Canadian Architect March 2017

CANADIAN ARCHITECT MAR/17

VIEWS FROM THE WEST

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE RAIC

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VIEWS FROM THE WEST

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT

MARCH 2017

JAMES DOW / PATKAU ARCHITECTS

6 VIEWPOINT

Integrated Project Delivery is a promising contract model built on increased cooperation between parties, says editor Elsa Lam.

10 NEWS

OCAD U announces team for

Creative City Campus project; NCC launches international design

competition for Nepean Point; Scott & Scott Architects win in Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices competition.

28 INSITES

Transit-Oriented Developments are rising up around Skytrain stations throughout Metro Vancouver, reports Sean Ruthen, FRAIC .

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14 FROM SEA TO SKY The Audain Art Museum by Patkau Architects creates strong connections with its forested site in Whistler. TEXT Odile Hénault

22 URBAN WATERSCAPE

EMA PETER

Bing Thom Architects and Shape Architecture’s Guildford Aquatic Centre is a calm, confident space that anticipates the needs of a rapidly developing community in Surrey. TEXT Courtney Healey

32 REVIEW

Sara Spike visits the CCA’s current exhibition, It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment.

35 REVIEW

An early sustainable house prototype is the subject of the exhibition Living Lightly on the Earth: Building an Ark for Prince Edward Island, 1974-76, reviewed by John Leroux, MRAIC .

39 BOOKS

Recent releases on emerging forms of practice and environmental psychology.

42 BACKPAGE

Stephanie Calvet discusses Eva’s Phoenix, a transitional residence for homeless youth by LGA Architectural Partners.

COVER The Audain Art Museum by Patkau Architects. Photo by James Dow for Patkau Architects.

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THE NATIONAL REVIEW OF DESIGN AND PRACTICE / THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE RAIC

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LEFT A new facility for St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo was completed by Diamond Schmitt Architects using an Integrated Project Delivery process.

LISA LOGAN PHOTOGRAPHY

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 03/17

VIEWPOINT

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Getting Along Better Traditional construction contracts are based on confrontation—parties undercut each other, architects fight with contractors, delay claims are common. So the Canadian construction industry is abuzz about a new form of procurement—Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)—that is instead based on increased cooperation.

The premise of IPD is a multi-party contractual agreement, rather than the two-party contracts common with other systems. Before the design starts, all key stakeholders—the owner, GC, architect, consultants, sub-consultants, and potentially even the suppliers—agree to share the project’s risks and rewards. The base-hours of the team are covered, but the profit shared between the project team members is at stake, depending on how well the project performs.

While a version of the process has been used in Australia since the 1970s, in Canada, the form is relatively new—perhaps a dozen IPD projects are underway. A standardized Canadian version of the IPD contract is anticipated to become available in the coming year.

David Dow, MRAIC, principal at Diamond Schmitt Architects, has been involved in two IPD projects—an academic and a residence building for St. Jerome’s University, completed last year, and a set of municipal buildings for the city of Oakville, currently in progress.

“So far, our clients have been driven to IPD out of frustration with other methods,” says Dow. “IPD is highly collaborative with the client: they come out with a phenomenally intimate knowledge of the building they’re procuring.”

In an initial validation phase, the team goes through a detailed costing exercise to verify if the client’s pro forma is realistic, or to recommend a revised budget. If the project doesn’t go forward, everyone is compensated the base cost of their hours to date. If the project comes in on or under budget, it proceeds into detailed design and construction.

During the project execution, if the construction costs increase, the overage comes out of the profit pool, but if the costs are lower, the team shares the spoils. The budget is updated on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and discussed in a “big room”—a common workplace that stakeholders commit to regularly working in.

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­­EDITOR ELSA LAM, MRAIC ART DIRECTOR ROY GAIOT ASSISTANT EDITOR SHANNON MOORE EDITORIAL ADVISOR IAN CHODIKOFF, OAA, FRAIC

“The whole team can see where the project’s headed,” says Dow. “If we’re supposed to be at $40 M, and we’re at $40.2 M, everyone in the room is like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’ Everyone on the team has the opportunity to comment and interject, finding ways to take corrective action.”

For instance, on Oakville, says Dow, the team is considering flipping the sequencing of two of the buildings—an addition to a recreation centre and a firehall—because completing winter concrete work on one of them was going to significantly increase costs.

Overall, IPD encourages front-loading work and decisions, investing time in planning to avoid expensive delays and extras down the road. Technology and the sharing of big data that keeps everyone informed and up to date also drive the process. But it’s not all sunshine and roses. The many meetings can be onerous, particularly at the start. And as in all construction, things still inevitably go wrong. “However, with the more collaborative process, people tend to address the problem,” says Dow, rather than resorting to the finger-pointing, acrimony and lawsuits of traditional contracts.

For an IPD project to be successful, all players have to be open to discussion, debate and compromise. “You’re all making some concessions, and yet you’re collectively moving forward with what you believe is a good solution,” says Dow. “The people are key—you need people that are experienced, but are still willing to experiment with new ways of doing their job.” This includes being sure that the clients on IPD teams are collaborative and understanding of the challenges that can arise in a construction process.

There are many tools associated with IPD. A simple one happens at the first big room meeting. Everyone introduces themselves, and says how long they’ve been in the industry.

The numbers are tallied, and the total is often many hundreds of years. It’s a powerful reminder that together, we’ve got far more intelligence than any single player—and we are benefited by finding ways of working that tap into this collective strength.

Elsa Lam

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ANNMARIE ADAMS, FRAIC ODILE HÉNAULT DOUGLAS MACLEOD, NCARB, MRAIC REGIONAL CORRESPONDENTS HALIFAX CHRISTINE MACY, OAA REGINA BERNARD FLAMAN, SAA MONTREAL DAVID THEODORE CALGARY GRAHAM LIVESEY, MRAIC WINNIPEG LISA LANDRUM, MAA, AIA, MRAIC VANCOUVER ADELE WEDER, HON. MRAIC VICE PRESIDENT & SENIOR PUBLISHER STEVE WILSON 416-441-2085 x105 SALES MANAGER FARIA AHMED 416-441-2085 x106 CUSTOMER SERVICE / PRODUCTION LAURA MOFFATT 416-441-2085 x104 CIRCULATION CIRCULATION@CANADIANARCHITECT.COM PRESIDENT OF IQ BUSINESS MEDIA INC. ALEX PAPANOU HEAD OFFICE 101 DUNCAN MILL ROAD, SUITE 302 TORONTO, ON M3B 1Z3 TELEPHONE 416-441-2085 E-MAIL elam@canadianarchitect.com WEBSITE www.canadianarchitect.com Canadian Architect is published monthly by iQ Business Media Inc..

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PROJECTS HCMA and NFOE awarded Complexe Aquatique de Laval in design competition.

CITY OF LAVAL

HCMA Architecture + Design and NFOE have been awarded the Complexe Aquatique de Laval through a national design competition. The design, which was unanimously selected by the jury from four finalists, was unveiled at a public ceremony in January.

Nestled into an existing forest and bathed in natural light, the aquatic centre will immerse its users in nature, offering the community an accessible oasis at the edge of the city. Supporting both recreational and competitive events, its internal organization gives swimmers and spectators views of its wooded setting from all areas.

The concept highlights the importance of maintaining and enhancing natural landscapes, promoting wellbeing for Laval’s residents. www.hcma.ca

Ryerson unveils design of new Innovation Centre by Moriyama & Teshima Architects.

Ryerson University has revealed the design for its new Centre for Urban Innovation. Designed

by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, it will provide 3,716 square metres of space for faculty and students conducting research on alternative energy, water management, food production and data analytics.

Built in 1886, the heritage building on the site was the first school of pharmacy in Canada. Ryerson acquired the property in 1963, using it to house its department of architectural technology, and later its performance and journalism programs.

The design preserves the original three storey building, inserting two additions with green roofs. These research facilities are joined to the heritage building with skylit open spaces.

The 19th-century lecture hall and other major spaces will be retained. The building is expected to open in September 2018. www.mtarch.com

Design unveiled for Mississauga’s tallest building designed by CORE Architects.

CORE Architects has won a competition to

design a 60-storey tower at the corner of Burnhamthorpe Road and Confederation Parkway in Mississauga. M City’s flagship tower—the first of 10 towers in a $1.5-billion, master-plan­ ned community—will be the tallest building in the rapidly urbanizing city’s downtown core.

