WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Robotics company ATTAbotics had an unusual vision for its new headquarters. The client “referenced the spatial organization and complex circulation of ant colonies,” say the architects. These systems had inspired the company’s proprietary robotic storage and retrieval system. It was also how they wanted their manufacturing and office space to function.

The site is part of Calgary’s airport district, so the architects began by examining Navigation Canada’s regulations for the location. To ensure the safety of aircraft, the building had to fit within an envelope that rises along a 7 percent slope to a height of 23 metres. This ordinance produced a wedge-like massing.

Plazas carved into the slope connect the building to the exterior and frame views to the city and mountains. A ribbon of movement develops between the plazas and interior spaces, stitched together with appropriate programming. Building users can meander through, around and over the building.

The building’s manufacturing section requires tall ceilings, clear spans and a rectilinear footprint to allow for future flexibility. This facility is located on the lower two floors, which sink into the landscape. Canyon-like voids provide for light, access, parking and loading areas. The office spaces perch above this plinth-like base.

A central atrium acts as a fulcrum for the plan and doubles as an informal, company-wide auditorium. This produces a complex sectional relationship between various elements of the program—similar to the organizational systems inherent in ant colonies. It also transforms the way that building users navigate around the building and socialize.

The construction looks to current developments in circular design. Instead of the cradle-to-landfill norm, it takes a cradle-to-cradle approach. The architects are pursuing a Design for Disassembly (DfD) model that allows for the reuse of building components. This aligns with the client’s desire for a flexible environment. The building can quickly change, responding to needs for future growth or renewal as they arise.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: I really like the materiality with the veils and transparency. There’s a potential for the designers to play with the density of the mesh, which can start to inform the wayfinding of the building. Is it possible to have three dimensions of holes—from smaller for more private areas, to larger for more public areas? If there is a comment to be made, it’s the parking—maybe there was a way to work this into the landscape.

Joe Lobko ::  This is a powerful structure: the building is both vertically and horizontally shaped to its location adjacent an airport. An iconic building design has emerged from a thoughtful, incredibly creative analysis of context and program. The roofscape will be very special. Ant colonies indeed!

Cindy Wilson :: I appreciate the architects’ future-thinking of the building disassembling into components, making the structure adaptable and flexible. The ant metaphor continues through the life cycle of the building.

Credits

CLIENT ATTAbotics Inc. | AREA 11,150 M² | BUDGET $50 M | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION Spring 2022

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 200kWh/m²/year
PROJECTED WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 3.9m³/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The new Honey Bee Research Centre is a place for research and education. The hive-like design takes its inspiration from bees, learning from one of nature’s greatest architects.

A ground-level pathway rises up onto a rooftop garden, allowing visitors to loop around in a manner similar to a bee’s flight path. The pollinator-friendly landscape on the roof and around the centre includes working hives, native plantings and agricultural plots. Shallow pools serve as fountains for flying insects, and introduce opportunities for up-close viewing and learning.

A tower serves as an interpretive centre and solar chimney. Its exhibits raise awareness of pollinator pathways—natural corridors that allow bees, butterflies, moths and other insects to move through habitats. 

On ground level, the centre houses flexible research and learning spaces. The facility welcomes children and adults alike. Windows allow visitors to see into the centre’s labs and honey processing facilities. Glazed walls with oversized doors connect the indoor and outdoor learning spaces. The interior is covered with 500 x 370-mm cells, whose size derives from the wood frames used in beekeeping. They serve for display, storage, seating and other functions.

The climate emergency’s impact on honeybee health is a core design consideration. The mass timber structure is sourced from sustainably managed forests, reducing the greenhouse gas impact of the construction. All components of the superstructure—including the columns, roof and walls—are made of wood. Passive design techniques include ground-source heating, natural ventilation, high-performance envelope and mechanical systems, and rain gardens.

At a higher level, the centre’s program and design highlight the similarities between humans and honey bees. Honey bees are social and collaborative, they work and are productive, and their well-being is closely tied to the land—just like humans.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: As big as the building is, I find the architecture to be quite humble. It gives room to the rest. It’s quite surprising since it has a gigantic circular tower and a huge base, but it’s not overwhelming. I also greatly appreciate how the story of the bee is reinterpreted throughout the architecture, both as a didactic tool and as a unifying concept.

Joe Lobko :: Exquisite, vibrant spaces and gardens—finally, a celebration of the honey bee in built form! A great marriage of landscape and building that becomes a magical extension of this part of the Guelph campus. The central space is going to be a beautiful, textured room.

Cindy Wilson :: The angles and topography of the roof are inviting, making the building completely accessible. Programmatically, the exhibit space and landscape are so intertwined that the landscape becomes building. In addition to the connection between research and formal gardens, the discovery path feels like the flightpath of a bee, allowing education, discovery and imagination to co-exist.

Credits

CLIENT Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph | STRUCTURAL Moses Structural Engineers | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/AV/IT/SUSTAINABILITY Integral Group | CIVIL WalterFedy | LANDSCAPE Forrec Ltd. Landscape Architecture Studio | CODE LMDG Buildling Code Consultants | ENVELOPE Morrison Hershfield | EXHIBITION/DISCOVERY LORD Cultural Services | AREA 19,200 FT² | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Schematic Design | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION April 2020

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 76 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (TEDI) 45 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED GREEN HOUSE GAS EMISSIONS (GHGI) 4 kgCO₂e/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

In Toronto, academic institutions are one of the leaders in championing the use of mass timber for tall buildings. The University of Toronto is part of this vanguard. Its Academic Wood Tower, on the downtown campus, is a fifteen-storey classroom and office building. At 80 metres tall, it’s vying to be North America’s tallest timber building. It’s also a test-case for new approaches that anticipate upcoming changes to the Ontario Building Code.

