to maintain lake views from the main house, across the addition’s roof. A stainless steel roof was chosen to avoid exposing an unsightly roof membrane, explains Maurer.  “Any other roof structure, in particular a green roof, would have raised it too high to preserve the view.”

Slim steel posts support the resulting gallery structure. Clad in stainless steel and reflecting sky and forest, it seems to float above the bedrock, gently fitting its grassland context. The disappearing gallery stands in contrast to massive neighboring houses, sitting on completely remodeled terrain.

The owners would have gladly accepted a small free-standing structure to match the house’s original concept. But local zoning would not allow additional structures, so the gallery had to be connected to the original house by a stairway. The stair hall glazing is slotted into bedrock.  Along with the stainless-clad gallery roof, these materials and details contrast the original house’s simple thresholds and exterior woodwork.

The stair bridges from the living house to the gallery—a space from which to observe not only the owner’s collection of paintings and sculptures, but also the original house’s architecture.

CLIENTS Frank + Liz Malinka

ARCHITECT f2a architecture ltd.

PROJECT TEAM florian maurer, eric lajoie, austin hawkins, and caspar viereckel

STRUCTURAL fast + epp

CONTRACTOR f2a architecture ltd. with MEW construction

PHOTOS Katie Huisman, unless otherwise noted

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It is difficult to overstate the burden of COVID-19. Right after you hit hyperbole, you hit reality. It has shuttered our institutions and our professional practices. It has far-reaching social, economic and political repercussions. Now that our non-essential services are temporarily closed, we grow appreciative when someone reaches out—whether by phone or e-mail—a reminder that our essential relations remain open.

Over the past year, I worked on a project called New Image of Home. It was meant to be a simple visual art exhibition exploring Canadian ideas of home. The work was generated through a photographic and spatial analysis of every single-family and small multi-unit residential project published in Canadian Architect magazine since its inception in 1955. The research resulted in a series of twenty-four new images that comment on the role of technology in the home, and on how domestic interiors are represented in professional publications.

Ironically, I was in the process of mounting this exhibition on the Canadian home one weekend before we were all compelled to stay at home. One might even call it uncanny that the images in the exhibition comment, in part, on the pervasiveness of media in homes—and now, with the exhibition space shuttered, the screen has become the only way to view the work. The exhibition lecture lives on YouTube, the catalogue as a PDF online, the Q&A presented via Zoom, and the images on the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism’s website. This article is the only product to make it to print.

The aim of the project was to create a new way of drawing through pixel-like dots. As the work progressed, it began to also explore other modes of image-making that could question the conventions of both architectural drawing and the photography of interior space.

Architectural drawings are typically dominated by lines, or by photo-realistic renderings. How could drawing with dots represent space differently? Interior photography tends to foreground material-spatial qualities. Could an alternative set of representations foreground inhabitation, and point to a tighter relationship between individuals and the material objects in their spaces? The drawings in the exhibition include everyday items that are common in the home, but are frequently excluded from view. They display the messy banality of the home—of these ordinary places, in extraordinary times.

This surreal banality reached a conclusion when I recorded my lecture: it was spoken to the plate of glass that is the screen of my laptop, seemly leading to nowhere. A couple of days later, I led a question and answer session through Zoom. On my laptop, I saw a collection of students and fellow faculty in their homes, surrounded by their clutter of possessions. My screen became a window to my friends and colleagues.

It reinforced to me that in times of crisis, architecture does not narrow—it shifts and expands. Rather than collectively sitting together to discuss the project, this was a rare opportunity to share many spaces—our own spaces, our own homes—while talking about the architecture of home.

Johan Voordouw is an associate professor at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University.

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TEXT David Steiner

PHOTOS Tom Arban

RENDERINGS Diamond Schmitt Architects

Just the promise of a subway station is enough to launch serious development. More than a decade ago, the TTC committed to building a station in Vaughan, at the northern end of Toronto’s University Line extension. This announcement provided the fuel for an enormous development called Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC). The project’s ambition is plainly stated in the name—nothing less than a new urban area in the sprawling suburbs of Vaughan. 

As a developer, SmartCentres is best known for outlet stores at the perimeter of cities—less so for urbanism. Paula Bustard, an executive for the company, recounted how she was in a meeting with the TTC when the transit officials disclosed, without forewarning, that they intended to build a subway station on SmartCentres property in the city of Vaughan. Such an unlikely event is as valuable as it is rare. For SmartCentres, it led to rethinking their entire approach.  

