Canadian Architect March 2019

mar/19 v.64 n.03

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Parliament Hill

canadian architect

March 2019 03

tom arban

04 Viewpoint

It’s time to bring a bigger vision to the revitalization of 24 Sussex.

07 News

Xiqu Centre opens in Hong Kong; Vancouver Art Gallery announces $40-million donation; Quadrangle joins UK-based BDP.

33 report

Aaron Pollock and Laurène Bachand report on an ideas com­ petition to reimagine a waterfront site in Winnipeg.

37 Books

Shelagh McCartney reviews a new volume on indigenizing architecture.

38 Calendar

12

Conferences, lectures, and exhibitions across Canada and beyond.

12 West Block Rehabilitation Project rchitecture49 and EVOQ Architecture have transformed Parliament Hill’s West Block A into the temporary home for the House of Commons. TEXT Elsa Lam

42 backpage

Jill Stoner reflects on the National Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa, designed by Daniel Libeskind.

21 SEnate of canada building

ttawa’s former Union Station now houses the interim Senate Chamber, O in a revitalization by Diamond Schmitt with KWC Architects. TEXT Kristen Gagnon

27 Government of Canada Visitor Welcome Centre James Brittain

Tom Arban

he first new building on Parliament Hill in nearly a century is an elegant facility T

by IBI Group and Moriyama & Teshima Architects. TEXT Elsa Lam

West Block Rehabilitation Project, by Architecture49 and EVOQ Architecture, architects in joint venture. Photo by Tom Arban.

COVER

v.64 n.03

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27

The National Review of Design and Practice / The Official Magazine of the RAIC

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canadian architect 03/19

04

Viewpoint

24 Sussex was built between 1868 and 1888 by lumber baron Joseph Merrill Currier.

Alasdair McLellan

ABOVE

It’s time to tackle 24 Sussex The prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex Drive is in critical condition. Its last major renovation was in 1951, and, according to an NCC report issued last year, its building systems “have reached the point of imminent or actual failure.” There is no central air conditioning, so window units are used in each room. The wiring poses a fire hazard. A pool building, added in the 1970s, is rotting and mouldy. The NCC estimates that the house will cost $34.53 million to rehabilitate.

Renovating the house is a political hot potato: no prime minister wants to be seen as spending public money on improving 24 Sussex for their personal comfort. It’s a theme embedded in the history of the house. When the decision was made in 1950 to refurbish the property as an official residence, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent moved in reluctantly, and insisted on paying rent—a practice that continued until 1971.

This sense of parsimony has, it seems, also been extended to the visioning of the house itself. It’s a designated heritage property, which makes it politically safest to undertake a sensitive (and preferably undetectable) renewal, if and when the decision is made to proceed. But could more be done?

Some have called for an outright demolition of the building, which would set a dangerous precedent for heritage structures.

A more realistic approach may be a hybrid of conservation and contemporary design.

How might elements of the original Victorian structure be combined with the most salient moves in the 1950 renovation, and contemporary upgrades be sensitively layered onto these? Since the house will need to be gutted, and only its exterior features are designated, what about preserving the envelope, and re-planning the building’s entire interior?

Is there a way to render the residence net-zero energy and net-zero carbon, showing how these goals can be accomplished within a 150-year-old structure? What about holding an open architectural design competition, soliciting approaches that give the house

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a fresh identity firmly rooted in its heritage?

One needn’t look far for inspiration. As part of the Parliamentary Precinct renewal, a number of heritage buildings have been rehabilitated to accommodate demanding new uses, while benefitting from a contemporary architectural vision. The just-completed West Block puts the House of Commons in a stateof-the-art, glass-roofed courtyard, remade from an exterior service area (see page 12).

Union Station is now housing the temporary Senate, showcasing careful restoration along with contemporary craft and architectural interventions (see page 21). The former Bank of Montreal building has been brilliantly restored and refurbished as a high-tech conference centre (CA, January 2016).

As part of the renewal, the program of the residence should also be revisited, in public view—a process that could help dispel perceptions of the rehabilitation as a prime ministerial extravagance. In fact, only 20 percent of the building is designated as a private space for the prime minister and his or her family.

The rest is office and State space—although at present, areas such as the dining room are too large for a family and too small for State dinners. Making these areas more functional would help the building be better used (and seen) as a diplomatic venue, and not just a private residence. Other functions may also be added—high-level meeting spaces, reception areas, room for a researcher-in-residence.

The upcoming election makes this a good moment to take action on 24 Sussex, as it’s not a given that the current prime minister will occupy the house. Debate over the future of the property recently flared up in the wake of a New York Times article about Justin Trudeau’s “official fixer-upper.” The state of 24 Sussex is a national embarrassment. But it might, with a bit of political courage, be transformed into an opportunity to showcase the expertise of Canada’s best heritage professionals and architects.

Elsa Lam

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canadian architect 03/19

news Projects

The landmark Xiqu Centre, designed by Revery Architecture (formerly Bing Thom Architects) and Hong Kong-based Ronald Lu & Partners in joint venture, has officially opened.

The Xiqu Centre is the first performing arts centre in Hong Kong’s new West Kowloon Cultural District dedicated to Xiqu opera, the most traditional form of Chinese theatre.

Conceived as a cultural sanctuary blending theatre, art and public space for celebration and contemplation, the design includes a 1,000seat main auditorium suspended at the top of the building. The complex lifting process took three days to complete. The elevated theatre opens up space beneath for a bright and lively atrium and interior courtyard plaza that is open at all four corners for the public to freely come and go to enjoy exhibitions, smaller performances, shops and demonstrations of Xiqu opera.

The Xiqu Centre embraces the cultural richness of East and West by creating a contemporary expression that allows this ancient art form to continue its trajectory as it evolves with contemporary technology.

With its brilliant façade and reinterpretation of the customary Chinese Moon Gate motif, Xiqu Centre acts as the gateway to the city’s new precinct for arts and culture. The iconic performing arts venue is to be featured on the new Hong Kong $100 banknote, emphasizing its social and cultural significance. www.reveryarchitecture.com

Vancouver Art Gallery announces $40 million donation and finalized design

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The Vancouver Art Gallery is celebrating a major milestone toward the realization of a transformational new building with the announcement of a $40-million lead gift from the Chan Family. The gift brings the Gallery’s capital campaign to $85 million in private sector funding toward the new purposebuilt facility. In recognition of this gift, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new building will be named the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts.

The Vancouver Art Gallery has also unveiled the final designs for its 27,870 m 2 building by Swiss-based architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron in collaboration with executive architect Perkins+Will Vancouver.

Designed to serve the Gallery’s growing collection and to present art and educational programs for its expanding audiences, the new Vancouver Art Gallery will provide a global platform for Canada’s arts scene.

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Ema Peter

Revery Architecture completes Hong Kong’s Xiqu Centre

The Xiqu Centre for opera has opened in Hong Kong’s new West Kowloon Cultural District. The landmark buidling was designed by Revery Architecture with Ronald Lu & Partners.

ABOVE

By lifting the bulk of the structure high above the street, the design allows light and air to filter down to an active, open-air courtyard below. “The project for the new Vancouver Art Gallery has a civic dimension that can contribute to the life and identity of the city, in which many artists of international reputation live and work,” says Christine Binswanger, Partner in Charge, Herzog & de Meuron. “The building now combines two materials—wood and glass—both inseparable from the history and making of the city.

We developed a façade out of glass logs which is pure, soft, and light, establishing a unique relation to covered wooden terraces all around the building.” www.vanartgallery.bc.ca / herzogdemeuron.com / perkinswill.com

Grey Nuns and PARA-SOL unveil redevelopment of Youville Mother House

The congregation of the Grey Nuns of Montreal has announced a major conservation

ABOVE Montreal’s Grey Nuns are working with PARA-SOL architecture et développement to redevelop the Youville Mother House near downtown Montreal.

2019-02-20 12:30 PM

canadian architect 03/19

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news

project for the former Hôpital Général de Montréal, located in Pointe-à-Callière, known today as the Youville Mother House.

The heritage-designated building complex includes architectural elements that date back to 1693. The project is spearheaded by the Grey Nuns, with design by PARA-SOL architecture et développement, and aims at breathing new life into the existing site by giving it a new heritage, cultural and educational mission.