The structure of the Academic Wood Tower—beams, columns, decks, bracing, and notably its core—is constructed of glue-laminated mass timber. A significant portion of the timber is exposed, particularly on the fully glazed north façade. The structural system features dramatic super-braces that are tied to the core, providing lateral stability to the timber frame. The super-braces diagonally wrap the tower, while floor-height trusses negotiate shifts in the grid. The designers were able to show that a partially exposed mass timber structure introduces no more risk than conventional tower construction.

The tower’s podium is the northern portion of the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport, also by the same team of architects. At the base of the building, the structural braces divide to reconcile the six-bay wood structure of the tower with the five-bay steel structure of the Goldring Centre below. Similarly, at the event space crowning the building, the braces fan out—opening the corners to emphasize panoramic views out to the city.

When building with timber, care must be taken to protect the structural members from fire and moisture during construction. To address this, the entire envelope of the Wood Tower is panelized for rapid construction and enclosure. Vertical joints are constructed as 100-mm reveals, while horizontal joints are hidden within a standard 50-mm open joint between board-like pieces of fibre-cement cladding.

The Academic Wood Tower links to both the Goldring Centre and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. The connective spaces between the buildings include a shared lobby, feature stair and roof terrace.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: This project is an example of excellent mass timber design in its formal, technical aspects and in dealing with urban constraints. It sets a precedent that’s convincing and serious.

Joe Lobko :: A beautiful structure which advances tall wood building design in Canada, skillfully stitched into a historic context undergoing substantial revitalization. There is masterful siting between the significant heritage building on Bloor Street and the Sport Centre to the south. A great new “City Room” is about to emerge at the top.

Cindy Wilson :: While this project is notable for pushing the envelope in mass timber construction, it remains an elegant tower. It appears the integration of systems has co-evolved, rather than resulting from an additive process. The team of client, architect and engineer are equally ambitious.

Credits

CLIENT University  of Toronto | ARCHITECT TEAM Patkau Architects—John Patkau (FRAIC), Patricia Patkau (FRAIC), Greg Boothroyd (MRAIC), David Shone (MRAIC), Roy Cloutier, Sebastian Elliott, Thomas Gaudin, Shane O’Neill. MJMA—Ted Watson (FRAIC), Andrew Filarski (MRAIC), Robert Allen (FRAIC), Viktors Jaunkalns (FRAIC), Timothy Belanger, Leland Dadson, Aaron Letki, John Peterson (FRAIC), Claudia Cozzitorto (MRAIC), Johnathan Chan. STRUCTURAL Blackwell Structural Engineers | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/AV/ LIGHTING Smith + Andersen | ENVELOPE RDH Building Science Inc. | SUSTAINABILITY SA Footprint | FIRE CHM Fire Consultants Ltd. | ACOUSTICS RWDI Consulting Engineers and Scientists | code David Hine Engineering Inc. | cost A.W. Hooker Associates Ltd. | AREA 11,800 m² | BUDGET withheld | STATUS Construction Documentation | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2022

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 131 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 0.53 m³/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Block 8 is a three-building development in Toronto’s 80-hectare West Don Lands. The brownfield site has a patchwork of neighbours: the brick warehouses of the Distillery District, the glass and steel of the Canary District, and the last vestiges of an industrial waterfront.

The project also has a charged socio-economic context. Toronto faces a 33 percent population growth over the next 20 years, and though renters comprise 22 percent of households, only 10.9 percent of new residential construction is purpose-built rental. As a pilot project for the City, Block 8 will fast-track 770 units of rental housing. Thirty percent of these units will be affordable. Ten percent of all of the units are sized for families. Over 25 percent of all units are either fully accessible or barrier-free, allowing residents to age in place.

Affordable and market units alike are designed to a high level of quality and distributed evenly through all three towers. Inspired by their surroundings, the buildings are composed in three tiers. A masonry podium reflects the industrial vernacular of the Distillery District’s single-storey tank houses. The middle layer uses deeply carved lintels and angular infill panels to pick up on the gridded façades of local warehouses. Scallop-patterned towers crown two of the blocks, echoing the ribbed forms of nearby grain silos.

The site planning encourages pedestrian activity and interweaves public and private space. Parking, loading and services are buried below-grade, making room for a fine-grained fabric of streets, promenades and plazas. Private townhouse yards open onto intimate mews, lined with trees and paved with herringbone brick. The westernmost block is set back to frame a new public plaza on a streetcar loop. On the upper levels, generous setbacks allow for outdoor amenity spaces, connected by bridges between the three buildings.

The development targets LEED Gold, with energy saving strategies including a 50/50 window-to-wall ratio, high-performance glazing, R30 green roofs, and high-efficiency mechanical units. The team is discussing the inclusion of SolarWall systems to preheat air for corridor ventilation. There is also the possibility of a district energy system being implemented.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: I’m compelled by the curved windows, which have an industrial inspiration. The decision to have the bottom five storeys in brick gives it a scale that works. And given the present densification of Toronto, such considerations for scale are essential to enhance the street-scale experience.

Joe Lobko :: This project reminds us of the basic rules of great urbanism: buildings that help define streets and public spaces, with a vibrant ground plane and appropriately scaled and shaped built form that artfully interprets its historic context, while accommodating a wide range of use and population. It works on so many levels. The approach to affordable housing for this privileged site is timely, ambitious and appropriate for provincial land such as this.

