GRANDS PRIX

Grand Prix Architecture

Project École L’Agora-Tourterelle

Canada

By

Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes

Québec, Canada msdl.ca

Cozy Cocoons & Cool Classrooms

AN UPDATED ARCHITECTURAL APPROACH The building designed by Menkès Shooner Dagenais Letourneux Architectes suggests an updated interpretation of the school as an open and unifying environment, adapted to a project-based pedagogy that focuses on team work and student autonomy.

AN AGORA-INSPIRED VOLUME Here, the building’s massing provided the ideal volume for the creation of a central and luminous space, called the “Public Square”. Deployed on two levels, a warm and imposing natural wood bleacher connects the lunch area on the first level to collaborative spaces above.

CONCENTRATION COCOONS & CREATION LABS Cozy niches and alcoves as well as bleachers offer each student a space catered to different needs and personalities. Created to serve as “crealabs” that encourage collaboration and cooperative work, the classrooms feature flexible furnishings and interactive whiteboards. As per the state-of-the-art artistic studios and workshops, they are fully adapted to suit the technical and practical needs of cinema, music, visual arts and theatre.

A RAINBOW OF BLISS The building’s window-integrated colored filters integrated play with the natural light it lets in while, inside, the materials and finishes’ bright colors, as well as the flooring and wall covering patterns and vibrant hues transform the school to an inspiring, amusing and attractive place to teach, share and learn.

In this agora dedicated to an innovative approach to teaching, grade school and high school students mingle in the corridors and develop their autonomy in most alternative ways.

Grand Prix Architecture

Canada Québec, Canada naturehumaine.com

One Breach, Two Volumes & Endless Bliss

Here, the house layout is strategically separated into two distinct one-level volumes, linked by an adjoining breach that serves as a passage and terrace.

DEEP INTO THE WOODS In the heart of the Eastern Townships woods, the country house’s lot is characterized by a hilly landscape. At its highest point, the property is topped with a bedrock on which the new construction sits, strongly anchored.

TWO VOLUMES, TWO FUNCTIONS While the main volume hosts the living and sleeping spaces, the second volume contains the functional areas such as a workshop and a guest loft. Shared living quarters face the Mount Orford on the North side of the lot to offer exceptional views in every nature’s season. THE ILLUSION OF A SPLIT Designed by _NATUREHUMAINE, the house is kept to its most elementary shape. The two buildings entities are divided by an exterior passage cladded in the same wood as the overall envelope. It gives the illusion that a natural phenomenon has split an initial entity into two distinct parts.

A BRILLIANTLY FRAMED PANORAMA Magnified by the floating sensation of the house’s anchoring at the edge of the sloping lot, the views are simply exceptional. The viewpoints are treated both as picture frames onto the nature and as wide panoramic glazed apertures overlooking the undulating landscape profile.

A SELF-AFFIRMED MINIMALISM Inside the house, white painted walls and ceilings, diamond polished concrete floors as well as a lack of conventional baseboards are some of the minimalist characteristics that serve to reinforce the simplicity and purity of the space.

Grand Prix Architecture

Canada Québec, Canada blanchette-architectes.com

A Fabulous Whiff of Pine

Nestled in a domain of the emblematic Mont-Tremblant with a seducing elevation of 932 meters, La Cédrière is anchored on its site, in perfect harmony with the roundabout before it and the woods in the back.

CREATING INTIMACY The unevenness on the land’s limits forced the establishment of the house in the heart of it all, establishing, by the same occasion, the intimacy and the privacy of the residence.

WOOD FOREVER & ALWAYS Here, the wooden slats that make up the facades act, sometimes, as a protective screen, and other times, as a frame open to the landscape. The cedar wood blinders participate in the project’s kinetics. Sometimes transparent, sometimes opaque, the contrasting composition of the facades brings a dynamic reading that anchors the building to its surrounding landscape.

A ROMANTIC INTERIOR Inside, the bay windows that fully inhabit the surface of the walls blur the boundaries between the seasonal landscapes and the inhabited interiors. The plan revolves around two dark objects, the staircase and the fireplace. They create a liaison amongst the space, allowing partial division of uses and participating in the expression of the double height of the house’s compact plan.

MIRROR, MIRROR Emphasizing the space’s fluidity, glass partitions and imposing mirrors use their reflections to let its surrounding landscape in, over the full depth of the residence. Brilliant! The whole is imbued with the master skills of Blanchette Architectes.

