Canadian Architect January 2017

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JANUARY 2017

GUY WENBORNE

6 VIEWPOINT

Editor Elsa Lam considers the sharing economy’s impacts on architecture.

8 NEWS

Anne Bordeleau appointed director of the University of Waterloo School of Architecture; Grout McTavish Architects opens rainforest bio-dome in Dubai.

25 PRACTICE

The Canadian architecture profession still faces challenges in resolving gender equity issues, according to an analysis by Rhys Phillips.

28 INSITES

12 THE BAHÁ’Í TEMPLE OF SOUTH AMERICA Hariri Pontarini Architects designs a stunning landmark in Santiago, Chile, with materials and detailing conceived to endure for 400 years. TEXT Francisco Díaz

20 WONG DAI SIN TEMPLE

33 CALENDAR

Toronto Design Offsite Festival; David Adjaye lecture at McGill University; Winterus Maximus race in Edmonton.

34 BACKPAGE

Ricardo Castro visits a poetic new cemetery building on Montreal Island, by Marosi + Troy Architects.

JAMES DOW

Taoist temple on the outskirts of Toronto by Shim-Sutcliffe Architects weathers A the challenges of unfriendly neighbours with Zen-like grace and poise.

TEXT Katherine Ashenburg

Lawrence Bird reports on the successes and mounting ambitions of Winnipeg’s annual Warming Huts festival.

The Bahá’í Temple of South America, by Hariri Pontarini Architects. Photo by Sebastían Wilson.

COVER

V.62 N.01 THE NATIONAL REVIEW OF DESIGN AND PRACTICE / THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE RAIC

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In a project completed last year, Toronto’s Ja Architecture Studio divided up a downtown single-family dwelling into two Airbnb units that can be rented out nightly.

LEFT

SAM JAVANROUH, COURTESY OF JA ARCHITECTURE STUDIO

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 01/17

VIEWPOINT

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Sharing Space I’m not a millennial, but I’m a full-fledged member of generation share. I’ve never owned a car; instead I belong to a car-sharing group.

When I travel, I stay at Airbnbs rather than hotels. I’ll usually choose an Uber over a taxi.

Lately, I’ve been addicted to swapping, where instead of buying things, you trade with objects you’re no longer using. Much to my husband’s apprehension, I’ve purged tchotchkes from our closets and replaced them with newfor-me clothes, garden tools and holiday gifts.

This loose attitude towards possessions has certain roots in architecture, and has intriguing implications for its future. An impetus for the sharing economy is based on the smaller spaces that urbanites, particularly young professionals, find themselves living in. Who has space in their shoebox-sized condo for the cordless drill, popcorn machine, and eightfoot-high ladder you might use once a year?

Better to join a tool and kitchen library, where such things can be borrowed for a few days, then returned when no longer needed.

Likewise, in larger cities, many have decided that paying for a parking space isn’t worth the tradeoff of getting to showboat your vehicle.

In certain circles, it’s become a status symbol to not own a car—a choice that signals a healthy lifestyle, and a luxury only those living near transit and cycling routes can afford.

The move towards shared transportation could shift the way we build cities. Take the move towards communal cars, which make

a dent in the total number of vehicles that occupy road and parking space. Some day soon, these may be upgraded to self-driving models that are endlessly on the road, and don’t need a parking space at all.

In Toronto, surface parking takes up some 20 percent of net land use. Freeing up even a small proportion of existing surface lots could make a big difference in the city’s ability to accommodate newcomers in transit-friendly locations. As the need for private cars is reduced, there may even be opportunities to convert parking structures to other uses. With this in mind, Waterfront Toronto requires that any above-ground parking structure in its territory is designed for its floors to be levelled, with a clear 2.4 metre slab-to-slab height afterwards.

