Canadian Interiors March April 2018

CANADIAN INTERIORS

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03/042018 Features

30 INNER SANCTUMS A behind-the-scenes glimpse at new home turf for two professional sports teams. By Leslie C. Smith.

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GHOSTS OF WELLINGTON The restoration and reuse of the historic Wellington Building. By Kristen Gagnon

40 TELLING STORIES GSM Project’s job is to weave compelling narratives through artifact and design. By Rhys Phillips

Regulars

17 CAUGHT OUR EYE 20 SEEN Highlights and insights from IIDEXCanada in Toronto, and Domotex in Hannover. 27 THE GOODS From paint scrape tiles to three-dimensional carpets, today’s flooring products go beyond the customary in search of artistic, quirky and comfortable inspirations. 46 MORE A look at design from the Far East. 51 SCENE 54 OVER & OUT Elite travellers are wined and dined in an elegant setting while waiting for their next flight.

COVER – In sports, everything is either black or white: a metaphor demonstrated by the threshold from the washroom to the hockey arena corridor of the Medicine Hat Tigers. Photo by Jamie Hyatt

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Next time in

IDS18

The 20th-anniversary edition of the Interior Design Show in Toronto celebrated modern Canadian design with style.

Prize Claim Office Loto-Québec Loto-Québec tasked Atelier 21 with offering lottery winners an exciting first step in their prize claim experience, attracting passersby, as well as a second entrance to the Salon de Jeux shopping mall.

MASI Design Awards A co-creation of PIDIM (Manitoba), IDAS (Saskatchewan), and IDA (Alberta), the first MASI Design Awards were handed out to talented firms and independent interior designers from the three provinces.

Deviating From the Norm TO DO Festival’s Guest of Honour, U.K.-based Aberrant Architecture spins stories into unique designs.

Beauty and Purpose At his keynote address at the World Design Summit in Montréal, Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff, vice president of Design for American Standard Brands, tasked the audience with redefining what beauty means to them.

Pick up the next issue of

to see our roundup!

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March | April 2018 / V55 #3

Senior Publisher

Martin Spreer

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416-441-2085 x104 Circulation Manager

circulation@canadianinteriors.com President of iQ Business Media Inc.

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Canadian Interiors magazine is published by iQ Business Media Inc. 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto ON M3B 1Z3 Telephone 416-441-2085 e-mail: info@canadianinteriors.com website: www.canadianinteriors.com Canadian Interiors publishes six issues, plus a source guide, per year. Printed in Canada. The content of this publication is the property of Canadian Interiors and cannot be reproduced without permission from the publisher.

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Back issues > Back copies are available for $10 for delivery in Canada, $15 US for delivery in U.S.A. and $20 overseas.

Please send payment to: Canadian Interiors, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto ON M3B 1Z3 or order online www.canadianinteriors.com For subscription and back issues inquiries please call 416-441-2085 x104 e-mail: circulation@canadianinteriors.com, or go to our website at: www.canadianinteriors.com Canadian Interiors is indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index by Micromedia ProQuest Company, Toronto (www.micromedia.com) and National Archive Publishing Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan (www.napubco.com).

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inside

Fast Forward Right out of the gate, Idris Mootee was confident what he was about to say would not endear him many friends. In fact, he was sure many on Facebook would probably unfriend him. Speaking on a panel at Business of Design Week last December, Mootee, CEO and cofounder of Idea Couture and author of five books on innovation and strategy including his most recent, Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation, was blunt: “the world is going through drastic structural changes, not just in one sector, but everywhere, so people have to re-think their core existence in any business, including design.”

Yet design still has major problems (cue the unfriending). “It’s been placed in a box tethering it to a design aesthetic,” he says. In traditional design schools, he says, the human is a knowable entity: our exterior limits are defined (i.e. the length of our arms), and in the last hundred years we have been industrializing our bodies (i.e. making tools). “Back in the 1920s it was about the Machine Aesthetic, and [design’s purpose] was to help you become part of the machine so you

are more productive. We’re still in that headspace.” According to Mootee, design schools are still thinking like a traditional industry: training people to make chairs, electronics, toys, architecture. But is usability really good design? Not anymore.

“Designers need to think about how their critical problem-solving abilities create value. They should be thinking about how they design the future.” That is Mootee’s core philosophy: design should always be linked to an improved future (no doubt why he was on a panel whose topic was Cultivating a Future Mindset). Idea Couture’s client list is impressive — Samsung, Burberry, Google — but according to Mootee, “these companies pay us millions of dollars and we don’t do anything: we don’t give them design, engineering, anything. Instead, we help them understand the future.”

To Mootee, the next five decades will be about extending our minds, emotions and selves to influence what automation will do for us. If we realize and focus on that, it will create high value design jobs and attract the smartest talent out there to this industry. But to do so, it is important to recognize that design thinking is not exclusive to designers, or unattainable to those in other disciplines. Design is a process driving towards a solution: a product, a service, or sometimes something intangible. When done well, the results have both utility and elegance. But old modes of thinking will produce the same old results. It’s not about designing nice chairs anymore. It’s about designing the future.

14 Peter Sobchak

psobchak@canadianinteriors.com

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FURNITURE

LIGHTING

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caught our eye –> IDS18 Edition <­–

The Future of Canadian Living AyA Kitchens and Baths partnered with U31 Design and Cleaf by Weston Premium Woods for its IDS18 booth design: a series of pod-like spaces to resemble a 15-foot high treehouse, with each pod representing traditional room archetypes – a kitchen, a bathroom and a library – meant to skew our evolving understanding of a building typology Toronto knows well: condos.

Peter A. Sellar

www.ayakitchens.com

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Tom Arban

caught our eye

How Bright is Our Future?

Conceived by Michael Donaldson of Design Workshop Architects, this installation tapped into our ambivalent emotions toward emerging technologies. Printed on five tall, blade-shaped structures were 10 tech-based statements to which visitors responded by pressing triangular “fear” or “hope” buttons, with results being projected on a background screen. www.dwa-arc.com

Altered States Since 2013, Caesarstone has been partnering with international design personages on installations debuted at IDS that feature their quartz slab products. This year they tapped New York-based Snarkitecture to reimagine the ubiquitous kitchen island – what was once hidden and utilitarian but now an altar for domestic worship. The results were four pieces: Ice Island, Water Island, Steam Island and Play Island, all made using sinuous, stratified layers of Caesarstone surfaces. www.caesarstone.com

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Kimbretta | Suite 22 Contract The Kimbretta chair features a metal frame with cold-injected polyurethane foam. Available in different covering materials and structure, this small chair is ideal for breakout and reception areas, meeting spaces and boardrooms, lounge spaces and hotel rooms. www.suite22contract.com

Bye, bye IIDEX

Architek | Peerless Contract From Canadian carpet manufacturer Peerless Contract comes the Architek collection of broadloom carpet, inspired by the concepts of math and geometry. Its dye-injected design features hard lines with underlying transparency and accent colour. www.peerlesscontract.com

Highlights of the final IIDEXCanada, which will rise again in 2019 as IDS Contract.

By Michael Totzke

Show floor, North Building, Metro Toronto Convention Centre; Wednesday, November 29, 1:00 p.m. Just as I was wondering what had become of my beloved IIDEXCanada (Where is the contract furniture?