The project will provide unique access to heritage buildings that bear witness to the New France era. Visitors will be able to explore places like the Room for the Poor, which has survived virtually intact from the 17th century and where the needy could find a meal and warmth. A vaulted cellar, unique for its size and for housing an original bread oven, will also be accessible.

Espace Marguerite d’Youville will become the new home for Université de Montréal’s citizen archeology lab, also known as the sustainable archeology lab.

The redevelopment of the historic buildings will require an investment of $35.2 million and will take around two years. www.sgm.qc.ca / para-sol.ca

B+H Architects reveals design for SickKids Patient Support Centre

In late January, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) revealed the design for its 22-storey Patient Support Centre (PSC), which will provide new office and research space for staff. Located at the hospital’s downtown campus and designed by B+H Architects, the proposed tower includes an undulating facade and a blue, glass-encased ribbon staircase. The building is designed to promote interdisciplinary education and stimulation.

“The design of the new Patient Support Centre provides an important architectural framework for a workplace environment designed to transform the way SickKids works,” says Patrick Fejér, Project Lead and Senior Design Principal at B+H. “The PSC is being designed to create an inspiring environment that supports the needs of healthcare providers, fosters collaboration and helps to accelerate innovation.”

The PSC is the first phase of Project Horizon—the SickKids campus redevelopment plan which aims to build an inspired, re-imagined hospital of the future. A café and retail atrium at the ground level opens up the corner of Elizabeth and Elm streets and activates the public realm, creating a new social hub and destination for the surrounding community.

The lower floors, which will also be accessible

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30th-largest architectural practice in the world, according to World Architecture 100, Building Design’s 2019 compendium of the world’s biggest practices. Quadrangle is currently ranked at position 94 on the same list. www.quadrangle.ca / bdp.com

New federal funding to spur CCA building retrofit

B&H Architects has revealed the design for a 22-storey Patient Support Centre for SickKids, at the corner of Elizabeth and Elm Streets in downtown Toronto.

ABOVE

to the public, are proposed to include educational spaces, a learning institute, and a library and conference centre.

Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in late 2019, with a targeted 2022 completion. www.sickkids.ca / bharchitects.com

WHAT’S NEW Toronto’s Quadrangle joins forces with UK-based BDP BDP, a major international practice of archi-

tects, designers, engineers and urbanists primarily based in the UK, has made a strategic investment in Toronto-based architecture and interior design practice Quadrangle. Quadrangle will lead Canadian operations and BDP ’s North American expansion. Quadrangle is now owned by a group that includes BDP as the most significant investor, holding a minority stake.

“We are incredibly excited to join BDP. This partnership infuses our business with greater expertise, services and resources that we can offer to our clients, and it enables us to provide our staff with increased opportunities to work on diverse projects,” said Quadrangle Executive Principal Anna Madeira.

With 378 qualified architects, BDP is the

On February 11, the Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism, announced more than $1.2 million in funding for the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). This support, provided through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, will allow the organization to preserve its collections and welcome visitors in a more secure environment.

The CCA plans to replace the building’s roofs and its fire protection system, as well as to optimize storage areas. This renovation project will ensure that the building on Baile Street is brought up to standard.

“This important funding from Canadian Heritage during our 40th anniversary year will allow us to continue to modernize the CCA’s physical building in Montreal, as we work to expand our offerings online, as well as internationally. I am thankful that the support of major cultural institutions remains a top priority for the Department, as centres like ours help enrich Canada by getting society to address important subjects,” says CCA Director Mirko Zardini. www.cca.qc.ca

Movement to save Eb Zeidler’s Ontario Place gains traction

Opened in 1971, Ontario Place sought to revitalize Toronto’s waterfront by creating a large urban park on a previously neglected segment of the shoreline. Designed by Eb Zeidler, the multi-award-winning project consists of 90 acres of engineered islands and lagoons. The centrepiece of the complex is a group of five exhibition pavilions suspended high above the water, along with the world’s first permanent IMAX theatre, the Cinesphere.

The future of the complex is currently in question, in the wake of the Ontario government’s announcement that it is seeking expressions of interest for development concepts for the site that could include replacing its existing structures.

The Toronto Society of Architects is currently working to organize a one-day charrette to explore the future of Ontario Place on March 30. The charrette is intended to encourage creative thinking, cross-disciplin-

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10 ary collaboration, and community involvement prior to the release of the new Expression of Interest. The ideas and discussions generated in the charrette will be documented and made available to the Government of Ontario and the general public.

Jeff Balmer, a University of North Carolina architecture professor who was born in Toronto, has created an online petition calling on the government to preserve Ontario Place with many of its existing structures.

The park is one of the most “striking and culturally significant” works of modernist architecture in the city, he says. “The existing Ontario Place buildings, including the Cinesphere, pods, and the archipelago of small interconnected islands are a significant landmark of 20th-century architecture in Canada.” www.torontosocietyofarchitects.ca

change.org/p/premier-doug-ford-save-our-ontario-place

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Data and the Smart City

"Hire an FCSI Foodservice consultant to assist in your planning process we will make a difference"

PHONE: 416-219-3555 EMAIL: CANADA@FCSI.ORG

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Last month’s Viewpoint on Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto’s urban design proposal, Sidewalk Toronto (CA, February 2019), began with a mention of the political turmoil over data privacy issues associated with the project.

It’s worth spending a little more time on those issues. They are serious enough to have prompted the resignation in October of Saadia Muzaffar, member of the Waterfront Toronto Digital Strategy Advisory Panel. As reported by the CBC, the founder of TechGirls Canada resigned in protest over Waterfront Toronto’s failure to address questions about data privacy and intellectual property. Who will have rights over the data flowing through this space? We don’t yet know.

The business plan of digital media giants like Google is largely based on the monetization of user data. As the saying goes, if you’re not paying for digital products, then you—in the form of data about your spending habits or your political beliefs—are the real product being sold. As we have learned from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the data of Facebook users was bought and used as the basis of voter manipulation by supporters of pro-Trump and pro-Brexit campaigns, the misuse of this data can have very real political and public impacts. This is the concern behind the criticisms of the involvement of Alphabet—Google’s parent company—in the design of Sidewalk Labs’ new urban design proposal.

The political dimension of data should matter to architects. The spaces we create used to be stages for political and social discourse— this was one of the great roles of architecture. Not so long ago, when popular use of the internet first became a thing, there was concern that political and social discourse that had once belonged in public space was being displaced to social media. The “public realm” seemed to be shifting from civic space to virtual space, with a corresponding impoverishment of architecture. A related concern was that the social media spaces to which discourse was migrating were privately owned, and there was no guarantee of free speech there. They were like virtual versions of Privately Owned Public Spaces, or POPS, which provide spaces for shopping and being in “public,” but guarantee no freedom to speak out, to protest, or simply to hang out without contributing to profit-making activities.

One interesting aspect of Quayside is that its convergence of digital and material spaces might offer the opportunity for a re-alignment of public discourse (as manifested in the conversations that go on in the virtual realm) with architectural and civic space. But debates about this project tend to focus on data, its potential monetary value, and the control over it in terms of privacy issues and intellectual property rights.

The political dimension of these flows of information seems to have little

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value beyond what the deluge of bits can be bought and sold for. We live in a world in dire need of civil discourse—which powerful political players do their utmost to disrupt. The civic rules that govern places like Sidewalk Toronto, what is said and transmitted there, must guarantee not just the privacy of data and discourse, but also its publicity—its public nature, its right to a place in the city.

Lawrence Bird, MAA MRAIC MCIP MPPI RPP LEED®GA PhD, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Biidaaban

I am pleased to see coverage of Biidaaban (CA, January 2019)—thank you for drawing your readers’ attention to its provocative images and concept. Rather than frightening, I find Jackson and Borett’s vision of a reclaimed Toronto inspiring, powerful and beautiful. As it travels the country, may it generate further public conversation and thoughtful consideration, particularly among civic leaders, urbanists, architects, architectural historians, and heritage conservationists.

Laurie Brady, PhD, specialist in built heritage, Hamil-

MEMORANDA Building Equality in Architecture launches Nova Scotia chapter

On January 17, the official launch of the Nova Scotia chapter of Building Equality in Architecture Atlantic (BEA Atlantic) was celebrated in Halifax. The chapter aims to connect the Atlantic provinces through public outreach events, lectures, and workshops—initiatives that will develop strategies and practices of equality in architecture across the Maritimes. In 2019, BEA Atlantic will launch new chapters in PEI and Newfoundland to strengthen local programming.