Urban Capital Property Group was selected to lead the development of the first phase, having earlier assisted Rogers Real Estate Development to win City approval of the

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NEWS

A new aquatic complex in Laval will be designed by a consortium of Vancouver-based HCMA Architecture + Design and Montreal-based NFOE et associés architectes.

ABOVE

master plan for the 15-acre community.

The tower’s undulating geometry results from seven distinct f loor plates combined to twist the building as it rises. It continues a push for contemporary design that was first introduced to Mississauga with MAD Architects’ Absolute Towers. www.corearchitects.com

OCAD University announces architectural

team for Creative City Campus project.

OCAD University has announced the selection of Morphosis, Teeple Architects, and Two Row Architect to lead the design and implementation of the Creative City Campus. The project will revitalize and expand the core of the institution’s campus along McCaul Street in Toronto, adding approximately 5,100 square metres of new construction and 8,825 square metres of renovated space.

Morphosis and Teeple Architects will work with Two Row Architect, a native-owned and operated firm on the Six Nations Reserve in Southern Ontario, to create the Indigenous Visual Culture and Student Centre and to ensure that Indigeneity is embedded successfully throughout the project.

“Our campus expansion in the heart of Toronto’s creative district is aligned with our goal of creating a 21st-century, healthy, accessible and creative environment where studio-based, experiential and collaborative learning can thrive,” said Dr. Sara Diamond, president and vice-chancellor, OCAD U. “Over its 140-year

history, the institution has grown and thrived, and this project is the next step in its evolution.”

OCAD U has received $27 million from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities for the project. It was also awarded $4.5 million from the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development’s Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund.

Leading-edge media, technology and stateof-the-art digital fabrication will be integrated throughout the facility to enable pedagogy, social interaction, and new ways of thinking, making and doing. www.ocadu.ca/creativecitycampus

University of Manitoba awards design of Smartpark Innovation Hub to Cibinel Architecture.

Through a competitive process, the University of Manitoba has awarded the design of the Smartpark Innovation Hub at the Fort Garry Campus to Winnipeg-based firm Cibinel Architecture with local contractor Bird Construction.

At roughly 7,000 square metres, the new facility will provide workspace for up to 400 people by April 2018. Consistent with Smartpark’s mission of “Building a Community of Innovators,” the Hub will bring businesses and the university together in laboratories for research and prototype development, classrooms for multimedia training and video conferencing, and other versatile working, learning and sharing environments. www.cibinel.com

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NEWS Bieniecka received the President’s Medal from 2016 President Allan Teramura, FRAIC. During his tenure, Mr. Teramura was instrumental in establishing the RAIC Indigenous Task Force, which is planning the first International Symposium on Indigenous Architecture and Design. It will take place May 27, 2017, in Ottawa.

“I will continue to build and support this and other programs such as the Committee for Responsible Environments, Aging-in-Place Task Force and the Emerging Practitioners Group,” said Bieniecka. “We are well positioned to address today’s priorities: the environment, health and sustainability.” www.raic.org

Ground has broken for the inter-regional transit terminal at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects.

ABOVE

Diamond Schmitt Architects design Transit Terminal for Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

An inter-regional transit terminal has broken ground at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects, the terminal is located within a pedestrian plaza and has a 4,000-square-metre horseshoeshaped roof over two open platforms, in addition to a 925-square-metre glazed pavilion.

The terminal will have nine bus bays with a central island enhanced by drought-tolerant landscaping. The pavilion will house a waiting area, staff and service areas, and access to an underground connection to the adjacent TTC subway station.

“We employed an exposed heavy timber structure because it is a sustainable material with a low carbon footprint, and provides a warm and inviting environment,” said Mike Szabo, MRAIC, principal at Diamond Schmitt Architects. “Glass windscreens and warming shelters at the platforms protect passengers from the elements while maintaining a sense of openness, allowing patrons to approach from all sides.”

The terminal is expected to open at the end of 2017. www.dsai.ca

AWARDS LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction open for submissions until March 21.

The 5th International LafargeHolcim Awards competition is open for submissions until March 21, 2017. Organized by the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, the competition seeks projects at an advanced stage of design from the fields of architecture, building and civil engineering;

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landscape and urban design; as well as materials, products and construction technologies.

Projects must have a high probability of execution, and may not have started construction before July 4, 2016. In addition, students and professionals up to the age of 30 may submit visionary concepts, ideas and “blue-sky” solutions in the Next Generation category.

Submissions are evaluated against five target issues for sustainable construction: innovation and transferability; ethical standards and social inclusion; resource and environmental performance; economic viability and compatibility; and contextual and aesthetic impact.

Winners will be announced in the second half of 2017 at awards ceremonies in each region. The main winners automatically qualify for the Global LafargeHolcim Awards competition in 2018. The total prize money amounts to $2 million USD. www.lafargeholcim-foundation.org

WHAT’S NEW Ewa Bieniecka, FIRAC, inducted as 78th President of the RAIC.

Ewa Bieniecka, FIRAC, a Montreal architect specialized in heritage conservation and restoration, was inducted as the 78th President of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) at a formal ceremony in February.

“It is time to reflect on how ideas about the built environment become widely accepted and ingrained in our culture, said Bieniecka in her investiture speech. “We must continue to investigate the relationship between architecture and the culture that shapes and is shaped by it.”

She continued, “We will work together to demonstrate that architecture is at the service of the well-being of people; that it awakens the senses and stimulates the imagination.”

Ontario Association of Architects announces John K. Stephenson as President for 2017.

The Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) has welcomed John K. Stephenson, OAA , MRAIC, as its new president for 2017.

Stephenson is a founding partner of Thunder Bay-based FORM Architecture Engineering, as well as predecessor firms Kuch Stephenson Architects and Kuch Stephenson Gibson Malo Architects & Engineer.

Stephenson joined OAA Council in 2013 and has served as Senior Vice President and Treasurer for the past two years. He has taken part in several initiatives including: the review of the path to licensure for Interns; the OAA Headquarters Renew + Refresh project; re-imagining the OAA Honours and Awards program; a new media content creation and communication strategy; and the modernization of OAA governance, addressing inclusivity and ref lecting the diversity of the profession.

Stephenson is passionate about continued OAA advocacy and engagement on issues of public interest, where the contribution of architects can help make communities better places for people. www.oaa.on.ca

LEED projects in Canada have surpassed 1 billion square feet.

Green building in Canada has reached a significant milestone, with the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) announcing that there are now over 1 billion square feet of LEED projects in Canada.

The federal government is currently planning for the implementation of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change—which recognizes the building sector as an area critical to the reduction of emissions—and the CaGBC notes that the building industry’s widespread experience with LEED will be crucial to its success.

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CaGBC is moving ahead with plans to provide Canada’s first guideline and third-party verification for zero-carbon buildings. In addition, it is expanding research and consultation on existing buildings to determine how Canada’s infrastructure can be better managed and retrofitted—both to stimulate job growth and reduce GHG emissions.

LEED ’s year-end totals for 2016 were strong, with a total of 406 LEED projects certified last year. This brings the grand total of certified projects in Canada to 2,990. www.cagbc.org

NCC launches international design competition for redevelopment of Ottawa’s Nepean Point.

architects, urban designers and other related design professionals to form design teams to respond to the request for qualifications for the renewal project. International designers are welcome to compete. All teams must be led by a landscape architect who is eligible to be licensed to work in Ontario.

A two-stage process will be used to select the successful team. A maximum of four teams will be selected to participate in the second stage, where they will be invited to submit a more detailed design.

The RFQ for the Nepean Point redevelopment project closes on March 31, 2017. The winning design team and their concept will be announced later in the year as part of Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations. www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca

The National Capital Commission (NCC) has launched a two-phase international design competition to redevelop Nepean Point, one of the most popular lookouts in Canada’s Capital, in order to create a lively, 21st-century green space.

The long-term vision for the area includes multi-use recreational pathways connecting cultural institutions to the existing pathway network and green spaces, in order to create a continuous promenade from the Rideau Canal to Rideau Falls Park.

The NCC is inviting landscape architects,

Scott & Scott Architects win in Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices competition.

