Canadian Architect January 2014

Jan/14 v.59 n.01

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COmpaCt lIVINg 7 NEws

Plans revealed for the long-awaited redevelopment of Calgary’s eau Claire Market; 4th International Holcim Awards open for submission.

23 INtERVIEw

Bruce Kuwabara describes his aspirations in his new role as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

26 insites

Jessica woolliams argues that inclusive and renewed design processes can be a key factor in democratizing and accelerating sustainability.

11 sEafORth hOusE with prime views overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, this mobile home conversion designed by JudyAnn Obersi and Jane Abbott embodies a refreshing take on sustainability. tEXt Kai woolner-Pratt

14 mICRO-apaRtmENts Successful examples promoting compact urban living are evident in recent and forthcoming projects in vancouver, New york and Toronto. tEXt Bruce Haden

18 thE hINtONBuRg sIX

Three recent publications kick off the new year.

32 CalENdaR

Artists, Architects & Artisans at the National gallery of Canada; 2014 Interior Design Show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

34 BaCkpagE

Shannon Moore introduces Montreal’s luminothérapie festival, an event that encourages public engagement with the blustery winter season through site-specific interactive installations.

peter fritz

Colizza Bruni Architecture Inc. densifies a working-class Ottawa neighbourhood with the provision of a six-unit residential development. tEXt Janine Debanné

31 BOOks

The Hintonburg Six in Ottawa

by Colizza Bruni Architecture Inc. Photograph by Peter Fritz.

COVER

v.59 n.01 THe NATIONAl RevIew OF DeSIgN AND PRACTICe/THe JOuRNAl OF ReCORD OF ARCHITeCTuRe CANADA | RAIC

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JANuARy 2014

Editor Elsa lam, mRaIC AssociAtE Editor lEslIE JEn, mRaIC EditoriAl Advisor Ian ChodIkoff, oaa, fRaIC contributing Editors annmaRIE adams, mRaIC douglas maClEod, nCaRb, mRaIC

JamEs mallInson

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rEgionAl corrEspondEnts Halifax ChRIstInE maCy, oaa MontReal davId thEodoRE Winnipeg hERbERt Enns, maa

Regina bERnaRd flaman, saa CalgaRy davId a. down, aaa VanCouVeR adElE wEdER

publishEr tom aRkEll 416-510-6806

Canadian Architect editor elsa Lam works at her treadmill desk at her home office. above

Last year, I got a jump on a New Year’s resolution. About four months ago, I bought a treadmill desk. Most of the text in the current issue—as well as the past few issues—was edited while walking on a treadmill.

The principle of a treadmill desk is simple enough. Picture a regular treadmill, with the support arms removed and a horizontal desk surface in their place. Instead of running, treadmill desk users walk at a speed between one and two miles an hour—slow enough that it doesn’t interfere with typing, reading and other desk work. To support this, the treadmill has a motor designed to run at low speeds for long periods of time. Some models, such as a line manufactured by Steelcase, are designed as stand-alone stations complete with wraparound worksurfaces and monitor arms, while others—including the one I have—slide under an existing desk.

The theory behind why this is a good way to work is also common sense. As humans, we’re evolutionarily adapted to be constantly on the move, foraging and moving camp.

We’re not physically built for sedentary office life, necks craned towards a computer screen. Even for people who work out regularly, sitting a lot can be a health risk. Apart from the regular backaches and neck pains, studies have shown that sitting puts muscles into a kind of metabolic hibernation. The presence of good cholesterol and fat-busting enzymes in the body drops, which makes seated office workers more prone to cardiovascular problems and diabetes.

Moving over the course of the day steadily burns calories and has been linked to a decreased risk of heart disease. In my personal experience, a treadmill desk has made me healthier without the drudgery of gym workouts. What’s more, just as long walks often prove the best times for thinking, walking while working keeps my mind clear and alert.

The continuous f low of activity makes me less prone to distraction. The post-lunch

AssociAtE publishEr gREg PalIouRas 416-510-6808 circulAtion MAnAgEr bEata olEChnowICz 416-442-5600 ext. 3543 custoMEr sErvicE malkIt Chana 416-442-5600 ext. 3539

production energy dip, generally combatted with caffeine, JEssICa Jubb almost entirely disappears from my day. grAphic dEsign suE wIllIamson, Roy gaIot Here’s the downside. While it’s great for vicE prEsidEnt of cAnAdiAn publishing my fitness, as a physical object, the treadmill alEx PaPanou prEsidEnt of businEss inforMAtion group desk is a beast. The model I have, by LifebRuCE CREIghton Span, is relatively bare-bones, and still, it hEAd officE weighs in at 120 pounds—heavy enough that 80 vallEybRook dRIvE, toRonto, on m3b 2s9 in lugging it up the stairs, my husband and telepHone 416-510-6845 I pulled several muscles in a not-so-healthy faCsiMile 416-510-5140 e-Mail editors@canadianarchitect.com way. It takes up enough floor area that we Web site www.canadianarchitect.com needed to rearrange our entire home-office layCanadian architect is published monthly by bIg magazines lP, a div. of glacier bIg holdings Company ltd., a leading Canadian information out to accommodate it. Our downstairs neighcompany with interests in daily and community newspapers and businessto-business information services. bour has complained about vibrations through the editors have made every reasonable effort to provide accurate and the floorboards, so treadmill use is limited authoritative information, but they assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the text, or its fitness for any particular purpose. to daylight hours, and we’re keeping a vigilant subscription Rates Canada: $54.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; eye for plaster cracks in the ceiling below. $87.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (hst – #809751274Rt0001).

Price per single copy: $6.95. students (prepaid with student Id, includes Will treadmill desks someday go maintaxes): $34.97 for one year. usa: $105.95 us for one year. all other foreign: $125.95 us per year. single copy us and foreign: $10.00 us. stream? While I’d love to have one at the Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: magazine’s headquarters, I can’t see it fitting Circulation Dept., Canadian Architect, 80 Valleybrook Dr, toronto, on Canada M3B 2S9. in with the office’s layout, an open floorplate postmaster: please forward forms 29B and 67B to 80 Valleybrook with modular workstations. I’d be two feet Dr, toronto, on Canada M3B 2S9. printed in Canada. All rights reserved. the contents of this publication may not be reproduced taller than my seated neighbours, on a maeither in part or in full without the consent of the copyright owner. chine making a whirring noise that they’d From time to time we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest no doubt find disruptive. you. if you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: This is a design problem as much as it telephone 1-800-668-2374 is a cultural issue. In the shift from drafting facsimile 416-442-2191 e-mail privacyofficer@businessinformationgroup.ca tables to computers, most architecture firms Mail Privacy officer, business Information group, 80 valleybrook dr, toronto, on Canada m3b 2s9 switched out metal stools for ergonomic chairs.

MeMbeR of tHe Canadian business pRess Variable-height desks (easily converted from MeMbeR of tHe allianCe foR audited Media publiCations Mail agReeMent #40069240 sitting to standing heights) are now starting issn 1923-3353 (online) to appear in some workplaces, and large rubber issn 0008-2872 (pRint) sitting balls in others. The shift to treadmill desks requires another leap—perhaps to a Google-style workplace where high activity, eccen-Member of tric work styles and sneakers are the norm. Alternatively, treadmill desks themselves might be due for a redesign to more discreet models.

A compact elliptical trainer hidden under a desk might not be as dramatic as a treadmill, but combining physical activity with the ideas economy is a trend that deserves to catch on. wE aCknowlEdgE thE fInanCIal suPPoRt of thE Inc.

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govERnmEnt of Canada thRough thE Canada PERIodICal fund (CPf) foR ouR PublIshIng aCtIvItIEs.

elsa Lam

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Sheppar

“The Holcim Awards helped us leverage community and political support and has proven invaluable to developing the project and the growth of our firm.”

Lola Sheppard, Architect, Lateral Office, Toronto, Canada. Winner of the Holcim Awards Gold 2011 in North America.

4th International Holcim Awards for sustainable construction projects.

Prize money totals USD 2 million.

Renowned technical universities lead the independent juries in five regions of the world.

They evaluate projects at an advanced stage of design against the “target issues” for sustainable construction and allocate additional prizes for visionary ideas of young professionals and students. Find out more about the competitions at www.holcimawards.org The Holcim Awards is an initiative of the Swiss based Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. It is supported by Holcim and its Group companies and affiliates in around 70 countries, including Holcim Canada.

Holcim Ltd is one of the world’s leading suppliers of cement and aggregates.

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Projects carleton University reopens Macodrum Library.

The MacOdrum Library at Carleton University has reopened following an extensive renovation and expansion that adds new program areas and doubles the amount of seating to accommodate 2,000 students. Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects in joint venture with Edward J. Cuhaci and Associates Architects, the renewal of the 1960s-era facility brings daylight deep into the core through a five-storey, fully glazed façade. Nine new reading rooms allow for visual connection and a free f low of students around a helical mahogany staircase. Expanded services include a state-of-the-art Discovery Centre with digital media labs and additional space for archives and research collections. The library now has 24-hour access to study space, an expanded New Sun Joy Maclaren Centre for students with disabilities, and the future Jacob Siskind Music Resource Centre, where small concerts will be performed on the Southam family piano beneath a circular skylight. Innovative study features include a video-gaming lab, 3D printers, highly interactive study rooms with large touch-screen monitors and two treadmills with desks where students can study and exercise at the same time. Group and graduate study rooms now total 46, up from 18 previously. The $27-million expansion adds 74,000 square feet of new space and 35,000 square feet of renovated area to the library. renderings for calgary’s eau claire Market revealed.

Regina-based Harvard Developments Inc. and Perkins+Will Canada have unveiled renderings for the redevelopment of the Eau Claire Market site in downtown Calgary.