New types of architectural programs are also emerging from the sharing economy. Flexible workspaces bring small companies and freelancers together, and allow them to share resources (I wrote my doctoral dissertation at a shared desk at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto). Some residential properties are now being designed with Airbnb in mind as an income source. Maker spaces are emerging in many cities, offering DIY resources for 3D printing and CNC cutting, in addition to traditional woodworking areas. Libraries— an early locus for sharing—are now being revisited as community hubs where a wide variety of resources can be accessed, from digital information to live concerts.

The one possession that has become requisite, of course, is the smartphone. Much of the convenience of on-demand sharing, especially for transport, depends on a speedy internet connection. And even if you’re no longer judged by your car, pull out an outdated phone and you may get eye-rolls from the younger set (unless, of course, the phone is really old, in which case it acquires cachet for being retro).

The shift to sharing is far from simple— as evidenced by the ongoing battles between taxi drivers and Uber, or between hotel groups and Airbnb. But in the big picture, the more things are shared, the less stuff we need overall—and the more resources we can devote, as a society, to investing in public buildings and infrastructure. Better libraries, affordable housing, public transit, and roads with room for non-automotive means of transportation: these are all areas that stand to gain as we move towards sharing more. Individually choosing to live with less could ultimately mean living more richly as a society.

Elsa Lam

­­EDITOR ELSA LAM, MRAIC ART DIRECTOR ROY GAIOT ASSISTANT EDITOR SHANNON MOORE EDITORIAL ADVISOR IAN CHODIKOFF, OAA, FRAIC CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ANNMARIE ADAMS, FRAIC ODILE HÉNAULT DOUGLAS MACLEOD, NCARB, MRAIC REGIONAL CORRESPONDENTS HALIFAX CHRISTINE MACY, OAA REGINA BERNARD FLAMAN, SAA MONTREAL DAVID THEODORE CALGARY GRAHAM LIVESEY, MRAIC WINNIPEG LISA LANDRUM, MAA, AIA, MRAIC VANCOUVER ADELE WEDER PUBLISHER TOM ARKELL 416-441-2085 x105 SALES MANAGER FARIA AHMED 416-441-2085 x106 CUSTOMER SERVICE / PRODUCTION LAURA MOFFATT 416-441-2085 x104 CIRCULATION CIRCULATION@CANADIANARCHITECT.COM PRESIDENT OF IQ BUSINESS MEDIA INC. ALEX PAPANOU HEAD OFFICE 101 DUNCAN MILL ROAD, SUITE 302 TORONTO, ON M3B 1Z3 TELEPHONE 416-441-2085 E-MAIL elam@canadianarchitect.com WEBSITE www.canadianarchitect.com Canadian Architect is published monthly by iQ Business Media Inc..

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NEWS PROJECTS Vancouver’s Grout McTavish Architects designs tropical rainforest bio-dome in Dubai.

The Green Planet, a standalone bio-dome featuring over 3,000 plants and animals, has recently opened in Dubai. Designed by Vancouver’s Grout McTavish Architects, the architecture of The Green Planet is based on a fragile origami cube that shields a living biome in the shape of a cylinder.

The visitor experience was modeled on the vertical zones of a Kapok tree, from its flooded riverbank setting to its upper canopy. Visitors begin their journey immersed within a rainforest river containing an aquarium and grotto with freshwater fish. Ascending to the upper reaches of the building, they emerge at the top branches of the Kapok tree, then descend down a series of ramps to discover fauna from butterflies and birds within the canopy of the tree, to snakes and leaf-cutter ants on the rainforest floor.

In addition to accommodating 750,000 annual visitors, The Green Planet includes an educational learning centre, where students gain a deeper understanding of conservation biology. www.groutmctavish.com

Trades Training Complex by Diamond Schmitt and David Nairne + Associates opens at Okanagan College.

Diamond Schmitt Architects in association with David Nairne + Associates has completed the Okanagan College Trades Training Complex.

The $35-million project in Kelowna, B.C., includes 6,225 square metres of new learning space and the retrofit of an additional 4,385 square metres, connecting the new building with three existing structures.

