Architectural Portfolio by Derrick Pilon

Derrick Pilon

B.A.S. | M.Arch [Candidate]

Architectural Portfolio

A B O U T M

My name is Derrick Pilon: I’m currently in my ﬁrst year of the Masters of Architectural Studies at the McEwen School of Architecture in Sudbury Ontario. I’m a nature enthusiast and hobbiest woodworker which stems from a strong interest for architecture.

McEwen School of Architecture Sudbury, Ontario Canada Contact dpilon1@laurentian.ca (416) - 346 - 5004

Co n te n t s 1-2

Contents

3-4

Design Studio 5 - 18

Studio VII | Tall Wood Residence [Artist Village]

19 - 26

Studio V | Copper Cliff Adaptive Reuse [Market]

27 - 32

Studio VI | Art Gallery [Levitate]

Design Build 33 - 38

Bergen, Norway | Bergen International Wood Festival [BIWF]

39 - 42

Downtown, Sudbury | Nuit Blanche Sudbury [Sem Parti Foss]

43 - 46

Downtown, Sudbury | Digital Fabrication [Foxglove]

Representation 47 - 48

Copper Cliff, Sudbury | United Church of Copper Cliff [Ink]

49 - 52

Architectural Communications | Octavia [Spider City]

53 - 56

Inhabitable Wall | Grotto [Model]

Personal Projects 57 - 60

RichmondHill, Ontario | Canoe Build [Skin on - frame]

Professional Practice 61 - 64

Downtown, Sudbury | The Junction [Integrated Site Plan]

ED UCAT I O N 09 / 2019 - Present

MCEWEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE | LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY, SUDBURY Master of Architecture [MArch]

09 / 2015 - 10 / 2019

MCEWEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE | LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY, SUDBURY Undergraduate Architecture Bachelor Student

09 / 2012 - 04 / 2015

HUMBER COLLEGE | ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGY, TORONTO Advanced Diploma

09 / 2008 - 06 / 2012

GUIDO DE BRES CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL, HAMILTION Diploma

ST U DY T R I PS A N D STAYS A B ROA D 03 / 2019

UNITED STATES New York, Detroit, and Chicago

04 / 2016

ICELAND Reykjavik and South Coast

05 / 2016

NORWAY Bergen and Oslo

05 / 2016

FINLAND Helsinki, Turku, and Jyvaskyla

WORK EXPERIENCE 09 / 2019 - Present

GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT, McEWEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Sudbury, Ontario

05 / 2018 - 08 / 2018

CENTRELINE ARCHITECTURE Sudbury, Ontario Kate Bowman, Architect

08 / 2016 - 10 / 2017

RESEARCH ASSISTANT, McEWEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, Sudbury, Ontario Tammy Gaber, PhD. LU grant supported research-creation.

08 / 2017

ARCHITECTURAL FREELANCE - Sudbury, Site Measurements/ Drawings

07 / 2016 - 08 / 2016

ALKEMA CONSTRUCTION, CALEDONIA Architectural Co - op

06 / 2009 - 08 / 2015

BOOTS LANDSCAPING AND MAINTENANCE, TORONTO Summer Employment First Hand

EXTRACURRICULARS 09 / 2018 - 04 / 2019

LASA | Fourth Year Student Representative

10 / 2018 - 02 / 2019

McEwen Nuit Blanche Currator | Installation & Artist Coordinator

2017

Timber Fever Participant | Design Build Competition at Ryerson University

ACHI EV EM ENTS 2015 2016 2016 2017 2016 - 2019 2019 2019 2019

2nd Place | OAAAS Competition 1st Place in the Bergen International Wood Festival [BIWF] Design Build Scholarship 1st Place | McEwen Nuit Blanche Deans Honour List 2nd Place | McEwen Architecture Internal Competition [Inhabitable Wall] 1st Place | Outstanding Project for Spacial Qualities, Inhabitability, and well-being Graduate Teaching Assistant Scholarship

PRO G R A MS Revit AutoCAD Photoshop Illustrator InDesign Lightroom Rhino 6 Sketchup V-ray for rhino & Sketchup Grasshopper Analogue / Digital Sketching Photography / Model Making English

REF ER ENC ES David Fortin, PhD Associate Professor | Director McEwen School of Architecture (705) 675 1151 ext. 7207 dtfortin@laurentian.ca Tammy Gaber, PhD Associate Professor McEwen School of Architecture (705) 675 - 1151 ext. 7204 tgaber@laurentian.ca Amber Baechler, Architect Sessional Member McEwen School of Architecture abaechler@laurentian.ca Kate Bowman Architect Centreline Architecture kate@c-arch.ca

