CANADIAN ARCHITECT 08/21
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Studio Shirshekar SANAZ SHIRSHEKAR ROTHESAY, NEW BRUNSWICK
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Sanaz Shirshekar’s story sounds almost like a movie premise: promising young architect builds her career at two bigtime firms (KPMB in Toronto and the New York office of interior design firm Yabu Pushelberg). Then love and marriage take her to little Rothesay, New Brunswick, just east of Saint John. Her vision for Studio Shirshekar, the solo practice she establishes there, is “to bring affordable, accessible contemporary design to a historic Canadian region that is steeped in traditional design—and slow to embrace change.” Around the time of her 2017 move to Atlantic Canada, family ties led to an extraordinary project. Her husband’s grandmother, philanthropist Jean Irving, grew up in rural Petitcodiac, N.B., where her grandfather was the pastor of the Baptist church. A 2016 heating oil leak had compromised the foundation of the oldest part of that church, a well-loved 1879 Gothic Revival building, necessitating its demolition. “Mrs. Irving paid for the entire remediation of the church and most of the reconstruction,” says Shirshekar, who designed the addition and renovation. She was able to convince Mrs. Irving (who died in 2019) and the town that it was possible to commemorate the lost landmark without replicating it. Primarily a community hall, the new construction connects to a 1980s addition that served as the sanctuary even before the old building’s demolition. The massing, window distribution and wood siding of the new
2021-07-21 12:32 PM
