WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

As civic buildings, fire stations find themselves in the unusual role of being highly functional, technical buildings embedded in residential communities. The vision for Windermere Fire Station takes cues from the past: the iconic characteristics of a pitched roof, large fire truck doors, and solid load-bearing walls. But the contemporary fire station also carries a new imperative for sustainable citizenship that has implications for the building’s form, orientation and image.

Fire Station 31 will serve a new community in Southwest Edmonton, bordered by the North Saskatchewan River and the Whitemud Creek Ravine. The community of Windermere aims to exemplify the careful integration of the natural and built environments. The City of Edmonton has taken a leadership role by requiring the fire station to obtain LEED Silver certification, meet 40 percent better energy efficiency and 40 percent better greenhouse gas emissions than NECB 2011, and achieve 80 kilowatt-hours per square metre per year for heating needs. In addition, the project is also a pilot to investigate if achieving net-zero energy on an emergency response fire hall is feasible. The study will consider viability by looking at energy use, operational needs and budget considerations.

To achieve net-zero, the south-facing roof is clad with photovoltaic cells. The roof is optimized for solar generation capacity, generating the shape of the building. While the roof plane is lifted to provide a substrate for solar arrays, the ground plane is pushed down to collect and cleanse water in a front yard bioswale. A concrete plinth in the centre of the bio-swale, accessed by a light metal bridge, provides a site for public art.

Other sustainability measures include geothermal heating and cooling, and maximizing natural lighting to reduce energy loads and improve the quality of the workplace. Strategically placed glazed walls between the garage and domestic quarters are key to optimizing daylight and ventilation, as well as providing visual connections important for orientation, safety, and facilitating quick response times.

Clad in dark ironspot brick, Fire Station 31’s sombre tones will give it a visual strength when seen silhouetted against the prairie sky. The simple profile and the mass of masonry wall emblematically marry references to the residential and to the disciplined functionality of the fire station. The use of two brick bond types adds subtle character to the facade’s surface. Edmonton’s extended daylight hours in summer and minimized daylight hours in winter will be gauged by the glazing of the apparatus bay doors, as they transition from slightly reflective elements during the day to glowing apertures at night.

The design creates an expressive, engaging structure that heightens civic pride, incorporating green technical advances and a move towards more transparent buildings. It aims to be a high-functioning workplace in times of emergency, and a welcoming community beacon in quiet times.

Jury Comments

Ted Watson :: The shape is simply derived in a single gesture that creates the height and the hierarchy within the program, and also yields a comfortably familiar but unique shape. It’s rational in responding to daylight while also having a sustainability agenda.

David Penner :: I like the elegance and simplicity of the planning and massing. The site is well executed, with bioswales and a sculpture court that addresses the requirement for public art in a proactive way, rather than leaving it to chance.

Monica Adair :: A lot of environmental solutions feel like add-ons that are disconnected from the architecture. Here, the solar panels and form are seamlessly integrated, signalling that the sustainability agenda matters as much as the program inside. The design elevates the bar for community-scaled fire stations, with a materiality and a commitment to detailing that will make it an object of civic pride.

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Credits:

CLIENT:: City of Edmonton
STRUCTURAL:: RJC
MECHANICAL:: Smith + Andersen
ELECTRICAL:: SMP
CIVIL:: Urban Systems
LANDSCAPE:: Urban Systems, gh3*
GEOTHERMAL:: Revolve Engineering
LEED:: Eco Ammo
COST:: KBK
AREA:: 1,425 m2
BUDGET:: $10.5 M
STATUS:: 100% Design Development
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: 2020

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The Old Post Office is Canada’s first ‘bookless’ library. Apart from displaying a few recent book acquisitions and periodicals, its spaces are dedicated to the idea of creation in a broad sense, for all age groups. While libraries are still places for storing books, they are now facilities geared toward storing information in all its forms to facilitate both passive and active learning, where what is learned in the facility can be physically put into practice.

The project is a major renovation, restoration and addition to a listed heritage structure in Galt, Ontario. Galt is the largest of three townships that make up the municipality of Cambridge, and its historically intact downtown core area developed alongside the Grand River. The historic post office building, constructed in 1884-85, was designed by Thomas Fuller, the architect of the original Parliament Buildings’ Centre Block (destroyed by fire) and Library of Parliament.

The design doubles the existing space by adding 9,000 square feet to the south and west of the historic structure. The addition is conceived as a transparent, glowing contemporary pavilion floating atop the adjacent Grand River. The program primarily comprises studio spaces for public creation, supplemented by a cafe-restaurant as a secondary, contiguous use.

The lower level of the building contains a black box theatre, film and audio recording suites, musical equipment for recording and performance, laptop dispensing and gaming areas. On the ground floor, there’s a cafe-reading room and restaurant with a commercial kitchen. The second level includes a children’s discovery centre with smart tables, Lego, Lite Brite and magnet feature walls, robot building kits, and a large exterior roof terrace with green roof. Finally, the third level attic contains an adult-oriented studio space with provisions for a laser cutting machine, 3D printers, soldering stations, vinyl cutters, irons, sewing machines, and wood and metal workshop tools. This equipment would be available in extended hours to facilitate public creation for older age groups.