The Architectural League of New York has announced the winners of its annual Emerging Voices competition, which include David and Susan Scott of Vancouver-based Scott & Scott Architects.

Each year, the League selects eight emerging practices through a juried portfolio com-

petition. The award spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada or Mexico with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design and urbanism.

David and Susan Scott believe that a design’s refinement “occurs with the continuous re-evaluation of use and experience.” The firm’s work ranges from agricultural and community master planning, to residential projects and adaptive reuse for commercial and retail clients. This year, the firm will launch a fixture and furniture line.

Recent projects include a British Columbia cabin designed and constructed by the architects to withstand heavy snowfall, and Gulf Island Barn, a private barn and community space. www.scottandscott.ca

ERRATUM In the February 2017 article “Winnipeg Prefab,” it was mistakenly stated that the Buhler Centre was designed by a collaborative of three firms—DIN Projects, PSA Studio, and David Penner Architect. In fact, the designer was DPA+PSA+DIN Collective—a group led by architects David Penner and Peter Sampson.

Also, Neil Minuk was erroneously identified as an architect. In fact, he is an intern member of the Manitoba Association of Architects.

Access to: Case studies, videos, factsheets, toolkits & 500 B.C. wood suppliers.

Visit www.naturallywood.com Southern Okanagan Secondary School, KMBR Architects Planners Inc. and HDR|CEI Architecture Photo: Ed White Photographics

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FROM SEA TO SKY

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PREVIOUS SPREAD The exterior porch adjoining the main entrance is clad with a dynamically articulated wood skin. LEFT The bridge leading to the main entrance is capped by a contemporary interpretation of a totem pole. BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT Stairs descending from the lobby form a seating area and secondary entrance; the museum’s linear form bends to fit within an irregular clearing in the trees; a glazed hallway bridges over the secondary entrance.

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A MASTERFULLY DESIGNED MUSEUM IN SCENIC WHISTLER SHOWCASES B.C. ART—WHILE ALSO PUTTING ITS FORESTED SITE ON DISPLAY. Audain Art Museum, Whistler, British Columbia Patkau Architects Inc. TEXT Odile Hénault PHOTOS James Dow / Patkau Architects PROJECT

ARCHITECT

In British Columbia, the names John and Patricia Patkau, FRAIC have long been synonymous with accomplished homes featuring breathtaking views of the Pacific coast. For a number of years, however, their work has expanded greatly in scope and scale, and in time has become identified with highly prestigious cultural institutions. With the Audain Art Museum, inaugurated in 2016, the architects demonstrate a remarkable level of maturity.

The Patkaus were commissioned to design the museum by long-time art collectors Michael Audain and his wife, Yoshiko Karasawa. The couple had been dreaming about having their own gallery space since the early 1990s, when they visited the Maeght Foundation in southern France.

“We thought, that’s great,” Audain said of the Josep Lluis Sert-designed museum.1 “That’s what we were interested in—a natural setting with indigenous landscaping, because a lot of the work we have is landscape.”

In 2012, Michael Audain, then 74, started feeling pressed for time and decided to begin the process. His first step was to look for a site that would meet the needs of the program—preferably one that was forested. Eventually, Whistler emerged as a serious option. Eager to attract cultural tourism, the town, with its well-known ski resort, is already home to a number of small private galleries and to one major venue—the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, thoughtfully designed by architect Alfred Waugh, MRAIC. A site was offered to Audain and Karasawa by newly elected mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden on a $100, 199-year lease. Despite the generous leasing arrangements, the site was not without challenges. Accessible from Blackcomb Way, it was located between two parking lots and was being used as a public works yard. It also lay in the f loodplain of

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the powerful Fitzsimmons Creek. But the parcel of land had magnificent coniferous trees—trees that Audain appreciated, and asked the Patkaus to preserve as much as possible. In the end, all but one were saved.

A decade earlier, on Salt Spring Island, the Patkaus had designed the 300-foot-long Linear House to slide alongside a line of mature trees.

In Whistler, they used a variation on the same strategy, bending a linear building to slip into an irregular clearing. The architects then had to tackle the location’s potentially damaging flash floods and heavy winter snow accumulation. Both of these impacted the final form of the building, raised a full storey above ground, and crowned with steeply pitched roofs. At issue as well was the fact that the building did not correspond to the picturesque image encouraged by Whistler’s building guidelines—a requirement that was eventually waived by the municipality.

The building program was straightforward: UPPER LEVEL the architects were to create a home for some 200 art pieces from the Audains’ private collection, which ranged from Northwest Coast First Nations masks and ritual objects, to works from modern and contemporary British Columbia artists, Emily Carr chief among them. A museum shop was to be included. Most of the exhibition spaces were to exclude daylight, though at the same time, the surrounding natural environment was to be felt strongly throughout.

In a 2014 interview, Patricia Patkau put it this way: “We needed to think about a completely interior space but also about a counterpoint space—a counterpoint that would connect people to daylight and landscape.”2 This counterpoint occurs at the lobby and along the glazed main corridor, but it is particularly manifest at the museum’s exterior porch.

As visitors approach the building from a glassand-granite footbridge, they are suddenly MAIN LEVEL greeted by an exuberant space: a soaring exterior wood-lined atrium, hollowed out of the museum’s dark metallic shell.

In an otherwise quiet and restrained project, the atrium is a dazzling gesture. Light pours in from above, through a glass canopy that seems to break away from the roof. A surprisingly contemporary five-metre-high aluminum totem pole, by Squamish Nation artist Xwalacktun, stands guard as a strong reminder of the region’s rich artistic offerings.

The entrance to the lobby is to the right, but one also has the choice to linger outside, stepping down wooden steps at the back of the building.

The steps, which cross under the Museum’s main circulation axis, serve as a secondary access while doubling as a quiet, sheltered seating area near to the trees Audain and Karasawa so love.

Inside, a long corridor leads to interconnected galleries. Lined with wood on one side, and 20M floor-to-ceiling glass on the other, the passage 0

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ABOVE, TOP TO BOTTOM The lobby offers a sweeping view of the surrounding trees; the main corridor achieves a feeling of being open to nature, thanks to floor-to-ceiling forest views, along with a ceiling plane detailed to be continuous from interior to exterior.

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gives visitors an almost surreal feeling of being outdoors among the nearby forest. Contributing to this sensation, the corridor’s ceiling is clad with wood slats that continue on the exterior, covering the roof ’s extended soffits. Wood is celebrated again in a triangular sky-lit staircase, at the junction of the main rectilinear volume and a wing added at an angle, the latter accommodating temporary exhibits.

Much could be said about the outstanding quality of the collection, which includes works by Lawren S. Harris and Jack Shadbolt as well as contemporary Canadian artists such as Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham and Brian Jungen. Perhaps the most stunning piece on display is The Dance Screen (The Scream Too), carved from 2010 to 2013 by Haida artist James Hart. Almost four metres in length, it features a central shaman figure surrounded by emblematic creatures from nature. The screen dominates the first gallery, dedicated to a remarkable group of 19th-century Northwest Coast masks and other artifacts.

Searching for precedents in the architects’ past work, one could make links to Montréal’s Grande Bibliothèque du Québec, where wood was skillfully used to break up a long narrow structure and bring warmth to circulation spaces and reading rooms. One could also look as far back as 1988, when the Patkaus completed a school for the Seabird Island First Nation community. The boldness of the school, with its multi-faceted roof alluding to the surrounding mountains, anticipates the audacious approach to form-making taken by the firm in subsequent projects, including the Audain Art Museum.

Now, 35 years after starting their practice, the Patkaus are exploring new avenues, which, as they explain in a forthcoming book, take them, “from a relatively secure footing, anchored in the compounded experience

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of our decades in architecture, to a more tentative and playful disposition in which we are, once again, beginners.” Thus, material explorations at a small scale, such as in the cocoon-like bent plywood Winnipeg Skating Shelters (2011), seem to inform larger projects, like the timber-shell supported Daegu Gosan Public Library Competition entry.

At the Audain, one senses both the confidence of the Patkau’s impressive body of work, but also a new dimension that has come from their recent experiments. Pausing in the wood-lined lobby, one thinks of Emily Carr’s words: “I sat staring, staring, staring—half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a new dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat...” One imagines her feeling right at home in the Audain Museum.

