34 minute read
GROSVENOR AMBLESIDE
A NEW VIEW IN AMBLESIDE
A BLOCK-LONG WATERFRONT SITE IN WEST VANCOUVER’S AMBLESIDE VILLAGE PROVIDES A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO DESIGN A NEW HEART FOR A WELL-ESTABLISHED NEIGHBOURHOOD.
PROJECT Grosvenor Ambleside, West Vancouver, BC ARCHITECT James K.M. Cheng Architects TEXT Sean Ruthen
Discussions of the “missing middle” often focus on densifying singlefamily lots, or sites made by consolidating a handful of lots. But occasionally, the opportunity arises to develop a larger infill parcel in an existing neighbourhood. If done right, this can result in muchneeded housing while enlivening the public realm.
This was the case with a project our firm, James K.M. Cheng Architects, recently completed after a decade of work. Grosvenor Ambleside occupies a 180-metre-long waterfront site in West Vancouver. For many years, the site had been home to a gas station, several single-storey retail buildings from the 1950s and 60s, and surface parking. It also housed an aging Ron Thom-designed police station that’s since been replaced with a newer facility elsewhere. The site sloped down to the south, where built-up railway tracks created a 1.2-metre-high visual barrier to beach and ocean views.
For our team, the idea of a new development here was an opportunity to inject new life into the aging neighbourhood block, improve access and enjoyment of the waterfront, and create a much-needed heart for the neighbourhood. We were working on a number of other master plans at the same time as Ambleside, including the 14-acre former TransLink bus barns site in central Vancouver, now set to become
ABOVE The development continues Marine Drive’s commercial fabric, with wood accents nodding to the West Coast modern vernacular. OPPOSITE A centrepiece of the development is a mid-block public passage and event space, covered by a glass-and-wood canopy. OPPOSITE BOTTOM Facing the beach, the block was raised to match the level of an existing railway embankment, improving views and access to the water.
15TH ST 14TH ST CLYDE AVE DUCHESS AVE
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BELLEVUE AVEARGYLE AVE 13TH ST a new community for over 2,000 people, and an eight-acre strip mall in Coquitlam, being transformed into a transit-oriented development. Our office thinks of these projects as acts of “urban mending”—where an outdated commercial or industrial area is reworked as part of a more sustainable community.
For Ambleside, it was no small feat to see the 98-unit mixed-use development project through to reality, starting with a complex land assembly process led by Grosvenor, and followed by a robust public engagement process—perhaps the most comprehensive of the many that our team has seen in the past 40 years. A development of this density on a prime waterfront site would simply not have been possible without the support of the community—from the residents of the District of West Vancouver to the long-time locals around Ambleside Beach.
From the beginning, it was clear that the project needed to do more than provide high-end condos for its residents: it needed to create a strong public realm that would serve the entire community. Raising the ground floor to the level of the railway tracks was a first strategic move in this direction: it allowed for the commercial units (and not just the residents above) to enjoy views of Stanley Park and the Georgia Strait, while also providing flood protection against the annual King Tide and rising sea levels.
Early on during the public consultations, the team also settled on a terraced building form and a mid-block breezeway. The terraces help
preserve views for neighbours in a small cluster of apartment blocks across the street, while the breezeway opened views to the beach for passing pedestrians and cars on Marine Drive. The upper floor condos pivot slightly from the ground floor street grid to align with the area’s overall north-south orientation, further opening up views and minimizing the building’s bulk.
The mid-block passageway quickly evolved into an all-weather living room for the community, complete with a transparent glass-and-wood canopy spanning 60 feet between the buildings. Tree Snag, a 30-foottall sculpture by Douglas Coupland, occupies the central space, complementing other works around the site by the same artist. Original paintings by the late Gordon Smith, who passed away in early 2020, adorn the residential lobbies. The developer, Grosvenor, has also forged partnerships with the Kay Meek Art Centre and other local arts organizations for Christmas performances and other special events to take place in the sheltered outdoor space.
The development also aims to contribute towards housing availability and sustainability. The 98 high-end, home-like units are the kind of places intended to appeal to aging boomers interested in opting for a lowermaintenance condo with waterfront views, and a chance to live in the ‘five-minute city.’ Such occupants could produce the knock-on effect of freeing up nearby existing houses for use by families. Currently, West Vancouver is Canada’s wealthiest municipality, with an average
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ABOVE The upper floors of Grosvenor Ambleside pivot from their podium base, aligning with the residential fabric of the district.