Cindy Wilson :: As a pilot project for the City of Toronto, enormous care has been taken to create great urbanism, and the architects have done this expertly on many fronts. Although the sustainability of the project is current today, it should be pushed to future-proof the building for the benefit of the inhabitants. Connection to a district energy system should be implemented or other measures taken to contribute to the long-term viabilty of the rental units.

Credits

CLIENT Dream / Kilmer Group / Tricon | STRUCTURAL Thornton Tomasetti | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL M.V. Shore Associates (1993) Inc. | CIVIL Cole Engineering Group Ltd. | LANDSCAPE Claude Cormier et Associés Inc. | SUSTAINABILITY / LEED RWDI Inc. | AREA 59,119 m² | BUDGET withheld | STATUS Under Construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION June 2022

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 150 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 1.336 m³/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Sitting at the entrance to Queen’s University, the John Deutsch University Centre is a well-loved student hub. It houses student clubs, a pub, meeting rooms, and a 100-room residence. At its heart are Wallace Hall and the ceilidh—large assembly spaces for concerts, performances, debates and exhibitions.

But the building—built in 1949 and expanded in the mid-1970s—doesn’t have a single accessible entrance. A solution was needed to open the centre to all.

The new addition pulls visitors up and into the historic building, providing accessible access to each floor. It also acts as an extension of the student centre. A secondary circulation route doubles as tiered seating, creating an informal auditorium and study area. A student-run café occupies most of the addition’s second floor. A community kitchen on the upper level is a new social hub, serving the residents upstairs as well as the larger student body. A restaurant and student-run retail space tuck under the tiered space, facing the street.

From the outside, the new addition features monumental fins, a nod to the Collegiate Gothic of surrounding university buildings. The fins also deflect southern and western light. This passively regulates heat gain, allowing the addition to use oversized fans and displacement cooling—an efficient alternative to a standard system. Furthering its sustainability, the architects are proposing to construct a portion of the building in mass timber, including a cross-laminated timber roof.

Renovating the existing John Deutsch University Centre is also part of the mandate. A new skylight opens up a concrete-block addition to the original building and provides open, flexible office space for the student government. The ceilidh is revitalized. Extensive stakeholder consultation contributed to the improved layout.

The exterior picks up on the limestone found elsewhere on campus, but reinterprets it using standard, residential-scale units. This strategy aims to mediate between the campus and the adjacent neighbourhood. Careful attention has been paid to the resolution of the building’s massing at the scale of a single masonry unit. A particularly complex transition between planes is resolved through a set of rotated reverse corbels. Elsewhere, widened, raked joints create textural contrast to the CLT fins. For the landscape, the university’s traditional tartan is re-imagined as a grid of stone and plant material.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: Bravo—I find this very skillful and elegant. It’s so intimidating to work next to a heritage building. It doesn’t contrast or mimic the historic building, but keeps its own identity.

Joe Lobko :: This is an intelligent and effective addition in the heart of an established university campus. It creates a beautiful and convincing student gathering place while strongly marking its corner site and providing a welcoming invitation to this part of the campus. It knits old and new, but allows each to be of its time.

Cindy Wilson :: The complexity of the project is executed very skillfully. The historic façade is re-interpreted in the new, appearing more porous and light while maintaining presence. The large glass façade allows for an important visual connection both through the new building and to its urban environment. Additionally, the visual connection complementing the setback of the old building visually reinforces the idea of an urban porch.

Credits

CLIENT Queen’s University | ARCHITECT TEAM HDR—Donald Chong, Dathe Wong, Susan Croswell (Principal-in-Charge), Justin Perdue, Paul Howard Harrison (Project Designer), Jeff Salmon, Jeremy Van Dyke, Sebastian Wooff, Ellen Randall, Alicja Gajewski. MJMA—Ted Watson, Robert Allen, Andrew Filarski, Viktors Jaunkalns, Timothy Belanger, Chris Burbidge, Leland Dadson, Mateusz Nowacki, Kyung Sun Hur, Caleb Tsui, John Peterson, Amanda Chong | STRUCTURAL Blackwell Structural Engineers | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Smith + Andersen | SUSTAINABILITY Footprint | LANDSCAPE NAK Design Strategies | AREA 8,400 m² | BUDGET withheld | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2023

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 200 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 0.53 m³/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF  MERIT

The Clayton Reservoir is one component in a series of climate resilience upgrades being made to Metro Vancouver’s water infrastructure. Local reservoirs play an important role in managing the distribution of water, particularly in the face of increasingly warm and dry summers, and a supply dependant on winter rainfall. Rapid population growth in the former agricultural area of Clayton Heights has put additional pressure on water capacity.

Although new reservoirs are a part of the solution, reducing water consumption is also critical. This project set an aspirational goal of citizen engagement, aiming to create stewards for water conservation.

The design expresses the reservoir’s purpose through undulating curves that reference the water held within. The patterns allude to the mountain creeks from which the water comes, and the ocean to which it ultimately flows. The shadows on the façade shift depending on time of day and weather, which influences the mood of the project in a way that is reminscent of a lake’s ever-changing surface.

The building has already been sparking conversations amongst neighbours, construction workers and visitors about the role water plays in all our lives.

Reducing the apparent scale of this massive piece of infrastructure was also important to residential neighbours and to the City of Surrey’s Parks staff. The design uses a strong horizontal datum to break down the mass. At twilight and on cloudy days, the luminescent white upper half of the project blends with the sky. In contrast, the dark base grounds the project, connecting it to the surrounding landscape. Rounded corners further soften the structure’s appearance.