Site Axonometric

Studio VII | Artist Village Project Date | October 2018 - May 2019 Location | Downtown Sudbury Studio Partner | Aidan Lucas Placement | 1st Place [Outstanding Project for Spacial Qualities, Inhability and well-being] Professor | Shannon Basset The main studio project for my fourth and ďŹ nal year at the McEwen School of Architecture was to be completed in groups of two. We were tasked with designing a mass timber high-rise building that included housing for approximately 200 people, with commercial programs of our choice to be included. The given site combines two vacant parking lots with an alley running through the centre. These lots are located in Downtown Sudbury, a mere stones throw from the Architecture School and adjacent to one of the busier pedestrian circulation thoroughfares in the downtown. Through our initial research my partner and I found that the downtown of Sudbury really needed to be more livable. Our goals were to create programs in our building that would support the downtown during the day, as well as after hours. Our solution was to tap into the existing arts scene and the emerging architectural professionalism latent with the presence of the architecture school in the downtown. We did this by creating live / work apartments for students and young professionals, providing a platform for them to create and display their work to fellow artists as well as the general public. The commercial programs that were chosen to support our housing typology included a brewery, grocery store along with a circulating art space for the residences to display their work. These public programs are interconnected with public and private green spaces that encourage inhability and well being.

Artist Village derrick pilon aidan lucas

A village of townhouses and studios, situated in the centre of an urban context upon a series of landscapes. Programmed to enhance the social fabric of the downtown + provide spaces for artist on artist on community interaction and collaboration. Contemporary in form yet contextually industrial in material the building is detailed to change with age. Northern Ontarios landscape is defined by in the the existance of the canadian sheild. Historically the exposed bedrock has been a help and hinderance to civilization and has in a large part to Sudburyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ad hock style of building in, around, and through landscapes. The downtown of Sudbury itself is void of this typical landscape however as it lies at the heart of a since dried up lake. My partner and I have thus taken the Northern Ontario landscape and used it as our parti for both planting precedants and building formation. The residences are situated between interstitial greenroofs that serve as our â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;landscapesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. These landscapes aid with the overall sustainability of the project by absorbing, and storing any excess water runoff in hidden retaining tanks. This includes rain water as well as snow melt. off which is of extreme importance considering the local climate.

A. B. C.

Perspective sketch looking North - East - by Aidan Lucas Photograph of a historical neighborhood in Sudbury Section looking up through the programmed brewery on the first two stories, programmed townhouses above along with various pro grammed interstitial green spaces ascending up the building

Butterfly section part one

Butterfly section part two

Section looking east through the complex

B. A. B. C. D.

Render looking through the laneway between the market and the brewery - by Aidan Lucas Render of the market space entering up the north end of the building. First floor plan with surrounding context. Third floor plan showing the top of the poduim and interstitial green spaces.

A. A.

B. C. A. Render of the public green space on the top portion of the residential tower seen in the winter months. programs and main home to our many interstitial green spaces. B. Photo of the laser cutt matt board model seen in elevation. C. Sectional facade study model focussing on the transfer of materials between private and public programs. D. Large scale detailed section focussing on the top few stories of the residential tower.

A. A. B. C. D. E.

Render looking onto the atrium in the centre of the tower. Floor plans showing a loft style and studio unit. Render showing the public space above the brewery on the third floor Detail of a green wall on the lower podium outside of the brewery. Section detail of a wall showing the tapering of the windows in our units

C. Creative Collaboration through Interstitial Spaces Our first move in housing creative individuals was to move away from the double loaded corridors. each of our units instead capitalizes on the connectivity between different rooms and or green space. This is supported trough our public spaces whether they be interior or exterior serving to metaphorically increasing the threshold of each unit. Our unit typologies consist of townhouses, loft, and studio style apartments which all have access to co-working units, greenhouses and studios. An atrium spans from one end of the tower to the other and not only acts as a means to increas natural light into the space, but also as a stack effect, which naturally exhausts excess heat in warmer weather.