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household net worth of over $4.45 million dollars—but much of that is tied up in the value of under-occupied homes that were purchased at much lower prices, and that owners can’t afford to relocate from without an alternative such as Ambleside.
On each floor, deep overhangs contribute to solar shading and weather protection while protecting each unit’s views; extensive planters allow for the capture and slow release of rainwater before being discharged at ground level. Nodding to the area’s West Coast Modern legacy homes, Grosvenor Ambleside sports long horizontal lines, wood parallam beams in the breezeway, generous glazing, and stunning views of the water and mountains.
Herman Hertzberger once wrote about the warp and weft of urban design. He commented that architecture and its surrounding context—the roads and infrastructure that support each building—combine and complement each other in a successful design. We see our work at Ambleside and other large sites around Metro Vancouver as part of this greater whole. These projects participate in an ongoing revitalization of the city’s infrastructure, mending city streets while introducing new building fabric.
At Ambleside, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, both for residents and for the greater community. Through public engagement and a shared vision of how we wish to live together, we believe that beyond providing housing, we’ve forged a strong public realm in this key community site—a place from which we can stand back to look at the state of our world, and find our way back home.
Sean Ruthen, FRAIC, is the current RAIC Regional Director for BC and Yukon, and a senior architect at James K.M. Cheng Architects.
CLIENT GROSVENOR | ARCHITECT TEAM JAMES KM CHENG (FRAIC), ADELINE LAI, DON CHEN, DENNIS SELBY, INGOLF BLANKEN BARBOSA, LUC MELANSON, STANTON HUNG, SARA KASAEI, ASHLEY ORTLIEB, FANG HSU, BRUCE YUNG, CANDACE LANGE | STRUCTURAL READ JONES CHRISTOFFERSEN | MECHANICAL INTEGRAL GROUP | ELECTRICAL SMITH + ANDERSEN | LANDSCAPE DESIGN ARCHITECT SWA | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OF RECORD DURANTE KREUK | CIVIL BINNIE | SURVEYOR BUTLER SUNDVICK | INTERIORS MITCHELL FREEDLAND DESIGN | CODE LMDG BUILDING CODE CONSULTANTS | ENVELOPE RDH BUILDING SCIENCE | GEOTECHNICAL THURBER ENGINEERING | ACOUSTICS BKL CONSULTANTS | SUSTAINABILITY INTEGRAL GROUP | WAYFINDING BUNT & ASSOCIATES | CONTRACTOR LEDCOR GROUP | AREA 24,619 M2 | BUDGET $347 M | COMPLETION SPRING 2021
How energy modelling benefi ts design —
FREE expertise and incentives, value of up to $60,000*
Adam Barker
Energy Specialist EQ Building Performance Inc.
Savings by Design provides new construction builders with FREE energy modelling as part of a design assistance workshop led by green building experts. Adam Barker explains how energy modelling can help architects optimize design choices for commercial and multiresidential buildings.
Energy modelling helps save energy and money —
What energy modelling does extremely accurately is comparative analysis, such as comparing three or four di erent wall assembly options and seeing how they impact energy use— which is really di cult to do well without an energy model. That kind of comparison allows you to run a fi nancial analysis to see which wall option is going to make the most sense for you.
Energy modelling can help uncover low-cost solutions —
Energy modelling is great at showing that the devil’s in the details. If you’ve been using the same wall assembly for years, for example, you’re likely also using the same details: where a wall meets a fl oor, there’s a thermal bridge, and when you have 30 fl oors, it really adds up. There’s potentially a very low-cost solution to make that more e cient.
To get the most out of your next project, contact Mary Sye, Energy Solutions Advisor.
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* This has no cash value. To qualify for the program, your project must be located in the Enbridge Gas service area. City of Toronto projects will be required to achieve higher energy performance targets. For more information regarding City of Toronto projects, contact Mary Sye, Energy Solutions Advisor, at mary.sye@enbridge.com. If a participant doesn’t complete construction of a new commercial property in the Enbridge Gas service area that exceeds 20 percent of the Ontario Building Code’s energy performance requirement within fi ve years of completing the integrated design process workshop, they’re not eligible for performance incentives. In order to receive incentive payments, you must agree to all program terms and conditions, fully participate in all stages of the program and meet all program requirements. HST is not applicable and will not be added to incentive payments. © 2022 Enbridge Gas Inc. All rights reserved. ENB 824 03/2022
MATTHIEU BROUILLARD © CCA
ON NOW, ABOUT NOW
ROBOTS, AVOCADOS, AND REUSABLE STRAWS FEATURE ALONGSIDE FORWARD-LOOKING HOUSING DESIGNS IN THE CCA’S PROVOCATIVE CURRENT EXHIBITION.