Why so many manufacturers from China?), the word came down from above: it was the end of IIDEX, Canada’s National Design + Architecture Exposition, as we knew it. Operated under The Buildings Show (TBS) for a second year in a row, as of January 2019 IIDEX will join the Interior Design Show (IDS) roster as IDS Contract. Moving forward, IDS Contract will be a “hyper-curated” event to showcase the contract sector within architecture and design, and will run simultaneously with IDS Toronto, which focuses on interior design.

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To replace IIDEX in the North Building, the booming TBS will expand with the addition of STONEX Canada, Canada’s first event dedicated to the stone, terrazzo, ceramic and tile industries. It will join TBS’s current lineup of Construct Canada, HomeBuilder & Renovator Expo, PM Expo and World of Concrete Pavilion.

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Fingers crossed that IIDEX Woodshop, in a new iteration, will be part of the new IDS Contract, as it has become a highlight of the show (see Good Wood above). While we wait for the launch of IDS Contract in January 2019, here are a few noteworthy items worth remembering the last IIDEXCanada for.

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Good Wood Toronto has a vibrant urban-wood industry, but pests like the Emerald Ash Borer, as well as old age and natural disasters, are threatening the industry and destroying North American forests. In response, Economic Development and Culture at the City of Toronto launched the Urban Wood Industry Development Initiative in order to encourage homeowners and industries to salvage and re-use trees felled in the Greater Toronto Area. Working with Ontario Wood and the City of Toronto, IIDEX has included the Woodshop exhibition, now in its fifth year, to demonstrate how this valuable resource can be used to create innovative, market-ready commercial and consumer prototypes, thereby diverting approximately 100,000 trees lost each year to Toronto landfills. This iteration showcased 13 innovative prototypes by emerging and established designers, including:

Split Lamp | James Clarke-Hicks and Isabel Ochoa Made possible by the process of steam bending (best realized with ash and freshly reclaimed “green” woods), the lamp rests in closed configuration as two semi-circular tubes running parallel to one another, with ambient light emerging as a thin slit between the two forms. When the forms are pulled apart, light is more freely dispersed. www.isabeloc.com Ollie | Curtis Dwyer You might say the Ollie stool began life on the move: it’s constructed from a single steel bicycle frame and a Canadian maple skateboard. Surprisingly comfortable, Ollie has height-adjustability incorporated in the steel tube’s quickrelease function. @curtisdwyer_design

Notch | Henry Lin Notch brings the “skeleton” substructure of a table right up to the surface, showcasing craftsmanship and joinery details.

Because Notch is split into sections, the designer was able to use diseased lumber, off-cuts and shorts that are not “furniture grade,” sourcing such materials locally and responsibly. www.thisorthatstudio.com

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creating better environments

new colors. new textures. arriving in 2018.

endless possibilities.

beautiful. durable. sustainable. hygienic. www.forboflooringNA.com

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seen

Teppich galore Hannover may not be the most vibrant, trendy or exciting German city, but Domotex nevertheless managed to shine. The world’s biggest flooring show had an expertly curated flooring trends and materials innovation area, but all that was in many ways hijacked by the glitz and glamour of alluring carpet displays at the Carpet Design Awards exhibition.

Sun | Rug Star Designed by Jürgen Dahlmanns, this eye-popping Persian weave carpet is hand knotted in Jaipur, also known as the Pink City, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, and is available in 100 per cent silk or a wool-silk blend. www.rugstar.com

By Martin Spreer

Olbia Stella | Tisca Hand-woven using New Zealand wool and available in 96 colours and a variety of shapes and sizes, the Olbia collection’s key selling feature is its reversibility, giving this playful rug added longevity. www.tisca.at

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Skagen | Swiss Krono Group In one of those collectionswithin-collections scenarios, Skagen is the nicest series in the Mega Plus collection, itself part of the Kronotex line of modern laminate floor surfaces, and cleverly replicates the worn wooden parquet floor look. www.kronotex.com/flooring 3/4 2018 CANADIAN INTERIORS

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Chaos | Lila Valadan Made from hand-spun highland wool and plant-based colouring, this Persian carpet is part of the Hidden collection, which combines a thousand-year-old history of nomadic carpet tradition with abstract shapes to form an intriguing design. www.lilavaladan.com

Poudre | Atelier Février Hand-knotted in Nepal with Himalayan wool and silk, this enthralling shadowlike paint spill design created in collaboration with Parisian performing artists Bruant & Spangaro was a crowd favourite and Carpet Design Award winner at Domotex. www.atelierfevrier.com

Gatsby Gold | Hossein Rezvami The luxurious Art Deco geometric arrangement of this Fitzgeraldinfluenced carpet, made from a mixture of black highland wool and golden silk, was one of the undeniable showstoppers at Domotex. www.hosseinrezvani.com

Anar dar Toor | Zollanvari Designed by NOV24 as part of the Isfahan Collection, inspiration for Anar dar Toor (meaning, roughly, “pomegranates in a net”) came from seeing a fruit seller in a market near Shiraz, in Iran’s Fars province, who had hung pomegranates in a net (toor) to keep them clean. www.zollanvari.com

Galmous Atlas Mountain | Soufiane Zarib This Moroccan-based rug artist is probably best known for the stunning Beni Ouirain rugs of the 17 Berber tribes of the Atlas Mountain, so not surprisingly this handmade esoteric design takes its cues from the mountains and pathways of similar regions in northwestern Africa. @soufine.zarib

Trigu | Mariantonia Urru Designed by Paulina Herrera Letelier, the Mediterranean Moving Landscapes Collections (and especially the Trigu rug) epitomize simplicity, richness of colour, and warmth. The contemporary design, produced from natural wool and colour, uses yarn elevation to enhance the pattern. www.mariantoniaurru.com

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DX DESIGN AUCTION

Make a bid for the future.

Your support will provide accessible design experiences and education to thousands of children, teens, vulnerable youth, adults and newcomers.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT DX.ORG Thursday, May 24 Design Exchange, Toronto CANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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the goods

Oscillation II | Brintons Americas Designed by Paul Andino, the Oscillation II carpets question the role that texture, line and colour play in the interior landscape.

Organic with a calculated contemporary twist, the carpets contain geometric and cosmic-like patterns in subtle yet defined colourations. Intended for large open spaces like hotels, ballrooms, casinos and conference halls, Oscillation carpets are identified by their use of Pantone’s 2018 Colour of the Year: Ultra Violet, a vibrant purple that complement’s the line’s dark and mysterious identity. www.brintons.net

These Goods Are Made for Walking From paint scrape tiles to threedimensional carpets, today’s flooring products go beyond the customary in search of artistic, quirky and comfortable inspirations.