Entries open for RBC Canadian Emerging Designer competition

The Design Exchange (DX ) and the RBC Foundation have announced the fourth edition of the RBC Canadian Emerging Designer Competition. The competition is open to all Canadian citizens and permanent residents, aged 18 to 35, working in graphic design and visual communication, industrial design, interior design, architecture, fashion, UX design, product design, or digital media.

Submissions are due by April 15, 2019. www.dx.org

ERRATUM

www.beaatlantic.com

RAIC Foundation invites applications for bursaries and scholarships

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Foundation is inviting Canadian architecture and design students to apply for several substantial scholarships and awards, with submissions due in late April and early May. www.raicf.ca/en

ton, Ontario

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news

In our article on the Bentway (CA, February 2019), it was stated that the project was designed by PUBLIC WORK in collaboration with Gensler. To clarify, The Bentway was designed by PUBLIC WORK , who was the lead designer and prime consultant for the overall project. PUBLIC WORK worked in collaboration with Gensler, who was the architect of record for the building underneath the Strachan Gate Bleacher.

Congratulations The Alberta Association of Architects would like to recognize our newest architects and licensed interior designers.

Moving from internship to registered architect or licensed interior designer is a milestone that takes many years and countless hours to achieve. Congratulations on your hard work and perseverance!

Architect, AAA Eragbai E. Pogoson Christian D. Minke Richard T. Anderson Nathanial R. Wagenaar Ryan J. Agrey Marc P. Haberli Heather R. Belsey Christopher R. Onyszchuk Charles C. Moorhouse Jade M. Getz

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Sean D. S. Knight Steven Shamchuk Veronica I. Hernandez Ibarra Erin R. Blankenau Rastislav Zabka Ashraf M. Kamal Robert A. Gairns Richard B. Cotter Lyssa R. Hulsebosch Claire E. Cowling

Tara A. Kunst Carey L. van der Zalm Erin L. Faulkner Coralee R. Brin Carly M. Moore Krista Lauridsen Janay M. Stenberg Holly B. Simon Jesse D. Potrie Sydney A. Madi

Sathyanarayanan Ramachandran Ignacio De Lorenzo Cuenca Lisa J. Kellerman

Licensed Interior Designer, AAA Robert S. Crawford Lindsay A. Gurevitch

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House Leader In a two-decade-long project, Parliament Hill’s West Block has been meticulously restored, and a monumental glass roof added over its courtyard to crown the interim House of Commons.

West Block Rehabilitation Project, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario ARCHITECTS Architecture49 and EVOQ Architecture, architects in joint venture TEXT Elsa Lam PHOTOS Tom Arban Photography PROJECT

In 1995, Quebec firms Arcop and Fournier Gersovitz Moss and Associates were hired by Public Works and Government Services Canada to rehabilitate the West Block on Parliament Hill. One of two buildings adjacent to Centre Block, the West Block was originally constructed in 1865 to house the Postmaster General, the Ministry of Public Works, and the Crown Lands Department. As the country and its administrative needs expanded, the building was added to in 1875-1878 and again in 1906-1909. But a century later, the masonry of the building was in a dangerous state of disrepair: protective fabric had been put in place around its towers in 2004 to protect the public from eroding mortars.

Design work began, but the project was put on hold in 1999 and did not go out to tender. Then its scope changed radically—from an already major restoration job to a comprehensive adaptive reuse that would transform the primary function of the West Block. Approaching the turn of the century, Public Works had been planning out how to perform restorative upgrades to Centre Block, which houses the House of Commons, Senate, Library of Parliament, and parliamentary offices.

In 2001, they issued the first version of the Long Term Vision and Plan—a 25-year vision that maps out a cascade of building projects and moves needed to allow Centre Block to be vacated and renovated.

The lynchpin of the plan was finding spaces for the House of Commons and Senate—two very big rooms, whose configuration was fixed by codified parliamentary procedures. The Senate, it was determined, would temporarily decamp to the former Union Station, where meetings could be

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The interim House of Commons is housed in a courtyard framed by successive additions to the West Block. Left A gathering area rings the courtyard, with wooden acoustic screens used as partitions. Opposite left Stone carvings were restored throughout the building, including in the entry lobby to the Mackenzie Tower, the most ornate portion of the heritage complex. Opposite right The restoration work also included revitalizing the building’s grand stairways, plasterwork, stained glass windows and floor tiles.

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accommodated in a renovated rail concourse. The House of Commons required an even larger room. Luckily, there was a space with a large enough footprint in the Parliamentary Precinct. It was an unusual one, though: not an interior room, but the exterior courtyard of West Block.

More than two decades later, all three of the proponent parties have changed names: Fournier Gersovitz Moss rebranded as EVOQ , Arcop has become part of Architecture49, and Public Works is now Public Services and Procurement Canada. But a few members of the core design team remained involved throughout the process, and the house is now in session in its new home.

In order to house the House of Commons, an enormous glass roof— about half the size of a soccer pitch—was constructed over the courtyard.

Building a glass roof that large is an audacious move, made even more remarkable by several technical challenges particular to this site.

To start with, to avoid tampering with the heritage-listed West Block— one of North America’s largest load-bearing masonry structures—the new glass roof had to be self-supporting. On the surrounding edges, the glass needed to connect with a picturesque roofline that included projecting turrets, chimneys and vents. Moreover, because parliamentary proceedings are broadcast live, the space had to provide television-studio-grade lighting—free of glare and changing shadows. It also had to be acoustically impeccable to ensure speech intelligibility, even though microphones would be in place to enhance speech and to broadcast the proceedings.

“There are a few examples of courtyards that have been covered with glass roofs in the last 20 years, but they are primarily rectangular spaces with straight, level cornice lines,” says Rosanne Moss, who headed up the interior design of the project as a principal of EVOQ. “This space was a challenge: technically, it was a feat to cover this courtyard in a way that looks coherent and feels quite natural.”

EVOQ and Architecture49 devised a series of tree-like steel columns, inspired by the original building’s neo-gothic style, to support the roof.

“In gothic architecture, often the structure is the architecture,” says Georges Drolet, lead designer and a principal of EVOQ. “The geometry of the structure is the foundation of everything that happens here.”

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The visual theme appears throughout the contemporary addition, including in millwork panelling in the courtyard.

The 51-by-55-metre glass roof is a low, lens-shaped space in section, constructed like a bridge in order to clear the 44-metre-wide span of the courtyard. “One of the requirements was to minimize its visibility on Parliament Hill,” explains James Bridger, project architect and principal of Architecture49. As you approach the West Block, the glass roof is barely noticeable, which keeps the heritage building in the foreground.

From inside, a clerestory is created between the glazed roof and the surrounding mansard-style roofs, with an array of bespoke connections to work around the historic roofs’ dozen protruding elements.

A triple-glazed set of panels tops the roof, with a single-glazed laylight at the bottom and a maintenance platform between. Geometrically, says consultant Marc Simmons of FRONT, the laylight panel layout is “chiselled like a diamond,” with symmetries that reinforce the gothic sensibility of the project. On the top surface, flush pressure plates connect the panels, ensuring that there are no protruding elements to trap snow and ice.

To meet the broadcast requirements, portions of the laylight are acoustically absorbent; in addition, perforated screens fill the branches of the tree-like columns, and transparent acoustic panels are hung from triangular supports along the roof ’s centre line. The roof itself incorporates frits to diffuse light, and both fixed and operable louvres that can automatically adjust to changing daylight conditions. On the partially cloudy day when I visited, the light coming through the multi-layered construction was somewhat muted—an outcome, perhaps, of the tension between creating a glass roof while needing to protect the space beneath from glare, shadows and extraneous noise.

Instead of the television studio-style gantries that are typically used for broadcast lighting, the requirements were achieved using highperformance LEDs integrated into the architectural supports. “We’ve created a space that is achieving better acoustics and better lighting than the original chamber,” says Bridger.

The roofed courtyard is significantly larger than the actual House of Commons Chamber, so the interim Chamber occupies a screened area

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Tree-like steel columns extend up to the glass roof, which had to be self-supporting for heritage preservation reasons. Acoustic panels inserted in the supports are removable, providing flexibility for the future use of the space after the House of Commons returns to Centre Block.

ABOVE Left A series of stacked lobbies in the building’s north wing provides access to the Chamber and viewing galleries. ABOVE right A model illustrates the roof’s construction and the housing of mechanical systems within it.