The VMC is four hundred acres, owned by various developers and commercial landowners. Much of it is covered in parking for a handful of big-box stores. The remainder is sparsely populated by warehouses and some squat office buildings, an abandoned movie theater and a yard for an earth-moving company. In one or two decades from now, when the development area is fully built, it will have the density and make-up of a small city: twenty-five thousand residences in towers of varying heights, commercial offices, institutional buildings, and park space. 

No suburbs around Toronto have anything like the concentration of transit currently found here: a subway line terminus along with two regional bus transit hubs. One of these, the York Region bus terminal, is located immediately north of the subway; the other, a major stop on a dedicated rapid bus transit right-of-way, is to the south. All three nodes—bus stop, subway and regional bus—are mere steps from each other, connected both at grade and by a tunnel. It is a triumph of putting the horse before the cart. An enormous increase in density is preceded by an equally large investment, by all levels of government, in mass transit. Especially in the Toronto area, where government is forever playing catch-up—barreling through existing fabric with new tracks, stations or tunnels—the foresight seems miraculous.

Of the four hundred acres, SmartCentres owns a hundred. For context, that’s the size of forty Manhattan city blocks. Diamond Schmitt Architects, along with Claude Cormier + Associés, were engaged in 2011 to develop a master plan for the SmartCentres parcel, known as SmartVMC. At the time, the subway station was under construction, Vaughan was still working on the secondary plan, and York Region had a vague idea about leasing five acres of land somewhere east of the subway station to build a conventional bus station.

Two major decisions came out of Diamond Schmitt and Claude Cormier’s masterplan. One was to include a linear park as the development’s primary feature. The other was a proposal to place the bus station above the TTC tail track (the extra subway track running past the platform). Taken together, the linear park and bus terminal location will organize the entire site. The park adds a wide aisle down a future row of towers. The bus terminal, constructed immediately north of the subway, aligns all three transit nodes.

Revising the bus terminal location from its original planned location, removed from the subway station, sounds simple in retrospect. But when Diamond Schmitt finalized the master plan, the TTC had already started construction on the subway station. The project was years behind schedule and grossly over budget. Despite all that, they agreed to change the tail track design to include the bus terminal—so long as SmartCentres paid for the entire change order. The results were worth the cost and SmartCentres agreed. Diamond Schmitt’s team redesigned the end of the track and bus terminal above. (Because SmartCentres picked up the extra cost, they were permitted to put their corporate logo on the bus terminal.)

The bus terminal was the first of nine completed and in-progress buildings that Diamond Schmitt has designed on the site. It turns the typical bus station typology on its head. Instead of a lonely island surrounded by circling buses, here, a horseshoe shaped canopy allows passengers to approach the terminal from the public mews immediately west, and from the urban square to the south. As part of the project’s public art commitment, the team worked with electrical engineers Mulvey and Banani, Studio F-Minus, and artistic advisor Jim Campbell to design a massive video wall—17 metres high and over 50 metres long. It will hang on the southern façade of the tower podium immediately in front of the horseshoe, concealing a six-storey parking garage. SmartCentres has commissioned a group of artists to provide videos to be displayed on the wall. Depending on the art (and one’s tastes), waiting for a bus may become a cultural event in Vaughan. 

Diamond Schmitt’s first completed office building on the site is a commercial tower, with consulting firm KPMG as the lead tenant. It is an elegant object: long and slender, set on a wide two-floor podium and clad in curtain wall with back-painted and fritted spandrel panels. At fourteen floors, the building is a reasonable height (though dwarfed by three 55-storey residential giants to the north) and creates a backdrop to the public square at its doorstep to the east. It will also serve as a quiet terminus to the future linear park. Mike Szabo, the principal-in-charge from Diamond Schmitt, points out how the detailing and materials are a significant departure from the more generic offices along Highway 7. From a commercial perspective, it also demonstrates that a strong design, coupled with location, can compete with lower-cost leasing options nearby. 