By Shannon Moore

Burnish | Bentley The newest addition to Bentley’s Outskirts collection brings minimalism and movement to the floor. Dressed in a deeply textured tweed, the cushion and hardback tiles are available in three sizes and crafted using a pattern tufting technology for ultimate colour and performance. www.bentleymills.com

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the goods

Textures | Ciot Italian architect Sergio Savino’s collection blends 85 per cent natural stone with 15 per cent resin, resulting in high-performance and environmentally sound tiles suitable for the walls and floors. In addition to a variety of shades and finishes, the tiles are available with two- and three-dimensional finishes. www.ciot.com

SurfaceSet 2018 | Formica Canada Specifically curated for commercial spaces, Formica Canada’s new collection offers a wide range of surface styles, from Scandinavian-inspired marbles to artistic paint scrapes. Combining 32 colours, patterns and woodgrain designs, the laminate surfaces are grouped in three palettes and topped with a low-gloss sheen. www.formica.com

Pixel | Stepevi Inspired by the pink Damask rose of Isparta, Turkey, Stepevi’s new Pixel rugs are both richly coloured and multi-dimensional. The handcrafted rugs contain a base layer of tufted wool and viscose, combined with a second layer of 10 different yarn colours emphasizing the pixel motifs. The rugs are available in two abstract designs and seven different hues, and can be cut to any shape or size. www.stepevi.com

Corkwood | Torlys This new collection combines the warmth of wood, the durability of laminate and the comfort of cork. The top layer is made of digitally printed cork in realistic oak and walnut patterns, while the underlay adds sound protection.

Available in a variety of colours, the 4-ft. and 6-ft. planks are also dent, mould and mildew resistant. www.torlys.com

Flying Carpet | nanimarquina Flying Carpet, one of nanimarquina’s most unique and popular rugs, aims to connect users to their inner child. Available in red and green, the three-dimensional carpet boasts corners that can be propped up using grey felt wedges to create loungeable slopes. The quasi-furniture rugs are ideal for educational and healthcare facilities, as well as quirky residential rooms. www.nanimarquina.com

Subtractive Layers | Patcraft Kelly Stewart’s new Remove and Withdraw tiles bring a unique peak-and-valley texture to this collection. The designer developed the tiles from her series of Harry Morgan- and Pierre Soulages-inspired acrylic paintings, in which she used a broken comb to achieve a linear texture. The resulting 12”x24” slabs are dynamic and tangible, and reminiscent of a painted canvas. www.patcraft.com

Andolo | Jan Kath A captivating new design in the multicolour Spectrum Collection takes its inspiration from the far north, using wool and silk to depict the electrically charged particles of the bright northern lights during winter months. www.jan-kath.de

Kinetex | J+J Flooring Group Ideal for corporate, healthcare, educational and hospitality spaces, Put a Cork in It tiles (part of the Kinetex collection) combine specs of jade with neutral backgrounds and cobalt, brown and linen undertones. The Tri-Plex tiles mix modern patterning with 12 crisp colourways. Both 24”x24” tiles are textile composite flooring products, contributing to improved acoustics, comfort, traction and indoor air quality. www.jjflooringgroup.com

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Sanctums Inner

A behind-the-scenes glimpse at new home turf for two professional sports teams

To many, sport is a religion: its fans are the congregants; its coaches and players act as priests and acolytes. The task of crafting a suitable team sanctuary therefore comes preloaded with layers of aspirations and symbolism beyond the ordinary build. These things not only must be acknowledged, they must be celebrated and elaborated upon. It’s a tricky proposition, but something two Prairie architecture-design firms have handled deftly, albeit through quite different approaches to recent sport-franchise retrofits.

By Leslie C. Smith CANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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Photography by Kristopher Grunert / Jamie Hyatt

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The Forward Pass James Youck is partner and principal architect with Regina-based P3A, the compliance architects for the city’s new Mosaic Stadium. The company had an in, then, when it came time to pitch the Canadian Football League’s (CFL) Saskatchewan Roughriders on fitting up their organizational space within that building. The ask was for three levels comprising approximately 67,000 square feet, filled with state-of-the-art facilities for players, coaches, operations staff and business support staff, as well as a flagship retail store. P3A partnered with major U.S. sport architecture firm Populous for the interior design concepts.

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Youck, born and raised in Regina and thus, by osmosis, a big Roughies fan, felt it was a dream project. Still, as well as he knew the team and its stadium, he did his homework, investigating other Canadian team facilities, as well as those of several American ones. The result, he says, was “a space as good if not better than any in the CFL.” The three levels are organized around a trinity of themes. The business office on the fourth floor represents Rider Nation. The Roughriders, along with the Edmonton Eskimos and the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, are the only community-owned clubs in North America, so everyone in the province is literally invested in the team. The design accordingly downplays the corporate and upsells the co-op, via a wide and welcoming reception area, main offices located directly off the elevator, and a glass-walled boardroom overlooking the stadium field.

The at-grade flagship Riders store, says Youck, is very much a feature area. “We were fortunate that its volume of space was high. With so much glass and light, it’s very visible from street to fans as they come to the games.”

Below-grade, the mezzanine houses the football administration offices, an auditorium, player position rooms, and a training room. Like the business office above and the team event level beneath, its overall colour scheme is strong on the Roughriders’ signature green and

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Opposite The reception area draws subtle design cues from the original ‘S’ logo and emphasizes the relationship of the team to the Rider Nation. Top The locker room’s open design allows all players to see each other as well as the coach. Glowing green jewel boxes theatrically house the players’ helmets. Above A feature staircase between the mezzanine and event levels puts the user in the midst of a pumped-up celebratory huddle.

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Above left Oversized graphics and a huge digital clock counting down to the next game dominate the event level’s reception area. Above Dark shades, angled lighting, and a metal ceiling grid add to the Armoury’s drama. Stylized wheatsheaf graphics and chevroned carpeting reference the Roughriders logo. Left The layout of all spaces, including the gym, introduces players to and reinforces the nature of the “Team.”

Top right The locker room’s warm birch benches merge into an integrated overhead grid, with nary a visible join in sight – a symbol of team unity. Bottom right Rather than a simple passage from here to there, Spectacle created a darkly dramatic corridor designed to clear players’ heads and focus them on the game.

stored away in cupboards above and below (ventilated to the outside, to relieve typical locker room odour). Only the helmets are visible — and highly visible at that, islanded in glowing, green-lit jewel boxes that speak to the holiness of The Game.

white, yet tempered with the black, grey and silver tones that are also a part of the team uniforms. Then, too, little graphic touches from the logo are introduced here and there: stylized chevrons in the carpeting and repeating heads of wheat on several wall panels; an “S” curve in the upstairs reception desk and mezzanine hallway layout; shelving units with lines that thicken at each end, like those running through the logo’s centre. Larger graphic panels along the walls represent the team’s legacy: detailing its history, the Grey Cup championships and the fan experience.

The theatrical sense of the Armoury and locker room was a conscious move by P3A. “One of the overarching ideas,” says Youck, “is that these places are very much a recruitment tool. The intent is to put yourself in the shoes of someone thinking about joining the team.” An impactful design, yet one that is still welcoming, helps attract and retain great players, staff and coaches, building the franchise’s strength and bonding disparate individuals into a single, powerful unit.

The private mezzanine and event levels are connected to the business office by an express elevator, but the real link between the two lower floors is a stunning feature staircase. Here, black glass and tile allow colourful photographic panels depicting a celebratory huddle to pop out, metaphorically pulling stair users into the middle of the game.