The site perches dramatically along the Grand River, and benefits from views to the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, the main location of the Idea Exchange, two large cathedrals, and a new performing arts facility. The design scheme uses material transparency in an attempt to promote views of the historic structure, bring light into the various levels of studio space, and project the life and vitality of the progressive public program to the city beyond.

Jury Comments

Ted Watson :: This project brings together the elements of heritage, industrial fabric, a river wall system and an urban system in a constrained but rational package. The modern intervention has its own identity that embraces the heritage building, with a skylight that politely separates the two. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

David Penner :: The twisting to the west is a fabulous gesture that somehow lightens the whole intervention, and the layering of the stone detailing on the frit is beautiful. What’s most admirable in my mind is the balancing between the conservation of the existing building and the addition. The original building is so bold and strong in itself, and it holds its own, even though the addition is significant.

Monica Adair :: The modern architecture has as much character as the heritage structure that it elegantly envelops. The two not only co-exist, they enhance each others’ assets. It’s not about the new simply becoming the feature, but a prosperous revival of the historic structure. The project also re-engages the industrial setting, making this an iconic and refreshed river’s edge.

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Credits

CLIENT:: City of Cambridge & The Idea Exchange
HERITAGE:: Stevens Burgess Architects, Kelly Gilbride
STRUCTURAL:: WSP, Andrew Dionne
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL:: Jain & Associates
LANDSCAPE:: NAK Design Strategies, Robert Ng
CIVIL:: Valdor Engineering
COST:: AW Hooker Associates
ACOUSTICS:: Aercoustics Engineering
AREA:: 1,736 m2
BUDGET:: $11.1 M
STATUS:: Under construction
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: November 2018

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

The Octagon resists the notion that architecture should be either formally interesting and autonomous from its site or completely contextual. Instead, the project proposes a complex figurative form that, in spite of being a new building, is inextricably linked to its surroundings. It deftly mediates between an existing Victorian semi-detached house and the rapidly changing urban environment around it.

Located directly behind the vibrant commercial strip of Toronto’s Queen Street West, the property is situated in one of the city’s most sought-after neighbourhoods. The area has been gentrified over the past decade, and as property prices persist in rising and development pressures increase, it is inevitable that it will continue to change. But despite new developments to the south and the ongoing expansion of the adjacent Drake Hotel, this corner has managed to hold on to its distinctive character. It’s a place where small-scale residential and commercial uses mix, supporting an active street life that extends into the neighbourhood’s gritty laneways.

The new rear laneway suite is developed around the idea of a long path—a singular organizing circulation element—that, both in plan and in section, weaves through each room of the unit, tracing a route from the public street up to the private upper-level mezzanine. Without being overly prescriptive, a series of spaces along the way aims to support the rituals of daily life. An enlarged corridor leads from the street, with a counter facing the laneway that allows the owner to serve coffee to locals heading to work. Across, the corridor opens to a garden shared with the main house, suggesting al fresco dinners with guests. The corridor terminates in a staircase that spirals up through a series of loosely defined spaces: a living room on the second floor, a sleeping area on the third floor, and a private study for a quiet night of reading on the upper floor.

Formally, the project aims to be both functional and expressive. Borrowing the form of octagon turrets found nearby, the solid mass in the rear laneway extends upwards. Balconies are carved out of the volume, and a slight twist in the roof ridge creates a form that is both responsive to its surroundings and dynamic.

The project uses light wood framing for ease of construction, and is clad in slate shingles. This material references the slate roof of the main house, and adds variegated texture to the long wall in the laneway. Throughout the structure, details are kept concealed to reinforce the idea of the project as a single volume.

While increasing constraints and lowered ambitions make it challenging, architecture still has a role to play in imparting identity to our cities. At a broader level, this set piece encourages new development to find virtue in overlooked spaces, and suggests that function need not trump form. At its best, architecture allows for a range of functions to take place simultaneously, and proposes new forms that are innovative, purposeful and expressive.

Jury Comments

Monica Adair :: The Octagon breaks the mould of what we typically think of as a laneway house. It starts to push how these dwellings are used, and also explores how the broader program of residential living can be transformed. It rethinks what is liveable. The long, narrow circulation bar becomes an object for living as well as an urban artifact. Everything is carefully worked out. It’s very clever and bold.

Ted Watson :: This project is small in size, but exciting in its larger implications. Not only is it a beautiful object, but the form is derived from its functionality and the manipulation of the geometry through the section. It’s anonymous but iconic, it’s a residential project that enriches the public realm, it’s an enclosure while it’s also a compositionally strong form—it has an ambiguity that makes it powerful.

David Penner :: Really gritty and really sophisticated at the same time. It’s tied in to the Second Empire style of the existing house. I like how it recognizes the side lane as an urban artery, and provides eyes to the lane to make it a safer space. I see it as an extension of the spirit of the nearby Drake Hotel.