Water reservoirs have rigorous health, post-disaster and resiliency requirements, which entail massive structural walls. The design team developed a precast concrete cladding system that hangs from these walls, using an intricate system of embedded stainless steel brackets. Black steel panels allow access to underground chambers and to the reservoir roof. The industrial palette allows the reservoir to be durable, resilient and vandal-resistant.

Clayton Reservoir transforms a standard typology into infrastructure that remains robust and reliable, but also has the potential to inspire.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: The architects were asked to build a box that can’t ever leak, and they gave it quality. It reminds me of Herzog & de Meuron’s copper-leafed power station: who was going to celebrate that building type? And yet they transformed it into something. The bottom makes me think about 70s brutalism, then there’s the soft poetry that comes out of the reflection.

Joe Lobko :: How we design infrastructure matters, particularly when its physical presence is significant. This project provides a good example of the benefit of architectural thinking in the design of our major infrastructure projects. It’s a skillfully crafted design that responds superbly to its considerable scale and context.

Cindy Wilson :: I don’t imagine the RFP for this infrastructure project listed “poetry” as a requirement, yet in the delicate hands of this team, there is a demonstration that even infrastructure projects are capable of more than functionality.

Credits

CLIENT Metro Vancouver | STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/PROCESS MECHANICAL Associated Engineering | LANDSCAPE space2place | CONTRACTOR Westpro / Pomerleau | BUDGET withheld | STATUS Under Construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION December 2019

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT

Located just south of Calgary’s downtown business district, Inglewood is the city’s oldest neighbourhood. Lately, a younger generation is rediscovering the area, and its historic storefronts are being replaced by mid-rise structures.

IW09 is a mixed-use building that seeks the best of new and old: it’s an unapologetically contemporary form that’s shaped by its historic context. Three floors of commercial and retail space build up from the sidewalk, referencing the existing urban fabric. The upper residential floors twist to make room for the century-old Canadian Bank of Commerce building, while stepping back from 9th Avenue SE. The form rises up towards 12th Avenue SE, meeting requirements for a taller scale at the gateway intersection.

The tapering form minimizes shadow impact, and gives an appropriately shallower floorplate to the residential units. A triangular forecourt provides access to both the new building and renovated bank. More entrances are carved out facing the corner and other streets, adding to the sculpted quality of the form. Community-oriented spaces include rooftop terraces atop both buildings, and a third terrace that overlooks a lawn bowling green. The design also activates a public lane behind the site.

The building’s lower floors and underground levels are constructed with cast-in-place concrete. Above, the residential floors are constructed in cross-laminated timber. The entirety of the prismatic form is wrapped in a structural wood diagrid, which ties the two systems together and reduces the need for shear walls. The mass timber grid aims to lessen the development’s carbon footprint, and is a contemporary take on the heavy timber buildings that were once numerous in the neighbourhood.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: There’s an interesting relation to the heritage building, with the building angled in deference, rather than stepped back like a wedding cake. If they can get this approved, it could become a positive catalyst for the city in terms of pertinence and sensitivity to an existing urban fabric.

Joe Lobko :: The wood skeleton is lovely and wonderfully rendered, although I’m not sure it convincingly supports the glass.

Cindy Wilson :: Although still conceptual, this project boldly integrates the materiality of mass timber, its structural capabilities, and its aesthetic qualities to create urban form. It expands notions of how mass timber might be used in the future.

Credits

Client RNDSQR | Structural RJC Engineers | URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN Civicworks | LANDSCAPE AND URBAN DESIGN Landscape Architecture + Urban Design | Area 11,445 m² | BUDGET withheld | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2022

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT

Until the 1970s, Thunder Bay’s port was a key node between the Prairie railways and Great Lakes freight routes across Canada. A former shipyard, Prince Arthur’s Landing is the new home for an art gallery.

The site, say the architects, is “beautiful but wounded.” It looks across the water at the majestic Sleeping Giant geological formation, identified in an Ojibway legend as the body of the trickster Nanabijou. But the shoreline suffers from soil contamination and is estranged from the daily lives of Thunder Bay’s residents. Can a gallery—equal parts museum, community centre and social hub—begin to heal these wounds?

By mandate, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery maintains a particular focus on contemporary artwork by Canadian Aboriginal and Northwestern Ontario artists. So before embarking on schematic design, the architects organized a consultation workshop with stakeholders from local Indigenous communities, including Elders and artists. 

“The Gallery is a ‘Story House,’” said one workshop participant. “This is what art does: its power is to tell stories.” One story in particular came to the foreground: a sacred Ojibway story in which the Earth is reborn after a flood, upon the back of a turtle’s shell. The Turtle Narrative, as interpreted by Ryan Gorrie, the team’s Indigenous Design Advisor, emphasizes dualities: land and water, body and spirit. In Gorrie’s recounting, the Turtle pulls from water into the land, leaving the Gallery in his wake. The Turtle’s passage represents time, and the creation of culture through the telling of stories.

“Long after turtle became Turtle Island and Nanabijou laid down for the last time, the spirits of both are very much alive,” writes Gorrie. “The emergence of the Turtle from the water to form the gallery creates a powerful narrative and connection to culture […] The gallery resides on the shore, left by Turtle to house great collections and to continue telling stories of culture, tradition and thought. The form of the gallery is organic in nature, part building, part animal, and part landform.”