The event level’s focus is on the team itself, on the players and their relationship with each other. It starts with a trip through the dramatically lit Armoury, which showcases the latest team uniforms, shoes and caps. This passage leads like an aorta directly to the heart of the space: the locker room. This large, rectangular area has seating along the periphery, so players can face each other and the coach in the centre of the room. A huge logo hangs overhead. All equipment is CANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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The Deke Around In 2014, the Western Hockey League’s (WHL) Medicine Hat Tigers commissioned Philip Vandermey and Jessie Andjelic, real-life partners and co-founders of Calgary’s Spectacle Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism, to refit its operations space in the city’s new Canalta Centre. The pair then sat on their hands for nearly three years, while the city, the arena’s owners, jostled over leasing agreements with the hockey team. Eventually, the city itself picked up the commission, slated to include spaces for the coaches’ offices, a video conference room, therapy, fitness, equipment maintenance and first aid areas, the players’ lockers, showers, washrooms, and a dressing room.

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Left Everything is either black or white, as the threshold from the video conference room to the arena corridor demonstrates, a visual metaphor on the thin win-lose scenario of sports. Right A linear progression from the players’ lockers through to the showers connects each washroom area component while still keeping the spaces separate.

dowless, below-grade operations area, yet provides complete privacy and lack of distraction to coaches and team members sitting inside, so they can concentrate on strategy and game footage.

Of all these spaces, crafted to relate seamlessly to each other, Vandermey says three carry the most significance. The first is the symbolically and functionally essential dressing room, a component whose rituals, as Spectacle says, “traditionally assume quasi-religious significance.” Birch is used throughout, to create a neutral but warm aesthetic. Each individual stall adjoins the next, creating a continuous grid-like frame that extends across the ceiling. There are no visible joins, a metaphor for the “no ‘I’ in ‘team’” attitude. For privacy’s sake, sliding doors can separate the dressing room from the adjacent corridor; they are likewise used in the front of the room to conceal whiteboards, media devices and other equipment.

Verging off the blackness of the corridor is Spectacle’s third significant space, the washroom. This is clad completely in white, right down to the difficult-to-acquire white rubber flooring. Accents of stainless steel appear in functional adjuncts such as seats, showerheads, ice baths, urinals and privacy screens.

“The concept behind the threshold — a black corridor bordered by a white washroom — is that sports is a black-and-white entity,” Vandermey says. “We wanted to play on that aspect, that razor-thin line of the puck being either in or out.” The other concept at work here, according to the firm, is the idea of “purification both before and after performances.” Rarely has a washroom achieved such symbolic importance. But then again, rarely has a sports team embraced such radical design. One would expect to see Tiger logos and a lot of orange everywhere. How did Spectacle manage to avoid that trap?

When players leave the dressing room, suited and skated for battle, they walk down a stunning darkened hallway constructed from black, shimmery, high-density polyethylene sheets and a black rubber floor, lit solely by recessed overhead lights angled like theatrical spotlights to mark the path towards the rink. The design purposely references the gladiators’ tunnels leading to the arena in Rome’s Coliseum; it also provides sharp contrast to the brightness of the ice surface as the players emerge from the arena’s depths.

“Getting clients interested in our way of challenging the typical way of doing things isn’t always easy,” says Vandermey. “I think we were fortunate because the team focused more on functional and technical requirements that they needed to make things work for the team. In general, they were fairly receptive to our ideas. And the team loves it. They’re excited for a space that’s carefully considered and made for them.”

“We reinterpreted the corridor from a programmatic activity to a kind of a headspace,” says Vandermey. “It’s about putting your worries away — your play that day, the chance of injury, your future — and getting ready to perform. There is zero degree of detail, because if you strip away the extra stuff, you’re really able to focus. So often sport involves too much colour, movement and noise. The players need to be apart from all that distraction when they’re trying to prepare, to turn inwards and focus.”

Halfway along the corridor, a polycarbonate wall and door lead to a separate video conference room. Less expensive and less translucent than glass, this wall provides a little light into the mostly winCANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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Head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston gave the new space his personal blessing in a 2017 article in the Medicine Hat News: “When you’re putting your gear on, [the dressing room] feels almost sacred in there with the lighting and the wood. I think it’s a special place.”

Amen, brother!

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Best of Canada Awards

Call for submissions!

21st Best of Canada Awards, the only national design competition in Canada to focus on interior design projects and products without regard to size, budget or location!

All winners will be published in a special June 2018 Awards issue.

Submission Deadline: Friday, May 11th at 11.59 p.m.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t delay!

www.canadianinteriors.com/BoC

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s t s g h o t s g h of Wellington

The restoration and reuse of The Wellington Building Built in 1927 for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Ottawa, The Wellington Building is an adaptive reuse project architecturally haunted by the ghosts of its past. Siting on the south side of Wellington Street just west of Parliament Hill, the Beaux-Arts building originally designed by D. Everett Waid received an infill-addition in 1959. Still boasting a striking limestone façade and interior heritage features, it was acquired by the Government of Canada in 1973 and has since been commissioned to house Members of Parliament during the forthcoming, decade-long restoration of Parliamentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Centre Block.

By Kristen Gagnon Photography by Doublespace Photography

Above The original 1927 heritage entry was developed as the private entry for MPs, with the 1959 entry reconstructed and transformed into a public one. Right In order to provide access to the upper level multipurpose rooms, a new public space system has been developed, including a two-storey ground floor atrium with a green wall, spiral stair and escalator all located in the heart of the building, recreating a light well that was previously in that location.

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NORR Limited was awarded the contract for the $425-million rehabilitation project in 2008, with six years of construction beginning in 2010. During this time, an extensive renovation of the entire building resulted in the complete reworking of the space, both structurally and programmatically, in an attempt to unify the two eras of the site into one cohesive structure.

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These undertakings included the careful restoration of Americanmuralist Barry Faulkner’s golden glass-tiled mosaic ceiling in the entry vestibule, and the removal, storage, and careful reinstallation of the heritage lobby. “It became this process of analyzing those few fragments and imagining how they could be [leveraged] as part of the entry sequence,” says David Clusiau, vice president of architectural design at NORR. “It is also a foil, these two sequences: one coming for the south, one coming from the north. They go through a similar series of spaces, but the new ones are done in a kind of contemporary character, but with the same kind of ambition in terms of materials and quality of space as the original heritage ones.”

This included the need to fit 70 exterior-facing offices, 10 multipurpose rooms (MPRs), a cafeteria, public spaces, and satellite location for the Library of Parliament, all within the fixed envelope of the existing site. Yet while the project called for multiple technical, practical, and high-level security features, the nuances of the design response have added layers of meaning and dignity to a building that is now of national significance.

This is most evident in the treatment of the 1927 heritage components, and the value that was placed in either diligently restoring, or appropriately referencing them. As an adaptive reuse project, NORR had to carefully balance the often-contentious lines between restoration, replication, and renovation. As such, the areas of highest heritage value — the northern façade, Wellington vestibule, and adjoining heritage lobby — were all treated with varying degrees of conservation.

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It is the heritage lobby that now acts as the threshold between the new and old. While the original marble-clad and minimally ornamented room was diligently disassembled, before being faithfully reconstructed, the elaborate ceiling moldings that had once embellished the space 3/4 2018 CANADIAN INTERIORS

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bench that wraps around it, to the ephemeral and sculptural spiral stair, the brightly lit space feels simultaneously inviting and formal.

could only be replicated in form but not colour. This was due to the fact that no coloured images or drawings of the ceiling exist, leaving the architects with the choice to either make assumptions or simply reference it architecturally. Thus the latter was chosen, and the reconstructed ceiling was ultimately painted white, in what Clusiau refers to as a “ghostly replication of what was there, in the spirit of the heritage, [but making it obvious that] it is a recreation.”

