Fear of Place
Fear of Change
Northern houses often copy nondescript subdivisions south of 60° or, even more distressing, resemble First Nations’ reserves of the 1970s. Northern contractors and prospective homeowners plagiarise plan magazines, adapting them to suit steel-piled foundations, no basements and tanked domestic water and sewage. Rarely does much thought go into how any kind of house might sit on its site apart from a possible view of the bay. Few engage the landscape or create a dialogue with their surroundings; there is more regard for set backs than wind, plants or daylight. It is as if southerners do not want to acknowledg the north; they retreat from the world around them and leave the Arctic behind. Social housing has atrophied from a complete lack of understanding of local culture and environment. To combat this, local jurisdictions and social housing organisations have solicited the help of southern architects and planners to develop prototype housing for all of Nunavut. This will only perpetuate the problem by forcing yet another stifling blanket of homogeneity coloured by a limited understanding of the culture and landscape. When buildings do not engage the landscape, there is little attention to the streetscape, to exterior place-making, or to the human experience of the building. Communities are full of buildings that most of us will never enter but nonetheless experience everyday. This relationship has to be recognised. Many Arctic communities suffer from a complete lack of a sense of architectural place. Expediency and fiscal restraint, repeated designs and a cookie-cutter mentality peppers the north with identical air terminals, health centres, schools and arenas. If it weren’t for the differences in landscape, it would be difficult to tell which community you were actually in. From this fear blossoms yet another: the fear of trying anything different.
Anything not a box, or with an angle other than 45 or 90 degrees, or that uses a different material than commonly accepted is perceived to immediately add 25% to the building cost. To compound this problem, the trades, when forced to abide by the will of the designer or owner, can be ill-equipped to handle deviations from the norm. Piles go in wrong locations, designs change over night without consent from designer or owner and corners are cut. Recently things have started to change. Recognising they must compete with southern contractors now moving into the northern market, there are some builders who are willing to try different things, developing an appreciation of challenges to the norm. Local governments have begun to expect more from their designers and are demanding innovative solutions to their projects. Federal projects, required to meet LEED™ Silver sustainability levels, have raised the bar on architectural problem-solving. The aesthetics of a project are more in the forefront and quality of space is actually being discussed. The Nunavut Legislature and Government of Canada buildings in Iqaluit, the Kugaaruk High School in Kugaaruk, the Killiniq High School in Cambridge Bay and some more challenging house designs by Full Circle Architecture and others have spurred an appreciation for design and are developing local form: a Nunavut architecture that fights its fears. p
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