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Credits

CLIENT:: Laleh Rouhani
STRUCTURAL:: Moses Stuctural
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL:: Sustainglobe
CODE:: Edward Ofuso-Barko
LANDSCAPE:: Behnaz Assadi (Ja Studio)
CONTRACTOR:: Mazifa
AREA 135 m2
BUDGET:: Withheld
STATUS:: Design Development

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Located on George Brown College’s expanding Waterfront Campus, The Arbour houses the college’s School of Technology and the Tall Wood Research Institute. This 10-storey-wood, low-carbon building is the first of its kind in Ontario, featuring ecological innovation across its entire life cycle and acting as a model for smart, sustainable, green building innovation throughout Canada.

The design seeks to instill generous space for wellbeing and sustainable development. A custom mass timber structural system provides the longer spans required for institutional academic use. A triple-storey atrium and series of interconnected gathering spaces support community social health within the structure’s limited footprint. Passive access to fresh air and light allow the building to act like a tree—a living being that synergistically interacts with its ecosystem.

The project’s innovative structural approach takes full advantage of the spanning capabilities of cross-laminated timber (CLT) structures. Uncluttered interior spaces are achieved through a state-of-the-art CLT flat-plate system that is relatively thin and requires no use of beams, thereby reducing overall building height, volume, and material costs, as well as simplifying the distribution of building systems. Cross-laminated timber is used not only for slabs but also for supports; the latter comprise a flush transfer system of cross-laminated slab bands and columns.

The plan is organized using a tartan grid to establish three parallel bars of programmable space. The mass wood structure is laid out on a seven-by-nine metre grid. The outer bars house classrooms, labs and administrative offices, with access to light and views. The central bar houses vertical circulation cores bookended by an interconnected sequence of double-height, interactive social spaces for students and staff. Computer labs are comfortably housed within the inner central spine. The large-span, beamless structure enables the free placement of demising walls, providing flexibility over time. The aspiration to achieve a net-zero/net-positive-ready building is at the core of the architectural expression. This imperative starts with the design of a thermally efficient building envelope, with optimized daylighting and natural ventilation systems, reducing reliance on mechanical systems.

East and west solar chimneys act as the lungs of the building, creating natural convection by drawing air up and through the structure to ensure that air from operable windows is continually refreshed. A strongly sloping roof allows for south-facing solar panels, while the angled profile creates a clerestory for the top level, which houses the Tall Wood Institute. Here, building and program come together at the apex to confront climate change head-on for current and future generations.

The wood used for The Arbour will be sourced from sustainably managed forests with a legal requirement to regenerate all harvested areas. With the current worldwide interest in tall timber, the Arbour is poised to set a precedent for the approval of exposed mass wood high-rise buildings and to accelerate the development of the Canadian forest products industry.

Jury Comments

David Penner :: To me, the Arbour is a cathedral of wood, with a form that is like an upscaled Victorian house.

Monica Adair :: We saw a number of mass timber projects among the submissions, and this one led in terms of execution, detailing and the potential of using mass timber beyond its minimal viable articulation. It is thoughtfully detailed with an innovative structural solution of hybrid wall-columns that allow for longer spans—a prototype system that could have impacts far beyond this site.

Ted Watson :: In addition to the architects, the client for this project also needs to be lauded. Lauded as an institution for taking a lead on innovation and sustainability within their building portfolio, addressing issues that urgently face us all. The design solution is a very clean execution of the program, targeting net-zero energy, achieving resiliency, and using smart-building technologies in a mass timber structure. It presents the possibility of wood structures becoming a viable option within the ‘longer span’ institutional market.

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Credits

CLIENT:: George Brown College
STRUCTURAL:: Fast + Epp
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL:: Integral Group
ENVIRONMENTAL:: Transsolar Inc.
LANDSCAPE:: Terraplan Landscape Architects
CODE:: GHL Consultants Ltd.
COST:: Altus Group
FIRE:: CHM Fire Consultants Ltd.
AREA:: 195,000 ft2
BUDGET:: $95 M
STATUS:: Schematic Design / Design Development
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: 2023

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Construction for the project is on a tight timeline: it needs to be completed in the ten months separating the 2018 and 2019 editions of the Grand Prix. To facilitate the completion of the $50-million project in this timespan, the building is designed as an assemblage of prefabricated parts. These include concrete panels, steel beams and columns, CLT wood beams and panels, curtain wall and demountable partitions. In case the car racing event is terminated, the entire structure can be dismantled and the material reused.

The building aims to make responsible use of public money, and makes a virtue of the fact that it will be only be used for a short time each year. In contrast with other international Grand Prix facilities, the lounge areas have no exterior walls and no air conditioning, finishes are bare, and solar panels provide electricity for lighting. The open-air lounges bring guests closer to the sights and sounds of the adjacent raceway.

Overhead, the building’s iconic roof structure distinguishes the Canadian edition of the race. The roof creates an identity based on our collective desire to make optimal use of wood, one of our most important natural resources. The exposed geometric structure is reminiscent of the daring pavilions of Expo 67, and marks a commitment toward sustainable development.

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Jury Comments

David Penner :: I really admire the way the exposed wood roof structure speeds along the raceway. It works at the almost-sublime scale of the speedway and celebrates the event of the Grand Prix.