Grand Prix Architecture

Project Les Tissages

Canada Québec, Canada lashedarchitecture.com

A Mile-End Love Story

In order to live a retirement to take full advantage of urban life, two sisters unite and reinvent the duplex house with love, simplicity and imagination.

BAGELS & ARCADE FIRE The story unfolds in Montreal’s trendiest neighborhood, the made famous for its bagel joints and emergence of musical talents such as Arcade Fire Mile-End.

PUZZLE-MAKING SKILLS La Shed Architecture was presented with the challenge of renovating and expanding this duplex to create a quality living environment that promotes cohabitation. Thus one of the sisters occupies the ground floor and the basement with her husband, while the other sister takes up residence on the first floor. Bingo!

A STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN A monumental staircase unites all levels and living quarters while submerging the house with light. At the very top of it all, a shared space to meet and mingle makes family gatherings a piece of pie and an adjacent terrace turns enjoying sunsets into a daily pleasure. A GEM, A JEWEL, A HOME In keeping with the language of the front facade, the rear wall replays the textured appearance of split stone by crossing its bricks diagonally. Fine steel rods slipped into the exposed cavities of the bricks form a weave with the railings of the terraces, amplifying the textile aesthetics of the facade. Here, the openings’ regularity, symmetry and verticality contribute to the classic character of the place. Here is a successful marriage between classic and contemporary architecture which magnifies the quality of the living space for two sisters and their shared family.

Grand Prix Architecture

Canada Québec, Canada abcparchitecture.com

A Clever Nod to Jacques Cartier’s Ships

The fauna, flora and the river can be rediscovered thanks to this cyclopedestrian footbridge which spreads out above the Saint-Charles river and where Jacques Cartier’s ships had docked to spend the harsh winter of 1536.

ASYMMETRIC, LIGHTWEIGHT & DELICATE Lightweight and delicate, the asymmetrical architectural concept imagined by ABCP architecture consists of a fully suspended structure of steel cables and cylindrical stringers that support a cross-laminated timber deck. Its masts fill an identifying function that symbolically references explorer Jacques Cartier’s ships.

IN SYMBIOSIS WITH FAUNA & FLORA Respectful of its natural site and surrounding environment, here is a seamless integration of an urban infrastructure into the natural environment and urban fabric.

SHOWCASING WOOD & NATURE The use of wood presented a challenge as to how to create a flexible and delicate structure in appearance, despite its structural need for strength and stability. The pathway surface is composed of prefabricated wood panels laid in a herringbone pattern that provides a dynamic graphic effect when lit come nightfall.

A FOUR-SEASON BELVEDERE Suspended under the main bridge, a lower footbridge features a lookout for the exclusive use of pedestrians and provides intimate contact with the river’s flora and fauna, as well as an exceptional view of the main bridge’s exposed wooden structure. It connects both the pedestrian and bike paths through an intricate set of inclined planes.

Grand Prix Architecture

Canada

By

Repère Boréal & Production Légion

Québec, Canada repereboreal.com legionprod.com

A Masterpiece of Mountain & River

This vacay tiny house, nestled on the mountainside of Les Éboulements pays homage to the exceptional landscape of the Charlevoix region… a masterpiece of mountain and river.

: RefinedMoments Photo

A MARTINI & A FEW PENCIL STROKES Repère Boréal’s most recent eco-habitat imagined by visionary brothers Jonathan and Simon Galarneau revisits a classic. Redesigned in the shape of a diamond with purposeful bold angles and straight lines that echo trees has landed upon les Éboulements to calmly gaze at the river.

ABOVE THE TREE LINE Perched at more than 10 meters among the trees, the eco-tree-cabin deploys its space amongst the majestic nature while leaving a minimal imprint on the ground. A series of white metal birch trees blend in with the forest to anchor the mini-chalet. In the lower branches, a swing built from a restored chairlift pays tribute to the ski mountains nearby.

OBTUSE ANGLES & SPACE OPTIMIZATION A concealed staircase made of local cedar leads to the upper living quarters revealing a fully equipped kitchen, a powder room, a window counter, and a bold shower overlooking the bed and the landscape on the other side of the triple-pane glass wall.

BETWEEN EARTH & SKY, LAND & WATER In this sanctuary of peace, guests are invited to settle down and satisfy their desire for beauty. The walnut and the brass of the handles, in desired dissonance with the light cherry wood walls, the underlining of the repeated silences in the angle of the ventilation slots and the voluptuous curves of the doors and the furniture… everything, inside and out, was imagined to harmonize with the sublimity of nature surrounding.