PwC is the main tenant of a second tower, now nearing completion. It’s made of two volumes—a modest nine-storey block to the south and a three-storey block to the north. As people emerge from the subway, the tower’s main feature is front and centre: a seven-metre-high ribbon of gold anodized aluminum fins wrapping the podium. The fins are bright and fun. Their colour gives the public square a visual focus and lends the entire development its most memorable image. Two terraces—one facing east over the public square, for PwC clients, and the other facing west, part of a suite of municipal offices—further animate the facades. The mixed-use building also houses a YMCA (who owns their space within the building, purchased with their own funds and a developer contribution), a public library branch, a Balzac’s coffee shop, and several commercial tenants. 

Visit Vaughan Metropolitan Centre today and you’ll see two functioning office buildings and three nearly complete residential towers. Despite such a tremendous amount of construction, the sheer size of the remaining parking lots is disorienting. This arrangement of new architecture sprouting all at once, amidst a jumbled suburban fabric, is like clearing a cluttered table, unrolling a fine tablecloth, and carefully setting out cutlery and dishware.

The tablecloth comes from Claude Cormier + Associés’ landscape design. Claude Cormier says that the landscape was designed to create an “urban, modern picturesque” experience. Pop artist Bridget Riley’s pattern paintings inspired a supersized circle motif in the as-yet-unbuilt linear park. In the finished public square, black and white concrete pavers are set within an oversized grid, a pattern that came from examining the knitting in Louis Vuitton’s canvas handbags, with their offset dark and light threads. Seen from eight floors up, the pattern achieves its intended effect, working, as Cormier puts it, on a “larger-than-human scale… a metropolitan scale.”

The white grid on the square spills out over the road to the south side of the KPMG tower, extending the public space into the street. Rolled curbs reinforce this extension of the public realm, as does the precision of the pattern’s edges (never severed in the middle, same as that Louis Vuitton bag). Cormier’s office reworked Vaughan’s typical city details to make what they refer to as a “new language for the right-of-way design.” In another turn towards urbanism, passenger pick-up is accommodated in lay-bys on the new streets, rather than by creating dedicated parking. Cormier and associate Sophie Beaudoin were emphatic they would never have achieved this level of detailing in the City of Toronto, with that municipality’s rigid standards.

The commercial success of the SmartCentre development is virtually assured, due to its subway and transit cluster. And if the entire 400 acres is built as planned, it is likely that the area will have a mini-metropolitan vibe, at least in its density.

Tabula rasa-type projects, of which there are no shortage in the greater Toronto area (think East Harbour, the Portlands, Woodbine Districts, Port Credit West Village, Regent Park) are unique creatures. Being so large, they are effectively devoid of a human-scale context, and must create their own character out of ideas alone.

For SmartVMC, strong ideas about building, landscape and urban design, both on paper and constructed, are abundant. But designing and constructing dozens of buildings over a hundred acres to a consistent level of quality also requires a great amount of stamina and vision. Considering the precedent set by the initial crop of nine towers and the accompanying landscape, SmartCentres appears fully committed.

David Steiner is a freelance writer living in Toronto.

KPMG Tower
ARCHITECT Diamond Schmitt Architects | STRUCTURAL Read Jones Christoffersen | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Smith + Andersen | LANDSCAPE Claude Cormier + Associés

Mixed Use Building & PWC
ARCHITECT Diamond Schmitt Architects | STRUCTURAL Read Jones Christoffersen | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Smith + Andersen | LANDSCAPE Claude Cormier + Associés

YRT Bus Terminal
ARCHITECT Diamond Schmitt Architects | STRUCTURAL Fast + Epp | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Smith + Andersen | LANDSCAPE Claude Cormier + Associés

Transit City
ARCHITECT Diamond Schmitt Architects | STRUCTURAL Jablonsky, Ast & Partners | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL ABLE Engineering | LANDSCAPE Claude Cormier + Associés

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The post Smart Growth: SmartVMC, Vaughan, Ontario appeared first on Canadian Architect.

PROJECT B2 Lofts, Lunenburg UNESCO World Heritage Site, Nova Scotia

ARCHITECT MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects

TEXT Donald Chong

PHOTOS Matthew MacKay-Lyons

Located on lands previously inhabited by native Mi’kmaq and Acadians, Lunenburg is widely considered the continent’s best preserved planned British colonial settlement. It is best known for its brightly coloured mix of shingle-sided and gabled structures, climbing the steep hillside along the harbour.