It also works to organize the rest of the building through what Clusiau refers to as a “series of stacked public spaces.” This included the need to visually blend the two past phases of the building’s life, while allowing for important physical separations to exist for security purposes. Thus the question of how to move the public from the ground floor to the upper level MPRs, without compromising security or interrupting the activity of MPs, was central to the organizational system of the renovated building.

This juxtaposition of materiality and heritage allows the past to play against the present, as the original Bottichino marble details of the room are set against a crisp matte-white ceiling. This contrast is important, as the heritage lobby now gives way to the modern atrium that acts as the structural and circulatory core for the building, as well as the first point of arrival for the public, who enter through the 1959 Sparks Street entrance.

The need for such circulatory problem-solving resulted from the decision to locate the MPRs on the upper two most floors. As the fourth floor had the highest ceiling heights, it was decided that the third and fourth floors could best accommodate the technical components required of the rooms, such as broadcast lighting.

This was resolved through the introduction of a three-storey escalator and spiral stair that only provide access to levels that are accessible to the public. Yet while the stair serves a utilitarian purpose, the white, glass, and chrome structure, set against the creamy stonewall behind it, is a striking element that harks back to the building’s 1950s legacy and International Style language.

This space, which was a light well in the original 1927 plan, also gives a sense of the site’s previous essence. This is achieved through the reintroduction of windows that look into the space, as well as through the inclusion of a green wall the helps to create a sense of the outdoors, while also anchoring the room and concealing the escalator behind it.

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On these upper floors, sweeping ‘crush’ spaces run the length of the exterior facades, giving way to views of Parliament. And here too the

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Opposite page The two-storey skylight-lit Library of Parliament space includes walls of acoustical wood panels with sculptural copper shells in front of a perforated copper acoustic wall backing, constructed from copper recycled from the historic 1927 roof that was replaced as part of the project. Above Aligning with the exterior fenestration and pilaster pattern, crush spaces have views of the Corinthian column capitals of the heritage façade, Parliament Hill and the surrounding cityscape. Left MPRs are wrapped in a walnut wood paneling tone evocative of the governmental work occurring within.

What unifies yet haunts the building of its past life most subtlety, however, is seen in the effort to salvage and repurpose many of the found materials that occupied the space previously, such as a speckled green marble that was added in 1959 and now clads a wall in the Sparks Street entrance. It was important to work with the “noble materials and elevate the finishes so that it reflects the people who are living in the space,” says Lizanne Dubien, senior interior designer and associate at NORR. “We carefully walked through the building when we originally started the design and tried to pick elements that we felt were noble materials, and materials that would last a long time.”

sense of being suspended and caught between times and histories is felt, for the space is held on one side by the regular and rigorous geometry of the original exterior wall, with the interior rhythm of the exterior colonnade now boxed in by white-painted casings, while on the other side, a new, limestone-lined wall elegantly bends, mixing the traditional material with a more modern profile.

Off of these hallways, MPRs are tucked away and wrapped in rich walnut wood paneling, allowing the business of the country to happen uninterrupted and with a sense of the importance of the work taking place within them.

This highly restrained yet sophisticated material palette was achieved through a focus on texture, as opposed to colour, giving a neutral yet layered quality to the space. Walnut coloured marble is found throughout the building’s horizontal surfaces, creating an interesting contrast between warm wood and cool stone. Likewise, tone-on-tone shades of white and cream accentuate the bathrooms, and the use of a single form of limestone creates a cohesive and timeless quality to the finishes.

One of the most interesting spaces, however not accessible to the public, is the satellite Library of Parliament facility, which is lit from above by a generous skylight. While normative in its form, the detailing of the walls is both acoustically functional and symbolic of the spirit of the building’s past.

Lined with perforated wood panels on the lower half, the upper portions of the walls are dutifully scaled by folded plates of copper, moving the eye up vertically to the skylight, and casting shadows on the walls below. Constructed from copper recycled from the original 1927 roof that was replaced during the rehabilitation, these triangulated sculptural shells give a three dimensionality and tactility to room. The copper is weathered and patina-laced, with each panel having its own distinct colouration and variation of patterns, evoking memories of Parliament.

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While the Wellington Building is only a temporary home for Government activity, a time in the building’s history that one day too will be allocated to the past, its most recent reworking is meant to inspire both now and for years to come. “We had to produce a facility that in 25 years [would] have the same ambitions and create the same atmosphere,” Clusiau concludes. And it is this sense of the future may be the ghost of Wellington yet to come.

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By Rhys Phillips

Photography by Gordon King / GSM Project

Telling GSM Project’s job is to tell compelling narratives through industrial designer Morley Smith, Swiss graphic designer Laurent Marquart and Swiss architect Roger Labastrou, the firm shone with Alcan’s state-of-the art offices, Dorval International Airport’s interior and Montréal Metro’s signage and still-operating sky-blue rail cars.

Expo 67’s success led to ongoing Expo assignments including Vancouver 86, Lisbon 98 and Shanghai 2010, each reflecting an increasing focus on interactive, multi-media storytelling.

Canada150, the lacklustre sesquicentennial of Canadian Confederation, officially ended at midnight on December 31, 2017, and was “doomed from the start,” opined The Globe and Mail’s Charlotte Gray, arguing that while 1967 was primarily overt boosterism for a country skating on a fragile narrative, 50 years later Canada may be more self-assured but is still wrestling with unresolved dark legacies.

Montréal-based GSM Project’s contributions to both celebrations mirror this transition from hyper-celebration to more nuanced assessments of our successes and shortcomings. In 1967, the firm designed three celebratory Expo 67 pavilions, while 50 years later it has delivered nuanced permanent exhibitions for four national museums in Ottawa. In the latter, the narrative is complex, interactive and not afraid to spotlight warts.

Changing with a Changing World GSM Project, with offices in Montréal, Singapore and Dubai, originated in 1958 with French-born architect Jacques Guillon, founder of one of Canada’s first multidisciplinary design offices. With American CANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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The 1988 exhibition Memories at the Musée de la civilisation de Québec initiated a significant redefinition of the visitor as not just a spectator but also an active participant. It “took the artifact/thematic ethos and coupled it with making the visitor both the centre of and complicit in that narrative,” says Jeremy Taylor, GSM’s Content Director. This idea of active engagement was consolidated at Montréal’s Pointe-à-Callière Museum in 1992.

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Montréal proved an excellent base given its strong digital technology sector and support of related education, creativity and cultural investment. Yet by 2003, 98 per cent of GSM’s work was outside of

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This spread GSM Project was tasked with the redesign of History Hall, a major permanent exhibition in the Canadian History Museum in Ottawa, and worked in collaboration with Douglas Cardinal, the lead architect who initially designed the Museum.