The ambitious mixed-use development includes five towers, 1,000 residential units, 800,000 square feet of office space, and 550,000 square feet for retail. The 2.5-million-square-foot project is proposed to be developed over three phases. Pending approvals, construction is planned to begin in fall 2014, with completion anticipated over seven to 10 years. During the first phase, a podium with retail and a hotel and potentially apartments above would be built in an existing parking lot, allowing the current shopping centre to remain operational. In the final phase, the shopping mall would be replaced by a new structure that would accommodate retail use. The existing Eau Claire Market was developed in the 1980s. The site sits immediately north of downtown Calgary, adjacent to the Bow River. The City of Calgary has also long been planning redevelopment of the Eau Claire Plaza site, located to the

ABoVe The 1960s-era MacOdrum Library at Carleton University has been significantly renovated and expanded to meet the current requirements of students, faculty and staff.

west of Eau Claire Market and just south of Prince’s Island. Between 2006-2009, a great deal of public engagement, planning and design work took place. The City and local consultants IBI /Landplan and The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative worked with representatives from key stakeholder groups to develop a concept plan that promised to transform Eau Claire Plaza.

According to the City of Calgary website, neither funding nor a construction timeline for the plaza redevelopment proposal is yet in place. teeple Architects leads transformation of shaw street school into Artscape Youngplace.

After sitting vacant for more than a decade, the century-old former Shaw Street School in Toronto’s West Queen West neighbourhood has undergone a $17-million transformation led by Toronto-based Teeple Architects to become a new community cultural hub that opened to the public in November 2013.

The reinvigoration of this 75,000-square-foot community gem has taken many years and involved hundreds of stakeholders in a process that ultimately delivers a facility designed to meet the community’s needs and provide sustainable space for the arts, culture and creativity in the neighbourhood. Artscape Youngplace, named in honour of a lead donation from the Michael Young Family Foundation, is a new social heart in the West Queen West neighbourhood—a fully accessible public facility to showcase artistic creation, learn about the arts, practice art and design, create art together and connect with the arts community and neighbours. Artscape has blazed trails in the adaptive reuse of schools—projects that present rich opportun-

ities for communities across the country.

Artscape Youngplace and other repurposed school projects have mobilized the creative community, local residents, city-builders, public and private foundations, as well as philanthropists and corporations, resulting in a triple-win solution: a win for the creative community in establishing a mix of affordable spaces for arts and culture; a win for city-builders in addressing a development challenge in an innovative way; a win for past, present and future community members in preserving and enlivening a precious piece of shared heritage. www.artscapeyoungplace.ca

Bing thom Architects selected for University of chicago center in Hong Kong.

Internationally renowned Bing Thom Architects has been chosen to lead the design of the University of Chicago’s Center in Hong Kong, which will be the home of the relocated Chicago Booth Asia Executive MBA Program and other University programs. With offices in Hong Kong and Vancouver, Bing Thom Architects was selected from an international pool of 12 firms. The selection committee—led by Chicago Booth Dean Sunil Kumar and including trustees, faculty and University officials—cited the firm’s international experience, sensitivity to heritage, familiarity with Hong Kong, and commitment to supporting the University’s academic programs. Work on the new facility, site of the former Victoria Road Detention Centre on Mount Davis, is scheduled to begin in October 2014. The Hong Kong government granted the University the site on the island’s westernmost hill conditionally, through a competitive land-grant process.

The land grant is subject to accreditation,

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news town planning and preservation approval.

The heritage site originally was a military encampment for the British Army in the 1940s, then later was a detention centre—a juxtaposition of history and memory that requires sensitivity to the area’s cultural past. Bing Thom Architects has led projects in Canada, Europe and China, as well as the recent Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater in Washington, DC. The firm also has been the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the 2010 Architectural Firm Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and in 2011, Bing Thom received the RAIC Gold Medal, Canada’s most prestigious architectural honour. For 13 years, Chicago Booth has run a successful campus in Singapore that serves as the Asia platform for the school’s Executive MBA Program. The decision to relocate the program while maintaining a robust presence in Singapore followed months-long deliberations and input from the Chicago Booth community and reflected the school’s commitment to broadening its impact on management thought, practice and education across the globe. The creation of a Center in Hong Kong will contribute to the University’s engagement in China and more broadly in Asia, complementing the growing opportunities for research collaborations and learn-

ing at the Center in Beijing and recently announced Center in Delhi.

http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/11/15/bing-thomarchitects-selected-university-chicago-center-hong-kong

Design team announced for new urban park and waterfront trail at ontario Place.

The Province of Ontario recently announced LANDinc. in partnership with West 8 as the design team hired to transform approximately 7.5 acres of Ontario Place’s east island into a vibrant urban park and waterfront trail. The firms were chosen in large part for their extensive local and international experience in planning and designing large waterfront projects, such as Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park and New York’s Governors Island Park. Working with provincial partners, Waterfront Toronto will manage public consultations and the design process for the new park and trail project. Once complete, the new urban park and waterfront trail will link to the existing 780-kilometre waterfront trail system and will give residents and visitors access to part of the waterfront that has been closed to the public for more than 40 years. Building the park and trail is the first step of revitalization and delivers on an important part of the new vision for Ontario Place— to create a year-round, multi-use waterfront destination and urban park for everyone to enjoy.

AwArDs 4th International Holcim Awards.

The 4th International Holcim Awards competition celebrates projects and visions that contribute to a more sustainable built environment and features total prize money of $2 million US. The competition is open for projects in architecture, building and civil engineering, landscape and urban design, materials, products and construction technologies that contribute to the five “target issues” for sustainable construction.

The competition has two categories with different requirements: the main category of the Holcim Awards concerns a project that has reached an advanced stage of design with a high probability of execution, and the “Next Generation” category of the Holcim Awards is geared to young professionals and students, and focuses on visionary projects and bold ideas. The registration deadline is March 24, 2014, followed by a submission deadline of March 31, 2014. www.holcimfoundation.org/AwardApplication/holcimawards/overview

winners of the 2013 AIBc Architectural Awards announced.

An outstanding group of 13 projects emerged as winners in the 2013 AIBC Architectural

The original and proven composite panel

Awards. There were three recipients of the prestigious Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Award in Architecture—Medal Level, indicative of architectural excellence: North Vancouver City Hall by mcfarlane green biggar Architecture + Design; Regent Park Aquatic Centre by MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects; and the University of British Columbia Faculty of Arts Buchanan Courtyards Renewal

by PUBLIC Architecture + Communication.

Three other projects were deemed worthy of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Award in Architecture—Merit Level distinction: Environmental Learning Centre, North Vancouver Outdoor School by McFarland Marceau Architects Ltd.; Surrey City Centre Library by Bing Thom Architects Inc.; and the University of British Columbia Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Centre for Drug Research and Development by Saucier + Perrotte/Hughes Condon Marler Architects. Two projects pushing the architectural envelope each claimed an AIBC Innovation Award: Earth Sciences Building by Perkins+Will Canada Architects Co., and Monad by Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture Inc. The AIBC Special Jury Award was given to: Askew’s Uptown Supermarket by Allen + Maurer Architects Ltd. for an atypical approach to a typical program type; Energy. Environment. Experiential Learning by DIALOG Alberta Architecture

Engineering Interior Design Planning Inc and Perkins+Will Canada Architects Co. for animating the program; Sloan/Berkes House by Allen + Maurer Architects Ltd. for engagement of the site; Tarrant County College— Trinity River East Campus by Bing Thom Architects Inc. for buildings making space; and the University of British Columbia Boulevard Transit Shelters by PUBLIC Architecture + Communication for experiential architecture. www.aibc.ca.

2013 oAQ Awards of excellence winners announced.

The Ordre des architectes du Québec (OAQ ) recently announced the winners of its 27th edition of the Awards of Excellence in Architecture. From 187 entries, a jury pre-selected 57 projects, including the Grand Prize for Excellence, won by the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia

by Saucier + Perrotte architectes/Hughes Condon Marler Architects. Awards of Excellence were given out in a number of categories as follows. In the Industrial Buildings category, Centre MiQro Innovation by Cimaise/Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes took the prize, while the Raymond-Lévesque Library by Manon Asselin + Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes en consortium won in the

Institutional Buildings category. In the SingleFamily Home category, Les Marais by Alain Carle architecte won, followed by Résidences Saint-Zotique by _naturehumaine in the Multi-Family Home category. In the Commercial Buildings category, the GlaxoSmithKline administrative building by Coarchitecture Inc. took the prize, while in the Interior category, Fondation Guido Molinari by _naturehumaine won. Montréal City Hall by Affleck de la Riva architectes took the top prize in the Conservation or Restoration category, and in the Adaptive Reuse category, two projects won—the Phi Centre by Atelier in Situ + Shapiro Wolfe and the Mies van der Rohe Gas Station conversion

by Les architectes FABG. A special mention for sustainability went to the GlaxoSmithKline administrative building by Coarchitecture Inc. and the People’s Choice Award went to the Maison du développement durable by Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes.

coMPetItIons winners of the University of Manitoba’s VIsIonArY (re)GenerAtIon competition announced.

In December of 2012, 45 teams from 17 countries set forth to reimagine our landscape, and the University of Manitoba recent-

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news ly announced that a team of Canadian firms has won its Visionary (re)Generation Open International Design Competition. What has been selected does not represent the final plans for the site’s development. Rather, this winning concept will guide development as the university continues to work with its stakeholders and the winning team. The first-place winner is Arpent, the land division of long narrow river lots by early French settlers—by Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. of Toronto and Cibinel Architects Ltd. of Winnipeg, with Landmark Planning & Design Inc. of Winnipeg and ARUP Canada Inc. of Toronto. Their proposal will guide the development of a rare and beautiful parcel of land on the Fort Garry campus. The winning team will now be involved in the development of a more detailed master plan as the planning phase of the competition is set to begin in early 2014. Three other prizes were awarded to three separate teams.

In second place is a team comprised of Perkins+Will of Vancouver, 1 X1 Architecture of Winnipeg, and PFS of Vancouver. In third place is DTAH of Toronto with Cohlmeyer Architecture Limited of Winnipeg, Integral Group of Toronto, and BA Group of Toronto.