Opposite

within it—analogous to a clearing in the woods, according to the designers. From the main level, it’s been made to accommodate the ceremonies of the existing House and reuse its furniture. There are a few minor upgrades and changes: the Members of Parliament in the rear rows get their own desks instead of having to share benches, and the Speaker’s Chair is an antique from the era when each Speaker had a bespoke chair. (It was originally made for the Honourable Edgar Nelson Rhodes, Speaker from 1917 to 1922.) The most dramatic view of the renovated courtyard is from the gallery level above, where the press and public convene to watch debates. Here, the full extent of the glass roof can be appreciated, along with the stone walls and copper roofs that ring the large space.

These heritage façades have been meticulously restored to a shine that they had not seen for many decades. Previous to the renewal, the courtyard was used primarily as a service space and to house a 1960s cafeteria block, and its framing façades were badly neglected. Particular care was taken with the east wall, which was part of the original 1865 construction and designed to address an expansive lawn.

Overall, nearly half of the West Block’s exterior masonry was dismantled and rebuilt, and 14% of it was replaced—at the peak of the masonry rehabilitation, over 200 masons were working on the site. Laser cleaning tools were used to bring the stone’s original colours to life, and the grey mortar that had been used for repairs replaced with a black mortar similar in colour to the original soot-based formulation. The mortar lines make the individual blocks visually pop, showing off the zigzag lines of the sandstone trim around windows and the “crazy-quilt” of the spandrel panels—a pattern used to indicate their non-load-bearing nature.

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section 1 CHAMBER 2 CHAMBER LOBBIES 3 COMMITTEE ROOMS 4 SERVICE FLOOR 5 ORIGINAL BUILDING

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ABOVE Technology is seamlessly integrated in a committee room, including broadcast equipment, projection screens, and simultaneous translation services. Opposite A diagram shows the sequence of moves and renovation projects needed to vacate Centre Block for revitalization.

Within the courtyard, the visible copper roofs were repaired with oxidized panels selected for their green patina from existing portions of the roof, before the latter was re-finished with new copper. “You know you’re on the Hill, because this architecture is so present,” says Drolet.

Beyond the Chamber, the project involved excavating three new levels beneath the courtyard for committee rooms and mechanical spaces, seismically retrofitting the heritage masonry structure, and completely rehabilitating the interior of West Block, seamlessly integrating modern mechanical, electrical and IT systems. The building was last upgraded in the 1960s, when it was gutted from the basement up, and finishes were completely redone to the office standards of that time—complete with lay-in suspended ceilings and beige paint colours. The corridors had been left relatively intact, and have been carefully preserved in the current project. The grand stairs have also been restored, including the embellishment of the stair halls with colourful encaustic floor tiles that recreate nineteenth-century originals found at the main entrance vestibules.

The most ornate area of the original building was the 1878 Mackenzie Tower, designed by Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, who served concurrently as Minister of Public Works and had apprenticed as a stonemason. Mackenzie’s offices, housed in this section, were a natural fit for converting into parliamentary offices. During the restoration of the heritage ceilings and plasterwork in this area, the architects discovered details such as a series of late Victorian tiles embedded in the plaster cornice that had been covered over in the 1960s.

Throughout the interior design, care was taken to respect the subtle difference between styles in the different wings of the building. “The 1860s wing is rather unadorned for a neo-Gothic building—the country was new, and it was a building to house civil servants—and we took our cues from that,” says Julia Gersovitz, a principal of EVOQ , who has been partner-incharge of design and conservation since the project’s inception in 1995.

“It’s not a very fussy or ornate [part of the] building, and it’s remained true to its period and what it was. The 1878 wing was much more ornate.”

Interiors that were built from scratch, such as the committee rooms in the newly excavated areas beneath the courtyard, were designed to be distinguishable from, yet compatible with, the nineteenth-century

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building. Technology and accessibility have been integrated into all spaces, helping the building function as a twenty-first-century workplace.

Another aspect of the restoration was a reconsideration of the entrance sequence. Instead of coming through the main doors facing Wellington Street or through the Mackenzie Tower, visitors now enter from the underground Visitor Centre. The north wing of the building was reconfigured as a large lobby space, with entrances to committee rooms and a lantern-like stair leading to the Chamber and its galleries. The stacked lobbies allow visitors to orient themselves: windows on one side look out to the Centre Block, while across the room, one can see the courtyard.

“A big piece of the design was creating a ceremonial, processional way of getting into the building,” says Moss. In the 1960s, the Wellington Street entrance was lowered from the second level to grade; the current renovation restores the elevated “piano nobile” as the main floor of the building.

Much changes over the course of a 24-year-long project. “We fulfilled our initial mandate from way, way back—we rehabilitated West Block according to the new standards,” says Bridger. But in the process, he adds, “the National Building Code evolved, security requirements evolved, Parliamentarians’ needs evolved, technology evolved, accessibility—all of these things evolved as we were designing the project. We were able to respond to each of those new requirements, and still maintain an overall project vision that was rooted in the rehabilitation of an icon.”

Eventually, the House of Commons will return to Centre Block. There is as yet no clear picture of what the courtyard will then be used for—a secondary Chamber, a formal reception area, committee rooms, or infilled offices are some of the possibilities. The rehabilitation has been designed to accommodate such changes, with components such as its acoustic panels made to be easily removeable, and designed with less preciousness than permanent elements such as the glass roof. When the space has evolved into its next iteration, Parliamentarians will return to a legacy Chamber that will be renewed, in part, by the same architects. Architecture49 won a bid to restore Centre Block, working with WSP and HOK. It will be the largest and most complex heritage rehabilitation project ever seen in Canada—a challenge for heritage architects and craftsmen that will rival the impressive work already completed at West Block.

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Long Term Vision and Plan move sequence completed ltvp projects current ltvp projects

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government of canada, 2014-15 long term vision and plan annual report

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CLIENT Public Services and Procurement Canada | ARCHITECT TEAM Architecture49—

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 458 kWh/m2/year | WATER USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) Less

than 1.5 m3/m2/year | Water Use Intensity bENCHMARK 1.59 m3/m2/year for office buildings constructed before 1970 [real pac]

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James Bridger (RAIC ), Bruno Verenini (FRAIC), Norman Glouberman (FRAIC), Arne Sideco, Bozena Jaworska, Joel Prefontaine, Yekaterina Artemchuk, Tina Nuspl, Fabiana Namba, Dave Lemieux, Alexander Smyth, Rene Mariaca, Amanda Gilbert, Christopher Blood, Sally Vandrish, Laura Lynn Da Silva, Ewa Bieniecka (FRAIC), Dexton Bennett, Geoff Bulmer, Marc Gauthier, Amanda Gilbert, Nadia Kriplani, Emma Kuckyt, Daniel Lacroix, Michael Langlois, Zeng Gen Liu, Greg Manley, Greg Mickelson, Michael Miller, Hugh O’Brian, Charles-Antoine Roy, Bunty Sambhi, Marie-Laurence Tailleur-Tremblay, Ewald Thyssen, Jori Toniello, Sally Vandrish. EVOQ— Rosanne Moss (FRAIC ), Georges Drolet (RAIC ), Julia Gersovitz (FRAIC), James L. Curtiss, Catherine Fanous, Jayant Gupta (RAIC), Lee-Christine Bushey, Chloe Blumer, Elizabeth Caron, Troy Tyers, Bryan Mendez, MarieJoëlle Larin-Lampron, Hilary Farmer, Jean-Benoit Bourdeau, Francis Tousignant, Darryl Aldrich, Basel Abbara, Emily Beauregard, Diane Beauvais, Lee-Christine Bushey, Giovanni Diodati, Genevieve Divet, Aliaksei Fedarenka, Janet Garfield, Emad Ghattas, Jayant Gupta, Kaitlin Hebb, Bob Hill, Nancy Labrecque, Julien Miel, Tara Paulose, André Rivard, Eric Stein, Michael Stets, Lian Zhou. Direct Consultants— James L. Hickey, Peter Kindree (FRAIC), Louis Lortie. | STRUCTURAL Ojdrovic Engineering and John G. Cooke and Associates | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Crossey Engineering | LANDSCAPE Groupe BC2 | CIVIL Golder Associates | GEOTECHNICAL Golder Associates (design) and Paterson Group (site supervision) | FAÇADE FRONT | ACOUSTICS State of the Art Acoustik and Acoustic Distinctions | CLIMATE ENGINEERING Transsolar KlimatEngineering | SUSTAINABILITY WSP Canada | LIGHTING OVI and Gabriel Mackinnon Lighting Designers | COMMISSIONING VSC Group | ELEVATORS EXIM | FOOD SERVICES WSP Canada | FIRE AND LIFE SAFETY Morrison Hershfield | COSTING Hanscomb | SCHEDULING Delsaer Management | ENVIRONMENTAL T. Harris Environmental Management | SECURITY Groupe SM | BLAST ENGINEERING Hinman Consulting Engineers | WIND RWDI | HARDWARE JKT Consulting | SIGNAGE JaanKrusbergDesign | MASONRY Consultant in the Conservation of Historic Buildings and Capital Conservation Services | IRONWORK Craig Sims Heritage Building Consultant | PLASTER RESTORATION Historic Plaster Conservation Services | ENVELOPE WSP and Quirouette Building Specialists | STRUCTURAL CODE ANALYSIS Robert Tremblay | SPECIFICATIONS Circumspect | CONTRACTOR PCL Constructors Canada | AREA 30,598 m2 | BUDGET $863 M | COMPLETION September 2018