Covering 40,000 square feet over two floors, lighting was a major tool to direct viewer’s attention. A team from GSM Project and Lightemotion used over 40 kinds of light fixtures, from theatrical floodlights to gobo projectors and miniature LED heads to create a unique path of light.

gh artifact and design

Consolidation of separate firms into GSM Project in 2008 ensured a more holistic approach providing a competitive advantage over competitors working within project-by-project partnerships. Studio teams bring together planning and conceptualization with graphic, environmental and interactive design. The last group envisages “the experience journey” and then details the digital user interface. “The storytelling emerges collectively,” says Pappadopoulos, although the authentic artifact always comes first.

Engaging History Since 1988, the Canadian Museum of History’s dense collage of Disney-like replicated antiquity within History Hall has proven popular but also frequently criticized as facile, sanitized and lacking in authenticity. GSM’s complete overhaul, says Taylor, creates “a denser

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Canada. Long term sustainability as well as curiosity, says James Pappadopoulos, GSM’s Senior Director for Strategy and Business Development, meant looking abroad. Singapore’s national policy prioritizing cultural investment proved fertile ground. GSM’s 2006 National Museum of Singapore unfolds seven centuries of history that, without printed text, stretched the firm’s interpretive expertise.

Dubai’s similar cultural investment policy led to At the Top Burj Khalifa. This observation deck project atop the world’s current tallest building ushers visitors from ground to sky and back through a series of interactive multimedia installations addressing the complex history of Dubai. Cultural sensitivity, says Pappadopoulos, is key, a skill honed by GSM’s experience within Québec’s culturally charged environment of identity.

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historical narrative that utilizes many more authentic artifacts in intensive exhibits. The Hall is about narrative pathways rather than isolated islands. They are interactive and hands-on and with fun games designed to be immersive through sound, light and colour.”

nations. Prominently displayed is a brutally distasteful quote from John A. MacDonald on keeping aboriginal children away from their parents’ influence. Highlighting the return to authenticity, an actual early Ukrainian Church is the only holdover from the original hall.

The History Hall contains three time-defined galleries telling 19 “stories.” The first is Beginnings (11,500 BC to 1763), the second, Colonial (1763 to 1914) and finally Modern (1914 to today). These galleries are spokes organized around a central Hub, accessed through a curving, almost ethereally lit hall defined by steel panels engraved with iconic images from across Canada. Visitors, Taylor notes, often seek out images from their home locale for the inevitable selfie.

The Modern gallery contains the final six thematic stories. The remarkably diverse stories presented are intended to show just how “messy” even our current history has been, whether tabulating our successes or exposing our shortcomings. “We really wanted to get the experience of native people in the 20th century right; but also document other groups that have often been marginalized in the history of Canada — gays, other races and minorities as well as women — yet also demonstrate the strong role of multiculturalism,” says Taylor.

The hall exits onto the top of a giant topographical-only map of Canada covering the floor of the central hub. “This ‘upside down’ approach,” Taylor says, “reflects the way original migrants arrived from the west across the top.” Of the three radiating spokes, one accesses the re-established mezzanine level, whose reappearance reveals Douglas Cardinal’s original triple-height vaulted ceiling reflecting a country “infinite and vast.” Throughout, frequent open sightlines, both broad and slivers, visually connect the different stories. The rich use of authentic artifacts, augmented by narrative text, is supported by a significant change in how light is used. “We worked with Lightemotion from Montréal to use light as a way to make the artifacts emerge, which constitutes a movement away from the old idea of using a general wash of light,” he says.

Making a Dismal Science Fun In December, 1980, the Canadian Currency Museum opened in Arthur Erikson’s new Bank of Canada Building to display some of the now over 130,000 currency artifacts. As part of the upgrade to Erickson’s building, a new 7000-sq.-ft. museum space was constructed under a windswept plaza, now much enhanced by bold, light-admitting skylight shards. The museum below, says Nicole Gurski, the Bank’s Manager of Visitor Services, is now an “entertaining” museum about the role and functioning of the Bank of Canada. Four gallery zones, each colour coded and focus-lit to create an almost dazzling futuristic landscape, explore each of four core Bank functions: setting monetary policy; promoting a sound fiscal system; acting as the government’s fund manager; and issuing Canada’s bank notes.

Woven through these galleries are also subtle Economics 101 lessons to help visitors understand both the Bank’s and their own role in the Canadian economy.

Beginnings is about our origin story with the focus “on the real thing.”

The first artifact presented is a beautifully singled-out and delicately lit Clovis Point arrowhead fashioned by the Clovis people 13,500 years ago. Subsequent stories reflect how pre-colonial peoples evolved into discrete tribal kingdoms instead of generic “indigenous peoples,” points out Taylor. The pre-colonialization saga, therefore, mimics the simultaneous emergence of European kingdoms.

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But how do you engage visitors with basic economics and the Bank of Canada? To start, each visitor creates a digital avatar with her/his data stored on a wristband. As the tagged visitor moves through the interactive digital exhibits, they can use their avatar to see how they fit into the Canadian economy or gain insights on “the psychology of economic expectations as reflected by your own needs and spending habits.”

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Left page When finetuning the lighting, Lightemotion worked closely with the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conservation team to provide consistent and suitable lighting, carrying out tests that included thermal models to ensure optimal conservation conditions for the artifacts. Right page Through interactive modules and the display of more than 1,400 artifacts spread over 7,000 square feet, the Bank of Canada Museum takes visitors through the history of the Bank and Canadian currency, and attempts to both distill and animate complex issues related to the economy.

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Left The Canada Science and Technology Museum underwent major renovations to coincide with Canada150, and GSM Project was asked to design three exhibition spaces.

Sound by Design shows the different historical inventions for capturing and reproducing sound, as well as how their design has adapted to the lifestyles and fashions of their era.

Below Into the Great Outdoors shows over 100 years of technologies developed to access the vast Canadian landscape, from snowshoes to snowmobiles.

The first exhibit is a 6.5-m. touchscreen displaying 400 currency artifacts. By tapping, dragging or swiping, visitors can change coins, activate text or manipulate how the coin is displayed. The overall approach, says GSM’s backgrounder, allows discovery “through a variety of means, from colourful data visualizations, documentary videos and animations to mechanical and digital games and a multimedia show.” Highly interactive exhibits employ the latest technology to unpack arcane subjects like inflation and supply and demand “in playful ways.” Playful? Well, you can take digital command of an intergalactic rocket and attempt to fly it through a galaxy of economic forces, or you can manipulate liquidity delivery from the Bank to a small bank in distress (wrong choices and there’s trouble!). After exploring both Canadian and exotic historic currencies, you can even design your own bill.

Fire and Ice GSM also delivered three galleries as part of the $88-million overhaul of the Museum of Science and Technology: Steam - A World in Motion, Sound by Design and Into the Great Outdoors. As well, they conceptualized and supervised installation of the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Canada Goose Arctic Gallery.

Unintentionally, the former offers an opportunity to compare museum exhibit approaches. Like the rest of the museum, the GSM-designed galleries are artifact-heavy but presented quite differently.

Using 19 interactive and media stations, GSM animates a clear and uncluttered narrative interweaving a specific technology with its impact on Canadian society. For example, Canada’s last great age of steam from 1900 to 1960 — complete with four massive locomotives — includes not only how innovative steam trains opened up and transformed the country, but also how steam played a key role transporting the country’s great immigration influx (not always a heartCANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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warming story). Conversely, although chock full of artifacts, much of the rest of the museum is comparatively chaotic and directionless.