Credits

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Gabrielle-Roy library is located in the heart of a vibrant cultural and commercial district. The Saint-Roch neighbourhood in central Quebec City is home to a diverse and dynamic community that has dramatically grown over the past years. The design for the extension and renovation of an existing library aims to connect it more closely with the city, by spreading public functions throughout the building’s various strata. On each floor, both in the existing building and in the addition, a new interface between the collections and the city is proposed. The experience of the library becomes a rich path, oscillating between public projection and quiet introversion.

A number of key urban and architectural gestures reinforce the library’s connection to the neighbourhood. On the ground level, a generous outdoor space gives the library an undeniably urban character. Physical and visual continuity between inside and outside increase the opportunities for exchange between the library and its neighbourhood. Indoors, the ground floor is focused on urban life, community, and families, with spaces such as a cafe, a kitchen for culinary workshops, a small amphitheatre, children’s collections, an exhibition area, and a civic life section with newspapers and periodicals. Considered as a whole, the public space and the library’s ground floor constitute
a rich urban environment for both visitors and the local community.

Just like the ground floor, level 02—two floors above—has a public character. This is reinforced by its clear glass envelope and distinctive golden ceiling, features that it shares with the ground floor. The collections on this level focus principally on music, cinema, arts, and travel. Users have access to a music studio and several practice rooms, a projection room, a fab lab and an arts workshop. An outdoor terrace spans the south side of this floor.

Alternating with these more public programs, levels 01 and 03 are more focused on introverted reading and learning. Collections related to literature, history, philosophy, geography, science and technology are distributed around the skylit atrium, maximizing access to natural light and providing uplifting views for users. On these levels, a fritted glass envelope creates a diaphanous screen that filters sunlight and ensures a low-glare environment conducive to learning.

Specialized collections include a comic strip section and a nature section with an outdoor reading garden that extends to the rooftop. The library also includes a suite of archive rooms and a number of collaborative spaces of different sizes.

The library’s rich program allows it to move from a quiet repository of books towards becoming an active social hub—a true ‘third place’ adapted to its diverse and changing community.

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Jury Comments

David Penner :: We’ve seen a number of projects that are driven by the need for interconnectedness to public space, both visual and physical. This project seems to take it one step further. It offers a lot of complexity within a very pure box.

Monica Adair :: Within a typical floor slab structure, this project uses unassuming moves to powerfully transform a typology that could have been otherwise very familiar. In particular, the architect transforms the relationship between the street and the addition with varying protruding levels, and uses this as an opportunity to activate the ground plane and create a dynamic urban edge.

Ted Watson :: This project is an adaptive reuse and addition to an existing building that is deceptively simple and legible. The existing building is not a liability within the scheme, but is retained and becomes like a completely new place. The new-build portion is working extremely hard to leverage as much public space, light, interconnection between the levels, and green space as possible to completely transform the existing building, program and site.

Credits

CLIENT:: Ville de Quebec
STRUCTURAL EMS:: Ingenierie
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL::  Bouthillette Parizeau
AREA:: 11,000 m2
BUDGET:: $23.1 M
STATUS:: Design development / construction documents
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: December 2021

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Škola Smíchov will be the first new urban public school built in central Prague in nearly a century. The new building will accommodate 540 students aged 6 to 14. It is located within the ambitious Sm’chov City redevelopment, which aims to transform 50 acres of former railway lands into a mixed-use community that prioritizes green space, walkability, and a fine-grained urban fabric.

The school’s design is guided by the idea of fostering social and environmental stewardship in students, at a scale that expands as they grow: learning to take care of themselves, of their classmates, of the school community, and finally of the wider urban community and natural world. The building supports this by offering opportunities to engage with the city and with nature, so that students can see themselves as part of a larger community and find connections between classroom learning and the outside world.

The building is conceived as a simple gridded framework, populated by classrooms, gyms, offices, terraces and gardens. This logic creates a miniature city for children to explore and care for. Constructed from glulam timber, the frame formally unifies the building while allowing the diversity and individuality of its program elements to flourish.

Individual classrooms are clearly legible within the grid and include balconies that invite public display of student work. Plantings and movable screens shield the classroom windows from solar gain, while summertime passive ventilation and night purging is supported by clerestory windows between every classroom and the corridors, and mechanically controlled vents from the corridors to the courtyards.

Internally, the school is organized around a central atrium, with a stair that connects all floors and lands at the main hall—the central gathering space for the school community. The ground and lower level contain the major shared spaces, including the cafeteria, gyms and club rooms. Level 1 is reserved for younger students, Level 2  is for older students, and Level 3 contains specialty classrooms, each with its own quietly whimsical roof shape. Rooftop terraces and courtyards provide secure play spaces and gardening areas, and bring light deep into the building.

At the site level, the building forms an urban edge to the neighbourhood’s principal boulevard, where the main entry is located, along with amenity spaces open for community use after school hours. To the east, a playing field steps down to a public park, and the groundskeeper’s house looks over the vehicle drop-off and secondary entrance.

The structural system is a hybrid of mass timber and concrete, combining the aesthetic and environmental qualities of wood with concrete’s thermal mass, structural performance and fire safety. With the exception of the basement levels, the majority of the building is based on pre-fabrication and ‘dry’ construction methods, and components are sized for truck transport.

The entire building speaks of its internal life, encouraging children to see kola Sm’chov as their school, home and community.