Studio V | Community Market Project Date | October 2017 - December 2017 Location | Copper Cliff, Sudbury Individual Studio Project Professor | Amber Baechler The following project was completed in the first semester of my third year of the Undergraduate Program. The First portion of the semester was devoted to the study of the urban historical fabric of Copper Cliff. Copper Cliff is one of the first communities to be established in Sudbury. It lies just under the super stack and was informally formed by migrant Italian workers who had jobs at the mine nearby. Copper Cliff was once a vibrant small town that was in many ways related to many hill-towns in Italy. The mine workers worked with the hard Stone hills instead of removing them, as is the usual technique in the more moder Sudbury. This allows for a town that has an incredible amount of character and sense of place in which we could start our design. The goal of the studio project was to bring the existing robust door to door culture that the establishment of a new market building over the existing corner store. My goal project was to provide fresh produce to the neighborhood through green houses spread throughout the area as well as a vertical green wall with lies at the heart of my building. This building provides a market space on main floor and an open community kitchen on the mezzanine floor above along with some seating overlooking the market place below. Hardscaping was also planned on the exterior of the building to allow the market space to be expanded onto the street safely when weather permits it.

A. B. C.

Detailed wall atrium space exterior wood wall system. First floor pla Second Floor kitchen space

section cutting through the main e of the market showing how the d cladding attaches to the curtain

an showing surrounding context r plan showing the community e above.

B. A. B. C.. D.

SECTIONS

Model photo showing the existing cladding conecting to the new addition. Model photo highlighting the screen cladding over the main window glazing Elevation looking north - west Section cutting through the building at the same elevation above, showing the market spilling out of the building as well as the shared kitchen space on the second story and the back of house areas adjacent to them..

C. 5

B. A. B. C.. D.

Vignette showing how the market space spilled out onto the public square Vignette showing the interior of the main atrium / market space. Elevation facing north - east Section looking through the main market / atrium space displaying the green wall which serves as the lungs of the building.

D. 5

The Art Gallery focusses on raising the main body of the building up [pulling inspiration from Architect Renzo Piano] and programming that first floor with public program in order to populate it. The goal of this move was to allow for a nearly blanket clear story that would encourage the new members of the community to walk in and explore the new gallery. The facade along the building accentuates this floating and solidifies the human scale latent in the project. A.

Concept Section

A. B. C. D.

Concept sketch illustrating the main gesture of the building. First Floor Plan showing many of the public programs Second Floor Plan containing the temporary gallery, experimental gallery, and back of house Third Floor Plan containing the permanent gallery, back of house and currators library / workspaces

C. A. B. C. D. E. F.

Detailed Photo of cladding overhanging the first floor Photo looking from the street corner into the public space of the gallery Photo of the model showing the north face of the section model North Elevation East Elevation Section cutting through the main atrium space highlighting the circulation through the building

“The Bergen International Wood Festival is a biennial global competition focusing on the use of wood for its tectonic, structural and tactile qualities. Students from Laurentian University took this year’s top prize for their tunnel-like installatio, entitled Metamorphis.” - Canadian Architect Magazine Metamorphis was a project which my group and I completed in Bergen, Norway. The main focuss for the competition this year was the ‘green transition’ and centred in on a strip of parkland that wrapped the bay of Store Lungegårdsvann. Our installation along with all of the other temporary installations were to portray relation bewteen the green spaces and the city in general. Our design employed hexagons which were constructed using an adaptable jig on site. We designed the modular building detail and let the final form be determined by the existing site conditions. We chose to nestle our structure between two paths in order to create a connection through the natural foliage and trees present along the waters edge. We weaved our structure throughout the site and fluctuated the sizes as we neared the trees in order to emphasize the hermeneutic relationship. The scale was that of 6’ at its largest and 5’ 6” at its smallest. This forced the user to interact with the installation, allowing them to focus on their surroundings, only serving to further emphasize the ‘green transition’.

Detailed photograph of the interior of the installation showing human scale.

Detailed photograph of the interior looking out over the bay.

Photograph showing the instalation in context.

Detail Photograph of the Installation

McEwen Nuit Blanche [Sem Parti Foss] Project Date | February 2017 [Second Year] Location | McEwen School of Architecture Placement | 1st Place Team Size | 7 This project was completed in my second semester of second year in response to Nuit Blanch and the opening of the school. Architecture students as well as members of the community were called to put forth their proposals for installations that were to go up in and around the Architecture school. I was a part of a six person group of students from the architecture school. Since the scale of our project was rather ambitious we took on whoever we could in order to complete the construction of the installation. We drew inspiration from the geometric qualities that represent themselves in nature. These are particularly evident in honeycomb and basalt rock formations. We borrowed the perfect layout of the honey combs of the horizontal plane while taking more chaotic properties from the basalt rock formations which we saw in the Icelandic rock formations which we saw on the Scandinavian trip that my group members and I went on. We focused on this chaotic nature in this design and tried to capture this essence in the overall experience of the project.