TEXT Annmarie Adams PHOTOS Sandra Larochelle, unless otherwise noted
A Section of Now is on now and is about now. Conceived as a cross section of contemporary life from the last four decades or so, this provocative show fills the Montreal museum’s six main galleries until May 2022 with lots of familiar and unfamiliar stuff. Family, ownership, agency, labour, obsession and life cycle are the official themes, but the hot topics of care, domesticity, addiction, the gig economy, and youth also link the exhibition spaces. An accompanying tome is available in English and French.
The overall message of A Section of Now is that lifestyle changes show up in design. Curator and book editor Giovanna Borasi invites architects to rethink spaces, objects, landscapes, and other arrangements in light of new ways of living. In terms of design, A Section of Now is very white, bright, and perhaps slightly more congested than most CCA exhibitions. Giant framed photographs predominate and big pieces of furniture occupy several of the galleries.
At first glance A Section of Now appears playful, but it is demanding. An online introductory video suggests that architecture and society are out of step. But I think the exhibition shows something else: that we now see architecture as consumer objects designed as antidotes
to entrenched social problems. Buy this to help with your addiction to that. Women and aging people are still disadvantaged? We need special and better housing. Feeling lonely? Consider hiring a professional cuddler (or move in with your sister). As for racial equity? It matters more thanks to organized activism in public spaces. In such a paradigm, architecture is reactive. But what if architects and architecture were active? That’s what A Section of Now invites.
The main gallery, “Family,” has a triangular bed and a smart bassinet beside plexiglass shelves of architectural models and images. The bed represents unconventional sleeping arrangements, trumpeting the wide range of living arrangements popular today. Four massive photos
OPPOSITE A kid’s raincoat with four arms signals genetic engineering technology that allows for more than two parents. ABOVE A gallery on “Agency” includes oversized photos on bleacher-like steps and a yellow tent, a seeming leftover from the Occupy Wall Street movement.
of “chaotic” living rooms—including a sidewalk—serve as something of a headboard to the empty bed. The whole first gallery has a plush, light coloured carpet, giving the experience a soft and cuddly feel, like a bedroom. The use of carpets throughout the exhibition reinforces the idea of connections among the galleries.
“Ownership,” just to the east, is more about real estate. This second gallery is dominated by a lineup of bathroom fixtures—toilet, sink and shower floor—and housing designs that blur traditional functional and familiar divisions. Sanitärblock, the plumbing wall, is from a Swiss multi-unit dwelling which minimizes interior elements, reducing the rent by half.
My favourite section is the corner gallery, “Agency.” Exhibition designer Sam Chermayeff has surrounded the small room’s walls with bleacher-like steps, which support large, leaning framed photographs. The “furniture” in this room is a dome-shaped tent, as if left over from the Occupy Wall Street movement. Hashtags such as #blacklivesmatter remind us how we know these images.
Something I really like about the exhibition is how ordinary things are framed and displayed as precious objects. In this room dedicated to Agency, for example, it’s a gilet jaune vest, biodegradable and vegan shoes, and a trio of reusable straws. Also striking is a printed and framed partial list of BIPOC-owned design firms, as if the list itself is a work of art. It’s the kind of thing we might find on Facebook, rather than in a museum.
“Labour” and “Obsession,” in the other two galleries along the front wall of the CCA, include many ubiquitous images and things: tables of various shapes and styles, a laptop, desk chairs. A humorous touch is that the CCA’s own ping pong table is here, representing an activity that supposedly makes workplaces healthy and fun.
“Obsession” is a super cool room. A metal stud wall struts through the space on an unexpected angle, decorated with the small globe lights used around dressing room mirrors. It even marches over a curvy stage—like a backdrop in a photographer’s studio—that exposes a dozen or so ordinary objects. There’s a Ziplock, yoga mat, water bottle, Airpods, kettlebells, craft beer, hoodie, selfie stick, wireless speaker, supplements, healing crystals, oil diffuser, and a drawer organizer. This stuff is so familiar. We’re complicit!