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Level 2 Plan 1 Visitor Welcome Centre 2 North Court 3 Committee Room 4 Confederation room 5 Mackenzie Tower 6 Courtyard 7 North Wing - Media Scrum

8 Antechamber 9 Opposition Lobby 10 Chamber of the House of Commons 11 Government lobby 12 East Entry 13 South Entry

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Running on Time Housed in a former train station, the new Senate of Canada Building sits at the junction of nineteenth-century craft and twenty-first-century technology.

Senate of Canada Building, Ottawa, Ontario DSA-KWC Architects in Joint Venture TEXT Kristen Gagnon PHOTOS Tom Arban, unless otherwise noted PROJECT

ARCHITECTs

When King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrived in Ottawa for their historic 1939 visit, Their Majesties entered the city through the former Ottawa Union Station, before making their way to Parliament Hill. Eighty years later, the next monarch to visit Canada’s royal-hued Red Chamber will be received not on the Hill, but down the street in what was once Union Station’s bustling concourse hall.

Opened in 1912, the beaux-arts train station was, stylistically, a scaleddown sibling to New York City’s Penn Station. When Ottawa’s train tracks were relocated in the 1960s, it was saved by the heritage movement

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that followed in the wake of Penn Station’s demolition. From 1969 on, the building served as the Government Conference Centre. In the past decade, as plans were made for Canada’s main parliamentary building to close for extensive rehabilitation work, the Senate of Canada decided to revitalize this underused and deteriorating heritage site into its temporary home.

For the building to serve the needs of the Senate, Diamond Schmitt and KWC Architects’ design needed to address the new program and balance the need for high security with the public functions of the building. It also needed to implement major seismic upgrades, bring mechanical and electrical systems up to code, ensure universal design standards were met, introduce state-of-the-art technology and full broadcasting capabilities, and meet stringent acoustic requirements.

The largest physical alteration to the building was the addition of a new eastern façade. The existing blank façade was originally

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composite plan - first & ground floor main entrance block (1st floor)

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A new east façade was added to the project, replacing a blank party wall between the former train station and a now-demolished hotel. left An axial processional route through the former train station leads to the meticulously restored grand waiting area, which now houses two committee rooms.

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a party wall between the train station and a neighbouring hotel; the latter was demolished in the 1960s. The new elevation is a series of projecting limestone fins, rhythmically echoing the building’s west colonnade facing the Rideau Canal.

Inside, the overall space planning restores the original symmetry and processional route through the building, removing additions and partitions from the building’s tenure as a conference centre. According to Diamond Schmitt principal Martin Davidson, “The investigation and research efforts to understand and document the principal conceptual ideas of this beaux-arts building were significant.”

Entering from Rideau Street, dignitaries and visitors proceed south to descend a ceremonial flight of stairs into the former general waiting room—a space whose dramatic vaulted plaster coffer ceilings, cast iron Diocletian arched windows, and marble f loors were meticulously restored. While much of the building was stripped back to its original structure to facilitate the extensive upgrade work, the high heritage spaces were maintained and restored using different strategies. For instance, the ceiling in the great waiting room was carefully stabilized from behind while the exposed plaster was restored from below.

Two bronze-fronted committee rooms were inserted into this space, with a new mezzanine level created above. (Overall, forty percent more usable space was added into the project through the creation of the east addition and mezzanine, which includes a third committee room and lounge areas for staff and senators.) Continuing along the axial route, one arrives at the concourse hall, which will serve as the temporary Senate Chamber. Illuminated glass laylight panels were reintroduced above, restoring the concourse’s former airy atmosphere.

The intersection of classical and contemporary architectural zeitgeists is most evident in the building’s materiality and use of ornament. Great efforts were made to retain the train station’s fixtures and finishes. Paint analysis revealed the original multi-layered colour scheme of the faux

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Martin Davidson, Diamond Schmitt Architects

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The Senate Chamber is housed in the former rail concourse. The restoration includes illuminated laylights atop the high-ceilinged space.

Wooden flags flanking the Speaker’s chair were carved using a digitally manipulated method to create the illusion of movement; cast glass panels include maple leaf motifs that were digitally scanned from hand-sculpted originals by Dominion Sculptor Phil White.

Opposite top

Opposite Bottom, left to right

travertine, long since overpainted, and the effect was carefully replicated.

In contrast, the new elements are complementary in style, but use materials intended to endure, including solid walnut, bronze and cast glass.

These contemporary materials act as canvases for modern interpretations of beaux-arts ornamentation. Outside of the three committee rooms, perforated bronze acoustic screens render archival photographs of Canadian landscapes in a half-tone dot matrix pattern, with spots of varying diameters. The images, selected by the architects to commemorate the building’s original use and symbolize the senate’s duty to Canadians from coast to coast, include Newfoundland’s Cape Race, Alberta’s Banff National Park, and a train crossing a trestle bridge on Vancouver Island.

Depictions of the maple leaf—represented in all ten species native to Canada—can be found carved into the committee room doors, cast into Senate Chamber partitions, and woven into carpets in a pattern that increases in density as one proceeds to the Chamber. “Our interest was to use art and the craft of making in a modern way, to embrace an idea of a Canadian identity that may resonate with all of us,” says Davidson.

Combining traditional and digital tools was another unique aspect of the project. To this end, the project involved both Phil White—the Dominion Sculptor of Canada—and Carleton University’s Immersive Media Studio (CIMS), under the direction of Dr. Stephen Fai. The many maple leaves that adorn the building, for instance, were first drawn

by Diamond Schmitt, then hand-sculpted by White. CIMS made 3D laser scans of the carvings; these digital drawings were composed into panels by the architects, and finally carved from walnut by CNC milling machines. High-density 3D moulds created from the scans also formed the initial step in the process of creating ceramic moulds used in fabricating kiln-fired slumped glass panels for the Antechamber.

A hybrid of hand carving and computer work was also used to create the provincial and territorial shields that line the Senate Chamber walls. The shields are exact replicas of the ones that adorn the walls of West Block, but at two-thirds the size in order to accommodate the rhythm of the pilasters in the new Chamber. The originals, which were hand-carved by White, were digitally scanned and then robotically milled at the reduced scale. White carved the final details by hand and gilded the shields in 24-karat gold leaf. Two wooden Canadian flags in the Chamber were created using a digitally manipulated method of

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carving wood panels: the pitch of the cutting head was varied to mimic movement and depth, creating the illusion that the flags are fluttering.

A significant legacy of the project is that these are Canadian innovations. “This idea of carving something or creating a sculpture, scanning it, and reproducing it using digital technologies is a Canadian technology,” White says. “It was developed here and exported worldwide.”

It is expected that the Senate will return to Centre Block sometime around 2030. Thus, careful thought has also been given to the future of the building once vacated by the Senate. This includes striving for sustainable energy and material use—ninety-five-percent of material waste was saved from landfill and the building is on target to receive three Green Globes—and the introduction of universal design strategies. “The contemporary interventions, primarily informed by heritage concerns, are generally reversible,” says Davidson. “But the bones of it all—the structural, mechanical and electrical systems, integrated virtually invisibly into the building—are all designed for a long run into the future.”