Finally, the Artic Gallery extends the meaning of “nature” to include the rich cultural relationship between its residents and its delicate land and hardy animals. The Real Ice exhibit provides an interactive experience that does not shy away from the contemporary threat of global warming.

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“2017 was about closing a number of major initiatives,” says Pappadopoulos. “In 2018, new ones are getting underway.” This includes four pavilions for Dubai’s planned culture-based district, a naturecentred project in Singapore and a Science Centre in Patna, India.

Back in Montréal and the U.S., there are a number of interpretive cultural site projects in the works such as the new Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ont. GSM Project finished Canada150 not with a whimper but with a bang, and for this global Canadian firm the party continues.

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Acrylic partition panels with digital print on frosted vinyl Dr. Andrea Csiszar Inc / West Coast Perio Design: Fusion Projects

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Eastern Promises

A yearly showcase of some of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most celebrated design masters, brand leaders and business figures extolling the merits of good design, the Business of Design Week (BODW) in Hong Kong also includes an impressive series of concurrent events, such as the DFA (Design for Asia) Awards, which promoted the use of design for problem solving and societal wellbeing.

Compiled by Peter Sobchak

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1 Xperia Touch | Sony This portable projector from Sony combines an infrared light array with a 60fps camera capture that turns any flat surface, be it wall, table or even floor, into an interactive touchscreen. Its cool factor cannot be overstated: this little box of tricks gets us closer to that dreamed-about world free of glass screen devices. www.sonymobile.com

2 Light & Shadow Calendar | Shilushi Inc. Inspired by the sundial and intended to both display and pay homage to the movement of the sun, this clever calendar laser-cuts the days out of black paper board, allowing light to go through the slit of numbers and reflect on a flat surface. www.shilushi.com

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Biovessel | Bionicraft With such beautifully sensual and flowing lines, this item could easily be just a piece of tabletop sculpture. But in fact it has grander ambitions: an odourless ecosystem that can grow new plants from food waste, using earthworms and microbes. www.

MiVR Headset | Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software The MiVR fits most phone sizes and is wrapped in smooth, lightweight, durable Lycra, chosen as the main material to remove the cold feeling of electronic products. The two-way zipper locks in a phone securely, more so than conventional slots and phone clips, and is also compatible with different phones with different positions of earphone jacks and USB interfaces. www.mi.com

Gold Phantom | Devialet Limited An audio buffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream, the ultracompact and powerful Gold Phantom wireless speaker by French company Devialet may be the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most expensive Bluetooth Speaker, but from a design perspective must be worth every euro. www.devialet.com

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6 Concetto Professiona | Grohe Clean in line, sleek and chicly spare, the Concetto single-handle pull-down spray head kitchen faucet carries a striking gooseneck design but without the bulky excess typically seen in industrial aesthetics. www.grohe.ca

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the goods

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7 ActivEyes | Philips So sleek and simple it is almost hard to tell what this device does at first glance. An “eye-refresher,” it has three built-in settings to combat eye fatigue: a cool treatment reduces puffiness and refreshes; a warm treatment relieves fatigue and relaxes; a combination program with massage combats dark circles. www.philips.com.hk

8 Timber Scooper | Dennis Cheung Timber Scooper is a digital fabrication technique designed to recycle and re-surface solid wood planks into an organic 3D pattern for wall treatments.

This scooping algorithm is intended to be open-sourced for use by other designers in an attempt to promote sustainable design. www.dennis-cheung.com

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9 Lucky 7 | Justime Available in several models, the wall-mounted basin mixer (shown) spout is meant to represent some kind of plant stem lucky enough to grow out of the wall, while the faucet handle’s round body refers to the seed and its slim part shows “roots of a growing plant.” The name “Lucky Seven” refers more aptly to the curved shape of the sink version, which from the right angle resembles the lucky number seven. www.justime.com

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Beating Winter Blahs Text and photos by David Lasker

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TO DO Festival’s big “do”

Lightform’s showroom in Toronto’s west end hosted a loud, boisterous party to kick off the annual week-long TO DO Festival. The name is short for “Toronto Design Offsite Festival,” the “site” being the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s Interior Design Show, which starts a few days later 1—Chris Burek, sales, Klaus by Nienkamper; Leslie Jen, TO DO Festival board member; Alana Fletcher, of her eponymous interior design firm; and Stefan Sybydlo, principal owner of German kitchen builder Bulthaup’s Toronto showroom. 2—Andy Delisi, A&D rep at furniture refurbisher Envirotech Office Systems (don’t miss their “Most Interesting A&D Rep in the World” Youtube video); Howard Tam, founder of urban planners ThinkFresh Group; and Ben Morse, business development manager, Mazenga Building Group. 3—Udo Schliemann, principal creative director at wayfinding and branding agency Entro Communications; with architect spouses Monica Contreras, director, design and construction, project management office, Ryerson University; and Luigi Ferrara; dean, Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology, George Brown College.

4—Lars Dressler, half of the woodworker twins Brothers Dressler design and bespoke furniture team; and his wife, Shawna Dressler, director, people and operations at Rain ad agency. 5—Michelle Hassen, business development manager at power-generation and -storage firm Invenergy; Glenn MacMullin, associate, KPMB Architects; Heather Rolleston, principal and design director, Quadrangle Architects; and Jason Dobbin, principal at Montgomery Sisam Architects. 6—Emilie Muszczak, art director, Tendril Studio and Anna Touvron, designer at Community, a marketing and ad agency. 7—Nathaniel Garcia, founder of boutique furniture agency Founded by Garcia; Arnaud Marthouret, photographer at his Revelateur Studio; Marsha Robb, Ontario sales rep at textile dealer Momentum Group; Daniel Fisker of his self-named interior design firm Fisker International; and Laura Fyles, strategic designer at business consultants Outloud Service Design Group. 8—Gelareh Saadatpajouh, principal at interior design firm Space Animator; and furniture designer Andrew Jones, who recently created the Deep Seating collection for high-end British outdoor furniture manufacturer Barlow Tyrie. 9—From architectsAlliance, Canada’s point-tower condo design kings: intern architects Felix Suen and Mahan Javadi; and project architect Jon Cummings.

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Interior Design Show opening night party

The Interior Design Show’s opening-night bash at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre was, according to the show’s website, “the biggest design party of the year…[bringing] together over 5,800 of the industry’s greatest influencers for a night of connecting with the design industry and show floor entertainment.”