These picture-perfect façades form a compact urban setting, built upon a 270-year-old working waterfront. In 1995, Old Town Lunenburg was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its living catalogue of architecture related to 18th- and 19th-century fishing, shipping and shipbuilding. An extraordinary number of its timber buildings were handcrafted by German and Swiss Protestant settlers, and have been scrupulously preserved. While known for being the birthplace of the Bluenose, Lunenburg’s advanced shipwright culture produced an array of businesses and accompanying buildings—from foundries to sailmakers, and from cooperages to blacksmiths.

To this day, many of Lunenberg’s prime harbour locations continue to be used for the maritime industries, including a scallop fishery, a millwright’s shed, and a dory building shop (for the local cod-fishing boats originally deployed from schooners at sea).

Rigorous heritage conservation is the starting point for any architectural intervention in this milieu. So it is particularly interesting to examine a new project in the heart of Lunenberg, developed and designed by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects (MLSA).

“Laurel and Hardy”: Partnering and Infill

At first blush, B2 Lofts is a simple pair of structures on the well-travelled (and largely gentrified) Montague Street, the town’s southernmost thoroughfare. Look more closely, and it reveals itself as a spirited architectural duo of forms—a pleasantly balanced “Laurel and Hardy” pairing.

A new addition to the east is slender and nimble, adorned in dory-yellow paint and weathering cedar. To the west is a finely refurbished nineteenth-century gabled commercial building—stoic, stout and rendered in charcoal tones. All told, this combination of two ostensibly separate buildings on a compact lot yields a rich mix of programs: six residential units shared between the two sides, a small retail unit, and a full-depth double-fronting space that currently houses MLSA’s Lunenburg architectural studio.

Syntax and Strategy: Trim Modernism

The most striking aspect of B2 Lofts is its confident and unapologetic embrace of Lunenberg’s architectural vernacular. Double-hung windows, wide-boarded corners, painted trim boards, panelled wood doors and articulated bargeboard details are all gracefully deployed—and, as if with a gentle wink to those who are attentive, with seemingly modern sensibilities.

The brevity and resulting dexterity with which B2 Lofts works within its constraints offers a prototype for Lunenburg and beyond. Without pretension, the project asks what it takes to remain contemporary and progressive in a highly-scrutinized, protected and well-loved historical town. Such circumstances could easily lead to acritical, rote and nostalgic references from a disconnected past. Here, however, we are witness to a present-day builder’s hand, evidently synchronized with architects who are not the least bit unnerved in this historic setting with its preference for a local architectural language.

One begins to regain a certain respect for a traditional language that is naturally deep in its repertoire of go-to conditions, yet materially robust enough to accommodate tolerance, incremental change and future-proofing. B2 Lofts prompts a sincere, refreshing and long overdue salute to pre-modern architectural detailing, with its proven resilience and intelligence.

Type and Town: Utility, Toughness and Circumstance

First and foremost, this project is about clarity of type. B2 Lofts respects its Montague Street context, with its historic mix of gabled and gambrel-roofed typologies. The gambrel top of the new addition side allows for a tidy, narrow massing that maximizes height within the narrow lot. Paired with the existing building, the infill offers an inconspicuous presence that succeeds in re-anchoring the street.

Contributing to the background as much as the foreground aligns with the project’s persona: it blends while being bold. It’s both a quiet contributor, and an active participant. This humility is a virtue befitting for a modernist studio applying heritage language onto a succinct and efficient pair of recognizable building forms—reminiscent of Giorgio Morandi’s Swiss paintings of “pure type” rural buildings or Heinrich Tessenow’s honest and modest typological approach to architecture.

The playfulness in the façade’s apertures gives the sense that the composition is circumstantial, rather than curated, in line with the characteristics of heritage detailing as well as the solid-to-glazing ratio and rhythm of neighbouring buildings. The contemporary take on barn doors, too, takes on a weathered “batten-down-the-hatches” appeal, appropriate to the harshness of the North Atlantic seas.

The buildings share a single crisp, cruciform circulatory set-up, with double-egress stairwells at grade in the north-south axis, and four sets of single-run stairs in the east-west axis starting from the second floor. This pays off with a generously lit interstitial space, nesting between the west and east blocks. From the street, the space acts as civic-realm reveal, and provides natural, unimpeded residential entry points to the upper level units from either street. This careful typological detail allows the two buildings to command independent street-level storefront presences, smartly in keeping with the character of Montague Street. At grade, one can also access the only street-level residential unit, with its grand garage double-doors and a cleverly integrated standard-sized door.