[1] http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/michael-audain-talks-about-choosingwhistler-for-the-new-audain-art-museum [2] Ian M. Thomas, Masterworks from the Audain Art Museum, figure.1pub, 2015.

Odile Hénault is an architecture critic, curator and professional advisor.

CLIENT AUDAIN ART MUSEUM | ARCHITECT TEAM JOHN PATKAU, PATRICIA PATKAU, DAVID SHONE,

MIKE GREEN, MARC HOLLAND, CAM KOROLUK, DIMITRI KOUBATIS, LUKE STERN, PETER SUTER, MICHAEL THORPE, DAVID ZEIBIN | STRUCTURAL EQUILIBRIUM CONSULTING INC. | MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL INTEGRAL GROUP | CIVIL CREUS ENGINEERING | LANDSCAPE PHILIPS FARVAAG SMALLENBERG | AUDIOVISUAL MC SQUARED SYSTEM DESIGN GROUP | CODE LMDG | ENVELOPE SPRATT EMANUEL | FLOOD KERR WOOD LEIDAL | GEOTECHNICAL GEOPACIFIC | LIGHTING HORTON LEES BROGDEN | SNOW MOUNTAIN RESORT ENGINEERING | SPECIFICATIONS SUSAN MORRIS SPECIFICATIONS | SURVEY SURVEY SERVICES LTD. | CONTRACTOR AXIOM BUILDERS | AREA 56,000 FT 2 | BUDGET WITHHELD | COMPLETION SPRING 2016

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A loft-like lounge caps the museum visitor’s journey through the exhibitions . CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT A view of one of the gallery spaces; a wood-clad stair echoes the drama of the covered entry porch; the opening gallery showcases artifacts from Northwest Coast Indigenous groups.

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A LIGHT-INFUSED SWIMMING POOL GENEROUSLY FULFILLS CURRENT COMMUNITY NEEDS, WHILE ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE DENSIFICATION OF SURREY.

Guildford Aquatic Centre, Surrey, British Columbia Bing Thom Architects (Architect of Record) with Shape Architecture (Associate Architect) TEXT Courtney Healey PHOTOS Ema Peter, unless otherwise noted PROJECT

ARCHITECTS

A city’s physical image is defined and codified through periods of rapid growth—think 18th-century London, 19th-century Paris or 20th-century New York. Metro Vancouver is still in the process of becoming, and the City of Surrey, 40 kilometres south of downtown, has emerged as the region’s harbinger of high-minded 21st-century development.

If 19th century Parisians witnessed the emergence of a city shaped

by Haussman, Surrey’s residents are in the midst of a city being shaped

by Bing Thom Architects (BTA).

Surrey is the fastest-growing city in B.C., poised to surpass Vancouver’s population by 2040. It is also full of new Canadians, by age and by country of birth. With over 100,000 children in the province’s largest school district and 43 percent of residents speaking a mother tongue other than English, Surrey earns its slogan: “The Future Lives Here.”

But what form will this future take? Bing Thom began working on this question twenty years ago, when Surrey was more suburban sprawl than LEFT A calm white interior unites the array of pools inside the Guildford Aquatic Centre, one of several new recreation facilities in British Columbia’s fastest growing city.

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ABOVE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP A pool-level plaza allows swimmers to look out onto terrraced raingardens; a suspended walkway will become the pool’s main entryway as the surrounding neighbourhood becomes more dense and pedestrian-friendly; the current principle entry plaza joins the Aquatic Centre to an existing recreation facility. OPPOSITE, TOP TO BOTTOM Large wood trusses cast striking patterns of light and shadow across the space, while doubling as accessways for servicing the lights and fans; universal changerooms contribute to the centre’s sense of spaciousness.

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city. At Surrey Central City, BTA conjured a civic core out of a low-slung shopping mall by placing a university on top. Central City infused Surrey with such newfound pride that they adopted its profile as their civic logo.

This confidence soon spilled over into a massive capital projects campaign to prepare the city for its future growth. Over the past eight years, Surrey has built new libraries (including the Surrey Central Library

by BTA), youth and senior centres, residential developments, police and fire stations, athletic and park facilities, a modern city hall, performing and community art venues, a museum, hospital and university expansions, as well as transit infrastructure. In the end, over $5 billion will be spent in Surrey by various levels of government and developers. One of the latest installments in this architectural cavalcade is the10,400square-metre Guildford Aquatic Centre, by the ever-present BTA in partnership with Shape Architects.

The Guildford Aquatic Centre is a short six kilometres due east of Surrey Central City. The $38.6-million addition to an existing recreation centre houses a 50-metre Olympic pool, leisure pool, water slides, change rooms, sauna and spectator seating. The design team dealt with the programmatic requirements in a straightforward manner in order to focus their energies on transcending mere function— creating what Thom described as “a magic box.” As BTA partner Venelin Kokolov notes, “magic is not extra to the program.”

The exterior form of Guildford stands in stark contrast to much of BTA’s recent work, such as the virtuosic swooping volumes of Arena Stage and the Xiqu Opera House. Here, an unassuming rectilinear concrete parcel is sunk into the landscape. It’s tucked into the northeast corner of a mega-block site at Guildford Town Centre, where sprawling big box stores sit amid acres of surface parking.

The design team’s early decision to orient the building volume toward the street creates the area’s first urban edge. This simple planning

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move projects an optimistic attitude toward a future city that, according to Kokolov, “starts with people first.” It invites smaller-scale, pedestrianfriendly and ecologically sensitive developments to accompany it.

Today, most visitors arrive to the Aquatic Centre by car: they cross a new west-facing plaza and enter directly into the lobby control point, a knuckle of space between the existing recreation centre and the new pool. But Kokolov believes that the “duty of architecture is to plant the seeds for the future now.” It’s a sentiment that echoes the conviction of his mentor, Bing Thom, that the client is more than the person who pays the bills—but also society and the public at large.

Following from this way of thinking, the building is designed to work not only for the car culture of today, but also for a more urban Surrey of the future. BTA and Shape create the possibility for residents to walk up 152 Street and traverse a tree-lined hillscape, entering the building on an

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elevated catwalk that bisects the volume and passes right over the pool— almost as if the street morphed seamlessly into a high-dive platform.

Then and now, a whimsical procession delivers patrons to the reception desk, down a grand stair, through a porous universal change area and straight out into the zero-entry leisure pool. From there, swimmers are whisked through a supercharged swirling river and emerge floating under a waterfall, across from meticulously detailed sauna rooms. Gliding along the 50-metre lap pool, progress is marked by looking up at the ceiling, where 22 sculptural wood trusses glow white.

The ingenious truss structure does much more than hold up the roof: it also addresses the operational shut-downs that usually plague indoor pools. Each truss doubles as a maintenance catwalk, allowing staff to service lights and fans without hauling in lifts and draining the pool. The 30-metre-long V-shaped trusses are made from CNC-cut laminated strand lumber, and were assembled off-site—complete with all attendant mechanical ducts, sprinkler pipes, light fixtures and acoustic panels attached. Truss by truss, the assemblies were craned into place.

When lit, the trusses transcend practicality to become poetic light diffusers. On sunny days, the structure draws long lines of sunlight across the walls, from the skylights down to the tiled landscape below. At pool level, the designers expertly employ water in all its forms to reflect, mist, and flow over sinewy white and grey custom-tiled contours. Precisely placed sections of glazing at deck level provide glimpses of lush terraced gardens outside, without causing excessive glare at the water’s surface.

These subtle interplays between nature and building (and between building and pool) set Guildford apart from other aquatic centres in the region—and are especially impressive considering the modest budget

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and tight timeline. It’s easy to come away from this project wishing there had been just a bit more money. (What more magic might have been made of the roof or the bridge, given a larger purse?)

But overall, the project excels in its restrained and carefully detailed simplicity. The aquatic elements—more typically rendered as cartooncoloured bolt-on solutions—are seamlessly integrated into a calm allwhite space, reigning in the chaos often encountered in a community pool. Exterior surfaces employ four different aggregate mixes, selective sandblasting and an abstract joint pattern to imbue the otherwise utilitarian precast panels with subtle, stone-like qualities.

On an ideal day, last night’s rainwater filters down through Guildford’s terraced gardens and trees cast shadows on its muted gray façade.

Inside, the space is streaming with daylight and punctuated by the brightly coloured swimsuits and joyful shrieks of children. Both inside and out, the building is designed to recede from view. What’s left is elemental—light, water, shadow—a place ready to receive the future city.