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1—Eric McClelland, owner, Fleur-de-Lis Interior Design; his sister, Winnipeg-based lawyer Mona Brown; and Jaime Frum, territory manager at flooring dealer Torlys. 2—Figure3 project designers Alivia Checchia and Jordan Brasil, with Haworth A&D market manager LeiLei Sun Kendrew. 3—Custom home builder Derek Nicholson and his kids Jessica, designer at residential interior design firm Croma Design; and Dylan, officer manager at his father’s eponymous firm. 4—II By IV Design Associates intermediate designers Glynne Gu, Vickie Kwon and Sarah Forster. 5—Nick Bergeron of Bergeron Sales, distributor of Blanco sinks in Ottawa; Don Samson and Ryan “Tuna” Vickers, who rep Blanco in Calgary; Blanco Canada rep Dave Mauro; Laurence Brearly, principal at Bergeron Sales; and Ken Roberts, president of Masco, which distributes Delta, Hansgrohe and other plumbing brands. 6—Alyssa Colagiacomo and Melanie Hay of their respective eponymous residential interior design firms; Ross Etherington of his eponymous custom furniture and millwork firm; and Jamie White, product designer and woodworker at Etherington Design. 7—Rubinet Faucet’s Frank Luisi, account manager; his father, Domenic, owner of the Concord, Ont.-based firm; Andrew Piacentini, tile manager, and Anthony Piacentini, account manager, at Canaroma Bath & Tile; and Mike Luisi, Rubinet purchasing manager and Domenic’s son.

8—Shaken, not stirred, at the Monogram booth: Kristine Roce, Monogram brand manager; mixologist Kristina Coraci; Jennifer Jakob, Monogram digital lead; and Orlando Carreira, Monogram brand ambassador and executive mixologist. 9—At furniture manufacturer Monte Design Group: designers and spouses Ralph and Michelle Montemurro, who founded the Toronto-based company in 2005; Brandon Glynn, VP sales; Matt Carr, design director, Umbra; and Monte VP John Tokatlidis. 10—At the Bertazzoni kitchen appliance section of distributor Distinctive Appliance’s booth: Garth McLaughlin, Ontario sales manager; Eric Lapierre, VP sales and marketing; Pierre Cliche, Québec sales manager; account managers Tobi Parnell and Dylan Kafka; Lailyn Arganosa, showroom consultant; Jeannie Sasaki, marketing director; and Gary Rye, account manager. 11—At the Jan Kath Rug Design Studio booth: Andrew Racanelli, Vancouver showroom manager; Jenni Finlay, owner of the Canadian showrooms offering German textile designer Jan Kath’s rug collection; and Yvan Semenowycz and Robyn Waffle, sales and design, Toronto showroom. 12—Christopher DeBoer, owner, Sybrandt Creative Interior Design; interior design stars and IDS Guests of Honour Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu of Yabu Pushelberg; and Toronto Design Offsite Festival executive director Jeremy Vandermeij. 13—At Co+Fo Design: Danielle Simmen, designer and owner of fabric, pillow and accessories manufacturer Pepper B; her husband and Co+Fo cofounder Randy Simmen; chalk artist Elise Goodhoofd; and Karen Ng, clinical researcher at Princess Margaret Hospital and wife of Co+Fo cofounder Desmond Chan, at her left.

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A tribute to Tracy

What Louis XIV was to France when he famously uttered “L’état, c’est moi,” Tracy Bowie was to IIDEX, Canada’s biggest tradeshow for the A&D community. Though IIDEX VP and show director since 2005, when London, England-based Informa Exhibitions took over the show from Merchandise Mart Properties (MMPI), her management of IIDEX dates to 1996. Insofar as IIDEX will no longer be a freestanding show, but an appendage of the Interior Design Show (IDS), this was, perhaps, the appropriate time to leave. Informa threw a farewell party for her at its midtown Toronto office that was packed to the rafters with her many friends and admirers.

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1—Informa’s Ian Chodikoff, Director of Programming; Her Tracy-ness; and Patti Stewart, executive VP at Informa Canada, which manages IIDEX, IDS and other shows. 2—Marilyn Maxim, partnership coordinator at Toronto Design Offsite (TODO) Festival, and, previously marketing manager at Herman Miller and Keilhauer; Maria Ropotyn, sales director at IDS Contract, who worked with Tracy at IIDEX; Lorraine Tierney, former Informa VP marketing and Canadian Interiors editor, who co-managed IIDEX with Tracy when the two were in business as Tierney & Bowie from 1996 to 1998, before both joined MMPI; Tierney’s husband, photographer Doug Hall; and Jeremy Vandermeij, executive director, TODO Festival and former IIDEX marketing director. 3—Alison Jessamine, sales associate, Nienkamper; Christopher Nelson, partner, Nelson & Garrett Lighting; and Rhomney Forbes-Gray, principal and designer, Light Brigade Architectural Lighting. 4—Jerry Lukawski, senior VP; and Martin Bowie (“brother-in-law of”), regional VP, at carpet and vinyl supplier Peerless Contract; and interior designer Trevor Kruse, owner of Hudson Kruse. 5—Informa staff members Janice Leung, show director, One of a Kind Show; Toni Chin, operations coordinator, and Gurmeet Sethi, exhibitor sales manager, Fan Expo; and Nikole Dunlap, conference project manager, and Joan Wilson, conference manager, Real Estate Forums.

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3/4 2018 CANADIAN INTERIORS

2018-03-09 3:24 PM

Photo by Adrien Williams

over & out

The Air Up There

Elite travellers are wined and dined in an elegant setting while waiting for their next flight.

Flying first class just got even more posh, thanks to the new Signature Suite for Air Canada’s top International Business customers at Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport. Designed by Montréal-based Heekyung Duquette Design Office — who has worked with Air Canada before on Maple Leaf lounges in most of Canada’s main cities as well as a few international airports — together with architect Eric Majer, the new suite opened on December 1st and is explicitly clear in whom they’ll let in: only full fare-paying International Business Class customers, excluding upgrades and point-redemption programs.

clude a striking centre mural titled The Place to Which We Always Return by Ottawa-based artist Gavin Lynch; a variety of works by local Montréal artists Pascale Girardin and Nicolas Ruel; and an eye-catching Cloudscape freestanding mobile installation by Toronto design firm Moss & Lam, which features 950 hand-painted wafer-thin petals.

By Peter Sobchak

Arrival is marked by the Air Canada logo on maple wood slats forming a canopy overhead and continuing into the reception area, and an up-lit topographic relief of Fantasy Black marble enclosing a nearby luggage checkroom. Once through the reception gauntlet, the atmosphere is one of subdued serenity. The meandering maple screen continues down a main ramp leading to the central court: to the left, a crescent-shaped cocktail lounge; to the right, the cozy south lounge with comfortable sofa seating and custom blended carpet.

Dominated by Canadian maple, polished Escarpment limestone and back-lit Calacatta marble accents, notable design features inCANADIAN INTERIORS 3/4 2018

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The 6,400-sq.-ft. suite, located near the international departure gates in Terminal 1, can accommodate up to 160 designer luggage-totting travellers. But unlike other lounges in international hubs that boast private relaxation rooms, padded daybeds or showers, this salon is more suited for those catching connecting flights in Pearson, where growing airline traffic means needing to kill a few hours between flights is not uncommon. Food is the main luxury amenity here: visitors can dine à la carte at a full-service restaurant from a menu created by Vancouver-based chef David Hawksworth. The suite also features a cocktail lounge space with full service bar, hors d’oeuvres and snacks, a quiet sitting area and concierge service. Added exclusivity can be experienced in a bronze encased private dining room, intended for groups seeking a little more intimacy. Its smoked glass sliding doors are overlain with a filigree maple-leaves-in-the-wind motif, an appropriately suitable nod to Air Canada.

2018-03-09 3:24 PM

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2018-03-09 2/6/18 6:19 3:24AM PM