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Jury Comments

Monica Adair :: The importance of play carries through the expression of the building and how you move through the project. The classrooms turn almost inside-out and become a way to celebrate the lively program that’s inside. It encompasses the spirit of being a kids’ school, and its delivery doesn’t seem to over-coddle the students.

Ted Watson :: There’s a levity but also a rigour to this project. It’s extremely elegant in its solution. The plan is loaded with surprises and delights, delivering a maximum amount of joy, light, and access to nature within a rigorous framework. It has terraced courtyards that bring outdoor garden space to each level. Governments, school boards, and taxpayers across Canada should take note of how other countries cherish these buildings as important places for children to learn and engage with the world.

David Penner :: I was struck by the lightness of the frame and the freedom that it implies: freedom that is often held down or that feels restricted in Canadian schools. It’s a building that teaches kids to live in the world.

Credits

CLIENT:: Prague City District 5
Local Architect of Record:: INOSTUDIO architekci
Area:: 12,622 m2
Budget:: 250 million CZK
Anticipated completion:: Fall 2020

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT

In 1904, much of downtown Winnipeg was threatened when a fire at James Ashdown’s Main Street hardware store raged out of control. The domestic water supply, fed by artesian wells, proved inadequate, and untreated Red River water was pumped into the domestic supply in a desperate attempt to increase water pressure. The fire was extinguished, but the city’s water supply was contaminated in the process.

In response, the James Avenue Pumping Station opened three years later. It housed the massive equipment required to run a high-pressure water system for fire-fighting, and was serviced by the city’s rail system. But almost a century after, it was no longer needed for its original purpose, and the building has been vacant since 1986. It was purchased by our client in 2015, who is now turning it into a mixed-use development.

After 17 attempts to revive the historic structure over the last 14 years, it was slated for demolition. But then 5468796 developed the building pro forma for the James Avenue Pumping Station and presented it to the current client, leading to successful preservation through private investment. The pumphouse is retained, and three mixed-use buildings will be built on the east and west ends of the parcel. Linked by street-level alleyways and overhead walkways, the structures maintain views of each other and create a tight urban-scale environment that corresponds to the thriving mixed-use neighbourhood.

Capped at six storeys in height, the new development consists of rental apartments, commercial use at ground level, and structured parking. Exterior walkways and skip-stop corridors increase the efficiency of the building, allowing for cross-ventilation in all units and permitting a maximum number of suites to overlook the river. Intelligent zoning and connections between the historical building and the new program will strengthen tenants’ and visitors’ relationship to each other and to their local architectural history.

While the existing pumphouse’s foundation was not capable of supporting the construction of additional floors on top, a gantry crane capacity allowed for a new floor within the existing building. Incorporated as tenancy, this left the pumps on the main floor free and clear of complicated programming. The development scenario allows for the great pump hall—a well-preserved example of the ‘golden age’ of machinery—to be physically showcased, free on all sides and newly accessible to the public.

In keeping with the utilitarian nature of the original design, the new-build volumes bookend the existing structure and subtly support its aesthetic through deliberately simple, modular forms. Views are directed to the historic pumphouse from a variety of vantage points—the approach to the site, the neighbouring exterior walkways, and the intimate alleyways formed between the old and new facades—highlighting the building’s storied past.

Jury Comments

Ted Watson :: This project is compelling in the rationality with which it delivers density and residential accommodation, while engaging deliberately but lightly with a heritage property. The notion that this was a pro forma brought to the developer by the architects is very promising. Can our profession be more proactive about development, and how we can be driving those solutions?

Monica Adair :: The architect creates a procession of circulation in the interior of the central building that captivatingly connects to the lower bowels of the old pumping station. Over the course of its deliberations, the jury questioned whether the exterior public realm and retail zones could be further developed in a way that would reveal their engagement with the urban fabric. How could these exterior spaces be animated to feel like an inviting environment that penetrates the raw urban realm that exists on and around the site?

David Penner :: Hats off to the development team, because it has taken some 25 years for something to happen on this site, with its remarkable heritage building. The addition has an appropriately industrial character that links to the pumphouse machinery that is retained on the lower level. It’s bold and tries new ways of engaging the historic. It is only unfortunate that the addition obscures the twin-gable facade of the pump house, which is its key elevation.

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Credits

CLIENT:: ALSTON PROPERTIES
STRUCTURAL:: LAVERGNE DRAWARD & ASSOCIATES
MECHANICAL/Electrical/Civil:: MCW GROUP
LANDSCAPE:: SCATLIFF + MILLER + MURRAY
Energy Modelling:: INTEGRATED DESIGNS
Cladding:: VICWEST BUILDING PRODUCTS
Steel:: SHOPOST
AREA:: 72,450 FT2 [RESIDENTIAL] + 19,100 FT2 [COMMERCIAL]
BUDGET:: Withheld
STATUS:: Design / Permitting
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION ::2020

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT

Located on the Bloor Cultural Corridor in central Toronto, the International Estonian Centre hosts a series of spaces for the Estonian community and opens its doors to the general public for performances, public lectures and film festivals. The facility includes a cafe, library, sauna, art studio, classrooms and administrative offices. Its flexible main hall seats up to 330 guests for performances and conferences, and is divisible into three private rooms to host smaller events. On the ground floor, a credit union and an accelerator space for digital start-ups adjoin a pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly public courtyard. The facility incorporates and renovates a designated heritage mansion.