And in fourth place is IAD | Independent Architectural Diplomacy S. A . with Bomainpasa and PGI GRUP of Madrid. An Honourable Mention recognized two teams: nodo17 Architects with ARUP, Design Convergence Urbanism (DCU), and Miguel Perez Carballo of Madrid; and AECOM Canada Ltd. of Winnipeg, Burnaby and New York. The competition was launched in December 2012 as a challenge to the world’s most innovative landscape architects, architects and planners to rethink Winnipeg’s Fort Garry campus, including the Southwood Precinct, and create a bold new plan that will secure a strong future for the University of Manitoba.

In March 2013, 45 teams submitted their design proposals in Phase 1 of the competition. Six finalist teams were selected by the jury in April 2013 to further develop their proposals in Phase 2 of the competition.

On September 20, 2013, these design proposals were presented to the jury for a final decision. The jury included representatives from the University of Manitoba, Manitoba Hydro, alumni stakeholders, as well as independent architects, urban designers, planners and landscape architects from Canada, the US, Germany and Switzerland. www.visionaryregeneration.com

call for entries to the 2014 ceramics of Italy tile competition.

For the 21st edition of this competition, North America-based architects and interior designers are invited to submit new or renovated domestic and international projects in the institutional, residential and commercial/

hospitality categories that have been completed between January 2009 and January 2014.

Recent winners include SHoP Architects, MRSA Architects & Planners, and HDR Architecture. The jury will judge the projects based on their creativity, functionality and aesthetic appeal, selecting a winner in each category. The official criteria for the jury includes: overall design of the project; aesthetic and technical quality of installation; degree to which tile enhances the setting; and the project’s sustainable attributes. The winning architect/designer in each category will receive a cash prize of $4,000 and a five-day trip to Bologna, Italy to attend Cersaie 2014— the world’s largest exhibition of ceramic tile and bathroom furnishings. An additional $1,000 will be awarded to the winning contractor/tile distributor team in each category.

The Ceramics of Italy Tile Competition is completely digital and free to enter, and additional information is available on the competition’s official website. The deadline for entries is February 3, 2014. www.tilecompetition.com

wHAt’s new Bruce Kuwabara named chair of the Board of trustees of the canadian centre for Architecture.

On the eve of its 25th anniversary, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) has announced the appointment of Bruce Kuwabara as the new Chair of the Board of Trustees. Bruce Kuwabara has been an active member of the CCA Board since 2007 and is a founding partner of KPMB Architects. He assumed the Chair’s position on December 4, 2013, succeeding Phyllis Lambert, the CCA’s Founding Director. Kuwabara is recognized for his commitment to architectural excellence, city-building and the making of vibrant public spaces. He has contributed to Canadian architecture with such projects as Le Quartier Concordia for Concordia University in Montreal, Canada’s National Ballet School, the Global Centre for Pluralism for the Aga Khan Foundation, and the Canadian Museum of Nature. His current international projects include the new Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and the home for the Departments of Economics and International Initiatives at Princeton University. Lambert decided to step down, feeling she had accomplished the many goals she had set for the CCA , as the institution has now reached a highly regarded level of maturity. Since it opened its doors to the public in 1989, the CCA has become an international institution that promotes public understanding, widening thought and debate on architecture and

its role in society. As Founding Director Emeritus, Lambert will remain a member of the Board of Trustees and maintain her keen involvement in the CCA and her many endeavours in the Montreal community. the Buildings show: IIDeX canada to co-locate with construct canada in 2014.

This year, IIDEX Canada and Construct Canada will co-locate to create North America’s largest annual exposition and conference focusing on the design, construction and management of real estate. Held from December 3-5, 2014, the combined events will occupy the entire Metro Toronto Convention Centre and will be held concurrently with seven other events: PM Expo, DesignTrends, HomeBuilder & Renovator Expo, Concrete Canada, the Toronto Real Estate Forum, Construct International and the National GreenBuilding Conference. Construct Canada and IIDEX Canada will collaborate to create a seamless event that will be called The Buildings Show while maintaining their longstanding identities, branding, programming and management. The decision to co-locate all nine expositions and conferences was based on a desire to maximize greater value for attendees, exhibitors and the design and real estate industry. Creating larger events is also a growing international trend that can take advantage of the resources and expertise of Informa’s global team. IIDEX Canada and Construct Canada have led the way in raising the profile for new technologies, facilitating industry networking and providing professional development to architects, interior designers, lighting designers, industrial designers, facility managers, developers, builders, contractors, landscape architects, engineers, home renovators, property managers, sustainable experts and real estate executives.

errAtA In the “X Marks the Spot” article in the November 2013 issue of Canadian Architect, the full credit for the Fogo Island Inn’s architectural team was not provided. Saunders Architecture of Bergen, Norway was the Design Architect, led by principal Todd Saunders, along with team members Ryan Jørgensen, Joseph Kellner, Attila Béres and Nick Herder.

The Architect of Record was Sheppard Case Architects Inc. of St. John’s, Newfoundland, led by principal Jim Case, along with team members Dwayne Gill and Roger Laing.

Also in the November 2013 issue of Canadian Architect, in the “Heart of the Matter” backpage article, the Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University was improperly referred to as a School of Architecture, which it is not. Canadian Architect regrets the error.

judyann obersi above Intern architect JudyAnn Obersi and architect Jane Abbott transformed a 1970s-era mobile home into an all-seasons residence by reusing its steel beam structure and roof, while adding a new base that opens towards the Atlantic Ocean.

immobile home two resourceful Designers convert an eclectic mobile home into a Permanent oceansiDe resiDence.

Seaforth House, Seaforth, Nova Scotia JudyAnn Obersi and Jane Abbott teXt Kai Woolner-Pratt Photos Peter Bogaczewics unless otherwise noted Project

atlantic ocean

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Sheryl Grant and Suzanne Taker are emphatic that they “are not cookie-cutter people.” The house they inhabit conveys that message perfectly. A highly deliberate and idiosyncratic conversion of a mobile home overlooking the Atlantic, the Seaforth House is not built from scratch, but can’t quite be called a renovation either—just one of the many ways in which the house resists being categorized.

Seaforth is an area just outside of Halifax on Nova Scotia’s sparsely populated Eastern Shore. Jaggedly beautiful, this coast stands in contrast to the rolling hills of the Annapolis Valley and the placid beaches of the South Shore that define this province in the Canadian imagination. Its unyielding and intractable soil could be the reason that this region was never populated densely. Approaching Seaforth by car, there is a sudden shift as a sprawling suburb gives way, at the crest of a hill, to a rural landscape. Once over the hill, the density is lower and the ocean views denied to the suburbs are abundant. The Seaforth property has been in Taker’s family since her grandfather first laid claim to it as a homesteader. Since the Seaforth House can be characterized by per-

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sistence and resourcefulness, the heritage of the property as a homestead is fitting. The project’s reuse of the mobile home affirms the layers of history that the couple shares with the land.

The owners of the house began to look for a designer when they decided to forgo their downtown condo and make their permanent residence at Seaforth. For years they had spent their weekends at the mobile home that Taker owned, and which Grant describes begrudgingly as “shabby chic.” She means this mostly in jest, because when the time came to undertake its most recent iteration, Taker had already—in the course of those weekends—completely transformed the home. Hardwood floors were laid, kitchen cupboards bricolaged out of reclaimed glass, walls taken down and others built. Taker would spend days alone engrossed in hammering and sawing, or would invite friends out for weekend visits to work on projects in the intervals between ocean swims and elaborate meals.

However much they loved the mobile home, when Grant and Taker decided to move there permanently, they didn’t give a second thought

to taking it down and building from scratch—“everything was crooked!”—until their contractor suggested retaining the existing structure to save them from rezoning the property for a larger footprint. The idea immediately struck a chord with the couple and their values, and they ended up reusing everything they could, including the structure of the trailer itself. The fruits of the couple’s weekend upcycling can be seen in the main washroom, where a sink is slotted into an antique dresser and a salvaged cast-iron tub is supported on wooden blocks found washed up on their beach.

The limitations imposed by the footprint and the original structure allowed for a focused allocation of resources. The house is an anomaly amongst its immediate neighbours (which are oversized tract houses) on account of its small footprint, fine materials and idiosyncrasy. The clients approached designer JudyAnn Obersi, who in turn asked longtime friend and collaborator Jane Abbott to help her with the project.

A sketch by Obersi illustrates the basic concept for the design: a winged mobile home is rooted into the ground. In the design, the structure is placed on a poured-concrete plinth (of a piece with the new foundations) that contains additional square footage for a master bedroom, dressing room and utilities room. The weight of the mobile home is transferred, through two inset steel beams running its length, onto the walls of the plinth. On ground level, a new terrace extends out from the living room in the existing mobile home. Obersi sloped the hill such that the master bedroom could open, through sliding wooden doors, onto a second south-facing terrace with views to the ocean.

Obersi and Abbott imagined the original structure—now the upstairs—stripped down to steel. The house can be compared to a weaving which gathers together many threads. The steel chassis acts as a frame within which Obersi has woven an architectural “warp,” which structures the playful bricolage that the couple enjoys—the “weft.” While the couple keeps the front room tidy for guests, they have left the back spare bedroom in its natural state—overwhelmed with beautiful fabrics and unfinished crafts piled on the bed and chairs. It is unsurprising that the downstairs space they had planned on using as a dressing room has slowly been filled with piles of sal-

oPPosite left A minimalist steel stair descends from the new entry down to the basement addition. oPPosite right An open kitchen, dining and living zone were created in the original rectangle of the pre-fab, along with a bathroom and bedroom. above The new foundations are set directly beneath the mobile home’s structural steel beams, allowing the house to slightly hover above the ground. right An ocean-facing deck wraps around the new entry at the west corner of the site.

vaged wood, stones, fabrics and power tools. There is hardly any room for dressing—it has become a workshop.

By incorporating the existing structure and appending to it, Obersi and Abbott have created a very comfortable and sensible house with well-proportioned rooms and deliberate views. It maintains a unified material palette, which successfully contains the vibrancy of the clients’ project within a coherent whole. Economical and elegant detailing, such as in the minimalist stairway, adds to the delightful experience of the house.