In Surrey, that future looks bright.

Courtney Healey is an architect at PUBLIC in Vancouver.

CLIENT CITY OF SURREY | ARCHITECT TEAM BING THOM, VENELIN KOKALOV, MICHAEL HEENEY,

NICK SULLY, ALEC SMITH, SHINOBU HOMMA, JAMES BROWN, FRANCIS YAN, LING MENG, MARCOS HUI, LISA POTOPSINGH, ARTHUR TSENG, AMIRALI JAVIDAN, NICOLE HU, JOHNNIE KUO, DWAYNE SMYTH, LORETTA KONG, NATHANIEL FUNK, DAVID GUENTER, KATHY CHANG | STRUCTURAL FAST+EPP | MECHANICAL AME CONSULTING GROUP | ELECTRICAL APPLIED ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS | LANDSCAPE PWL PARTNERSHIP | INTERIORS BING THOM ARCHITECTS | CONTRACTOR HEATHERBRAE BUILDERS | CODE LMDG | CIVIL COREGROUP CONSULTANTS | ENVELOPE MORRISON HERSHFIELD | ACOUSTIC BKL | A/V MCSQUARED | SIGNAGE LETTERBOX | AREA 112,000 FT 2 | BUDGET $38.6 M | COMPLETION FEBRUARY 2015

1 WEST ENTRY PLAZA 2 STAIRWELL TO RECEPTION LEVEL ABOVE 3 CHANGEROOM 4 LOBBY / RECEPTION

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NEW TOD IN TOWN THE RECENTLY OPENED MARINE GATEWAY COMPLEX

BY PERKINS+WILL AND PCI DEVELOPMENTS EXEMPLIFIES A GROWING PUSH TO CREATE DENSE, MIXED-USE COMMUNITIES ADJACENT TO METRO VANCOUVER’S TRANSIT STATIONS. TEXT

Sean Ruthen Andrew Latreille, unless otherwise noted

PHOTOS

Travelling through Metro Vancouver on any given day, one sees a few dozen cranes in the air assembling business-as-usual residential towers.

More recently, however, a trailblazer has appeared among the usual suspects, wearing its residential and mixed-use density like a badge of honour: the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).

Unlike its predecessor, the podium-tower, which turned land-lift into a development and real estate windfall, the TOD is all about plugging residents into the Smart City. Among its many tenets, the Smart City model advocates for robust public transit systems, enabling healthy urban growth with less reliance on private automobiles. The outcome is that the catchment areas around transit stations become ideal places to rezone to allow for higher density. Because of the city’s Green Building legislation, creating TODs in Vancouver also means providing a community amenity contribution and building to LEED Gold standard (soon to be upgraded to Passive House standard).

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TODs can also provide opportunities for much needed affordable housing—the “missing middle” of the housing market, between single family homes and condominium towers—often built in the form of street-scaled townhouses, duplexes and triplexes. And of course, no TOD is complete without its commercial retail units. A major grocer, drugstore, movie theatre (or a combination of all three) usually anchors larger developments.

A handful of recent TODs in Metro Vancouver deserve attention.

In Burnaby, both Metrotown and Brentwood Mall have massive construction on their peripheries next to their respective SkyTrain stations, with numerous residential high-rises among them. In Surrey, towers continue to rise around the new City Centre in Whalley, while in New Westminster, new towers are being constructed along the waterfront— all within walking distance of SkyTrain stations. With the region’s new Evergreen extension now open, the areas around those stations will surely become bustling nodes of activity, as is finally happening along the Millennium Line at both Brentwood and Lougheed Town Centre, the latter of which plans to redevelop 72 acres with nineteen towers.

By area, the future Oakridge Mall development, by Westbank and Ivanhoé Cambridge with Henriquez Partners Architects, is the biggest TOD project on the desk of Gil Kelley, the City’s newly appointed head planner. The developer’s original proposal provided 2,800 apartments and townhomes in a dozen towers over a 30-acre site. While the scale has been significantly pared down, there still remains the need to densify the immediate neighbourhood around the new Oakridge station, next to downtown Vancouver’s only stand-alone shopping mall.

Two stops to the south, one arrives at what is currently the City of Vancouver’s largest TOD: Marine Gateway, by PCI Developments and Perkins+Will, named for the Canada Line station it straddles. With south

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OPPOSITE Currently the City of Vancouver’s largest transit-oriented development, Marine Gateway is a mixed-use development that adjoins the Skytrain station of the same name. ABOVE, TOP TO BOTTOM The development was designed by Perkins+Will to centre around a commercial plaza; a pedestrian retail street crossing though Marine Gateway gives access to an office tower and residential highrises.

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ABOVE The Skytrain station is accessed from elevators, escalators and stairs that spill into Marine Gateway’s main plaza.

Vancouver’s largest bus interchange mere steps away, it is now one of the busiest hubs on the Canada Line, second only to Vancouver City Centre.

Writing about the recently opened Canada Line (see CA, March 2011), I observed that it would probably be a while until we saw towers rising on the southern slopes of the city around Marine Gateway station, given the area’s industrial composition. Since that time, seven towers have been built, with two more currently under construction. Of all of them however, it is the Perkins+Will development that has done the most heavy lifting for the area, since it shares the same corner as the Canada Line station with a direct connection to its entry plaza.

I recently visited the newly opened development with Perkins+Will principal and project architect Ryan Bragg, MRAIC. He was quick to point out the sound and tactility of the boardwalk along the commercial high street, which in the middle of a weekday was filled with people heading to the bank and to the 3,700-square-metre T&T grocer, the anchor tenant for this new mini-village.

Bragg said that as a commercial-oriented developer, PCI’s mandate for the development was primarily geared towards the commercial success of its retailers, with the size of the residential yield a secondary goal. This was clearly visible when standing in the lobby of a soon-to-be opened fifteen-storey office tower, featuring a breathtaking foyer of polished Vancouver Island marble and a prominent wall display of carved cedar basket lids by Coast Salish artist Susan A. Point. Her work is also featured in the TOD’s main plaza through several other public art commissions, including sculptures next to a water feature representing the Fraser River at the north end of the high street, paired with a Thinkerlike statue of Simon Fraser at the south end. Bragg noted that the materiality of the building at its podium level also complements the public art components of the project—with exposed structural steel, brick and a terracotta cornice that harken back to the area’s industrial past.

With equal parts given over to retail, office and residential uses, PCI has created an enviable elixir. In addition to its residential market and

rental units, commercial tenants include a Cineplex Odeon, a Shopper’s Drug Mart, two banks, and several coffee and food chains. At the south end of the high street is a neighbourhood pub, and at the north end, a 1,100-square-metre soon-to-be-opened dim sum restaurant. Marine Gateway is exceptional since the high concentration of commercial activity makes it a destination as well as home to its residents— a no-brainer given its central position on the Canada Line. With only a few units left to lease, one can imagine the plaza as a constantly busy locale, particularly after the office tower opens.

The buildings themselves are examplars of sustainability, no surprise given the firm’s legacy of environmental stewardship. Seventy percent of their energy is generated from geothermal exchange beneath the site’s massive footprint, along with recovered waste heat from the commercial units.

The residential towers represent a departure from typical Vancouver podium towers: the 25- and 35-storey highrises have a relatively low 50 percent glazing ratio, minimizing solar heat gain to meet recently upgraded energy-efficiency requirements. Between the glazing units, Perkins+Will has used bright green metal panels instead of glass, painted in two directions so the buildings change colour depending on how you look at them.

According to PCI, the Marine Gateway station has experienced a 35 percent increase in ridership since the development opened, and this is prompting further development around the node. This includes two towers by Intracorp and James Cheng, FRAIC directly across the street, and another pair of towers kitty-corner to the site

by Onni Group, currently under construction. The Official Community Plan allows for two more 20-plus-storey towers on the intersection’s fourth corner. And Concord Pacific is also in the process of rezoning a site to the east for further development.

Clearly, Vancouver has reached a crucial moment: the old Expo brownfields are gone, and the only place left to develop is in existing inner city neighbourhoods, mostly populated by single family homes.

If the “missing middle” is going to make a difference in accommodating the region’s anticipated population growth and pressing need for affordable housing, it is most likely going to be concentrated around the transit nodes. In this regard, Marine Gateway, along with its neighbours, is a great leap forward.