The building is structured as a series of stage-like platforms enclosed by a luminous curtain made of glazing and cast foamed-aluminum panels. The choice of foamed aluminum makes a material reference to the Estonian New Year’s tradition of bleigiessen, in which lead drippings are used to forecast the year ahead. The building’s serrated form, which takes the shape of Estonia’s landmass, picks up on the zigzag rhythm of the residential facades along Madison Avenue. The irregularity of the form and the varying scales of the serrations provide the opportunity for pause along the curtain wall, allowing for quieter encounters and engagement among users.

The building’s durable materials and attention to detailing give it an elegant, landmark quality in keeping with nearby architectural and cultural destinations, including the University of Toronto, Bata Shoe Museum, and Royal Ontario Museum.

As befits a country known as one of the world’s most advanced digital societies, the interior spaces are technologically sophisticated, ensuring the facility will remain flexible for future users. Sustainability is a key value for Estonians, so the building generates energy on-site, recycles greywater, employs a high-performance building envelope with triple-pane glazing and operable windows, and uses in-floor water-sourced heating and cooling. Exterior spaces incorporate permeable pavers. A west-facing, accessible rooftop terrace adds to the facility’s sustainability goals and presents additional green space in this dense urban neighbourhood. The site is well-serviced by public transit at the intersection of two subway lines, and next to a new crosstown cycling lane, providing strong alternatives to automobile access.

As a mid-rise development with three levels above grade, the centre acts as a buffer between the high-rises towering up to 20 storeys on Bloor Street and the historic residences along Madison Avenue. The east-west orientation of the facility ensures that the centre’s courtyard has sunlight through all four seasons. The courtyard and a through-block connection relieve foot traffic along Bloor Street and invite public use, in keeping with a City of Toronto planning initiative to animate the area’s side streets.

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Jury Comments

David Penner :: This project sits comfortably on the site and will become a positive contribution to the neighbourhood. Using the existing heritage house as a transition to the adjoining neighbourhood is effective in responding to the larger urban fabric of the Annex.

Monica Adair :: How can a building help to create an identity through a formal gesture? While narrative is directly translated into the shape of this building’s facade and courtyard, it goes beyond simply the object itself to yield compelling spaces, creating a unique identity and a sense of place. Inside, the form-generator results in unique spaces that could be otherwise indulgent.

Ted Watson :: This project successfully mediates the scale between a residential environment and the tall buildings on Bloor Street. It leverages its site location to the west to achieve something very difficult—engaging a park space across the street. So many cultural centres are fortresses, and in contrast, this creates a welcoming public space.

Credits

CLIENT:: International Estonian Centre Inc.
LANDSCAPE:: North Design Office
HERITAGE:: Robyn Huether Architect
STRUCTURAL:: Entuitive
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/AV:: Smith + Andersen
SUSTAINABILITY:: Footprint
CIVIL:: MGM Consulting Inc.
COST:: Altus Group
ACOUSTICS/VIBRATION:: RWDI
GEOTECHNICAL/SHORING:: Terrapro
PLANNING:: Bousfield
TRAFFIC:: LMM Engineering
AREA:: 36,000 ft2
BUDGET:: Withheld
STATUS:: Design Development, preliminary contract documents
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: 2021

View within Canadian Architect magazine’s December 2018 Awards Issue:

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT

The design of the insectarium aims to synthesize form and content. The result is neither flamboyant architecture nor an abstract container. Instead, it’s a place where nature, architecture and museology converge in a single entity. These are orchestrated to enhance the visitor’s individual sensory experience.

From the outside, the building appears to be a simple multi-bay greenhouse at the edge of a prairie landscape. However, a large vegetated dome in front hints that there are more mysterious aspects to this place. On approaching, a linear butterfly garden slopes down, leading visitors below the greenhouse to the entry foyer, a pared-down space open to the outdoors.

A floor-to-ceiling slit in the back wall of the foyer brings visitors to the start of the museum journey. The first stage of the visit is a parcours along a serpentine path that leads through a series of cave-like rooms. Intentionally disorienting, the trip aims to initiate visitors to the scale of insects. Interactive exhibitions are designed to connect visitors to the sensory world and impressive motor abilities of insects, inviting humans to a different universe of perception.

The path then leads to a cocoon-like space, beneath the vegetated dome. Here, the museum’s mounted insect collections are on display. Visitors slowly making their way along another path back to the surface, as the surrounding light, temperature, humidity and smells all gradually change. Once fully above ground, they emerge at the centre of the greenhouse, surrounded by butterflies and insects.

The luminous greenhouse offers a synthesis of experiences. The pathways are formed as furrows cut into a mass of earth of variable height, guiding visitors through the space, and repeating the materiality of the caves below. Along the furrows are displays that showcase different insects in their respective environments.

The insectarium goes beyond exhibits to actively interact with visitors. Architecture and scenography become one. The result is not simply decorative displays, but rather real experiences—touch, smell, heat, the bioclimatic effect of the materials themselves—all changing as visitors move from one space to the next.