The revitalized lakefont is the focus of the building. Its main hall—large enough for public events and functions—opens onto panoramic views of Lake Superior and Nanabijou. Visitors climb into the space from the west-facing entrance, through a tree-planted berm that conceals the building’s bulk from view. Below the main hall, a sheltered terrace overlooks the shoreline, connecting to a network of waterfront trails.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: The poetics charm us, I love the story. There is still some fine-tuning that seems to be needed in reasserting the parti through the landscape plan, particularly at the waterfront. For the interior, how is the shell expressed on the inside?

Joe Lobko :: The building is like a beautiful whale that has beached and given up its soul for us all to explore. Thunder Bay is close to my heart. I was born there. I sense that the city has become a very important “tell-tale” now in helping us better understand our Canadian psyche. It is a city that is challenged in many ways, but it also has much to celebrate, and I am so pleased to see a great work of architecture emerge along its shoreline.

Cindy Wilson :: The interpretation of an Indigenous narrative to create form is powerful. The building curves and hovers over its waterfront site protectively, making it feel as if it is a reconciliation to its wounded landscape. Rather than eliminating natural light in the gallery spaces, finding solutions to mitigate daylight would add significantly to the enjoyment of the building and underscore the power of its art to tell stories.

Credits

CLIENT CLIENT Thunder Bay Art Gallery | STRUCTURAL Blackwell Structural Engineers | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/SECURITY / A/V Smith + Andersen | LIGHTING AES Engineering | LANDSCAPE Janet Rosenberg & Studio | CIVIL Hatch Corporation | INDIGENOUS DESIGN ADVISOR Ryan Gorrie/BMI | CODE Jensen Hughes Consulting | LEED/ENERGY/ACOUSTICS RWDI | BUILDING ENVELOPE WSP | WAYFINDING Entro | COST Turner & Townsend | COMMISSIONING CFMS | MUSEUM CONSULTANT Lord Cultural Resources | GEOTHECHNICAL EXP | PROJECT MANAGER Colliers Project Leaders |
Area 3,480 m² | BUDGET $30 M | STATUS Building Permit | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION fall 2022

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 531 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 0.147 m³/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF  MERIT

When the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) set out to build a new parking garage, it had a bare-bones design in mind. The 87,000-square-metre building, housing 250 hybrid buses and 600 occupants, was to be a 20-metre-high fortress, occupying two city blocks.

The architects instead proposed to sink the facility down into the site, making it the first completely underground bus depot in North America. Skylights allow natural light to enter the maintenance and parking areas, while the majority of the roof becomes a system of parks and scenic paths that gives back to the neighbourhood. The facility becomes an amenity for the adjacent residential area and extends the Réseau-Vert trail system south of the site.

Going underground greatly reduces both the visual impact and noise of the facility. A utilitarian building is transformed into a public space for the community. Atop the park, a circular figure holds administrative offices and a courtyard garden for STM workers. The office’s geometry reflects the shape of the ramps that bring buses around the site and down into the garage. As the most visible part of the facility, the offices have a similar scale to former industrial facilities in the area.

The facility’s four below-grade storeys include a car park, repair and maintenance areas, bus parking, and a level for mechanical equipment.

The two-storey above-ground structure houses administrative offices, fire prevention training rooms, and areas for drivers and maintenance crews. The structure is encircled by white fritted glass and metal fins, positioned to mitigate solar gain. The offices are topped with a CLT roof.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: It’s solving the spatial needs of dealing with buses and the administrative offices. And it’s trying to heal an urban wound in the city and linking it by becoming an above-ground park. Those two notions are noble and it tends to do it with elegance. Can the development of the landscape be pushed forward, beyond planes and stairs, so that it becomes more inviting for occupation?

Joe Lobko :: This is a remarkable transformation of a building type, taking a massive parking garage with all its negative impacts and turning it into a landscape and public space feature. It is an ambitious city-building effort that cleverly and effectively synthesizes a challenging program and context, creating a great new landmark for this community.

Cindy Wilson :: This is an interesting reinterpretation of a transportation center within a dense urban environment. By burying the electric buses underground, the park can exist: a green transportation network creating a green public space. An investigation into the energy supply and heat recovery could further support the existing neighbourhood’s journey towards a greener future.

Credits

CLIENT Société des transports de Montréal (STM) | DESIGN TEAM Jean-Francois Gagnon; Architecture: Ramzi Bosha, Valentin Guirao, Ricardo Serrano, Samuel Paulin-Langlois; Landscape Architecture: Mylène Carreau, Camille Plourde-Lescelleur, Olivier Morin Alice Maria Cavalcante Lima. | PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEAM Pierre Larouche, Eric Dufour, Yanick Casault. | PRODUCTION TEAM Hugo Lafrance, Jean-Francois Morneau, James Sunderland, Claude Jean, Maryse Ballard, Eric St-Pierre, Alain Côté, Quincy Baccanale, Jennifer Noël, Rashin Forghani, Jean Deslauriers, Elisabeth Mathieu, Nadine Chartouni, Marie-Élaine Globensky, Kevin Wang, Elisabeth Fortin, François Dubois, Ryan Jackson, Julie Pettigrew, Julien Lauzon-Fullum, Anne-Marie Brochu, Sylvie Painchaud, Louise Ranger. | STRUCTURAL SNC-Lavalin / ELEMA / Infrastructure engineering Division STM | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL bouthillette parizeau | CIVIL SNC-Lavalin | INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING Tetratech | AREA 87,000 m² | BUDGET $225 M | STATUS Under construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION Spring 2022

PROJECTED ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 300 kWh/m²/year

PROJECTED WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 0.276 m³/m²/year

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WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Cameron Parkin, University of Waterloo

Advisor: Maya Przybylski

Toronto’s downtown is rapidly densifying. One of the results is that residents have reduced access to biodiverse green spaces, which foster mental health and environmental responsibility. This project aims to move beyond ornamental lawns, exploring a dynamic strategy to creating complex urban habitats for flora and fauna.