Although on one hand it is simply a modest retreat, the Seaforth House exemplifies values of reuse, reconsideration and recollection pertinent to our cultural moment. The last two centuries of Western culture have emphasized growth as a defining element of the civilization project. The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) is often pointed to as the moment that critiques of progress became part of public discourse. Since then, increasingly insistent critiques of progress have been made. The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1968) was published in the year of student revolts, and E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful (1973) appeared in the midst of the oil crisis. Today, these ideas and values saturate public discussion around climate change and the economic crisis. Architecture, however, marches on—checked, perhaps, by lack of capital, but not by a re-evaluation of the discipline.

Seaforth illuminates a different role for architecture: carefully rehabilitating the accumulated results, both large and small, of postwar industrial building practices—structures which are quickly degrading and, perhaps unnecessarily, being replaced. The house points toward an architectural culture that maintains a skeptical attitude to progress and to building. It maintains existing boundaries, and affirms the values of limitation and smallness. Seaforth sees virtue in a mobile home made immobile, and in staying rooted where it is.

Kai Woolner-Pratt studies at the school of architecture at dalhousie university. clients sheryl Grant and suzanne taKer | Design team judyann obersi and jane abbott | structural andrea doncaster | contractor econo renovations | area 1,713 ft 2 | buDget $230,000 | comPletion auGust 2013

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Living smaLL in the big city Linear Storage Loft 70 ft3

16’ wide x 1’-10” high x 2’-6” deep: the same as a VW Jetta sportwagen.

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accessible bathroom with shower; full-depth closet.

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JuLiette BaLcony 63 ft2

7’ wide x 9’ high sliding doors and a laminated glass guardrail.

kitchen 70 ft3

efficient factory-built kitchen with fold-down table/counter, full-height pull-out pantry, fullheight fridge, range and space for a convection microwave.

smart house

smart house opposite Construction has begun on the competition-winning My Micro NY by nARCHITECTS, the New York design firm led by Montreal native Eric Bunge and partner Mimi Hoang. The modular building in Kips Bay includes 55 micro-units, each of which pairs a customizable “canvas” zone with a “toolbox” area of efficiently designed fixtures and furnishings. above architectsAlliance and II by IV are currently designing Smart House, a 25-storey micro-unit building at the bustling corner of University Avenue and Queen Street West in downtown Toronto. In addition to a gym, the fifth-floor amenities area includes a generous outdoor terrace, open kitchen, and lounges for entertaining.

For decades, micro-apartments and their predecessors have oFFered reLativeLy aFFordabLe Living spaces in the heart oF north america’s Largest cities. text

Bruce Haden Molly Steeves

research

As a 20-year-old University of Waterloo architecture student taking a year out in London, England, I lived with two other students in a room of about 350 square feet. The corner “kitchenette” consisted of an electric ring on a tiny counter surrounded by a curtain that doubled as a changing area—our small concession to modesty. A shared bathroom upstairs accepted a single coin to provide enough hot water for a splash or two while two coins provided enough for full immersion.

But outside this little room was the vibrant expanse of London.

We worked in bars, returning home late and leaving early. I joked to my roommates that we were probably in our space for a total of one to two hours of daylight per week. Although we prided ourselves on the occasional “fry-up” on a Sunday morning, our most common meal was a late-night donair eaten while walking home from the tube station along the greasy sidewalks of Earl’s Court Road.

I never imagined that I would live in this space for very long, and I didn’t. But as our cities grow and densify, the choice to make the microapartment tradeoff—small space, big city—for the longer term is one that is becoming more common across North America, including Canada.

The micro-apartment carries a symbolic weight heavier than its slight footprint would suggest: a blend of history, hipness, sustainability, affordability and morality. It also has a lineage that spans from grimy affordability (the Single Room Occupancy unit, or SRO) to prefab tech (Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo) to bohemian chic (n ARCHITECT’s design for a micro-apartment building in Manhattan’s Kips Bay). Small spaces come in a myriad of styles, united only by size.

But how small is too small? Global expectations about size of living space are shaped by culture. There are two useful metrics for thinking about this. The first is the average number of square feet per capita. By this measure, Canada ranks third amongst major developed countries (second only to Australia and the United States) at 779 square feet per capita.

At the opposite extreme is Hong Kong at a spectacularly low 150 square feet per capita. The United States clocks in at 832 square feet per capita.

A second important metric is average house size. Scanning the globe, the average new dwelling unit ranges from a high in Australia of 2,303 square feet to a Hong Kong low of 454 square feet. Canada is at the high end of the range at an average of 1,948 square feet. If the definition of a “micro-apartment” could be considered to be anything less than 300 square feet, it sits at the extreme low end of these ranges.

The precedent for micro-apartments was the decidedly unhip SRO. This formerly common feature of 20th-century cities has slipped to a limited residue in historic neighbourhoods. In author and urbanist Alan During’s analysis, this decrease has not been entirely positive.

“The consequences of imposing middle-class norms of decency are to increase homelessness, to raise the cost of housing—especially at the bottom end of the market, but more generally for everybody, to make housing less abundant, and to accelerate sprawl,” he said in an interview with journalist Emily Badger. “Politically, it’s a coalition of the greedy and the well-meaning that led to the banning of private-sector affordable housing in our cities,” he continues. “The well-meaning folks were appalled by the living conditions of poor and working-class families.

The greedy folks were appalled by the prospect of living next to them.

Together, this awkward alliance helped advocate laws that established minimum living conditions not simply for safety, but also to define how much space an individual should reasonably be expected to live in.”

Like the SRO, the micro-apartments trend has an affordability underpinning. The dramatic increase in Canadian housing prices over the last 15 years has created intense financial pressure on those with low or even moderate incomes. They are faced with a disturbing choice: small apartments close to downtown, or long commute times. The desirability of inner-city living, together with a greater realization of the

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COOK AND EAT

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REST AND RELAX

COOK AND EAT

richard lam for reliance properties

Each of the 30 compact rental units in the Bruce Carscadden-designed Burns Block includes a pull-down bed that incorporates a foldaway table; translucent glass bathroom doors swing open to double as shower doors; the kitchens include spacesaving two-burner stoves and counter-height fridges. LeFt The glazedtile heritage front of the century-old Burns Block was fully restored as part of its conversion from SRO to micro-apartment units. above A typical suite in the Burns Block.

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social, personal and economic costs of long daily travel, have shifted the balance of preference for many towards tighter urban living as opposed to the open lawn of suburbia.

Demographic transformations also helped create the groundswell that underlies the move to tiny spaces. A crucial shift is the growth in the percentage of people that live alone. In 1950, four million Americans lived alone. Today, more than 32 million Americans and 3.3 million Canadians live alone. This trend has multiple roots—women’s economic independence, shifting social expectations around marriage, technology and communications, social mobility and longevity. We tend to think of solo households as representative of failure, as many dating sites subtly (or not so subtly) imply. However, there is an emerging counteracting trend that suggests living alone allows freedom, autonomy, and strong voluntary connections with others.

It would be nice to suggest that the environmental movement has also pushed the rise of more efficient living spaces. But one of the characteristics of the otherwise laudable advancements in consciousness with respect to green building and green urbanism has been the ability of the marketing community to use “greenness” as an underpinning for any strategic direction. Luxury penthouses with solar panels are as likely to be marketed as ecologically sound as the tiniest unit. Small may be green, but it’s the enhanced revenue per square foot that is a key driver.

There are several examples of micro-apartment projects planned in Canada. These include the Smart House development in downtown Toronto (architectsAlliance with II x IV Design) and the Janion MicroLofts in Victoria (Merrick Architecture with Riesco & Lapres Interior Design). However, this is a design type that must be seen in person to properly evaluate. The Burns Block in Vancouver is a 36-unit renovation of a former SRO completed by Bruce Carscadden Architects.

It is clearly an unreservedly delightful place to live. The units feel generous in spirit despite their tautness of plan. In the units, this generosity of volume is created by the interplay of clean-lined windows, glazed bathroom partitions, integrated lighting, a crisp white colour palette and well-detailed hidden storage.

The architects of the Burns Block also recognized a crucial aspect of small-space buildings—the quality and character of the common spaces. Life in a small unit is much enhanced by the ability to stretch out in a larger common area. The amenity spaces of small buildings are vastly more important to the residents’ quality of life than the too-often underused amenity marketing bling in wealthier buildings. For example, no matter how finely thought-out a sub-300-square-foot unit is, it won’t be easy to hold a great party. The roof deck currently under construction at the Burns Block will provide a glass-box social space and deck with extraordinary views that will be a fabulous social destination. No doubt the residents will fight over Friday night bookings. It’s too bad the gym and the laundry aren’t up here as well.

Along with desirable common space, creative detailing helps make small spaces liveable. The Transformer-like reconfiguration of a young architect’s Hong Kong apartment (bit.ly/1hw3zsj) demonstrates the degree to which thinking of micro-apartments as industrial design interwoven with architecture can provide a variety of living opportunities even in the smallest of spaces. However, clever mechanisms dependent on exotic hardware are often not durable over time, and can have the same short popularity and effectiveness as the latest digital gadget.

Nonetheless, thoughtful detailing in small spaces is essential. At the Burns Block, the simple mechanism by which a dining table folds out from the underside of a Murphy bed creates a transformation that is eminently logical, highly durable and lest we forget, fun.

In surveying the multiple manifestations of micro-apartments popping up in Canadian and global cities, the central question seems clear: is there an opportunity for dwelling units of less than 300 square feet to provide the essentials of urban life, and can they do so in a way that confers dignity, pride and joy? For the Burns Block as a single example, and there are many others, the answer is unreservedly yes. And the architecture is central to this dignity. Had my colonial landing pad in London been designed with the same degree of care, I might still be there.

Bruce haden is a Vancouver-based principal at dialoG.

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hintonburg heroes A bold siX-unit develoPment in ottAwA offers A new vision for low-rise housing on tight urbAn sites.

The Hintonburg Six, Ottawa, Ontario Colizza Bruni Architecture Inc. teXt Janine Debanné Photos Peter Fritz Project

Architect

In a remarkable transformation last year, six funky houses took the place of a single humble dwelling in a working-class neighbourhood in Ottawa. There was a time that Ottawa was the scene of forward-looking experimentation in residential architecture: Modernist houses were built in great numbers in the mid-1950s, and the ‘60s and ‘70s brought innovative CMHC-sponsored checkerboard and cluster row-housing.