Beyond their obvious differences, plants, insects and people are closely linked to one another. The project hopes to awaken visitors to these connections. This is a place that not only allows plants and insects to flourish under expert care, but a venue that can also nurture visitors’ storehouses of memories and trajectories of personal growth.

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Jury Comments

Monica Adair :: The insectarium actively invites visitors to embark on a journey at the scale of the insect. It’s a great section and plan that allows one to experience a narrative, with a lot of unexpected playfulness and whimsy that is not necessarily revealed from the outside. It’s meant to be experienced—it’s not a building that can be devoured in one singular moment.

Ted Watson :: There’s a minimum number of moves here that create an elaborate promenade in a highly economical form. The learning aspects and interpretive aspects of the building are baked into the architecture—the architecture is not separate from its curatorship.

David Penner :: There’s a clarity to this project—its experiential proposition is a real success. The architecture takes us through an adventure of discovery.

Credits

CLIENT:: Espace pour la Vie
LANDSCAPE:: Atelier le balto
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL:: Dupras Ledoux
STRUCTURAL:: NCK
AREA 3,600 m2
BUDGET:: $18 M
STATUS:: Construction drawings
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: 2020

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT

The fourth and final phase of a major renovation plan, this project makes the Oratory’s long-hidden inter-dome space and lanternon accessible to the public, offering the highest viewing belvedere of the city. Adding to the experience, the museum beneath the sanctuary level will also be fully redefined. The new promenade through the museum and the inter-dome is an extension and enhancement of an existing pilgrimage path. It presents the Oratory as a journey, both physical and spiritual, rather than a simple object of consumption.

The project develops a simple construction system: the use of a malleable metal mesh which is stretched over the existing secondary structure. The architectural textile is chosen for its transparency, low maintenance, lightness, reflective surface, durability and fire resistance. The veil confers an ethereal appearance to the inter-dome space, while its woven surface reflects specks of light. From a utilitarian point of view, it provides an economical solution for rendering the existing stairs and ramps code-compliant, offers a protective coating to the asbestos surface of the domes, and subtly integrates mechanical systems and acoustic surfaces. The transparency of the mesh also allows the installation of lighting fixtures within the enlarged profile of the ramp’s handrails.

In the renovated museum, the circular ticket office is a unifying crossroad that serves the other programmatic elements. Defined by the transcription of the cupola’s geometry, the central hub allows minimal staff to effectively direct visitors to destinations including the temporary exhibitions, sculpture garden, and stairs and elevators leading to the inter-dome.

The visitor ascends step by step to the drum, a space that deftly sorts the flow of visitors up and down, avoiding cross-traffic, and that offers visitors new perspectives on the sanctuary below. The second climb is enclosed within the stair tower, ending with an unveiling: the visitor enters the bridge and finally discovers the immensity of the space of the oculus. The final ascent is an uncanny experience: up a spiral, perched above a large dome. The vertiginous impression of being levitated is mitigated by the enveloping presence of the architectural drape. The ultimate destination, the lanternon, is the apex of both the experience itself and of Montreal.

On the descent, a ramp circles the dome, providing low-angle views accentuated by the curvature of the dome. From the dimmed space of the dome, the final landing on the mezzanine, by contrast, is bathed in light. Here, visitors gather to admire panoramic views of the surroundings.

The project is the winning entry in a Quebec-wide architectural competition held in the spring of 2018.

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Jury Comments

David Penner :: This project blurs the line between programmer and architect. The brief proposes a novel way to adaptively reuse a heritage structure to allow people to see its construction, inhabiting the shell space of the dome. There is an existing stair in place that is rendered code-compliant in this design. Executing the project will be technically challenging.

Monica Adair :: The architecture engages with the sublime nature and grandeur of the space. It tells an important story for this site, and will create a novel and exploratory journey through the building, from the basement to the spire, allowing visitors to revisit a familiar space in a new way. By capturing the sublime, this adaptive reuse project makes the case for protecting this icon.

Ted Watson :: The graphic representation and documentation on this project are extremely captivating, rich and informative. The use of metal mesh net as a veil-like guard is appropriately minimal and creates a thrill factor—it’s the right choice to protect both visitors and the architecture. The mesh gives the forms a ghost-like, ephemeral quality that makes this very loaded project type strangely delicate and poetic.

Credits

CLIENT:: L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal
STRUCTURAL:: SDK et associes
MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL:: Stantec Consulting Ltd.
VISITOR EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS:: GSM Project
LIGHTING:: CS Design
COST:: LCO Construction and Management Consultants Inc.
AREA:: 3,500 m2
BUDGET:: $13.5 M
STATUS:: Schematic design
ANTICIPATED COMPLETION:: July 2022

View within Canadian Architect magazine’s December 2018 Awards Issue:

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Data centres are anonymous warehouses, consuming an enormous amount of energy to serve the world’s immense digital demands. Just short of becoming an environmental crisis, they also have underlying negative social impacts. Often, these ominous buildings exploit local energy resources while giving back little in return.

Northern Cloud is an architectural response that takes a synthetic approach to energy conservation by augmenting the data centre with a greenhouse and community centre. This strategy aims to lower energy consumption and make use of waste heat generated by the servers, through a contextual response which benefits the local community.