However, TODs are not a given, as evidenced by a recent decision to disallow new towers around the Broadway-Commercial Skytrain station, the busiest transit node in the entire Lower Mainland, and an area currently surrounded by aging two- and three-storey structures. Despite this, the local community voiced their opinion and in a recent public hearing prevented tall towers from being built adjacent to the station, arguing that a 35-storey tower-and-podium scheme was grossly out of scale for the neighbourhood.

What are the opportunities for architects and architecture with this new building type? Bragg believes that the architect’s skillset is well honed to resolve the complexity of all the different pieces—whether the balance of retail to residential, or the social sustainability of the enterprise. Architects are also well positioned to explain why cities need to adapt for increased housing density—and why affordable housing, including in TODs, must be part of the solution. Architects need to keep pushing the envelope, encouraging their clients to embrace sustainability and architectural excellence in the finished product, perhaps more with TODs than any other typology. At Marine Gateway, one can see the outcome of a successful collaboration in the project’s transformation of a major Vancouver intersection.

The profession will have a set of interesting opportunities to unpack the latent challenges and opportunities of this new typology, as TODs continue to proliferate in Vancouver, in the Toronto region, and across Canada and the United States.

Sean Ruthen, FRAIC is a Metro Vancouver-based architect and writer, currently working with VIA Architecture.

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Sara Spike CCA Montreal, unless otherwise noted

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AN EXHIBITION AT THE CANADIAN CENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURE EXAMINES THE CONFLICTED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUR NATION’S IDEAL OF NATURE—AND THE REALITIES OF OUR CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENT.

Walking along the main corridor of Montreal’s Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), visitors currently encounter what appears to be a downed hydro tower. Contorted and mangled with its head bowed to the floor, this is Douglas Coupland’s The Ice Storm, a stark reminder of the climate change-influenced weather that left many in Central Canada without electricity for weeks on end in the winter of 1998. Towers like these continue to harness and transport power from the James Bay hydroelectric project, a massive environmental intervention with wide-ranging social and ecological repercussions.

This complex relationship between Canadians and the natural world is at the heart of the CCA’s current exhibition, It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment. From the Group of Seven and the maple leaf to Hinterland Who’s Who and the wildlife on our currency, the Canadian cultural imaginary romanticizes a national affinity with nature. However, as this exhibition reminds visitors, Canada is also a world leader in the development and exploitation of natural resources, and its record of conservation and environmental protection lags behind many other countries. Planned to coincide with Canada’s 150th anniversary, the exhibition foregrounds this contradiction, asking if our super-natural image of Canada needs to be updated.

The political orientation of the show is unambiguous. Seven thematic galleries explore the legacy of what curator Mirko Zardini terms environmental disasters. Visitors are confronted with the consequences of human overconfidence, indifference, and ignorance with regard to the environ-

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ment from the middle of the 20th century to the present. Galleries explore the despoliation of the North, the politics of pipelines, the 1952 Chalk River nuclear meltdown, industrial pollution of lakes and rivers, the depletion of the Atlantic cod stocks, air pollution and acid rain, and the over-harvesting of Canadian forests.

These topics, and the related paradoxes in Canadian national identity they elicit, have long been of interest to historians and others in the environmental humanities. The stories told here are not new, but the CCA brings its unique perspective—and its extraordinary archives—to the presentation of an accessible and compelling interpretation of modern Canadian environmental history. The exhibition pushes the boundaries well beyond even the CCA’s usually capacious definition of architecture.

Designed by Kuehn Malvezzi of Berlin, It’s All Happening So Fast is visually minimalist, dominated by lightboxes and video screens in white rooms, framed documents, and full-wall murals of black-and-white photographs and crisp graphics. The sound design includes ambient broadcasts of Glenn Gould’s Idea of North, testimony by Dene men and women at the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and news footage of environmental activists, in addition to individual listening stations for numerous video clips. Moving through the galleries, the overall mood is sober and thoughtful.

In less capable hands, the show could easily have become a celebration of the aesthetics of industrial modernity or of the heroics of large-scale engineering, but not so here. The opening gallery is representative.

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1 Douglas Coupland’s Slogans for the Twenty-First Century is displayed as part of the exhibition. 2 The Ice Storm, an installation by Douglas Coupland, is a poignant reminder of the effects of severe weather on infrastructural systems. 3 The politics of oil pipelines are highlighted in one of the galleries. 4 Ralph Erskine’s 1958 sketch for a prototype arctic walled city, later developed for Resolute Bay, Northwest Territories (now Nunavut). 5 Towing an iceberg away from a collision course with the Hibernia oil platform in Grand Banks, Newfoundland in 2005. 6 Postcard showing the Superstack in Sudbury, Ontario. 7 Lifeline is an artwork by Peter Von Tiesenhausen that is extended each year to symbolically block pipeline proposals. 8 An improvised oil-spill cleanup at Stanley Park, Vancouver in 1973. 9 Installation view illustrating the depletion of Atlantic cod stocks. 10 An array of contaminated soil bags at Lower Base, Cape Dyer, Nunavut in 2013.

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PHOTOS: 4 ARKITEKTUR- OCH DESIGNCENTRUM (STOCKHOLM) ARKM.1986-17-0362, PHOTO BY ARKDES; 5 RANDY OLSON / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE; 6 UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES, CANADIAN COALITION ON ACID RAIN FONDS. CANADIAN PHOTOSCENE PRODUCTS INC.; 7 PETER VON TIESENHAUSEN; 8 JOHN DENNISTON; 10 MARGO PFEIFF

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It focuses on southern interventions in the North and is primarily concerned with the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line of Cold War radar stations. The narrative does not discuss their innovative design or the engineering challenges of their installation, but rather the ongoing environmental contamination they caused. Likewise, a study of the Sudbury Superstack—the tallest chimney in the Western Hemisphere and the second tallest structure in Canada—explores its contribution to air pollution and acid rain, rather than how the building came to be designed or built. Shifting the focus away from traditional narratives of architecture is welcome and extremely productive. But there also seems to be a mis­sed opportunity for critical ref lection on the specific role architects, designers and engineers have played in the environmental crisis described by the exhibition.

Where architecture—and architects—emerge as an active force is in proposals for sustainable alternatives, including innovative landscape design and autonomous buildings. Documentation of the Maison Bernard Laurin, a passive solar house by De Paoli & Pellissier in Mirabel, Quebec, is a welcome local accent in a story that roves the breadth of the country.

Photographs of the PEI Ark, designed in 1976 by Solsearch Architects, recuperate a forgotten moment of government-funded experimental utopianism, promoting small-scale farming and renewable energy.

A take-away tabloid newspaper, The Reminder, doubles as both a gallery guide and a souvenir multiple, mirroring the prominence of news media in the exhibition. The show incorporates newspaper and magazine clippings, televised documentaries, and videos of nightly news broadcasts, illustrating how historical moments of environmental crisis were publicly narrated, and how Canadians reacted to them at the time. This prominent use of journalism is a refreshing presence at the CCA , which tends

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10

to turn to experts and professional critics for analysis and context. Journalists, along with scholars and activists, are also among the authors of the impressive collection of essays in an accompanying book-length publication, which extends and refines the arguments made by the exhibition.

Above all, the use of vintage news media underscores the dominant impression left by the exhibition: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Canadians have been concerned about the destruction of the environment for decades, and although numerous protections and improvements have been put in place, in many cases we are still having the same conversations.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the tireless work of Indigenous activists. A 1976 CBC documentary about mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrows First Nation—a crisis which continues to make itself felt—and the voices raised in opposition to the Mackenzie Valley pipeline in 1974 are clearly echoed in the Water Is Life movement today. Although the contemporary perspectives of those fighting the Muskrat Falls dam in Labrador, Northern Gateway in B.C., or the Dakota Access pipeline in Standing Rock, N.D., are not included in the exhibition, the continuities are impossible to ignore.

Contrary to the title of this exhibition, it is evident that change comes very slowly in Canadian environmental history. Activist curatorial work such as this may act as a catalyst, showing a way forward by reconsidering the past.

Sara Spike, PhD, is a historian of the Canadian environment, rural places, and visual culture.

It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment is on view at the CCA until April 9, 2017.