The work explores computational methods of modelling networks and habitats that are borrowed from landscape ecology, graph theory, and parametric architecture. It involves simulating the two-dimensional and three-dimensional movement of birds through the city, and using this information to locate and inform a variety of interventions.

The work is divided into three parts, with each part exploring a progressively smaller piece of urban fabric. The first part maps avian habitat networks in Toronto’s downtown and central waterfront. Using layered GIS data and aerial imagery, it creates a “resistance map” showing where birds can most easily travel. High-resistence areas such as highways and tall buildings are lighter in colour, while areas that accommodate birds such as tree canopies and natural ground covers are darker. Simulated birds are deployed into the map at various point to reveal key movement corridors and significant barriers in the urban matrix. This allows a series of intervention types to be located within the network.

The second part explores how these interventions would affect bird movement in the three-dimensional fabric of CityPlace and Fort York. Guided by the initial model, habitat is added with green roofs and places for nesting and perching, and travel corridors are enhanced with street trees, shrubs, and bird-friendly glass frit. The resulting interventions are tested in a 3D model. A evolutionary algorithm allows hundreds of intervention combinations to be tried, to determine which are the most effective in generating connectivity through the area.

The final part of the study composes an artificial habitat that attracts local bird species and acts as a biophilic amenity for residents in CityPlace’s Canoe Landing Park. The habitat is designed by analyzing, deconstructing, and replicating elements from natural areas such as forests, marshes and woodlands areas, then reassembling them using parametric modelling. The resulting assemblies are built on a scaffold of laminated timber ribs, and have specific attributes, such as nesting boxes and planters, that mimic key elements
of natural habitats.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: This goes beyond analyzing the problem and starts thinking of solutions.

Joe Lobko :: An imaginative exploration and analysis of the evolving life of birds in our densifying cities, proposing strategies for more effective understanding of behaviours and impacts while offering creative suggestions for the evolution of bird-friendly habitat.

Cindy Wilson :: This thesis takes a rigorous approach to a pertinent aspect of sustainability that is part of the health of urban environments. As cities continue to grow, how can we mutually benefit and exist with nature?

The post Coding a Biophilic Core: Digital Design Tools for Toronto’s Avian Networks appeared first on Canadian Architect.

WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Brandon Eli John Bergem, University of Toronto

Thesis Advisor: John Shnier

The Museum of Natural History to Ultima Thule engages the histories of two Arctic islands. One is an archaic fantasy; the other exists in reality, but is challenged by environmental change.

For centuries, the northernmost regions of the world were mysterious. The supposed discovery of a remote island called “Thule” led to rampant speculation about the north. The island would be mythologized as “Ultima Thule” (furthest Thule) by poets, cartographers, and early explorers. It came to symbolize the edge of the unknown world.

Today, the actual Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard hosts the world’s most northern permanent settlement. The islands were discovered in 1596, and featured in a revised edition of Gerardus Mercator’s arctic projection map. Svalbard is a peculiar island, as the most remote location in the world. Claims of sovereignty are disputed. Century-old detritus—remnants from the age-of-exploration and early exploitation—have become cultural monuments. The landscape is nearly barren of vegetation, but carries fossilized imprints of grand primordial ferns. Scientific instruments littering the mountains attempt to register the changing climate, while Russian and Norwegian coal mines continue their work of extraction.

Highly documented and surveyed, Svalbard has eliminated the notion of Thule as an off-the-map marker of the unknown. At this same moment of cartographic clarity, the archipelago is being consumed by climate change. Mountains are crumbling from rain-induced landslides, glaciers are retreating from view, and the descending permafrost is destabilizing the ground. Like the mythical Thule, Svalbard’s future is uncertain.

This thesis posits the disappearance of the islands as an inevitability. It uses drawing as a means to explore, re-imagine and re-constitute the realities, legends, devastation and plausible futures of the island.

The drawings depict the familiar, authoritative context of a natural history museum. In the fictitious Museum of Natural History to Ultima Thule, the imagined future is represented as the past. The chronicles
of Svalbard are told through ten theatrical mise-en-scènes, each presenting part of the museum. Dioramas show taxidermied animals deformed by toxins, the luxurious Hotel at the End of the World being consumed by rising sea levels, and an army of drones attempting to shore up the island’s crumbling rock faces, pebble by pebble.

The museum itself is shown as being in a state of incomplete assembly, suggesting that catastrophe has already struck. Visible scaffolding supports landscape facsimiles and partially installed backdrops, spilled paint and wet floors hint at melting glaciers, boxed-up taxidermy renders the scenes slightly uncanny.

The Museum of Natural History to Ultima Thule explores drawing and architecture as mediums for storytelling. It reflects on Svalbard’s real complexities as the stuff of future mythology.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: These images are so beautiful. They have the capacity to embody both critical statements and nostalgic historical compositions.

Joe Lobko :: I could linger over these incredible drawings and the tales they evoke for hours. This is a magical dissertation on place and time.

Cindy Wilson :: If myth is the past and fantasy the future, this project makes me ponder how our fantasies become myth.

The post The Museum of Natural History to Ultima Thule appeared first on Canadian Architect.

WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Josh Wallace, Carleton University
Advisor: Catherine Bonier

Climate change is often seen as an abstract phenomenon that occasionally manifests in fragments of local weather. But could it also become a cultural object? How could the medium of sound allow climate change to be woven into human imagination and memory?

This thesis explores these questions by blurring the lines between human-made music and environmentally produced sound. The research phase included recording the sounds produced by the shifting Athabasca Glacier, and visually cataloguing these recordings alongside human music. Human-produced music is often tonal and rhythmic, with consistent boundaries and divisions. Environmentally produced sound is often atonal and arhythmic, with an enormous range and granularity of frequencies and frequency relationships.

The author then turned to designing a series of environmentally activated instruments to allow participants to interface with the climate. A Glacier Accordion, anchored to the shifting ground of the Athabasca Glacier, is “played” by the movement of wind through a series of membranes. The instrument is operated both by humans, who can tune the membranes by adjusting cranks and pulley, and by the glacier, whose movement changes the instrument’s geometry. In this new method of music-making, the non-human climate is as much an active participant as the human.

The instruments aim to create a visceral knowledge of climate realities. Players engaging these new devices and landscapes must listen and adapt, letting go of accepted musical norms to incorporate the climate’s sonic language into their musical sensibilities. It is anticipated that this “letting go” may aid in the necessary philosophical shift towards adapting to a new climate paradigm.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: This project is amazing in telling us to remember the melting glaciers through sound. It is valuable that a more sensorial approach to space is created to transmit an experience of memory.

Joe Lobko :: This project is about the engagement of senses, being in the moment, the awareness of place and most importantly giving voice to climate change. The imagery is seductive. Can’t wait to hear it.

Cindy Wilson :: The sound recording and accompanying graphic representations are a connection to climate change I have never considered before. It could be an interesting way of connecting numerical data to our senses.

The post Listening to Climate Change appeared first on Canadian Architect.

WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Samuel Gendron Fortier, Université de Montréal

Advisor: Alessandra Ponte

This project explores a future where accelerated transactions, enabled by blockchain technology, bring artificial intelligence (AI) into production spaces. Ricocheting between utopia and dystopia, the project’s building constantly transforms itself, optimizing between the balance of spaces dedicated to humans, robots and artificial intelligence.

The project site is the northern sector of Pointe-Saint-Charles in Montreal, an industrial brownfield. To begin, sections of abstract images taken from photos of microchips were superimposed on the site to form an initial plan. The building is a megastructure, like a machine or a giant computer. It can be used for various types of production: from manufacturing electronic devices, to growing food, to microbiological research,
or even for a creative industry such as music recording.

Inside, a modular system of gigantic internal walls of different thicknesses moves on rails. Within these walls are spaces for servers, robotic production, storage and space support equipment. In these areas, robots store and manage both the produced goods and the materials needed to operate the plant. Between the programmatic bands are human production spaces, where workers use tools prototyped by robots and collaborate with robots on production. Adjustable bridges, walls, and floors can be deployed to reconfigure these spaces.

Giant engines allow the building to shift on site. The building envelope is like an accordion, expanding and shrinking with market needs and production capacity. Mechanical systems and work surfaces are optimized and used at all times. As the artificial intelligence succeeds in understanding the market—and even influencing or controlling it—the plant expands and becomes increasingly profitable. The building could also be programmed to deconstruct itself.

The project raises questions about the limits and potential of AI. What happens when the building occupies the entire site dedicated to it? Will the AI seek to increase its controlled territory? Will emergency stop switches need to be installed as precautionary measures? Is the worker’s quality of life improved? Are humans aware of the full control of AI over their environment?

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: I’m fascinated—I’ve never encountered someone who considers the spatial relationship between humans and robots. It’s the first time someone ever brings that subject up to me. Robots are always improving: can the architecture continuously change as the robots learn about what they are making? Part of the way the project was presented to us was through an interview with Siri. I like the guts behind this approach.

Joe Lobko :: Lou Kahn’s ‘servant’ and ‘served’ spaces meets the future of robotics and a digital world to create the ultimate ‘maker-space’.

Cindy Wilson :: This project represents the undeniable fact that robotics and AI will be a future part of our industry, and I appreciate the consideration of the challenge in this project. While data already creates space, to what extent will AI influence or expand our assumptions around data?

The post Free / Open Source City: Production Space of the Accelerated Transaction appeared first on Canadian Architect.

WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Pierre-Olivier Demeule, Université Laval

Advisor: Myriam Blais

For the Inuit of Nunavik—the northern region of Quebec—the traditional activities of hunting and fishing contribute to a sense of place. Today, they are also linked to healing, recreation, crafts and socialization. From this point of view, tundra camps are the mainstays of local identity and Inuit well-being.

Despite its proximity to existing settlements, the land remains accessible to few, due to the high costs of travel and construction. Resilient buildings are needed, whose layout and materials can adapt to changing Northern conditions. What can be learned from Inuit camps, which both symbolize and provide access to the tundra? How can the know-how behind the existing modest buildings inform new, resilient spaces that maintain a beneficial relationship with the land?

This project proposes a new tundra camp located two kilometres from the village of Salluit (62ºN), along a fjord accessible by canoe or ATV. The proposal’s key spaces facilitate the expression and transmission of local knowledge. It creates a restorative and responsive architectural environment, inviting spirit and soul to harmonize with the tundra.

The project explores the concept of sustainable vernacular architecture. It seeks to combine local know-how, local materials, and Northern construction processes. By doing so, it supports a model of healthy co-dependence between ecosystems, culture and the local economy.