Thus, while the future use of the building is not yet known, what is certain is that it will have a future. That is due in equal part to those who fought to save the building from demolition back in 1967, and to the critical restorative work completed in 2018. Fifty-one years apart, they are both important intersections in the life of this Ottawa landmark.

Ottawa-based Kristen Gagnon is the architecture editor of Spacing.

Client Public Services and Procurement Canada | Architect Team Donald Schmitt (FRAIC), Martin Davidson (FRAIC), Ralph Wiesbrock (FRAIC), Corina Ardeleanu (MRAIC), Matthew Barker, Sharon Birnbaum, Steve Bondar, Sydney Browne (MRAIC), Jenna Chapman, Jeong Choe, Kholisile Dhliwayo, Janis Hamacher (MRAIC), Christopher Hughes (MRAIC), Dieter Janssen (MRAIC), Tamara Khou (MRAIC), Jacqueline Leslie, Catherine Lin (MRAIC), Wen-Ying Lu, Jennifer Mallard (MRAIC), Jessica Martin, Laszlo Mohacsi (MRAIC), Nazia Mulji, Thom Pratt, Graeme Reed, Fernanda Rubin (MRAIC), Sean Siddons, Irina Solop, Kristin Speth, Eric Sziraki, Alan Tyndall, Elcin Unal | Structural John G. Cooke & Associates Ltd. Consulting Engineers | Mechanical/ Electrical Crossey Engineering Ltd. | heritage ERA Architects Inc. | Landscape dtah | interiors 4te | construction manager pcl | environmental/geotechnical golder | civil parsons | lighting Gabriel Mackinnon Lighting Design | exterior lighting Lightemotion | acoustics SOTA | food services wsp | security groupe smi | Area 12,737 m2 | Budget $219 M (overall project cost) | Completion December 2018 Energy Use ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 660 kWh/m2/year

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A quietly elegant structure to the side of Centre Block is the first new building on Parliament Hill in almost a century.

Government of Canada Visitor Welcome Centre, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario ARCHITECTS IBI Group (Prime Consultant), Moriyama & Teshima Architects (Design Architect) TEXT Elsa Lam PHOTOS James Brittain Photography

PROJECT

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main Floor

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When I was growing up in Ottawa in the 1980s, you could walk straight through the grand neo-gothic front doors of Parliament Hill. Without too much fuss, you could stroll over to the public galleries of the House of Commons and Senate. Or you could head to the parliamentary library and admire the elegant wood-ribbed structure that had been protected from the great 1916 fire by its cast bronze doors. When the Hill was bedecked by Christmas lights in the winter, my parents would load up the A car and we’d join other families who drove the loop in front of the East, Centre, and West Blocks, admiring the decorations.

Then, in 1997, a delusional man drove his jeep up the staircase in front of Centre Block, stopping just short of the main doors. After 9/11, private vehicle access to the hill was further restricted. In 2014, a lone gunman shot a sentry at the National War Memorial, then entered Centre Block and was killed in an exchange of gunfire with security personnel.

Public access to the chambers of democracy has been maintained through it all, but with an increasing gamut of check-in points and security scanning measures, a cumbersome presence in those revered stone corridors.

Now, the first phase of a fully accessible Visitor Welcome Centre greets visitors to Parliament Hill. It achieves the delicate feat of including updated, airport-like screening facilities, while preserving dignified, open public access to the seat of Canada’s parliamentary democracy.

This is the first building to be constructed on Parliament Hill in almost a century, and the responsibility to the historic site weighed heavily on designers IBI Group and Moriyama & Teshima Architects. In response, to a remarkable degree, they’ve made the four-story building disappear.

Three of the stories are sunk underground, with only the entrance making an appearance at grade. Even this entrance is integrated into the site.

A stone retaining wall designed by Calvert Vaux subtly elevates Centre Block above the Great Lawn; that wall has now been extended to cap a new courtyard next to West Block. Arched entryways form porticos in the stonework, with recessed doors crafted in a weave-patterned bronze.

Inside, visitors enter a cross-vaulted entry area that overlooks the concourse, a level below. After passing through the scanning area, they descend to the concourse—a double-height space that includes interpretive projections, a boutique, and a gathering point for guided tours. A barrelvaulted passageway leads to the renovated West Block. Additional phases will eventually expand the facility to connect with East Block and with Centre Block, currently under renovation. The building’s main spaces are topped with a shallow cross-vaulted ceiling, rendered in acoustic plaster.

The ceiling design—a contemporary version of a shallow groin vault— gives a traditional inflection to the minimalist building. Early on the commission, recalls Moriyama & Teshima principal Carol Phillips, FRAIC, the architects decided to make a full inventory of the processional spaces and façades throughout Parliament Hill. What emerged was an appreciation of the Hill’s vaulted hallways and hierarchy of arched window openings—from pointier ones higher on wallsCONCOURSE LEVEL FLOOR PLAN to squatter ones lower down. They also developed a detailed understanding of how these arches were geometrically generated.

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The main concourse of the Welcome Centre is topped by bronze screens and vaulted ceilings whose forms derive from the gothic geometries used throughout Parliament Hill. Opposite A grand stair leads from the security screening level down to the concourse.

The interior’s minimalist palette includes white oak wall panels and Danby marble columns.

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CLIENT Government of Canada | ARCHITECT TEAM IBI Group— Diane Phillips (FRAIC), Heather Semple (MRAIC), Farhan Haqqani, Bernie Duquette, Jamy Beauchamp, Mark D’Agostino, Chris Tudin, Earl Reinke, Om Madan, Bob Wingate, Ryan Magladry, Sandy Ng, Rosemarie Albert. Moriyama & Teshima— Diarmuid Nash (FRAIC), Carol Phillips (FRAIC), Emmanuelle van Rutten (MRAIC), Chen Cohen, Amanda Gilbert, Greg Perkins (MRAIC), Will Klassen (MRAIC), Chris Ertsenian, Shawn Geddes, Maria Pavlou, Mei Chow, Claudia Cozzitorto, Hamia Aghaiemeybodi, Louis Lortie. | STRUCTURAL Adjeleian Allen Rubeli Limited / WSP Global | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Pageau Morel | CIVIL IBI Group | LANDSCAPE Lemay | INTERIORS Moriyama & Teshima Architects | CONTRACTOR PCL Construction | SUSTAINABILITY/ENVELOPE/CODE Morrison Hershfield | LIGHTING Gabriel Mackinnon Lighting Design | HERITAGE DFS Inc. Architecture & Design | ACOUSTICS State of the Art Acoustics | ELEVATOR KJA Consultants | ACCESSIBILITY Betty Dion Enterprises | WAYFINDING Jaan Krusberg Design | HARDWARE Canada Specialty Hardware | COSTING Hanscomb Limited | AREA 41,800 m2 | BUDGET $129.9 M | COMPLETION January 2019

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site plan

CENTRE BLOCK

VISTOR WELCOME CENTRE

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To fine-tune the entry archways through the stone wall, the design team looked to Vaux’s bridges and tunnels in Central Park, whose forms also derived from Gothic principles. The logic of using different arch types to denote the relative importance of spaces informed the interior geometry of Welcome Centre elements ranging from the broad ceiling arches to details such as the patterning of the grand stair’s bronze screen. The latter is a filigree of cascading pointed arches, in equal part neo-gothic and art deco.

A simplified material palette—terrazzo f loors, honed Danby marble columns, near-white Adair limestone walls, white oak partitions, bronze fittings—makes the building feel exceptionally calm and composed. This restraint is also shown in a series of sensitive details.

For instance, to diminish the visual weight of the large square columns—a heftiness needed to keep the facility secure and carry the landscape above—slight V-grooves are carved into the column profiles on all four sides. At the top of the columns, these pleats accentuate the spring point of the vaults. Similar folded details appear on the deeply chiselled stone frames at the front arches, a fold in the bronze stair handrails, and pleated millwork on the front doors and at the reception desks.

“Our building is so robust,” says Phillips. “Introducing grace to its spaces was always part of the mandate.” The commitment to making a building that feels elegant and spacious—despite being largely underground—is also evident in the planning. In most airports, screening processes entail maze-like routes. Here, however, the visitor spaces are purposefully expansive and intuitive to navigate, with overlooks and glass walls allowing glimpses into the rooms ahead. Backof-house spaces are almost invisibly integrated, including access to the secure lower two levels, which are used for mechanical systems and materials handling.