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The Green Planet in Dubai, designed by Vancouver’s Grout McTavish Architects, houses an array of tropical plants, mammals, insects and fish.

ABOVE

Sustainable design principles have been applied to building orientation, footprint, massing, integrated daylighting, natural ventilation and heat gain management. As a result, the new building is on track for LEED Platinum certification, Living Building Challenge Petal certification, and Net Zero for new construction. In addition, the renewal portion targets LEED for Existing Buildings Gold certification.

The new building’s large wooden entrance canopy anticipates the timber-lined and exposed wood structure of the atrium. Operable clerestory windows fill the space with natural light and provide stackeffect natural ventilation; the facility is programmed for nighttime cooling in the semi-desert conditions of the B.C. interior. Radiant heating from below and cooling from above is embedded in the concrete f loors and ceiling.

The window-to-wall ratio is kept to 30 percent, with solar shading provided by horizontal fins and a perforated metal screen. Horizontal louvers on the south-facing façade are 1.2 metres deep to prevent direct sun from reaching the concrete slab f loor. Dozens of solar tubes in the roof over the new trades shops and labs cast bright, indirect light to the shop f loors. The building also takes advantage of waste heat generated by a nearby municipal wastewater treatment plant to help warm the facility. www.dsai.ca

Winner announced for Lord Stanley’s Gift public art competition in Ottawa.

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The Canadian design team of Covit/Nguyen/ NORR has been selected as the winner of a national design competition for a monument to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Stanley Cup. The winning design, inspired by the historic, simple silver bowl donated by Lord Stanley of Preston in 1892 to recognize the Dominion’s champion hockey team, is a chalice fabricated from silvered aluminum bands, parted to invite visitors to pass through it. The sculpture will rise from an abstracted hockey rink in white pavers with embedded stainless steel lines evoking skate marks, and granite discs engraved with the names of past Stanley Cup winners.

The monument at the corner of Elgin and Sparks Street will be donated to the City of Ottawa and unveiled in December 2017, as part of the 100th anniversary of the National Hockey League. www.lordstanleysgift.com

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AWARDS

Ontario Wood WORKS! award winners announced.

RAIC accepting submissions for 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize.

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has begun accepting submissions for the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize.

The Prize was established in 2014 by Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama along with the RAIC and the RAIC Foundation, and consists of a $100,000 monetary award and a handcrafted sculpture. The Prize celebrates a single work of architecture that is transformative within its context and ref lects Moriyama’s conviction that great architecture transforms society by promoting social justice and humanistic values of respect and inclusiveness. Awarded every two years, the Prize is open to all architects and architect-led collaborations, irrespective of nationality and location.

In addition, three students of Canadian schools of architecture, chosen on the basis of a written essay, will receive scholarships of $5,000.

Submissions are due by March 8, 2017. The winner of the 2017 Prize will be announced on September 19, 2017 at a gala event in Toronto. www.moriyama.raic.org

The Canadian Wood Council has announced the winners of the 16th annual Ontario Wood WORKS! Awards. Ten awards went to specific wood projects and three were given to professionals for contributions to the building industry that advance the case for wood design.

The project winners are: Winter Station 2016 Steam Canoe in Toronto by OCAD Design Team (Ontario Wood Award); Upper Thames River Conservation Authority— Community Conservation Centre in London

by Randy Wilson Architect and Hastings & Aziz (Environmental Building Wood Design Award); FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines by Diamond Schmitt Architects and Blackwell (Interior Wood Design Award); Bridgehouse in Port Sydney by LLAMA Architecture and Urban Design and Blackwell (Residential Wood Design Award); Templar Flats in Hamilton by Lintack Architects and Strik Baldinelli Moniz (Multi-Unit Wood Design Award); St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church in Brampton by Zimmerman Workshop Architecture + Design and Moses Structural Engineers (Institutional/ Commercial Wood Design Award under $10M); Rock Garden Visitor Centre, Royal

Botanical Gardens in Hamilton by CS&P Architects and WSP Canada Inc. (Institutional/Commercial Wood Design Award over $10M); Woodland Public School, Near North District School Board in North Bay

by Mitchell Architects and WSP Canada (Northern Ontario Excellence Award); La Ruche: Collaborative and Experiential Lab in Ottawa by La Cité ( Jury’s Choice Award); Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, New Elementary School in Cape Croker by MMMC Architects and Blackwell (Jury’s Choice Award).