As the decades passed, however, more predictable townhouse forms became the norm. The emergence of condo towers then pushed aside all experimentation in higher-density forms for living close to the ground.

This new development by local firm Colizza Bruni is thus a welcome and refreshing return to housing experimentation in the nation’s capital.

The Hintonburg Six occupies a pie-shaped lot at the corner of Pinhey and Armstrong Streets in Hintonburg, a district just west of downtown,

The six-unit complex adds a contemporary presence to a working-class neighbourhood at the edge of downtown Ottawa. Above Stacked box volumes and a palette of coloured metals were chosen to blend in with nearby clapboard houses and light industrial structures.

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adjacent to LeBreton Flats. A more typical contemporary replacement to the existing single-family house would have comprised five beige stucco-and-brick row houses, with large garage doors on the street, bloated rooms and exaggerated ceiling heights. Instead, Colizza Bruni built four crisp detached dwellings and one semi-detached house, each unit ranging between 800 and 1,100 square feet. While these relatively modest floor areas recall postwar family houses, the Hintonburg Six proposes an entirely new lot massing outside and a reinterpreted dwelling inside.

Around the project site, modest clapboard houses and light industrial buildings line a street grid made irregular by the nudgings of the Ottawa River. After long quiet years on the fringes of Ottawa’s more established brick neighbourhoods, Hintonburg has become a dynamic and creative nexus, one where new thinking about urban dwelling

seems to happen naturally. Architects James Colizza, Anthony Bruni and intern architect Nic De Socio of Colizza Bruni all live in Hintonburg or neighbouring Mechanicsville, and have completed several other projects nearby. Their affection for Hintonburg is clear.

The ensemble of compact houses balances open and closed volumes, places tall elements discreetly behind shorter ones, and organizes through-block continuity of yards, creating a complex massing that is both sculptural and collage-like. Each house combines a central silver staircase tower with a two-storey black volume, both clad in metal siding as a tribute to the area’s industrial history. Although coloured clapboard might have established a more playful sympathy with the neighbouring houses, the completed project fits perfectly into Hintonburg’s jagged seams. Eschewing developer logic with respect to garages, cars park

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oPPosite, clockwise from toP The compact interiors include inventive details such as sliding barn doors for the washroom; a detail of a dining room and adjacent patio; in certain units, the dining room includes a two-storey section and the room above becomes a loft-style office. Above, left to right An open-riser stair forms a light-filled core for each home; a knit of outdoor decks, sheds and screens structures the outdoor spaces of the development.

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in the outdoor spaces between the houses in a casual arrangement reminiscent of existing neighbourhood patterns. Gazing out the window of one of the houses, Bruni reflects: “If you look at this street, nobody has garages. They park outside and yes, they get snowed on. Many developments try to shoehorn a suburban development into an infill lot; they try different articulations, but they never seem to fit. It’s just the wrong way to live in an urban environment.”

Instead of a full third floor, each staircase culminates in an 8’ x 10’ crow’s nest suffused with daylight, which frees space for a generous outdoor terrace. Decisions like these, in which inspired spatial experiences and sensitive massing prevail over gross square footage, give the project unusual qualities. The project consistently recognizes “what this place is about, and how people live here,” to use De Socio’s words. Where so many other developments clash with their surroundings, the Hintonburg Six’s architecture and massing recover the casual tone of its working-class neighbourhood’s vernacular houses without superficial imitation. The project exudes a kind of courage as a result.

In its simplest form, explains Colizza, “this is a single-family house— with living space, gardens, sheds and fences, and a parking space— which does not impose itself. Car, house, ground. One thousand feet, plus or minus. That’s basically it. How small can you get for a singlefamily house that is very liveable?” Colizza, the eldest of 13 children, grew up in a three-bedroom house with one washroom in Sault Ste. Marie, his uncles living in the backyard. He reflects: “Is it inside me to live small? Probably it is. Did we all live? Yes. Are we all okay? Yes.” For Bruni, compact houses counter the tendency to segregate family members. They also require dwellers to pare down possessions, inviting a sort of closeness in everyday living.

Although compact, the Hintonburg Six condenses the pleasures of light and privacy typical of large detached houses. Daylight enters from multiple directions, and a roof terrace provides a private refuge within a strongly communal site plan. Bedrooms possess perfect, historically decanted dimensions that are both minimal and generous: the rooms measure 10’ x 11’, not including the closets, similar to the smallest bedrooms in Mies van der Rohe’s Lafayette Park dwellings, as one

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The new development is a pleasingly contemporary addition to the Hintonburg neighbourhood context.

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example. Unlike many shoebox condo developments, there’s room to flow around three sides of a queen bed, and enough space for bedside tables and dressers. Dining and living rooms are well formed, contained by properly positioned walls and half-walls, yet expanded by well-conceived openings. Since there was no wiggle room, kitchen and washroom cabinetry is custom-built as handsome minimalist pieces.

The three designers, all of Italian heritage, share recollections of lessons learned at early ages from their respective families of builders and machinists, spending time around family construction sites. “My father put me to work as a mason-labourer as soon as I was strong enough to carry bricks,” recalls Bruni. As a result, the project refrains from laborious detailing, balancing spatial inventiveness with matter-of-fact construction. Generous punched windows (rather than floor-to-ceiling window walls) and narrow door trim with flat-profile baseboards kept costs from escalating. Steel angles welded to C-channels at floor edges serve as staircase stringers while also providing an edge for the Levelrock poured floors and their epoxy finish. The open-riser stairs’ steel structures were installed early on and fitted with temporary treads during construction. Upon project completion, these were simply replaced with finished maple treads. Throughout, such details demonstrate foresight, building intelligence, and economy of means.

Unlike in conventional developments intended for unknown future buyers, the first group of owners knew each other. Colizza bought and severed the lot into six, selling them before the project was completed, and thus inviting the participation of owners in the design. These owners included Bruni, De Socio, and two of Colizza’s daughters. Each owner was their own builder: contractors sent out six bills, not one.

To economize on costs, owners took responsibility for tasks that fell

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between the trades, such as erecting temporary railings, daily cleaning of the construction sites, framing bulkheads, and later, landscaping and building fences and sheds. Together, the owners located backyard screens that provided privacy but also captured nice views. “It’s a very hands-on thing that happened here. People were out here cleaning and nailing,” says Colizza. This participatory approach gave the construction site a dynamic life, and brings back to mind architecture’s potential as a social catalyst.

Can this kind of project can be repeated in more normative conditions? This remains to be seen. But so far, Ottawa’s intensification boom has yielded too few creative responses that give sincere consideration to context, and too many medium- and high-density developments with inferior spatial arrangements. The Hintonburg Six optimistically opposes such trends, and honours daylight and proper room sizing as necessities of living well. In grouping compact detached houses and gardens in relational patterns, where yards and parking are generated by patterns of assembly, and in revisiting the smaller footprint of the postwar family house, the Hintonburg Six begins to provide new direction to Ottawa’s confused urban housing scene.

Janine debanné is an Associate professor at carleton university’s Azrieli school of Architecture and urbanism.

clients victoriA theodossiou, nic de socio, chris theodossiou, neel BhAtt, Anthony Bruni, giAnnA coliZZA | Architect teAm JAmes coliZZA, Anthony Bruni, nic de socio | structurAl stAr engineering—dorel mihAi | mechAnicAl AlphA energy systems | electricAl mAnelect electricAl services | lAndscAPe coliZZA Bruni Architecture inc. | AreA 6,000 ft 2 | budget $1 m | comPletion mAy 2012

Changing Chairs PhoTos

Canadian Centre for Architecture

BruCe KuWABArA disCusses his neW role As ChAir of The BoArd of TrusTees of The CAnAdiAn CenTre for ArChiTeCTure.

In December 2013, the Montreal-based Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) announced a change in its leadership. Phyllis Lambert, who founded the CCA in 1979 and has been Chair of its Board of Trustees since that time, has stepped down from this role. In her stead, she has appointed Bruce Kuwabara, founding principal of Toronto’s Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg (KPMB) Architects, to the position of Chair.

The appointment of a prominent architect as Chair suggests new opportunities for the CCA to connect with practitioners. When it first opened the doors of its Montreal building in 1989, scholarly research was at the heart of the CCA. Its study centre was a hub of activity, hosting researchers in residence throughout the year. Early exhibitions were often historical in focus, drawing heavily from the CCA’s own extensive archival, photographic and library collections. These included Le Panthéon: Symbol of Revolution (1989, curated by Barry Bergdoll), Ernest Cormier and the Université de Montréal (1990, curated by Isabelle Gournay and Phyllis Lambert), and Cities of Artificial Excavation: the work of Peter Eisenman, 1978-1988 (1994, curated by Jean François Bédard).

Since the appointment of Mirko Zardini to the role of Director and Chief Curator of the CCA in 2006, the institution has shifted its focus

Bruce Kuwabara with Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director Emeritus of the CCA .

BoTTom, lefT To righT The CCA opened its Montreal archive and museum in 1989; the sculpture garden by Melvin Charney; a view of the CCA’s galleries.

ABove lefT

to place emphasis on present-day issues of architecture and urbanism.

As a former editor of Italian journals Casabella and Lotus International, Zardini has made bold attempts to connect the CCA with broader discussions about the role of architecture and architects in contemporary society. For instance, the exhibition Imperfect Health (2011-2012, curated by Zardini with Giovanna Borasi) examined how architects, urban designers and landscape architects are proposing solutions to such issues as pollution, epidemics and obesity.

As one of Canada’s leading architects, Kuwabara’s appointment presents fresh prospects for further expanding the reach and interests of this pre-eminent cultural institution. We asked Kuwabara about his new role and its implications for the CCA. What are the key responsibilities of your new position as Chair of the CCA’s Board of Trustees?