Drone Photograph of the installation from above | from Emily Epp

Foxglove [Digital Fabrication] Project Date | Spring of 2019 Location | Prospective Team Size | Eight Proffesor | Patrick Harrop

The goal of the project was to create some sort of tessalation in a place of our choosing within the McEwen School of Architecture. We chose to place our installation at the end of a path that lies at the end of the first year studios. The inspiration behind our installation was natural and focussed on tessalation around a spine which in direct reflection of the Foxglove flower. Our group work very smoothly and co-operatively for an eight group project with members taking on certain tasks and others working interchangably to help where it was needed. Tasks were divided up evenly and details well thought out and executed while employing zero glue and only one knot at the top and bottom of the installation. We developed a cleaver friction fit device that relied on the slight weight of the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bloomsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to apply force on the four threads to distrobute the weight evenly. this system of supporting the many blooms per ring allows the flower to move naturally and continuosly underneath the air vent.

B. A. B. C. D. E. F.

C. View of the bloom down the laneway. View of the installation with emphasis on movement. Detail of the velum bloom. View of the installation looking up towards the air vent. Process photo of the colouring of the velum sheets. Photo showing the scale of the blooms.

United Church of Copper Cliff [Ink] Project Date | October [First Year] Location | Copper Cliff, Sudbury Personal Art This drawing was part of a project which was completed in my ďŹ rst semester of my studies at the McEwen School of Architecture. The preliminary pencil lines were completed on site in the Plein Air style and reference pictures were taken to capture site details to be completed in pen at a later time. When the project was completed I donated a scanned copy of the drawing with a frame to the church with the approval of my supervising studio professor Tammy Gaber.

Octavia [The Spider City] Project Date | 2018 Location | Prospective Literary Source | Invisible Cities Render Octavia, the Spider City is the story in which I chose to design my literary booklet after. The spider city is described as being a city suspended vicariously from a large rope net. The large cliff walls form a valley over which the city is suspended, creating a safe, but perilous city which could possibly fall apart at any moment. The way of life of the people who call the Spider City home is precarious at best. The structure precariously hanging from the cliffs above them with the valley far below. The following image is how I imagined the spider city as I read the text. I imagined this huge city, one that was spread vertically instead of horizontally which was increasingly fascinating to me. When a family grows and is in need of space the family simply expands downwards with their structure. The entire city there fore creates this incredible social space with hardly any restrictions. The complex surrounds this giant cone rope net which stretches between the buildings in order to allow transportation between the housing units.

A. B.

Interior Perspective of the Hanging City Section Highlighting the Vertical Circulation System

Inhabitable Wall Wall || Grotto Grotto [Model] [Model] Inhabitable ProjectDate Date| January, | January, 2019 Project 2019 Location Location| |Prospective Prospective Team [Devin Tyers, Shraddha Shah]Shah] TeamSize Size| |Three Three [Devin Tyers, Shraddha Placement Place Placement| 2nd | 2nd Place Proffesor Bassett Professor| Shannon | Shannon Bassett

The purpose purpose of of the the inhabitable inhabitablewall wallproject projectwas wasto tocreate createaa‘wall’ ‘wall’which which The could be inhabited by miniature people in order to test different types could be inhabited by miniature people in order to test different types of construction materials and techniques in relation to to their potential of construction materials and techniques in relation their potential qualities regarding perceptions, sensations, and emotions. qualities regarding perseptions, sensations, and emotions. We were were encouraged encouraged to to explore explorematerial materialthat thatwe weweren’t weren’tentirely entirelycomfortcomWe fortable in order to better understand the latent sensual qualities able in order to better understand that latent sensual qualities imbued in imbued in them. them. My group group decided decided to to experiment experimentwith withconcrete concreteto tocreate createthe thefinal ﬁnalform form My while using wood, which we were a little more comfortable with for the while using wood, which we were a little more comfortable with for the multiple frameworks. multiple frameworks. We used used 6mm 6 mmsoftwood softwooddowels dowelstofor create the organic interior form We create the organic interior form of of the the structure while using laser cut 3 mm birch plywood for the more structure while using laser cut 3mm birch plywood for the more geometgeometric form was completed ﬁlledPortland it with ric exterior.exterior. Once theOnce formthe work waswork completed we filledwe it with Portland cement and allowed it to cure for 48 hours. We then proceeded Cement and allowed it to cure for 48 hours. We then proceded to burn to burn out the wooden interior wooden frameworks leaving the inversions of the out the interior frameworks leaving the inversions of the wooden wooden dowels and providing an organic and surprisingly light structure. dowels and providing an organic and suprisingly light structure.