The final gallery in the circuit is futuristic and perhaps, as Chermayeff says in an interview about the exhibition design, “the most difficult on the viewer . . . because you have to form a position.” “Life cycle” features technologies that simulate or broaden bodily experience. This red-carpeted room has three parallel tables with screens and prototypes such as a chestfeeding kit, which allows men and/or non-biological parents to almost breastfeed babies. Throughout the gallery, an ominous voice recording from Dan Chen’s End of Life Care Machine plays and replays: “Hello, my friend . . . You are not alone, you have me by your side. We hope you will have a pleasant afterlife. Time of death: 11:45 Goodbye, my friend.” Drawings for a new-style crematorium in Belgium face photos that document an isolated mountain-based collective in Utah, for young wealthy entrepreneurs. A kid’s raincoat with four
arms signals genetic engineering that allows for more than two parents. There’s even a DIY insemination kit that doubles as a sex toy, turning a clinical process into something more pleasurable.
For architects and planners, the exhibition gathers an impressive and useful array of revolutionary housing designs that could inspire future neighourhoods and cities. Women, same-sex couples, minimalists, influencers, night owls, nomads, and individuals of all kinds are stakeholders in A Section of Now. Two Canadian housing projects are included: a nifty scheme for multi-generational housing by Toronto architects Williamson Williamson and an Edmonton duplex built by and for a divorced couple, Kent Kirkland and Monica McGrath, where the kids occupy a shared zone.
Still, contradictions abound. If the subject is truly “now,” where’s the pandemic? As of today, 5,282,807 patients have died of Covid-19. Has Covid not changed our perceptions of life and death? The exhibition catalogue, which mentions Covid-19 eight times, was delayed because of the worldwide shortage of paper related to the pandemic. Why not make a thing of it? Ditto for the section on “Labour.” Yes, electric scooters, grocery delivery, job relocation, and ring lights have proliferated, but where is the ubiquitous Zoom room that has made work for many of us much less fun? The section on “Agency” includes nods to Indigenous issues and anti-Indigenous racism. A reference to the original inhabitants and caretakers of the CCA site could have been very “now” in this gallery on activism.
As a particularly clever exhibition, A Section of Now raises as many questions as it answers. Its wallop comes from two unsettling juxtapositions. The first is that familiar objects are shown next to unfamiliar ones. For example, a Nespresso pod is in the same exhibition as a map for people forced to live in their cars. The second is that some rather messy subjects appear in the highly dignified galleries of the CCA, reminding us that aging, inequality, divorce, sex, childbirth, illness, love and avocados can shape architecture. Even the triangular bed is a bit tousled, as if recently occupied.
Annmarie Adams, FRAIC, is jointly appointed in the Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University
OPPOSITE A triangular bed with slightly rumpled sheets occupies the centre of a gallery on “Family,” pointing to the unconventional sleeping arrangements that have increasingly become the norm. ABOVE The room on “Obsession” evokes a photographer’s studio, showcasing an array of on-trend ephemera, from succulents to sourdough bread.
CURATORIAL TEAM FRANCESCO GARUTTI, MEGAN MARIN, HANNAH STROTHMANN, USHMA THAKRAR | RESEARCH MATTHEW DE SANTIS, IRO KALARGYROU, AND LAURA APARICIO LLORENTE | PHOTOGRAPHY CONSULTANT MELISSA HARRIS, NEW YORK | TV CONSULTANT ANDREA BELLAVITA, MILAN | EDITORS-IN-CHARGE (PUBLICATION) USHMA THAKRAR WITH ALEXANDRA PEREIRA-EDWARDS
NINA-MARIE LISTER
ECOLOGICAL DESIGNER AND REGISTERED PROFESSIONAL PLANNER NINA-MARIE LISTER’S WORK SPANS BETWEEN POLICY AND PRACTICE.
INTERVIEWER Adele Weder
Nina-Marie Lister has made a career of embedding nature within the design of our daily lives. As founder of the studio Plandform and leader of the Ecological Design Lab at the soon-to-be-renamed Ryerson University, she has developed a nature-centric, interdisciplinary approach to landscape interventions. Her work spans between design and policy, from animal crossings built over highways, to the wilding of her own Toronto front garden, to supporting the development of the Meadoway park system on a 16-kilometre hydro corridor.