Maritime Frugality: Snug-fit, Well-packed

Heading upward to the five loft units, one is rewarded with generous views to the harbour and town. In the new structure, a complement of vaulted spaces, finished in white, includes a cheerful cascade of unabashed structural hot-rolled tension members which, as the architects put it, create a “weblike” space that nods to Andy Goldsworthy. In the renovated building, the original timber-lined space feels akin to the inside of a cooper’s aged barrel. Among all of the units, a well-packed arrangement of galley kitchens, bathrooms and single-flight stairs admirably acknowledges the original intent of this type of building: to maximize space, daylight and views from both gable ends. The units in the new building, in particular, squeeze utility out every part of the space by including a delightful upper bedloft—yet one more nod to the frugal and wise Lunenburg way.

Building as Civic Instrument

Perhaps unwittingly, the B2 Lofts touch on a key issue in Lunenburg: the rapid decline of affordable housing. The town’s original single-family homes are now occupied by far fewer people than a century prior, and are further pressured by a trend for more seasonally occupied homes. As a result, the available year-round bed-spaces have diminished while housing prices have escalated. In this evolving context, B2 Lofts could pose an interesting and progressive opportunity to volley between short-term rentals and long-term options.

B2 Lofts suggests how architecture ought to position itself generationally, irrespective of its originating program or pro forma. It remains to be seen, decades from now, how this building may change, adapt, and outlive its first intended use. Altogether, one would hope that the astute combination of resilient typologies, smart urbanism and robust detailing imparts a lasting maturation and elegance—which ultimately cradles a future yet unknown, but ready to be embraced.

Evolutions and Progress: A Galápagos Moment

Lunenburg is a fitting place for B2 Lofts, with its ability to tweak a mixed-use building archetype within a compact urban setting. With every small gesture or nudge to its architecture, Lunenburg serves as, quite possibly, a perfect testing ground. It’s a Galápagos Island of sorts, with a manageable sample size and an in vivo civic laboratory to witness reaction, response and perhaps positive change. This is, arguably, architectural evolution at its best.

Toronto-based architect Donald Chong is a Design Principal at HDR. He has relatives who live in an Old Town heritage home in Lunenburg.

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Boundary Sequence Illusion: Ian McDonald, Architect.
Edited by Brian Carter (Dalhousie University Press, 2019)

An elegant volume on the work of Toronto-based architect Ian MacDonald is the latest addition to the longstanding Documents in Canadian Architecture series by Dalhousie University Press. The book presents a series of 11 house projects dating back to 1999, and spanning various Ontario landscapes, from the compact lots of Toronto’s Wychwood Park (where MacDonald’s own home is located) to 200-acre sites on the Niagara Escarpment, near Georgian Bay.

MacDonald’s practice focuses on designing houses of exacting detail and precise relationships to their surrounding landscapes. The book’s title refers to a number of conventions that are employed in the work:
in MacDonald’s description, “the registration of boundaries between one space and another, or the obscuring of [them]; the development of a clear and intentional sequence of experience; and the engagement of the viewer’s imagination through strategically framed representations of the outside world.” He adds, “Though these are somewhat universally referenced by architects, our focus is perhaps more conscious.”

The houses presented in the book are often sited in counterintuitive locations, in order to make the most of the site’s assets. Mulmur Hills 1 (1999) is embedded in the ground—rather than atop a drumlin—to achieve the ideal viewpoint of the distant rolling hills, which seem “unremarkable” when seen in their entirety from the higher vantage point. A country retreat near Erin, Ontario, is sited at the very corner of a large site, in order to contain views within the property’s boundaries.

The interior of the dwellings are organized to connect to these views, while also employing carefully considered framing between rooms. A central hearth, cozy inglenooks, and interior spaces that seemingly extend into the landscape are common to many of the houses. As Barry Sampson writes in an introduction, “the results are similar to each other in intention, and at the same time distinctly different in form, idea, and perceptual effect.”

As with all of the books in the series, Boundary Sequence Illusion includes a full complement of photos, plans, and key details, making this book a useful resource for architecture students and professionals wishing to take a deeper dive into MacDonald’s graceful work.

The post Book Review: Boundary Sequence Illusion—Ian MacDonald, Architect appeared first on Canadian Architect.