A. B. C. D. E

Photo of the wooden framework being removed via fire Smoke leaving the skylight View from the back of the wall through the tunnel View from the entrance Process diagram

A. A.C.B. B. C. C.

View into the interior View intoofthe View theinterior Side of the Wall View of the Diagram Side of the Wall Process Process Diagram

I took on the job of making a skin on frame canoe over the past summer. I had been following Cape Falcon Kayak on social media for a number of years now and his in depth and integral knowledge of woodworking really hit home to me. I took on the project as my summer hobby as a precurser to entering my masters with the goal of bringing it along with me up north to dip into a few lakes to really begin to experience the landscape without the need of borrowing a canoe from my friends and relatives. the project turned out to be quite intensive and required me to know how to use and operate nearly ever tool in the shop along with an in depth knowledge of the sciences of speciation between types of wood. I spent a month researching, doing cost annalysis, and sourceing the wood for the canoe for the various portions of the canoe while trying to stay as local as possible with my wood selections. I ended up going with Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, and White Oak for my wood species. Red Cedar is an incredibly light weight wood

A. After much research I ended up choosing Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, and White Oak for my wood species | Red Cedar is an incredibly light weight wood that i was able to get in 16â&#x20AC;&#x2122; lengths which was perfect for the use of the lamited gunwales and stringers. Douglas fir is a heavier and stronger soft wood which I chose as the middle lamination in the gunwales to stiffen / strengthen the frame. I also used three strips to run at the base of the canoe for added strength and to lower the risk of breakage. Green white oak is a great water resistant wood that is incredible strong and great in steam bending conditions. Green white oak is paramount in the steam bending process because when its green [air dried] the lignens latent in the wood are still able to be baked through the steam bending process and when dried after the steam bending process, serve to aid in maintaining the form more than the typical hardwood. Each rib was cut to the precise dimension and free bent into place in the tennons which lie on the bottom side of the gunnels. Once all of the ribs were bent in place I tapped small dowels solidify the connection so there would be minimal movement through the tieing of the stringers to the ribs. The stringers were tied in continous knots around the ribs in a precise manner with artificial sinnew [coated with bees wax] which serves to hold the string in place. This allows for movement and flexability in the wood which allows the boat to absorb forces exerted on it with ease.

A. B. C. D. E.

Post steam bending. Laying out the stringers. View of the canoe once the stringers have bee attached. Detail shot of the bow. View from the inside of the stern.

Centreline Architecture in collaboration with Cumulus Architects worked with City Staff and the community to develop an integrated site plan for a new Library, Art Gallery [LAG], Convention Centre, as well as a Performance Centre [GSCPC]. The combination of the above projects were to be located within the downtown of Sudbury. The goal of the project was to lay the groundwork for the city to begin to develop new facility plans for a new main library branch, and existing and celebrated community art gallery, as well as a new perfoming art centre. The role which I played in this project was to work through different iterative design schemes under Architect Kate Bowman in direct communication with Cumulus Architects. I was responsible for modifying the given Downtown Sudbury file to meet the firms standards of design and to begin iteratice massing designs as well as attend and participate in community meetings with representives of both architecture firms, members of the community, and representatives from the city planning commity. After my work was sent off to Cicada Design [an architectural representation firm based out of Toronto] I began working on a plug in model to fit in the downtown model that students from the McEwen School of Architecture had constructed previously. This task, though it was small was independant and I was given the reigns to figure out and communicate with the school to borrow the large scale model to bring to council for the presentation

A. After my work was sent off to Cicada Design [an architectural representation firm based out of Toronto] I began working on a plug in model to fit in the downtown model that students from the McEwen School of Architecture had constructed previously. This task, though it was small was independant and I was given the reigns to figure out and communicate with the school to borrow the large scale model to bring to council for the presentation. The project ended with a presentation to the city council where Kate Bowman gave an overview of the project to the city officials and they discussed the values of adding above facilities to the budget. The motion ended up passing at the end of the meeting with a budget being approved for the continuation of the developement of the planning phase. In keeping in contact with members in Sudbury I have found that the scale of the projects in size and price has remained the same, but the location has moved to a block away leaving the existing arena building for the local OHL Sudbury Wolves out of the scope of work.

A. B. C.

Areal Perspective. Render of the public square below the Art Gallery Render showing the winter garden connecting the library on the left and the art gallery on the right.

593 Burton Avenue Sudbury, ON P3C 4K8 Canada dpilon1@laurentian.ca (416) 346 - 5004