Lister has been recently honoured with the $50,000 Margolese National Design for Living Prize, administered by the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. Canadian Architect contributing editor Adele Weder interviewed her at Massey College, where Lister is a Senior Fellow. The following is excerpted from their conversation.
CANADIAN ARCHITECT: Tell me more about how you work.
LISTER: The medium of my work is landscape, and it is things that are alive. When we design at a small scale and when we design responsibly— for example, with an ecological application or with the lens of ecology— we don’t risk the system. We engage in ways that are safe to fail. I work almost exclusively in partnership arrangements and in collaborations, where we co-create designs, particularly because I’m at work in a living system that is complicated and complex.
We’re living in a time of tremendous urgency between the climate emergency and global biodiversity collapse. Anything we do has to be done quickly and urgently, but with a lot of different approaches. This means trying things quickly with enough information to act now, but on a scale that’s responsible and safe to fail.
CA: In your Margolese acceptance speech, you talked a lot about projects that you didn’t get and competitions that you didn’t win. So is it fair to say that you’re more optimistic about the potential of design than the reality of current practice?
LISTER: Yes, in that we need to be brave and daring and not be afraid to break things, including boundaries. That’s why they say that second place is often the winner. Design competitions give us the space to try new ideas. Just being in competitions is an opportunity for innovation. Even if we don’t win, we still learn something from that, and we carry that forward into the next project. And we can put forth an idea that is compelling, engaging and different.
So much of design work—particularly in the private sector, or even by private sector suppliers in the public sector—when the project is completed, the designers walk away. A lot of my work is about monitoring, evaluation and resetting of goals. We consider design an engaged process of learning.
NINA-MARIE LISTER
MARTA BROCKI
TOP Lister’s own natural garden is a case study in her contestation of Toronto’s long grass and weeds bylaw, which she and her lawyer argue is unconstitutional and outdated. BOTTOM Lister and her CoLab colleagues at work on ReConnecting Landscapes: Green Infrastructure for People and Wildlife in 2018.
CA: Your practice involves complex biological systems. The market economy is also a very complex system, in a different way. How do you reconcile those two systems?
LISTER: I come from a very privileged position, working in a university where I’m paid to do research. But on the other hand, I’m highly motivated by the urgency of our times. And frankly, the corporate market system that created a lot of the problems we’re trying to deal with right now will not get us out. We need to find different ways of working. And while “partnership” sounds like an escape clause for both the private and public sector, it actually allows us some interesting space to innovate.
A lot of the work that I do right now is around landscape connectivity through wildlife crossing infrastructures. How do we allow humans and wildlife to get where they’re going to safely? These are not the same as the highway bridges we use for truck traffic, military vehicles, or rescue vehicles. For example, they have to support landscape overburden, and you can’t allow the edges of these bridges to settle differently for wildlife.
LIVING HABITATS
ABOVE Currently under construction, the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing will allow for the safe migration of endangered bobcats, grey foxes, mountain lions, and other animals across a 10-lane US highway.
This means the way we think about design has to not only include the structure and the landscape for different clients—one of whom can speak and the other one who can’t—but also the system of governance and the system of maintenance, implementation and decision-making about them.
What we can do is issue procurement processes differently. We can partner with the private sector, which has more risk capital available, particularly if there is a new category of infrastructure that has very different requirements. The public sector can issue a requirement for this infrastructure on a widespread basis with the private sector. We can also establish different standards of success for infrastructure like bridges intended for wildlife.
CA: You’ve described animals as “clients.” How do you engage in that kind of relationship with a species that doesn’t speak?
LISTER: Oh, they do speak—just not to us. And let me clarify: nature owes us nothing, but we owe nature a pretty big debt right now, since we’re the one species that takes over the space of multi-millions of them. So it’s imperative that I work with a group of scientists and particularly people who cross the disciplines to interpret how we’re going to make sense of a world that allows for connectivity and interaction. It’s common to talk about ecosystem services, for example, which rankles me. The living world does not provide only a service to us. It’s important for us to be able to change the way we design with, and for, the natural world, beyond simply thinking of it in utilitarian terms. That’s something that our Indigenous communities have taught and shared with us.
As a planner, I will never use the term “land use” again, even if it means relinquishing my licence. I’m a land-based practitioner. That wording is critical, because it means that I am looking at what can I do with this landscape that provides for others socially, ecologically, and economically.