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COURTESY OF SOLSEARCH ARCHITECTS / BGHJ ARCHITECTS

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REVIEW

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LIVING LIGHTLY ON THE EARTH TEXT

John Leroux

PHOTO BY HILDE MAINGAY, COURTESY EARLE BARNHART & HILDE MAINGAY

THE PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ARK, A 1970S BIOSHELTER, OFFERS LESSONS FOR THE PRESENT IN AN EXHIBITION AT THE CONFEDERATION CENTRE OF THE ARTS IN CHARLOTTETOWN.

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Prince Edward Island’s two most iconic works of modern architecture couldn’t be more different. But at this moment, the brutalist stone-clad Confederation Centre of the Arts in downtown Charlottetown and the earthy wood-framed PEI Ark at Spry Point are intimately connected.

The Confederation Centre is currently hosting an exceptional exhibition revisiting the Ark—a mid-1970s bioshelter, and one of Canada’s most admirable exercises in fusing visionary environmental stewardship with viable building and living practices.

Both the Confederation Centre and the Ark were lauded projects at their respective openings. Their differences in sensibility show how far social and political attitudes had shifted in the decade between the heady days leading up to Canada’s Centennial, and the mid-1970s, when environmental awareness and the aftershocks of the energy crisis were paramount.

The “back to the land” movement of the 1970s and its DIY attitude of building simply, using local technologies, helped make the Ark a focus of national attention. Officially opened in 1976, the Ark was the brainchild of the New England-based New Alchemy Institute, an ecological research centre. Its design was shaped by Solsearch Architects (now BGHJ Architects) a partnership of young architects David Bergmark, FRAIC and Ole Hammarlund, both of whom moved to PEI from the northeastern United States to work on the project. Bergmark and Hammarlund saw the Ark as “an early exploration in weaving together the sun, wind, biology and architecture for the benefit of humanity.”

The Ark was constructed of 2x6 wood studs, and clad in local wood and inexpensive (but resilient) acrylic glazing. It was an integrated ecological design that was part food-producing greenhouse, part aquaculture fish farm, and part autonomous family home. The whole was wrapped in a simple, yet sophisticated, systems-based structure.

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NANCY WILLIS

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OPPOSITE TOP An image of the PEI Ark just after completion, showing its south-facing greenhouse and solar panel arrays. OPPOSITE LEFT John Todd of the New Alchemy Institute explains the bioshelter’s agriculture and aquaculture systems in the Ark to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. ABOVE Children play in front of the wood-clad house in 1974.

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SECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

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Exposed mechanical and plumbing runs, a rock-filled heat sink, and early solar collector panels proudly lined the building, while the dining room overlooked the greenhouse interior through a generous clerestory. It acted as an experimental living laboratory, welcoming visitors with open arms.

The building was so successful in embodying the 1970s zeitgeist that Prime Minister Trudeau attended the opening, famously landing in a helicopter before addressing the gathered crowd. Unreservedly connecting this project on the periphery of North America to a new path forward for the planet, Trudeau said: “More than one hundred years ago, the idea of Confederation was developed here, and now I like to think that this Island, which has shown hospitality to this political idea which created Canada, is now providing hospitality to a new commitment: a commitment that environmentalists refer to—and I think it’s a beautiful phrase—as ‘living lightly on the earth’.”

Over the ensuing decades, the project’s reception shifted from enthusiasm and inspiration to neglect and abandonment. It was unceremoniously demolished 16 years ago. But through reconsideration and this incisive exhibition, it matters once again—perhaps even more than ever.

Through this exhibition, the Confederation Centre’s art gallery is lovingly transformed into a reliquary of lost space and memory, curated by Steven Mannell, FRAIC, professor of architecture and the director of the College of Sustainability at Dalhousie University. Marking the Ark’s 40th anniversary, the exhibition includes photographs, models, framed magazine features, and a video featuring the Solsearch duo as they rebuild a period model of the Ark. Suites of hand-drafted ink drawings line the meandering walls, ranging from evocative sketches (with pitchforks on the back of pickup trucks) and early building sections, to more technical final plans.

Bounding the exhibition are large-scale blowups of section drawings—showing in no uncertain terms the intertwining of living and working space, mechanical systems, and architectural intention, all deferring to solar orientation and efficiency. In the present era of computer graphics and photorealistic excess, the architects’ handcrafted graphic materials slow you down as an observer. They also take you right into the core of the Ark idea, evoking Bergmark and Hammarlund’s personal vision of this particular place, with the history and ecological spirit of the time. A playful sense of whimsy is also evidenced in the gallery itself, with cylindrical fish tanks swimming with life in a side room, and a full-scale mock-up of the greenhouse and its sloping glazed roof in part of the main space.

Above all, Living Lightly on the Earth’s power is in gathering memories; particularly visual memories of those who conceived and built the Ark, and the families who lived in it for the first few years. Equally poignant are the people and events captured on film, such as the video of the Trudeau opening ceremony, and photo stills of an older local woman who sang to the Prime Minister with her hair still in a hairnet and curlers. Bergmark recalls, “she didn’t want to ruin her hair for the evening reception later on.”

The memory of a compelling idea can transcend loss, and the pursuit of integrity and humanity in our environment is a battle too important to be left on an archival shelf. In this moment when we stand at an environmental crossroads, this exhibition reminds us how a bold vision of community stewardship, combined with sustainable architectural and technological practices, can make a difference. As Bergmark reflected, “The greatest impact wasn’t the Ark Project itself—it was the dialogue the Ark continues to inspire in our lives and work.”

STEVEN MANNELL

JOHN LEROUX

JOHN LEROUX

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REVIEW

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ABOVE, TOP TO BOTTOM Architect David Bergmark places a model of the PEI Ark on its pedestal; a full-scale mock-up of the greenhouse space that was integral to the house’s agricultural and heating systems is part of the exhibition; a wooden model shows the house in its topographic context, including its large bank of south-facing photovoltaic panels.

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John Leroux is an architect, historian and writer based in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Living Lightly on the Earth: Building an Ark for Prince Edward Island, 1974-76 is on view at the Confederation Centre of the Arts until April 30, 2017. An accompanying book, published by Dalhousie Architectural Press, is forthcoming.

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Beyond Patronage: Reconsidering Models of Practice Edited by Martha Bohm, Joyce Hwang, Gabrielle Printz. Actar, 2015.

The recently published Beyond Patronage begins with the premise that we now live in a “post-world”: post-industrial, post-bubble economy and post-Kyoto Protocol. The book wrestles with the subsequent implications for emerging and experimental architectural practices. But where this edited volume begins to navigate especially fraught territory is when it inserts questions of identity politics into this supposed seamlessly pluralist and globalized “post-world” of architectural practice.

Edited by Martha Bohm, Joyce Hwang and Gabrielle Printz, Beyond Patronage developed out of a symposium hosted by the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo. As an extension of the symposium, the volume includes both collected essays based on presentations, as well as subsequent participant interviews generated from event discussions.

The material is thematically organized around three identities that allow the architect to address the 21st-century challenges of this “post-world”: architect as initiator, architect as detective, and architect as advocate.

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BOOKS

Examining a range of applied examples in professional practice, the architect as initiator is modelled on the entrepreneur.

The architect as detective highlights skills at sleuthing out hidden social and environmental potential. And the architect as advocate studies professional strategies for identifying and reaching new clientele who are typically neglected by the field.

The choice of contributors deliberately engages questions of identity within this rich exploration of contemporary professional practice: all of the authors are female. With this overlapping between the identities of those who are challenging the norms of architectural practice, and the methods by which they do it, the book begins to illustrate the challenges of engaging with identity politics. At once equitable and protective, it points to the complexity with which the field of architectural practice has shifted in the 21st century.

Christina Gray is a PhD candidate in architectural history at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Places of the Heart

By Colin Ellard. Bellevue Literary Press, 2015.

Colin Ellard’s Places of the Heart makes a powerful argument for the paramount importance of our daily surroundings. Through the lens of neuroscientific research, Ellard explores how architecture and landscape affect the human body and brain—and how environments can be fashioned that are more stimulating and joyful for people.

The book opens with the author’s childhood memory of visiting Stonehenge with his father. Ellard had a “deliciously creepy feeling” about the monument when he was six; he narrates the shift from his childhood emotional response to a critical response as an adult. Now, as an experimental psychologist, Ellard believes that “observing the intricate relationships between our lived experiences and the places that contain them” is key to building better environments.