I have been on the board for six years. As the Chair of the Board, I will be more deeply involved, providing input into board and committee membership, meeting schedules and agendas. The board currently meets twice a year so it is imperative that we have productive meet-

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ings, as our role is to support the vision and life of the CCA . The board fully supports the Director, Mirko Zardini, who is responsible for coordinating all of the activities of the CCA , working with a very talented team of Associate Directors and staff. Phyllis Lambert will maintain a passionate involvement at the CCA . She is only stepping down as the Chair of the Board.

I see my role as a public advocate for the CCA in terms of promoting its programs, people and achievements. This requires that I maintain a fairly intimate knowledge of how the place works and runs by staying in constant communication with its leadership team.

The CCA has several parts: it houses a collection of archival and library material, runs a study centre for scholars, acts as an international-calibre architecture museum, and operates a bookstore along with public programs. What do you see as its most important and relevant aspects moving into the 21st century?

Phyllis Lambert put in place much of what makes the CCA a remarkable cultural institution. The CCA does so many things at a very high level and at a standard that is recognized internationally. That said, every cultural institution needs to evolve and clarify its priorities and vision.

Mirko Zardini has made an extraordinary contribution as the Director for the last seven years. During this period, the CCA has developed a stronger online presence, more collaborative models for research and scholarship in its study centre, and relevant exhibitions which are focused on contemporary issues that connect design and living. Think of Sense of the City (2005-2006), or Actions: What You Can Do With the City (2008-2009, co-curated by Zardini and Borasi).

A lot of work and collective effort have been invested in breaking down the silos within the CCA between research, collections, exhibitions and publications. The CCA has exceptional content. Moving forward, the CCA will continue to integrate collection-based research with exhibitions and publications. Seminars and public lectures are strategically coordinated with the presentation and dissemination of content. The new way forward for the CCA is about integrated thinking on all fronts. how can the institution become more open and accessible?

Are there plans to draw in a wider audience?

The CCA is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2014. We want to renew the CCA presence in Montreal and abroad. We have connected to

a growing online audience, and at the same time, we want to attract people to spend time at the CCA in the presence of drawings, models, books, objects, photographs and videos. It is one of the very special places in the world for anyone who truly loves architecture and design.

Come and spend a day at the CCA in the library, bookstore, galleries and grounds, and you will experience the pleasure of thinking about design and the world we inhabit.

We also want to think of the public lectures as a draw, recognizing the premium experience that these live events offer. For example, the recent conversation between Phyllis Lambert and Liz Diller was a remarkable encounter that brought together two outstanding women talking about architecture, their practices, and their work on major projects in New York—the Seagram Building and Lincoln Center. The quality of real-time face-to-face experience cannot be replicated on YouTube, because the aura and immediacy of the conversation and the receptivity and response of the audience cannot be felt.

I have always wished that history and theory would be an essential part of the continuing education programs of our provincial and national associations and institutes. In this vein, the CCA would be a content provider. Too many practitioners are too focused on what they consider to be the pressing issues of practice: technology, legal questions, procurement processes, increasing claims, and so on. These are important, but there is a growing imbalance between theory, design and practice.

The CCA has the potential to integrate knowledge and thinking across boundaries within education and practice. does the CCA have expansion plans or proposals for creating satellite institutions in Toronto or elsewhere?

The CCA is firmly rooted in Montreal in a building designed to the highest standards by Peter Rose and Phyllis Lambert, within an urban landscape of lawns and with a garden designed by the late Melvin Charney.

It is a handsome building that has a formidable presence wrapped around the Shaughnessy House. We can begin to reimagine the CCA in that setting with a changing agenda of accessibility and sustainability that welcomes people onto the site. The CCA also has fascinating programs that welcome different types of audiences every week; we would like to continue this.

Many of the CCA’s exhibitions travel to other important venues. The Archaeology of the Digital exhibition is going to Yale University next February; Architecture in Uniform (2011, curated by Jean-Louis Cohen)

will be reinstated and presented next April at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris, and after that at the MAXXI in Rome.

Actions: What You Can Do With the City (2008-2009) was requested by the São Paulo Biennial 2013 and a special archival version was prepared, and 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas (2007) is still being requested six years since the original exhibition was displayed at the CCA. I think that any of the exhibitions dealing with contemporary living would draw an audience in other cities such as Toronto, New York or London. The CCA has always operated on an international scale while based in Montreal. In my mind, this is a strength of the CCA , and a model that demonstrates possibilities that are uniquely Canadian.

We are constantly increasing collaborations with other universities, professional associations, industry leaders, and cultural institutions.

The CCA is opening up to new possibilities, but not without understanding the critical issues as they pertain to the CCA’s position in any specific initiative. many of the CCA’s recent major exhibitions have had an international focus, with the notable exceptions of ABC:mTl and The 60s: montréal Thinks Big. how do you see the CCA balancing between the international, national and local interests of its exhibitions and collections?

The desire to advance the discourse on architecture in Canada and to connect it to the international debate has always driven the CCA’s agenda.

The CCA has the capacity and imagination to create exhibitions that focus on a range of ideas. After all, it is really all about architecture and urbanism. Mirko’s exhibitions broaden the subjects to contemporary The current CCA exhibition How architects, experts, politicians, international agencies and citizens negotiate modern planning: Casablanca Chandigarh examines two experiments in colonial city planning; one of the first shows curated by current CCA Director Mirko Zardini, Sense of the City explored the sensory dimensions of urban life. BeloW, lefT To righT The popular exhibition Actions: what You Can Do with the City presented a toolkit of 99 urban activist projects, from renegade bike lane stencils to seed-bomb rocket launchers; the exhibition 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas captured architectural innovations spurred by the 1973 oil crisis, many of which evolved into contemporary green building technologies. oPPosiTe BoTTom, lefT To righT

issues and phenomena with shows like Sorry, Out of Gas. I believe that the CCA will continue to be both locally and internationally relevant.

Also, several of the new Associate Directors at the CCA were attracted to Montreal from prestigious institutions in Europe. In a global context, I think that this relationship between particular and universal themes and content, and between Canadians and people from around the world make the CCA a much stronger, more complex, and more vibrant cultural institution.

What is the financial health of the CCA? What measures will you consider taking as Chair to ensure the institution’s ongoing viability?

Every academic and cultural institution in North America took a big hit following the economic meltdown in 2008. The financial health of the CCA , like many institutions, depends on the health of its endowment. I can say that the CCA is in recovery mode and is in relatively good financial shape, thanks to focused, dedicated leadership by key members of the board and by the performance of the CCA’s investment consultants.

The financial crisis forced a rethinking of priorities for the CCA given the limits of a decreased budget. Under the leadership of Mirko Zardini, the CCA has done more with less for many years. At the same time, it has reorganized the institution from within, clarifying the internal structure of the institution and roles of the leadership team.

A lot of productive work has been directed to developing policies in the area of human resources. In short, the relationship between available funding and the CCA’s primary programs was balanced while making the institution stronger and more resilient.

The board addressed a lot of issues during the last five years about the vision of the CCA. Although many questions were asked, the institution remains focused on its mission to be a leading global centre of research and scholarship, exhibitions and publications, and a voice on architectural and urban concerns.

As a practitioner, I see tremendous value in the CCA as a place where scholars and people who love architecture can expect to engage architecture. Architecture and urbanism have increasingly become topics of public interest and debate, and the CCA is a leading agency for ideas and presentation. As you can see, the CCA is in a good place. And there is a lot more work to be done, and a lot to think and dream about.

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insites

Martin tessler

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For the people teXt

Jessica Woolliams

the design And operAtion of the most cutting-edge sustAinAble buildings Actively engAge A broAd rAnge of people, from toddler user groups to vApour bArrier mAnufActurers.

Above Designed by Hughes Condon Marler Architects, the recently opened UniverCity Childcare Centre is pursuing Living Building Challenge certification. opposite top the Childcare Centre is one component in a larger community development by simon Fraser University trust, which includes neighbourhood-wide sustainable infrastructures such as district energy systems. opposite middle Design charrettes with children were part of the design process, leading to features such as a giant outdoor slide.

sfu coMMunity trust

rooftop solar therMal array

fsc-certified wood cladding

Martin tessler

water collection froM roof plane forMs part of the netzero-water strategy

pine beetle wood: 1. roof + wall structure 2. acoustic attenuation 3. finish

What drives innovation in sustainable building and urban design?

Along the west coast of Canada and the United States, a number of recent projects ambitiously address systemic issues of climate change, persistent toxic chemicals and social inequity. Their high-level sustainability goals necessitate a robust engagement with building users, manufacturers, regulatory authorities and developers, from concept through occupancy. This article finds five ways that designers and clients are bringing sustainability to a much broader range of people— and driving forward innovation in the process.

1. practice integrated design Many would claim that it is impossible to design a truly sustainable building or community without an integrated design process. Take the newly finished Bullitt Center in Seattle (it opened its doors on Earth Day 2013), designed by the Miller Hull Partnership and arguably the greenest office tower in the world. It’s pursuing the Living Building Challenge (LBC), the most rigorous social and ecological sustainability standard around. Bullitt Foundation CEO Denis Hayes says the project included years of weekly charrettes and significant engagement of construction and other workers. This went well beyond standard practice.

“The people directing traffic on the construction site were able to describe the features of the building in detail to pedestrians walking

operable windows for daylight & passive ventilation locally sourced structural steel fraMe

net play

outdoor play terrace run-off feeds water channel for interactive play opportunities

slide

univercity childcAre centre—sustAinAbility diAgrAm

roof run-off directed into rock pit for groundwater recharge

concrete floor and walls for therMal Mass

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nic lehoux nic lehoux

nic lehoux

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by,” says Hayes. Through its expanded integrated design process, stakeholders, tenants and community members felt that this was a triumphant leap to a better world. That excitement got to the street.