CA: How do you establish performance metrics for your projects? For instance, in your wildlife-crossing: how did they measure the attempted crossings with and without the intervention?
LISTER: It is amazing how the ecological data world uses all kinds of creative observational tools. My colleagues in conservation ecology, biology, and zoology will use everything from camera trap evidence, to hair traps, to tracking evidence from footpads. Graduate students spend a lot of time measuring footprints. A purpose-designed wildlife crossing is tracked and sampled using at least three different methods. We know for sure that these projects are overwhelmingly successful. Long-term data has been gathered from different lenses, using different types of knowledge bases, for multiple species.
That analogy could be used in urban settings to look at how we understand not only green roofs, but, say, biofuels, green streets or parks. How quickly is water absorbed after a storm event in our parks, versus in hard surface areas? Our parks can be seen as so-called nature-based solutions or green infrastructure during flood events, not just for public recreation. That’s great. That’s a win. We know they’re supposed to be used for that. But what if they are also seen as cooling the urban heat island? What about as carbon sinks, for the soil sequestration of carbon?
CA: You’ve described the magic that you feel when you put your arms around a tree that’s hundreds of years old. A person can also feel that way about buildings that have been around and inhabited for centuries. The feeling is really of immortality–the sense that both the built and natural landscape can carry on and provide joy to others long after we ourselves are dead and gone.
LISTER: Yes, they connect us to each other through history. When we alter the landscape, we remediate and sometimes reaffirm the value of a landscape that has to last through time. We should treat our buildings with that long-term perspective.
CA: That ethos you’re describing applies to Massey College, the building where we are sitting right now. It’s almost 60 years old, a low-rise in the centre of Toronto, and is in no danger of demolition. But this building has caregivers—or, I guess a better word for that is stakeholders.
LISTER: Actually, I think that “caregivers” is exactly the right word. They’ve made sure that it’s updated for the times and maintained beautifully. It could have been designed and built a thousand years ago, or five years ago, and could still be here 50 years from now. Cultural heritage is deeply and profoundly tied to natural heritage.
CA: Has the pandemic changed your approach to your work?
LISTER: Yes, it has. it’s one thing to appeal to people on behalf of other species, and another to speak to them about their new self-interest in green space. How is their health being affected by access to nature, or the lack thereof? That’s changing the way we ask research questions.
CA: Now that you’ve won the Margolese Prize, what is your ambition for the next ten years?
LISTER: Well, my goal is to be out of a job because our society will have no more need for what I do. That’s probably a longer-term plan than 10 years. In the meantime, I’ve returning to Harvard this January to co-create and teach a course called Wild Ways, which looks at landscape connectivity.
CA: And what is your hope for the future?
LISTER: I hope for more meaningful and robust connections to nature every day in our cities for everyone. I want to see those connections manifest in the material world and in public policy. Most of all, I want every person to feel that they have innate human power.
Odessa Ground Water Replacement Project
The first pumping station of the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Project, EL47.5, will provide water for up to 10,500 acres. The project includes nearly nine miles of pipes. The project will eventually include nine systems to offset the rapid decline of the Odessa Aquifer, which serves many farmers in the region.
The pumping station includes six pumps that can deliver more than 63,000 gallons per minute. The BILCO hatches allow access to the pumps for installation and eventual replacement.
– Jonathan Erickson, Project Manager, Odessa Groundwater Replacement Project
Experience. Innovation.
Project Snapshot
• The distribution system includes more than nine miles of pipes, six pumps, and a pump house. The project cost $20.8 million.
• The water system is needed to support farmers and others due to an aquifer that has fallen more than 200 feet since 1980.
BILCO Roof Hatches
• Teams will access the pumps through six custom made roof hatches that measure 6-feet, 6-inches x 7-feet.
• The hatches are fabricated with polycarbonate dome covers for natural daylight and engineered lift assistance for easy, one-hand operation. They are also modified for hand winch operation, allowing them to be easily opened and closed from inside the building.