An exterior aspect that Phillips is especially proud of is the steel guardrail that tops the extended Vaux wall. At first, this seemed a minor detail—but then, the team realized that it would set a precedent for retrofitting the original Vaux wall along the entire forecourt of Centre Block, which currently lacks a guard rail. “It started to take on much more weight,” says Phillips. “It became this little piece of sculpture that had to work seamlessly with the gothic language—it had to look like it could have always been here, but it had to be contemporary, of its time, and had to have movement.” Turning to the gothic geometries they had studied, they created a series of double-helices that interweave in three dimensions to form pointed arches.

The resulting railing—understated, elegant and timeless—is a microcosm of the project’s success as a whole. “When we tour MPs through the Visitors Centre, they often ask, ‘is this new?’” says House of Commons Chief Architect Darrell de Grandmont. “It’s telling of our creating a design that integrates what they think is heritage architecture and a modern intervention. This is all new, but it looks as if it may have been here before.”

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top To soften the appearance of the robust structure, a pleated language was used for elements including the columns and millwork.

Opposite top A contemporary version of a shallow groin vault was used for the ceilings, giving a grand, spacious feeling to the security screening level. Opposite bottom A two-storey space in the lower concourse faces the welcome desk, and forms a meeting point for tour groups.

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Brian Gould

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On the Docks: Reimagining Winnipeg’s Waterfront text

Aaron Pollock and Laurène Bachand

An ideas competition imagines new possibilities for a derelict site on Winnipeg’s Red River.

Winnipeg is nicknamed “River City,” but despite its centre being located at the conflux of two waterways, the reality is that the city’s waterfronts have long been neglected. Most modern metropolitan areas around the world orient themselves towards their waterways, and water-facing sites are generally sought-after real estate. There are numerous case studies of reactivated waterfronts that have yielded cultural and economic gains through public access. Winnipeg’s waterfront sites, in contrast, are often used as surface parking lots and industrial infrastructure.

Our conviction that Winnipeg needs to rethink its relation to its rivers led the two of us to organize a community-based ideas competition in 2018. The intent of On the Docks was to involve citizens in exploring the urban potential of the abandoned Alexander Docks, a riverside site that is starting to be surrounded by developments.

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We asked the community a simple question: What type of public space would most benefit the site? Designers as well as non-designers were encouraged to dream big with imaginative solutions.

Along Waterfront Drive, the western bank of the Red River, the Alexander Docks was once a central hub for river traffic. The adjacent railway line and road networks provided easy access to the nearby Exchange District. As rails and roads expanded over the following decades, river traffic diminished. The wharf was closed in 2015. Now owned by the City of Winnipeg, the acre-large site remains fenced due to concerns over structural integrity and safety. Additionally, the site is also limited by erratic river levels, and the city water and hydro lines running underneath.

With the revitalization of the Exchange District over the past decade, there is an increasing interest in living downtown, and with this

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A view of the current state of the Alexander Docks, located on the Red River. The site is flanked by development along Waterfront Drive.

15 Light Posts by Chinese designer Yuhan Wang was the competition’s second-place winner. It proposes a resilient terraced landscape system that reacts to different water levels, with 15 light posts to commemorate the 15-year-old Tina Fontaine. Below A travelling exhibition and public awards ceremony were among the competition’s community engagement elements. Opposite The Warf by Thomas Nuytten, Hélio Rodrigues, and Hugo Gonçalves of Winnipeg’s H5a Architecture was inspired by the North American Aboriginal medicine wheel. The program is curated to serve the mind (with an interpretive centre), heart (with a memorial), soul (with a contemplation area), and body (with fitness equipment and kayak lockers and rentals).

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Jenn Yablonowski

Jenn Yablonowski

ABOVE

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comes the urgency to create more useful and enjoyable urban public spaces. The once-industrial Waterfront Drive has been rehabilitated to re-engage with our waterways and connect them to downtown, but the Alexander Docks remains as a key missing link.

In order to make the competition accessible to all, we provided an axonometric view of the site as a template, and asked the community to communicate their ideas through any means—drawing, collage, painting, writing. In two months, we received 200 submissions. Teachers used On the Docks as a classroom learning tool; nearby residents and businesses used it to express their views on development. We reached out beyond the city limits to architectural associations across Canada and to online forums, and received entries from around the world. A multidisciplinary jury panel was selected to reflect the community and bring perspectives from the realms of development, politics, design and culture.

The most successful aspect of the competition was its accessibility to everyone in the community. The submissions were varied and proposed a wide range of elements—from beaches, markets and pavilions,

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pavilion

1 pavilion / market 2 public washroom & interpretive centre 3 toboggan slide 4 active transportation path 5 amphitheatre 6 r ed dress sculpture / tina fontaine memorial 7 canoe / kayak access 8 contemplation bench & fishing area 9 screen / summer stage 10 floating boat dock / water taxi 11 ice skating 12 canoe / kayak lockers and rental 13 fitness equipment 14 parking 15 prairie garden & community garden plots 16 sculpture garden

to Ferris wheels, Mars launch pads and amusement parks. Most, however, expressed the need for truly public space—areas that are programmatically flexible with full access to the Red River. The competition made us wonder: how can we redefine public space to create a core support system for many uses? How can we push public spaces to perform better, responding with a built-in flexibility that accommodates activity and conversation?

It’s clear that entrants were thinking beyond typical uses, pointing to the need for a broader approach to urban public developments.

The Alexander Docks is the site of the tragic discovery of the body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, which spurred the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Design responses reimagined the idea of memorials by proposing spaces for conversations, community centres, and various places for gathering and sharing—public spaces that celebrate all cultures and promote healing through reconciliation. The Alexander Docks has gained significant national exposure as a symbolic place for an important conversation happening in Canada today.

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Picnic

site plan

sled track winter season

outdoor theater

cinema night

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ice skating winter season

swimming hot season celestial globe

river connection

The competition’s first-place winner was Alexander’s Garden by Sabin Cornoiu of Romania. The project aims to create an egalitarian outdoor living room for the whole community in the middle of the forest, and a gateway for all-seasons access to cultural activities. Below Play of the Land,

by Billy Chung of Toronto-based Something Specific, contrasts the Prairie horizon with an artificial landscape along the Red River’s edge. This continuous greenery extends the city fabric to the river with a year-round, activity-filled terrain.

ABOVE

We organized an awards evening that brought together city officials, designers and members of the community to discuss the future of the Alexander Docks. The conversation continued on social media and through a month-long exhibit displayed in various public places throughout Winnipeg. An event co-organized by On the Docks and Storefront Manitoba included presentations by students, teachers, designers, and university faculty, along with a panel of Winnipeg decision-makers.

Throughout the process, the City of Winnipeg has supported the competition. The enthusiastic response to the competition inspired us to create a publication that summarizes the possibilities for moving forward.

On the Docks has demonstrated that Winnipeg’s citizens see value in creating public spaces that engage the river. The site presents a complex layering of emotional, cultural and environmental issues. This complexity can yield dynamic and exciting design solutions, and On the Docks has helped create momentum within the community for a thoughtful approach to the site. The present renewal of the Exchange District and Waterfront Drive, along with the community’s efforts towards reconciliation, make this is the right time to move forward with a progressive new idea for the Alexander Docks site.

Laurène Bachand and Aaron Pollock both work at Number TEN Architectural Group, and see opportunities in revitalizing spaces within cities by engaging with the community to uncover their latent potentials.

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Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture

Pierre Comty

Wanda Dalla Costa

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books

Edited by Rebecca Kiddle, luugigyoo patrick stewart and Kevin O’Brien.

ORO Editions, 2018.

REVIEW

Shelagh McCartney

I am a settler-scholar, architect and planner living in tkaronto. Over the last five years, through work on housing systems, I have had the privilege to partner with First Nations across the Treaty 9 territory and to often be generously welcomed onto their lands.

As a settler on Turtle Island, I do not have one of the voices being shared in the book Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture by Rebecca Kiddle, luugigyoo patrick stewart and Kevin O’Brien. This book is about voice—Indigenous voice—and is an important contribution to the small but growing global body of literature on the relationship between Indigeneity and architecture. A self-declared “unashamedly Indigenous-centric book,” Our Voices offers a model for Indigenous scholarship by carefully curating texts by a range of practictioners, academics and advocates with diverse perspectives on design. Our role as allies is to find a central place for Indigenous partners and their stories, and most importantly, to listen to those stories.