2. take integrated design to a new level Integrated design in the most exemplary projects involves a deep level of engagement between people in roles that would ordinarily not come in contact with one another. When Simon Fraser University’s UniverCity Childcare Centre was being created by Hughes Condon Marler Architects, the design team ran charrettes with the children (ages 3-5) that would be the occupants. UniverCity staff also brought in the Fraser Health Authority and the City of Burnaby to discuss a UV treatment system that Integral Group put forward for obtaining 100% of occupants’ water from captured precipitation and closed-loop systems. The LBC recognizes that the process of bringing the core realities of sustainability to key stakeholders—health authorities, manufacturers, building occupants—has the power, with time, to effect radical innovation.

With the success of the Childcare Centre—which was delivered below cost, handed over free of charge to a not-for-profit operator, and looks to be on track for certification as a Living Building—SFU is currently planning to create a Living Neighbourhood in the UniverCity area. Dale Mikkelsen, Director of Development at SFU Community Trust, says, “We noted that many of our successes with the Childcare

Above, clockwise from left the Bullitt Center is designed by the Miller Hull Partnership to have a 250-year lifespan; a vast solar array helps achieve energy neutrality; above the second floor, the building is framed in FsC-certified glulam timbers. opposite the ecoFLAts building in Portland, Oregon offers affordable rental apartments with numerous sustainable features.

Centre were possible through scale jumping. For instance, we created a neighbourhood supply of energy and a system of stormwater management. It makes more sense to create these alternative infrastructures at the neighbourhood scale rather than burdening each building with these systems.” Mikkelsen notes how this approach also reduces burden to the developer. “The developer of the lot really only needs to meet the materials credits, as they are tying into storm, sewer and energy infrastructures at the neighbourhood scale. So the model is easier for the developer to accept.”

3. Ask for help The Bullitt Center is designed to function like a Douglas fir forest.

It can create as much energy and purify and return as much water as it uses—that is, if the tenants go along with the plan. The Center is designed with an energy-use intensity that is roughly 80 percent

ben gray ben gray

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lower than a typical office, and roughly half of the electricity used will be plug load: cell phones, printers, computers and so on. As such, tenant buy-in is crucial to success, and each tenant at the Bullitt Center has an energy allowance within its lease agreement. This is comparable in approach to the ecoFLATS building in Portland, Oregon by Siteworks Design Build with Works Partnership Architecture, which has been described as the first net-zero-energy mixed-used apartment in the United States, a project that is also geared to affordable rental rates. Developer Jean-Pierre Veillet of Siteworks says that ecoFLATS “beats energy code by 70 percent and was created for $120 per square foot.” Veillet notes that the “delivery of information to the users is very important.” A live monitoring system in the main entry hall compares the energy performance of each unit, encouraging friendly competition between neighbours. In both projects, it rests in the hands of the occupants whether their buildings will ultimately achieve their netzero-energy goals.

4. Set Audacious Goals Rebecca Holt, Sustainable Building Advisor at Perkins+Will, has worked on two Living Building Challenge projects—the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre and the University of British Columbia Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS). She describes the intense challenge of sourcing materials for LBC projects. “Imagine an alternative

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mAin entry

ecoflAtS—SuStAinAbility diAGrAm 1 Solar Thermal & PV PanelS Produce elecTriciTy and hoT waTer for building.

2 oPerable windowS ProVide abundanT daylighTing and croSS VenTilaTion for cooling.

3 high-efficiency boiler for hydronic radianT heaTerS. 4 more Than 75 long- and ShorT-Term bicycle Parking SPaceS are ProVided.

5 a communiTy moniTor TrackS The building’S ProgreSS To neT-Zero energy.

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Acton ostRy

bob mAtheson

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Acton Ostry Architects restored the sandstone Flack Block into a hub for social entrepreneurs. The heritage property is located at the western end of the Woodward’s Block in downtown Vancouver. Above right Features including ironwork from the original 1899 building were retained, although a new elevator was added.

Above Left

product is proposed during construction, something different than what was originally specified: you and your contractor might need to contact 10 to 15 people to find out whether this alternative includes a red-listed ingredient,” she says. “This unanticipated effort can significantly delay project progress at critical points.” Kathy Wardle, Director of Research at Perkins+Will, adds, “The industry has come a long way since we constructed CIRS and VanDusen. If we were to start an LBC project tomorrow, the material research process would be a lot easier since the Health Product Declaration and Declare tools have come online.”

However, even for the more recent Bullitt Center, Denis Hayes estimates the design team invested close to two person-years of work in researching building materials. They used the International Living Future Institute’s Red List, but discovered many of its items to be broad categories. “When we began blowing up those categories to list all the elements and compounds that they contain, we found ourselves excluding 362 separate chemicals,” says Hayes. “On final count, the Bullitt Center contains approximately 950 individual components that needed to be vetted for compliance.”

As a result of this hugely challenging process, many individuals and companies were engaged in the critical question of eliminating persistent toxic chemicals. To find a vapour barrier without phthalates, the Bullitt design team convinced a manufacturer to reformulate their vapour barrier to remove the red-listed ingredient. According to Hayes, this company has now reformulated its entire line of building products to eliminate phthalates in all of them. As a result of the Bullitt team’s commitment to pursuing the Living Building Challenge, the market started to shift and innovate to meet seemingly audacious demands.

5. Sustainability includes equity In 2008, CEO of Renewal Investments Joel Solomon completed the restoration of the Flack Block in downtown Vancouver into a hub for social entrepreneurs, with the help of Acton Ostry Architects. “The Flack project could only happen due to enlightened public policy. There

were historic preservation credits, density bonus support in particular,” Solomon says. It was a rare sustainability-minded historic preservation project in a part of downtown that needed it.

Like the socially oriented ecoFLATS project, which opened in March 2011, the Flack Block restoration came at a difficult time. “It was the biggest boom time in construction history and expensive to build,” says Solomon. “Office rental rates were skyrocketing. The choice to do the first LEED Gold Interior leaseable project in the country greatly constrained our options for general contractors and subs, and drove up our price. We were finishing the most expensive part of the project as the stock market collapsed in late 2007, with a premium for LEED. Our tenants were evaporating as their funding dried up.” However, they completed the building and it is now filled with a dynamic mix of innovators and leaders in their sectors. Despite its challenges, Solomon is still proud to have gone ahead with pursuing his vision, which has resulted in a robust, socially oriented community. Renewal “invested in owning real estate that had strong social purpose to it, in our neighbourhood” and the results “represent our work, values and purpose.”

Can the process of engagement drive innovation towards truly sustainable design? The projects examined here have all taken sustainability out of the purview of technocrats, academics and other anointed experts, and brought it to a much wider group of individuals and to a more diverse audience. By subscribing to bold standards—such as the Living Building Challenge, net-zero energy and the highest levels of LEED —they have spurred dialogue with manufacturers, regulators and occupants that are pushing sustainability innovations to the next level. Used this way, design itself can be a key factor in democratizing and accelerating sustainability.

Jessica Woolliams is an urban planner with over a decade of experience in sustainable building and community policy, planning and education. Reach her through ca.linkedin.com/in/jessicawoolliams/

Buildings Cities Life: An Autobiography in Architecture

On Architecture: Melvin Charney, a Critical Anthology

Citizens of No Place: An Architectural Graphic Novel

by Eberhard Zeidler | Dundurn Press, 2012

Edited by Louis Martin | McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013

by Jimenez Lai | Princeton Architectural Press, 2012

Does size matter in architecture? And more specifically, is the life and work of a single architect worth two hefty volumes, comprising 1,231 pages? In the case of Eberhard Zeidler’s autobiography, the answer is a qualified yes.

Zeidler’s prolific career traversed vastly different political eras. Many of his commissions negotiated opposed interests at play in the Late Modern urban environment. In several, he wrought a distinct weave of ornamental vitality and the Modernist tradition. Some of his most significant edifices are rightly celebrated on the book covers: Toronto’s Eaton Centre, Ontario Place, and the Health Sciences Centre at McMaster University. Along with a consistent succession of signal commissions, these are examined in detail in the chronological text.

While the autobiographical recollections of his working life can be overbearing, Zeidler’s vivid insights into professional practice and design value are fascinating. Zeidler brings the same even gaze to his written views that are evident in his carefully articulated freehand drawings, amply reproduced in both volumes.

Two essays set a more analytical scaffold.

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie touches upon the travails of market-driven urban development, now so evident in an increasingly uncivil Toronto. Historian Robert Fulford positions Zeidler within the apparent decline of Modernist architecture, while pointing to the emergence of a renewed architectonic iconography in his work. In retrospect, Zeidler avoided the flaccidity of so much Postmodernist idiom and retained the creative and conceptual force of the Modern movement. One of the valuable outcomes of this thorough exercise in documentation is a clearer picture, albeit through a single lens, of the resilience of the Modernist contribution to expressing human experience through useable space.

Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe is a professor in the Depart-

In one of the interviews which forms part of On Architecture, the multifaceted Montreal architect, artist, educator and critic Melvin Charney states: “It is clear to me that what we see is not what we say. So I work on several different levels—on different registers—at once.

My texts, drawings, and constructions are operations in which you can find the same concerns superimposed on one other.”

The idea of cross-disciplinarity pervades this seminal publication, provocatively illustrated with the photographs, media images and drawings that the late Charney used incisively throughout his 40-year-long publishing career. Thanks to the comprehensive labour of historian Louis Martin, most of the architect’s essays are gathered here, including texts translated from French to English for the first time.

Charney carefully examined elements of the urban environment as artifacts with symbolic potential. He defied orthodox aesthetic prescription, providing new insights. For instance, his “A Story…The Treasure of Trois-Rivières” (1975) reinterpreted monumentality through vernacular architecture, and the construction and forced demolition of Corridart (1976) used urban activism to question the banality of force. Charney’s belief in the liberating possibilities of contemporary landscape (a concept he dubbed the avant-garden) deeply marked his later phases of production, epitomized by the construction of a sculpture garden for the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1987-90).

This rich anthology also includes texts by Louis Martin, George Baird, Georges Adamczyk and Réjean Legault. These critics have been deeply involved with international architectural debates in Canada and particularly in Quebec.

Their essays historically position the significant innovative character of Charney’s activity within past and current architectural discourses.

ment of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the Univer-

Ricardo Castro is an associate professor at the McGill

sity of British Columbia.

University School of Architecture.