TAKUMI OTA TAKUMI OTA
By Leslie Van Duzer (ORO Editions, 2021) REVIEW Mira Locher
What sleight of hand is required to create a richly comprehensive book, when the subject is just four small projects? Meticulous writing, excellent documentation, and a magician’s mindset. In Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata, author Leslie Van Duzer is as adroit with the written word as a magician is with deceptive banter. The Vancouver-based architecture professor (and former director of UBC’s SALA) draws on her background as an educator and onetime magician’s assistant to conjure up a book aptly described as “a hybrid between an architectural monograph and a magic instruction book.” Starting from the evocative cover, Van Duzer’s precise yet poetic text and book designer Pablo Mandel’s rhythmical graphic layout draw us in and lead us through each project.
Almost, Not. The title itself sets the scene with a bit of mystery— almost, not what? It invokes images of thwarted expectations and upended suppositions. But it also summons visions of surprise and astonishment as assumptions are turned upside-down. In the context of the book, Van Duzer defines “almost” as “a delightfully destabilizing oscillation between certainty and uncertainty, curiosity and astonishment, past and present experience, delaying any automated consumption.” In Almost, Not, the author delivers this delight not only through the precision of the text and the thoroughness of the documentation: she also reveals the designers’ techniques for developing their architectural tricks—like turning a column into a closet, or a cupboard into a door.
The book introduces the work of Atelier Nishikata, an architecture firm little known outside of Japan. Since 2000, partners Reiko Nishio and Hirohito Ono have crafted their practice with care, rigor, and intention. Their goal is not to deceive but rather to create architecture that “transcends its physical boundaries and its visual image when it fully engages the body and its spatial imagination.” Despite the limited number of built projects, the ideas, methods, and designs of Atelier Nishikata offer plenty for us to contemplate.
Almost, Not is composed of three parts. First, we are introduced to the firm’s approach to design and the processes and techniques they employ to create the desired “experiential complexity” of their projects. The author compares the architects’ methods to those of magicians and lets us in on various techniques that both use to create the desired effects of their constructions. For example, repetition-variation is used to produce the effect of déjà vu, or category-jumping creates the effect of detour. Van Duzer also reminds us of other artists and architects who also have employed similar techniques.
Descriptions and documentation of the four projects comprise the body of the book. All are small private residential buildings or renovations, and all involve the trickery of transformation, whether it is converting four rooms into five, or using a material typically found on the roof as an exterior wall finish. Each “almost-ordinary” project tests our assumptions about familiar elements and spatial configurations. Is a cabinet really a cabinet when it opens to reveal a window? Yes, but
TAKESHI YAMAGISHI
OPPOSITE For the House in Awanji, Atelier Nishikata used plywood vaults to create subtle relationships between interior spaces. The exterior includes two windows that slide open to the right, and a door that slides left in counterpoint; the façade is clad in asphalt roofing. ABOVE A renovation called Four Episodes in Bunkyo, Tokyo, is full of surprises. In the refurbished basement, a closet unexpectedly opens to reveal a glass door that leads to the garden.
no. Is a framed opening of an adjacent building’s vent cap truly an appealing view? Well, yes, almost. With careful observation and a few hints from the author, the initial visual simplicity of Atelier Nishikata’s designs gives way to surprising spatial and experiential complexity.
The final component of the book is a conversation between the author and the architects. Nishio and Ono discuss the impetus for their partnership arising from the dissatisfaction they felt with projects earlier in their careers. Nishio was disappointed that “a transcendence of the physical realm” never materialized in the final construction, and Ono had moved from architecture into the realm of contemporary art, thinking that it would allow him to gain insight by considering architecture “from a distance.” Both designers felt “something was missing” and recognized that “thinking deeply in the design process was essential.” That recognition led them to a decades-long quest to observe rigorously, study ferociously, and design precisely.
The ending conversation includes discussion of the architects’ major influences and also broaches subjects of long-standing architectural debate, which play important roles in Atelier Nishikata’s thinking and design. On the topic of four-dimensional space (a concept akin to Henri Bergson’s “duration”), Nishio states, “You cannot exceed physical limits without physical things.” And regarding honesty in architectural expression, author Van Duzer notes, “There is often a gap between what one sees, what is expressed and what is required.” Ono responds, “We think the disclosure of tricks like this presents an honest attitude to the distance between structure and expression.” The magic of Atelier Nishikata’s designs is in the gaps between perception and reality in the physical expression of their ideas.
While Van Duzer lets us in on the magician’s process but not their actual tricks, she does reveal both the underlying strategies and the resulting effects of Atelier Nishikata’s projects—the architectural tricks that cause us to suspend belief and allow a transcendence of the physical realm, the architectural equivalent of levitation.