Unlike typical data centres where servers are in a large open space, Northern Cloud’s servers are arranged along a long perimeter form, which wraps around a central greenhouse. As servers generate large amounts of heat, the facade is designed for cold air intake, a technique and aesthetic similar to local fish-drying huts. Waste heat generated
by the servers is then fed into the central greenhouse. Food grown and harvested in the greenhouse is used in the adjacent restaurant and sold to the community, providing year-round food security to the region.

The massing of the building responds to the site’s sloping topography, providing a gradually rising accessible green roof, while collecting rainwater for greenhouse irrigation. The form terminates in a solar chimney lookout tower—a concrete exhaust plenum which helps draw air out of the greenhouse while also providing views out over the dramatic Icelandic landscape.

As an alternative to a generic building, Northern Cloud proposes a contextual architectural response to data centres in Iceland. It is a new interface between data infrastructure and the local community, shifting the identity of the data centre away from anonymity to become celebrated.

Faculty advisor: Martin Bressani, McGill University

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Jury Comments

Monica Adair :: There is a lot of restraint in this project, which takes a complex combination of programs and distills them down to a clear and compelling project. The sectional explorations are particularly strong, moving through from the core to the exhaust plenum. The project creates carefully crafted, magical moments.

David Penner :: The simplicity of the organization—and the scheme in general—would only be possible with a confident understanding of the program. I really like the boldness of this project.

Ted Watson :: This project feels believable—it could work. The representation is very evocative and atmospheric. It makes you feel the site, and sense the project’s spaces.

View within Canadian Architect magazine’s December 2018 Awards Issue:

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WINNER OF A 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT STUDENT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Excess soils and waste mounded around the Berkeley Pit copper mine have obscured its view from the city, changed natural ravines into vast tailings ponds, and caused the pit to fill with toxic waters. This project centres on four locations in and around the vast super-fund area. Uses for the sites are based on their latent infrastructural potential.

The original mine yard has been an impromptu music venue since the mine’s closure in 1976, and the city aspires to convert it to a permanent concert facility. The project invents a winch-based system that enables the headframe to be transformed into a sunken theatre, concert venue, outdoor stage, or elevated black-box theatre.

Used as a water level monitoring point, the Anselmo mine is linked through underground tunnels to the Berkeley Pit. Its headframe is connected to house a water treatment facility intertwined with public gallery and viewing spaces. At grade, phytoremediation wetlands transform the vacant watershed into a greenway.

Currently, the Berkeley Pit Viewing Stand is a tourist attraction, which tunnels through the perimeter mound of overburden and onto a small viewing platform. The project uses the existing tunnel as the primary access point for reclamation efforts within the mine, re-establishing this landscape as a publicly accessible parkland.

Sitting atop the northern slopes of the Berkeley Pit, the Emily Mine headframe has become an iconic structure for photographers. It is transformed into a destination and gathering place, with a cathedral-like roof over a monumental bonfire pit.

Through the adaptation of Butte’s dormant infrastructure, we can work towards the restoration of local environmental systems, and also imagine new possibilities for how to inhabit the greater global post-industrial frontier.

Faculty advisor:: Catherine Venart, Dalhousie University

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Jury Comments

Monica Adair :: This is a rigorous exploration of interventions that rethink a series of once-derelict landscapes. It is convincing in its comprehensiveness and completeness.

Ted Watson :: This project is beautifully represented with an extremely strong graphic presentation of the subject. It looks at reclaiming industrial spaces in a socially and environmentally sustainable way. Each of the four sites has a different feel and realization that draws you in.

David Penner :: It’s interesting to see the romanticizing of industrial landscapes in the schools. There’s a good balance of resolution in this project, which spans from the big-picture issues relating to programming down to the details. I think that’s really admirable.

View within Canadian Architect magazine’s December 2018 Awards Issue:

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WINNER OF THE 2018 CANADIAN ARCHITECT PHOTO AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Photo: Ema Peter Photography

I always try to catch the decisive moment—the shot that will make you not only notice, but feel the architecture. This image is of the Parq Vancouver, by ACDF architecture in consortium with Architecture49, and in close collaboration with IBI Group. I knew that it would be important to showcase the reflectiveness of the building, and I concentrated on taking photos that highlighted how the building reflects the environment around it. Then I thought, this is the perfect building to mix two of my passions: architecture and clouds. I asked Maxime Alexis-Frappier, one of the partners and co-founders of ACDF, if he agreed to let me try this idea. He did. When the day came, I knew from the beginning it would be perfect. This specific shot was in an area where not many people passed by. It had the most unique cloud surrounding the terrace. I needed a person in the image, and put the camera on a timer while I ran multiple times into the shot myself.

Jury Comments

David Penner: I appreciate the complex composition and the intriguing layering of building, sky, context, and what appears to be a mullion fin layer on the facade itself. It’s very rich.

Ted Watson: The cloud elevates the photograph from simply documenting the architecture. It takes a photographer’s eye to capture that sky and reflection at that moment in time.

Monica Adair: At the end of the day, this photo seizes the essence of the magical moments where design, environment, time and the viewer meet.

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