Components of the camp include an expandable community hall, cabins, camping platforms, and a hut for drying animal skins and meat. Each element has a limited ecological footprint. The structures use passive heating and cooling strategies. They use natural materials such as goose feathers for insulation, sealskin for weather stripping, and peat for roofing. The buildings adapt to each season with strategies such as adaptive fenestration, and a flexible use of space according to the time of year.

The project aims to further local capacity and autonomy with construction methods that can be replicated, adapted or transformed by the Inuit. The project also promotes “soul-healing.” Its spaces strengthen community ties and enable activities that allow for the sharing of Inuit values.

The new camp can be transformed and evolve over time according to local needs. At each design phase, the project aligns itself with the principles of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, meaning “living technology” or “what the Inuit have always known.” The design and construction of this place of healing hopes to demonstrate the ingenious know-how of the North—a Qaujimajatuqangit that can reconnect the Inuit to their land in ways that are harmonious, innovative and adaptive.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: Perhaps the word “resilient” is what seems to bring to life the value of this project. I greatly appreciate this forward-thinking attitude that attempts to contemporize past values.

Joe Lobko :: A traditional Inuit camp reinterpreted and reimagined, applying contemporary building science and traditional cultural understanding in the effort to create a resilient and adaptable model. A wonderfully presented project with a thoughtful and convincing thesis.

Cindy Wilson :: This beautiful project is both a record of the past and a window to the future. The use of natural materials to support more contemporary building methods is intriguing, and these materials are more accessible in the context of a northern climate. 

The post From Matter to Place: A Camp for the Transmission of Inuit Local Knowledge appeared first on Canadian Architect.

WINNER OF THE 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT PHOTO AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

doublespace photography

Client: Hariri Pontarini Architects

Photographers Amanda Large and Younes Bounhar see their job as a two-phase process. As a baseline, they document built projects in a literal manner. But they also strive to translate the less tangible qualities of projects into photographic images. “It is not so much about how a project looks, but rather how it feels, how one experiences it,” says Large.

When photographing the Bahá’í Temple of South America, the duo was awed by the structure’s monumental scale. They felt that this quality was missing from many of the existing photographs, where the temple is dwarfed by a mountain range.

To communicate the Temple’s exceptionality, says Large, “we felt that is was critical to abstract the building from its surroundings.” They decided to photograph it at 9 am, about two hours after sunrise. The sun was still partially hidden behind the mountains, and its rays illuminated one side of the Temple. The side-lighting produced highlights on the edges of the petals that make up the structure. Meanwhile, the mountains and front of the Temple remained relatively dark.

A human figure, standing in one of the nine doorways, completes the scene, giving a sense of scale to the image.

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: This image creates a powerful ambiance—it’s so amazing. In a first glimpse, it’s as if we all felt an attachment to a photograph that captured the experience of a moment.

Joe Lobko :: The magic of an image can be that it wants you to know more, it draws you in, it excites your imagination. This image, and this building, certainly do that.

Ema Peter :: For me, this is a very impactful image. We have seen so many images of this building and this one shows a completely different perspective. The quality of light is spectacular—the side is lit perfectly. The silhouetted person that is so masterfully hidden in the shadow makes the image look like a real piece of art.

Cindy Wilson :: The subtlety in this photo allows the imagination to enter.

The post Bahá’í Temple of South America appeared first on Canadian Architect.

WINNER OF A 2019 CANADIAN ARCHITECT PHOTO AWARD OF MERIT

James Brittain

Client: Moriyama & Teshima Architects

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the value of revisiting architecture with a camera, and the specific things this can reveal. In my commissioned work, I’m usually asked to photograph a project at the moment of its completion. But I’m also fascinated by how buildings age, and how they’re inhabited and adapted over time. There’s also the evolving relationship between a building and its site, and wider contextual environment.

So I was very pleased when Moriyama & Teshima Architects asked me to re-photograph the Ontario Science Centre, along with several other of the practice’s early works in Ontario, to mark the anniversary of their 60 years in practice.

Moriyama & Teshima encouraged me to approach the project with my own vision, and I tried to make pictures about the experience of the architecture—what it feels like to be there—rather than a description of formal arrangement.

The Science Centre is set on a dramatic site in the Don Valley, with the complex’s concrete volumes spanning a wooded ravine.

The original 1960s concrete formwork is exceptional, but in the intervening years, trees and vines have grown up, and in several places made their way onto the exterior of the buildings.

Because of this, it’s now tricky to make wide views that show the whole ensemble. However, a walk around the outside reveals a lovely interplay between concrete built forms and rambling woods and foliage.

The view shown here is underneath the main footbridge spanning the ravine, which connects visitors above from the arrival halls to the exhibition galleries.

I was happy when I took it as I felt it captured the ambition and spirit of Raymond Moriyama’s original vision, in harmony with nature re-asserting itself. –James Brittain

Jury Comments

Rami Bebawi :: There’s something I love about this image that celebrates a simple bridge. The composition creates a powerful line. There’s an imaginative, wonderland quality to it.

Joe Lobko :: This isn’t the typical image that you’d get from a commissioned photo shoot. It evokes the pull between nature and intervention.

Ema Peter :: It’s a subtle image—the streaming light is absolutely beautiful. It’s out-of-the-box thinking for architectural photography.

Cindy Wilson :: The balance of light and shadow, structure and nature, smoothness and texture makes the column look ecclesiastical.

The post Ravine, Ontario Science Centre appeared first on Canadian Architect.