The book’s creation itself exemplifies a decolonized process that included reimagining the review process, offering various presentation A design for the Red Crow Community College Learner Resource Centre in Blood Tribe, Alberta, by Wanda Dalla Costa, the first First Nations woman in Canada to become a registered architect. MIDDLE AND BOTTOM Two views of the 2017 Niitsitapi Learning Centre in Calgary, Alberta, by Leblond Partnership (now Beck Vale Architects Planners) with Wanda Dalla Costa’s firm, Redquill Architecture.

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Wanda Dalla Costa

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books

formats, and itself being of a place. (It’s described as being hosted in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a Māori elder offering a foreword and Māori designer Rau Hoskins closing the book.) A chapter that discusses these choices hints at the type of decisions one must make in the parallel—and vastly more complex—process of building architecture.

Conceptualizations (and in many cases, breakthroughs) for decolonized architectural processes are shared throughout. At its core, “Indigenous architecture is about ‘a’ people in ‘a’ place,” the book explains. The book shares examples from a variety of people and places, demonstrating the diversity of sites that have always been Indigenous places—and that continue to be Indigenous places.

The book also shines a light on the injustices of colonialism, from the scale of communities to the individual home. Stories from coöption to forcible destruction are carefully delivered, not from a place of victimhood, but instead as a context from which, “this generation […] has begun to speak back to the machine of colonialism [sic] and it is an international phenomenon [sic] architects / artists and designers have begun a process of speaking up/out/back.” Speaking up happens through a variety of media: Kiddle describes young Māori mapping their urban experiences and brainstorming utopian visions for a site, while Timmah Ball describes Indigenous art that, despites attempts at commodification, “pierces the colonial landscape creating tranquil moments.”

Other voices present alternative understandings of how places are made and kept, and how these processes can be made concrete in the future.

While standard best practices—including in residential design, preservation and emergency planning—may seem immediately actionable, there is a risk of recolonizing these processes by understanding their significance through a non-Indigenous worldview. Researcher Michael Mossman describes recognizing the transactional and translational aspects of architecture through enacting a Third Space—“a place where differences touch, interact, disrupt, unsettle and de-centre preexisting narratives to produce a structure for marginalized cultures to symbolize themselves to their counterparts.” In understanding messages shared with us as settler practitioners, both in this book and in practice with Indigenous peoples, we are entrusted to learn from a place of critical investigation. We must take care not to repeat colonial relations of power by immediately placing these ideas within our own established frameworks.

This collection presents a set of voices that have been marginalized from the mainstream discussion of architecture and architectural theory for too long. Theory-building and practice with respect to Indigenous placemaking, architecture and design must be led by Indigenous academics and practitioners. To experience one’s own awkwardness in reading this book is to know the importance of not just listening and learning from this one book, but in searching out more of these Voices.

The book calls on all architects to question their Western preconceptions: “We learn to think on our feet and to be able to verbalize our thought process and make connections on the fly. I catch myself doing this all the time. I have to remember to listen. To learn from the stories.”

As settler architects and allied practitioners, we must learn to listen to a growing number of diverse voices. Our Voices demonstrates that Indigenous life (and Indigenous architecture) is present not only on reserves or in specific communities, but across cities around the globe. This book provides a platform for a number of voices to be heard—to some readers for perhaps the first time—and with them, offers some tools with which architects may begin to understand their own work in relation to Indigeneity. This book is an excellent resource for any professional to use as a guide to find the relevant Indigenous voices in their work, to begin to listen to them, and to join in a continued journey of learning.

Dr. Shelagh McCartney, OAA , MRAIC is an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University.

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calendar

The Architecture + Design Film Festival lineup includes a screening of Grandma and Le Corbusier, directed by Marjolaine Normier.

ABOVE

Vancouver

Toronto

05/07

04/03-04/04

www.aibc.ca

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AIBC Confab 2019 This new one-day professional development event offers interactive workshops, panel discussions, and intimate seminars.

Calgary 04/18

EVDS Design Matters: Sir David Adjaye One of the most influential architects of this generation shares insights about his work and architecture as a social force.

Architect@Work Canada This exclusive event for architects, interior designers and specifiers features hundreds of innovative products and services.

04/25-04/27

Grey to Green Conference Grey to Green highlights new policy, design practices, and innovative products in the green infrastructure sector. www.greytogreenconference.org

Montreal

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Edmonton 05/17

2019 AAA AGM + PD Symposium This full-day event features professional development sessions presenting current theories and practices to AAA membership, helping them shape Alberta’s built environment.

—04/07

Architecture Itself and Other Postmodernist Myths This exhibition at the CCA brings together an array of building fragments, drawings, models, and primary source documents, all of which present canonic projects from unexpected points of view.

(See CA, January 2019) www.cca.qc.ca

www.aaa.ab.ca

New York

Winnipeg

—05/15

05/01-05/05

Architecture + Design Film Festival The A+DFF presents critically acclaimed films focusing on the importance of architecture and design in everyday life. www.adff.ca

The Value of Good Design This exhibition explores the democratizing potential of design, beginning with MoMA’s own Good Design initiatives from the late 1930s through the 1950s, which championed affordable contemporary products. www.moma.org

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Doublespace Photography

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A Monumental Statement TEXT

Jill Stoner

Opened in 2017, the National Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa is designed by Daniel Libeskind and includes photo-real images

by Edward Burtynsky.

ABOVE

Daniel Libeskind’s National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa is A powerful Statement—but what does it say?

“In a city of monuments that rise,” wrote Yale University student Maya Lin in 1981 of her Vietnam Memorial design, “this will be a memorial that recedes.” Since her minimal composition was realized, architects have struggled to advance memorial design through similar abstraction. During this same recent period, following the example set by Guggenheim Bilbao, every aspiring world city seeks to lay claim to a work by a globally famous architect. The two trends occasionally coincide in a single work, as they do in Daniel Libeskind’s National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa.

Libeskind’s project, located on unceded ground at the intersection of Wellington and Booth streets, is indeed monumental. Its concrete walls rise in powerful canted planes, enclosing a set of unroofed spaces with acute angles that, seen from above, resemble a Jewish star. In many ways, the monument reprises the design vocabulary of Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, a significant work in which the geometries are linked to street addresses of key Jewish and non-Jewish Berliners. In the Ottawa monument, assigned messages have overwritten the actual site’s invisible and meaningful pasts—its almost ageless Indigenous history, and the more recently

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razed neighborhood known as LeBreton Flats.

Those who write about this monument tend to enumerate its symbolic moments: the tilting walls signify oppression, the flame signifies remembrance, the staircase signifies hope.

This kind of willful narrative has become all too familiar in how the public “learns” contemporary architecture. Constructions that are intended to keep memory alive didactically teach us what to think, and even what to feel. They have become their own kind of propaganda.

In counterpoint to the symbolic components of the architectural design are six photographic images by Edward Burtynsky, each featuring a specific Holocaust site. Transferred to the concrete walls in specially formulated paint and exquisite detail, the images introduce a haunting immediacy. Though large, the images are not monumental. Instead, they relieve the stone surfaces of their abstraction.

One wonders if these images—instead of being painted on specially constructed walls— might have been introduced almost randomly around the city, to more effectively remind us of other places, and other times.

In 1944, before the end of World War II, art historian Kenneth Reid penned a short piece titled “Memorials? Yes!—but no monuments!”

He concluded his attack on monument-building by writing: “But let us not again clutter up our villages and towns and cities with the sort of mediocre and even tawdry ‘monumental’ monstrosities that have been left in the wake of all our earlier wars.” Both then and now, it is not the talented sculptors and architects of these contemporary works who are to blame; they are practicing their craft. Instead, it is a matter of urban policies and their makers, who wilfully decide priorities, and assign hierarchies to the spaces of our public realm.

In 1989, I visited all six of the sites of the Nazi extermination camps. Their expressions of memory span an architectural spectrum— from the chilling preservation of the camp and extermination buildings of Auschwitz-Birkenau to the contemplative stone-studded fields of Treblinka. None of these, as least in any obvious way, bore a prominent architect’s name. Indexed directly to their respective sites of trauma, each memorial’s “authorship” is history itself, edited perhaps, but not overtaken by symbol. How might this have been possible on the unceded land of LeBreton Flats? Might it be still?

Jill Stoner is Director of the Azreili School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University.

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