At its core, the book focuses on how places can impact our emotional well-being. Ellard analyzes the kind of world we are building: ranging from places of affection to places of awe, and even delving into virtual reality.

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A comprehensive overview of environmental psychology unfolds through a series of case studies and observational investigations, from the biological implications of habitat selection by the black-throated warbler to the convoluted design of modern-day casinos.

Technology plays a dual role in Ellard’s analysis. While virtual reality can be misused to displace the side effects of places on us, technology can also help manage cities’ shrinking resources to improve the performance of buildings. A new generation of emotionsensing technology could even be used to design buildings that adapt to our feelings.

Overall, this book offers readers a deeper appreciation of how architectural and environmental design can affect human well-being.

Ellard provides the scientific backing to affirm what we intuitively know: that designing and building better surroundings can have tangible effects on our health and happiness.

Mohammed Maxwel Hasan is studying architectural technology at Humber College.

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Green Walls 101: Systems Overview & Design

Margolese National Design for LIving Prize

Where is the Critical Voice in Architecture Today?

March 14, 2017

March 24, 2017

April 7, 2017

This half-day course in Milton, Ontario will discuss best construction practices for green façades and living walls. www.greenroofs.org

Duane Linklater lecture

Sylvia McAdam, one of the four founders of grassroots movement Idle No More and this year’s winner of the $50,000 Margolese Prize, lectures at the Vancouver Playhouse. sala.ubc.ca

March 16, 2017

Cree artist Duane Linklater lectures at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture as part of the student-led initiative Treaty Lands, Global Stories. www.uwaterloo.ca

Chevalier Morales lecture March 20, 2017

Stephan Chevalier and Sergio Morales present at the National Gallery of Canada, as part of Carleton University’s Forum Lecture series. www.carleton.ca

Winter Stations To March 27, 2017

The third edition of this design competition transforms six lifeguard stations in The Beaches, a neighbourhood at the east end of Toronto, into temporary art installations. www.winterstations.com

Prairie Wood Solutions Fair

Lois Wellwood lecture March 29, 2017

University of Manitoba alumnus Lois Wellwood, now an interiors practice leader at SOM, speaks in Winnipeg as part of the Environmental Design program’s 50th anniversary lecture series. www.umanitoba.ca

One of a Kind Spring Show & Sale March 29-April 2, 2017

Held at Exhibition Place in Toronto, this juried marketplace brings together makers and buyers who share a commitment to handmade excellence. www.oneofakindshow.com

www.wood-works.ca

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www.daniels.utoronto.ca

To April 1, 2017

This exhibition in Edmonton fosters critical discussion around the best strategies in designing for Alberta’s cold climate.

To April 9, 2017

On display at the CCA in Montreal, this exhibition uses case studies from the past fifty years to examine Canadians’ often conflicted views of the natural environment. In addition to archival material, the exhibition includes work by Douglas Coupland. www.cca.qc.ca

Twenty + Change: Next Generation

The fourth edition of this exhibition and publication series, which showcases emerging designers, is on view at the Idea Exchange in Cambridge, Ontario. www.ideaexchange.org

Vishaan Chakrabarti lecture April 4-7, 2017

Held in Orlando, Florida, Coverings is an international trade show dedicated to ceramic tile and natural stone. www.coverings.com

This one-day conference in Ottawa looks at using new tools in data to build an innovation economy, promote economic productivity, and make government more responsive and efficient.

Speakers include Kevin Lynch of BMO Financial, Josée Touchette of the National Energy Board, and Deputy Secretary to Cabinet Matthew Mendelsohn.

Expo 67: A World of Dreams Opening April 26, 2017

This multimedia exhibition in Montreal revisits Expo ‘67 using archival images and footage from the National Film Board and CBC/Radio Canada. www.stewart-museum.org

Evolution To April 28, 2017

Presented by the Design Exchange in Toronto, this exhibition looks at how nature-inspired paradigms such as biomimicry are inf luencing design thinking in Canada. www.dx.org

Living Lightly on the Earth: Building an Ark for Prince Edward Island, 1974-76 To April 30, 2017

www.joinmade.org

Coverings 2017

April 13, 2017

www.cityage.org

It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment

To April 9, 2017

Sheltered + Exposed

March 23, 2017

This one-day Calgary symposium focuses on wood products and their use in construction, with presentations by architects, engineers and constructors from across Canada and the U.K.

Kenneth Frampton, Craig Buckley and Keller Easterling engage in a discussion and debate about the relationship between architectural production and publishing in this evening event hosted by the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.

CityAge: The Data Effect

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CALENDAR

April 12, 2017

The founder of New York firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) lectures at the University of Calgary on designing the public metropolis. www.ucalgary.ca

Curated by Steven Mannell, this exhibition at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, PEI explores the story of the Ark, an early prototype for a self-sufficient living environment. www.peiark.com

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BACKPAGE

BEN RAHN / A-FRAME

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PHOENIX RISING TEXT

Stephanie Calvet

A FORMER WATER PUMPING STATION IS TRANSFORMED INTO A VILLAGE-LIKE TRANSITIONAL HOUSING AND JOB-TRAINING FACILITY FOR HOMELESS YOUTH. LGA Architectural Partners (LGA) is a cham-

pion for socially innovative architecture and is well known in Toronto for its not-for-profit client portfolio. One of the firm’s longstanding relationships is with the local Eva’s Initiatives for Homeless Youth. They’ve designed three facilities for the organization—the first, a transitional housing facility called Eva’s Phoenix, opened in 2003, the second, a 32-bed emergency shelter called Eva’s Satellite, was completed in 2009.

Last year, a redevelopment in Liberty Village meant that Eva’s Phoenix had to vacate its location in a renovated industrial warehouse.

In partnership with city stakeholders, the facility found a new home: a 1930s art deco municipal waterworks, in a gentrifying area on the western edge of downtown. LGA designed this newest iteration, too. It includes housing for 50 residents making their way from homelessness to independent living, as well as workshops to train them with job-ready skills.

The building’s non-descript exterior has few windows, but the interior couldn’t be more different. Envisioned as a neighbourhood within a building, Eva’s Phoenix is light, bright and uplifting. The residential area consists of a skylight-topped triple-height atrium, under which

ten townhouse-style units line an internal street. Stoop-like entries to each unit provide a sheltered-space-cum-transition-zone leading to ground floor living and common areas; on the second floor, each townhouse has five bedrooms. Atop the townhouses are offices for meetings and counseling, while a deepened basement accommodates a full-service commercial print shop for employment training.

To create the streetscape-like interior, LGA worked with the municipal planning department to devise alternative solutions to building code requirements. In particular, light models were used to understand and maximize the amount of borrowed light each bedroom would capture. In doing so, there was much fine-tuning to balance face-to-face unit separation, room sizes, openness and privacy. Best understood in section, the building is conceived as a series of layers, with the most public spaces at the edges and the most private areas protected inside.

Spaces are carefully calibrated to establish the right balance of openness and privacy. “The layering and interconnected spaces improve safety, visibility and audibility, while also contributing to a non-institutional feeling,” says LGA partner and co-founder Dean Goodman.

ABOVE Temporary residences for homeless youth are arrayed along a sunny interior street in a new project in downtown Toronto.

The character of the former waterworks comes through at strategic moments, where existing Douglas fir, brick and steel are left exposed.

These are paired with simple concrete and painted drywall, in calming tones. The design also includes future-proofing moves like an extended elevator shaft and additional reinforcing structure, opening the possibility of eventually adding a fourth floor to house Eva’s headquarter offices.

With this design, Eva’s and LGA achieve much more than the creation of a much-needed youth shelter and programming. Eva’s Phoenix is a real-world ecosystem that is safe and homelike. It welcomes at-risk youth to build their social muscles and develop life skills as a community within a community. Its very presence in a busy downtown area makes a bold statement about the kind of city we want to build, and how architects can continue to influence urban diversity and integration in meaningful, holistic ways. Compared to typically institutional designs, this typology’s sensitive approach better enables disenfranchised youth to navigate the gulf between isolation and inclusion—and, one hopes, to thrive.

Stephanie Calvet is a Toronto-based architect and writer.

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