Is it all illusion? No, there is no real trickery in Almost, Not. The book completes what it sets out to accomplish. And like any good magic show, it leaves us asking a few questions. Are words and images truly able to present the full spatial experience intended by the architects, or are such cerebrally and spatially complex projects impossible to understand without physically being in the spaces? How does this practice fit within other architectural practices in Japan? How have other Asian architects employed similar tricks and techniques in their work? The helpful comparisons in the book primarily rely on examples from North America and Europe; understandable given the author’s expertise in the work of Adolf Loos, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Rudolph Arnheim and the architects’ stated interest in Loos, Mies, and Louis Kahn. With lingering questions and intriguing images, Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata inspires us to search for the magic in other designs—the possibility for hidden windows, surprising spatial configurations, and dislodged components—and reminds us that such enigmatic architecture can be profoundly revelatory.
Mira Locher is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba and has worked as a professional architect in the U.S. and Japan. She is the author of four books on Japanese architecture, gardens, and design: Super Potato Design, Traditional Japanese Architecture, Zen Gardens, and Zen Garden Design.
DECONSTRUCTIVISM
TEXT Elsa Lam
VANCOUVER-BASED COMPANY UNBUILDERS METICULOUSLY DISASSEMBLES BUILDINGS, SAVING THEM FROM LANDFILL.
ABOVE De-constructing buildings allows materials to be salvaged for recycling and re-use, feeding into a circular economy.
Architects are usually focused on the beginning of buildings, paying little attention to their end. But as climate impacts worsen, it’s a reckoning they’ll need to face: the four million tonnes of construction waste that Canada landfills annually comprises 40% of its total landfill content. That material leaches chemicals and releases CO2—and a lot of it could have been recycled, lessening the demand for new materials.
Adam Corneil, a Vancouver area certified Passive House Builder, saw this waste up close: he was constantly witnessing older buildings being torn down to make way for new ones. “I saw a lot of value in the old lumber that built our cities, which was being landfilled,” he says.
So he started Unbuilders. Instead of demolishing homes, his crews meticulously deconstruct them. Materials such as drywall, concrete, and asphalt shingles are recycled, while reusable hardware and fixtures are donated to Habitat for Humanity. Structural wood in good condition—which in older West Coast buildings is often tight-grained, highly valuable oldgrowth lumber—is appraised by an outside party and purchased by Unbuilders’ sister company, Heritage Lumber, for repurpose and resale.
The process is more time-consuming than a regular demolition, says Corneil, but the building owner recoups much of the cost difference—either through a donation receipt from Habitat for Humanity, or through a payment credit for the recouped lumber.
The business model works in part because of Vancouver’s Green Demolition bylaw, which requires companies to recycle three quarters of materials from homes built before 1950. This means that demolition companies are already stripping out the entirely recyclable drywall and plaster from buildings, leaving a bare structure. Unbuilders salvages that structure, instead of taking the more expedient approach of chipping it for use as fuel, landscape mulch, or in paper—uses that eventually release the carbon stored in the wood.
The company has scaled up quickly since it was founded four years ago. Unbuilders came away from Dragon’s Den with a $600K investment, and this year, its crews are planning takedowns of over 50 houses and a half-dozen commercial buildings. Corneil says that overall, his approach achieves 90 to 95% waste diversion.
Still, he’d like to see Unbuilders do more. He’s planning to expand to other cities in the eco-conscious Pacific Northwest, where several cities already require the diversion of construction waste. Then, onwards to the east. “It’s inevitable that deconstruction is going to replace demolition in the next 10 years,” says Corneil.
He’s also exploring ways to further upcycle wood from de-constructed homes: from creating wide-plank flooring to engineered wood products like reclaimed plywood, and even OSB from salvaged wood scraps. While wood is an eco-friendly building material, reclaimed wood has even less embodied carbon, beating new lumber by a factor of 12, says Corneil.
Architects also need to be thinking about adapting their work for the circular economy. Corneil notes how older buildings used highquality wood and nails that allow for relatively easy de-construction, while since the 1990s, construction has relied more heavily on glues, screws, and adhesives. “That’s problematic, because we’re ensuring that at the end of the building’s life, it has to be landfilled,” he says. “How can you build to the degree of detail that you want, but so that it came come apart? It’s a great challenge for architects.”
IBI Group Architects Canada Inc. Installer: Keith Panel Systems