“In zero gravity, all six sides of a box can be used as a plan.” –Citizens of No Place Jimenez Lai’s “architectural graphic novel” Citizens of No Place draws on all sides of the box; blurring architecture and fiction, criticism and imagination. As with many genre-benders, one might spend so much time allying the project to a tradition (manifesto, paper architecture, etc.) as to miss the point altogether.

As much as Lai’s stories are based on the comic format, they also recall the pin-up boards of an architectural studio presentation, with title blocks, didactic definitions, 3D renderings and axonometric drawings. In their content, these 10 stories subvert the kind of dogma and theory overheard in architecture studios; discussions of extraterrestrial grids, drifting and coalescing cities. Within this territory, the citizens of Lai’s “No Place” grapple in a kind of limbo (or purgatory) of architectural esoterica; full of decaying follies, ruins, oddly shaped fragments of half-remembered ghosts of propositions past.

Like many things that colonize the borderlands between one position and another, Citizens of No Place is clever, resourceful and slightly perverse. It gets under your skin. Reaching out from the borders can bring new insights but also leaves unsatisfied desires on both sides of the divide. This tension is ultimately the strength of Lai’s “No Place,” mapping a terrain that is in its very nature uncertain.

Meredith Carruthers is an artist and curator based in Montreal.

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calendar Venetian Glass by Carlo Scarpa: The Venini Company, 1932-1947

Come Up To My Room event at the Gladstone Hotel.

University on his work as a playwright focused on architecture.

Phyllis Lambert in conversation

ar.chi.tect [redefined] symposium

www.todesignoffsite.com

www.mcgill.ca/architecture/lectures

november 5, 2013-March 2, 2014

This exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is devoted to the work in glass of inf luential Italian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978), and presents nearly 300 carefully selected works that highlight Scarpa’s significant contribution to the art of Venetian glass. www.metmuseum.org

January 21, 2014

CCA founder Phyllis Lambert converses with Brigitte Shim as they deliver the George Baird Lecture at 6:30pm at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto. www.daniels.utoronto.ca/events/ lectures

Biological Urbanism november 6, 2013-February 22, 2014

This exhibition at Onsite [at] OCAD U features the work of Terreform ONE (Open Network Ecology), a New York-based design group that promotes environmentally conscious urban planning. Its projects are an exciting mixture of architecture, landscape, urban design, biology, engineering and art.

Artists, Architects & Artisans: Canadian Art 1890-1918 november 8, 2013-February 2, 2014

This exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa examines the architecture, urban plans, painting, applied arts, graphic design and photography of a quality previously unparalleled in the country’s short history. www.gallery.ca/aaa/en/index.htm

What Was Will Be January 10-February 15, 2014

This exhibition at Toronto’s Gallery 44 explores the temporality of architecture and features evocative media installations based on natural disasters presented through the lens of archives from the early to the mid-20th century

by Kristie MacDonald and Christina Battle. www.gallery44.org

Toronto Design Offsite Festival January 20-26, 2014

This event showcases the best in Canadian design at events and exhibitions across the city, from unexpected prototypes to immersive installations. Highlights include the TO DO Awards, a screening of Eames: the Architect and the Painter, and the popular

January 28, 2014

With technological advancements in design and fabrication, this symposium at 6:30pm at Toronto’s Design Exchange examines how architects and designers are now diversifying their traditional scope of responsibility and experimenting with new modes of creation. www.arch.ryerson.ca

Peter Sijpkes lecture January 22, 2014

Peter Sijpkes, a professor at the McGill University School of Architecture, speaks at 7:00pm at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning. http://architectureandplanning.dal. ca/current_events/index.shtml

Mobility Choice: Who Will Save Us From Ourselves?

January 23, 2014

Leslie Woo, VP of Policy, Planning and Innovation at Metrolinx, lectures at 6:45pm in the Cummings Lecture Hall at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. www.uwaterloo.ca/architecture/ events/lectures

Interior Design Show 2014 January 23-26, 2014

The Interior Design Show lands once again at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. As Canada’s premier showcase of new products, innovative designers and avant-garde concepts from North America and beyond, the event features industry superstars, cutting-edge emerging names, design-savvy consumers and top media outlets.

January 28, 2014

Mason White and Lola Sheppard of Lateral Office, Canada’s representatives at the 2014 Venice Biennale in Architecture, deliver the Bulthaup Lecture at 6:30pm at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto. www.daniels.utoronto.ca/events/ lectures

It’s Not All Caffè Latte: Walking Toronto’s Inner Suburbs January 30, 2014

Jane Farrow and Paul Hess lecture at 6:45pm in the Cummings Lecture Hall at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. www.uwaterloo.ca/architecture/ events/lectures

Benjamin Dillenberger lecture January 30, 2014

Architect and programmer Benjamin Dillenberger lectures at 1:00pm at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto. www.daniels.utoronto.ca/events/ lectures

West Coast Points East: Ron Thom and the Allied Arts

Julie Campoli lecture

February 3-May 4, 2014

Landscape architect, planner and principal of Terra Firma Urban Design in Vermont, Julie Campoli lectures at 6:30pm at UBC Robson Square in Vancouver. www.sala.ubc.ca

Private Jokes, Public Spaces January 27, 2014

Oren Safdie speaks at 6:00pm in Room G10 of the MacdonaldHarrington building at McGill

BIM: From Legal to Life Cycle February 5, 2014

Taking place from 1:00pm to 7:00pm at the Hilton Winnipeg Airport Suites, this event will focus on how to collaborate successfully on projects as well as highlight strategic considerations for long-term asset management. www.canbim.com/canbimevents-0/2014-39/winnipeg-75

Lateral Office lecture

www.interiordesignshow.com

January 27, 2014

Design Matters lecture series, Andreu Arriola of Barcelonabased Arriola & Fiol lectures at 6:00pm at the University of Calgary’s downtown campus.

This exhibition at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto draws on the private holdings of his family members, colleagues and archives, demonstrating the provenance and influences of West Coast architect Ron Thom’s creative process, featuring drawings, artifacts and other materials.

Andreu Arriola lecture February 5, 2014

Part of the University of Calgary’s

Making the Modern Landscape February 6, 2014

This book launch for a new publication by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander and Susan Herrington takes place at 5:30pm at Inform Interiors in Vancouver. RSVP required. info@informinteriors.com

Material Evidence February 6, 2014

This event at 6:30pm at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto explores the combined use of graphic design, photography, and other media-based visualization techniques to elevate consciousness and stimulate public engagement with contemporary political, social and environmental phenomena.

The Whole Enchilada: A Systems Approach to Transforming Transportation February 6, 2014

Transportation planner Susan Zielinski lectures at 6:45pm in the Cummings Lecture Hall at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. www.uwaterloo.ca/architecture/ events/lectures

Action: Atmosphere 2014 Symposium February 6-8, 2014

This annual interdisciplinary symposium at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture explores the less tangible aspects of design and experience. http://umanitoba.ca/architecture/ atmosphere/

For more information about these, and additional listings of canadian and international events, please visit www.canadianarchitect.com

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Winter Wonderland TeXT

Shannon Moore

MonTreAl’s fourTh AnnuAl luMinoThérApie fesTivAl AniMATes The downTown QuArTier des specTAcles wiTh siTe-specific insTAllATions And video ArT.

Until early February, Montreal’s entertainment district, the Quartier des Spectacles, is transformed into an interactive exhibition as the district mounts its annual Luminothérapie festival. Since 2010, event organizers have been encouraging local designers to submit their work for consideration in two artistic categories: installations for public spaces and video projections. With an ambition to highlight the area’s architecture and to embrace the culture and creativity of the city, the Quartier des Spectacles presents the winning entries each year as a winter festival highlight.

This year, Montreal-based architecture firm Kanva was selected in the public installation category. Their design, created in collaboration with Pierre Fournier, Boris Dempsey, Côté Jardin and UDO Design, pays tribute to Quebec’s rural history in a unique and enchanting way. Titled Entre les rangs (Between the Rows), the exhibit consists of approximately 28,500 flexible plastic stalks arranged in rows that evoke the colonial land allotments of New France. With illuminated reflectors on their tips, the stalks also mimic the province’s fields

of wheat and come alive as they sway with the help of the winter wind. The installation is set to string-based melodies created by Montreal composer and musician Patrick Watson, whose score contributes to the project’s overall sensation of tranquility and peace. Visitors are encouraged to walk through the magical rows and to experience a feeling of summer warmth amidst the cold urban setting.

In the video projection category, the district chose graphic design collective Champagne Club Sandwich’s charming and playful Trouve Bob. This Where’s Waldo-inspired game urges passersby to emerge from their winter cocoons and explore a series of imaginative scenes projected onto seven different building façades across the district, ranging from the louvre-covered Grande Bibliothèque to the curved Université du Québec à Montréal’s Pavillon Président-Kennedy. In each case, a timer counts down as players are challenged to find a figure named Bob, who is hidden among a mass of colourful graphics, unique animations and quirky characters that dance along to 8-bit music. The project draws attention to the ever-

Above a winter installation by Montreal design firm kanva arrays thousands of plastic stalks in long, rectangular plots across the downtown place des Festivals. Downlights gently sweep the site, recalling sunrise and sunset over the province’s wheat fields.

growing video-game industry in Montreal while also engaging the unique forms of the Quartier’s edifices. Altogether, Trouve Bob elicits feelings of excitement for those who come across the frenetic animations at night.

Although Montreal is known for its harsh winter weather, the festival hopes to inspire people to slow down and enjoy the beauty that surrounds them. On its opening day, the city achieved this goal as visitors dressed in warm jackets and thick scarves sat down in the snow to search for Bob on the building surfaces above them. Others walked unhurriedly through the rows of stalks, unfazed by the chill in the air as they marvelled at the intricacies of Kanva’s installation. Clearly, those who were brave enough to face the cold were provided with a memorable experience. For this visitor, the Luminothérapie festival was a glimpse into the vibrancy that a city might possess when it embraces its winter glory.

Shannon Moore is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto, with an interest in the history, theory and criticism of architecture.

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