The three building industry professionals awarded are: Michael Baldinelli, Strik Baldinelli Moniz (Wood Advocate—Engineer); Ian MacDonald (Wood Advocate—Architect); and Mike Yorke, President, Carpenters & Allied Workers Local 27 (Wood Champion).

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www.cwc.ca

Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre named world’s top structural engineering project

by IStructE.

The Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre in Surrey, B.C., designed by HCMA Architecture + Design with engineers Fast+Epp, has been recognized as the world’s top structural engineering project by the international Institution

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NEWS of Structural Engineers. The aquatics hall features an undulating roof structure with hanging timber “cables” suspended between large concrete buttresses. It is believed to be the world’s most slender long span timber catenary roof, highlighting wood’s potential as a cost-effective, structurally efficient and aesthetically pleasing building material for aquatic facilities. www.istructe.org

Rick Hansen Foundation launches inaugural Accessible Cities Award.

The Rick Hansen Foundation has announced the launch of the Accessible Cities Award. The Award allows municipalities from across Canada to demonstrate their efforts to increase universal access in the built environment.

By identifying Canada’s most accessible cities and their associated features, the Award will raise awareness of accessibility challenges in the built environment, generate a showcase of best practices, and help to measure progress towards a more accessible Canada.

Municipalities are invited to nominate their own programs, along with up to five places that exemplify best practices in universal access. Applications are due March 3, 2017. www.rickhansen.com

Sylvia McAdam receives 2016 Margolese National Design for Living Prize from UBC.

The University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture has awarded the 2016 Margolese National Design for Living Prize to Sylvia McAdam.

The Prize recognizes a Canadian who has shown extraordinary talent and dedication to making Canada a better place to live.

McAdam, who identifies foremost as a citizen of her nêhiyaw (Cree) Nation, is one of four founders of grassroots movement Idle No More, which advocates for indigenous sovereignty, rights, and the respect for treaties to protect the environment and create economic and social equality. The Margolese selection committee saw in her a “peaceful yet forceful determination to bring about positive change” and was impressed by her broad and enduring contribution as a “knowledge keeper, passing on the teaching of Cree elders through her books and lectures streamed on YouTube.”

In late 2015, in an attempt to address the seemingly unsolvable housing crisis in First Nations’ communities, McAdam was part of a group who launched a crowdsourcing campaign to raise funds for building homes. The campaign’s impact has been both symbolic and real, and has brought much-needed attention

to the epidemic of homelessness that affects Canadians and Indigenous peoples.

McAdam holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Saskatchewan and a Bachelor of Human Justice from the University of Regina. She is the author of Nationhood Interrupted: Revitalizing nêhiyaw Legal Systems, a compilation of teachings, language and customs that have been orally shared and passed down through generations. Along with cofounders Jessica Gordon, Sheelah McLean, and Nina Wilson, Idle No More was awarded the 2013 Carol Geller Human Rights Award.

The four colleagues were also named as Foreign Policy’s 2013 Top 100 Global Thinkers. www.ubc.ca

WHAT’S NEW University of Waterloo School of Architecture appoints new director.

Anne Bordeleau has been appointed Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo. An architect and historian who has been a professor at Waterloo since 2007, Bordeleau has an abiding interest in the relationship between architecture and time, as well as a strong belief that the discipline is best taught within a full cultural context.

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Bordeleau holds a PhD from the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies at University College London in the U.K., along with bachelor and master’s degrees from McGill University.

She is a registered architect in Quebec, and her research has included historical investigations as well as studies into such processes as casting. She co-produced The Evidence Room, a chilling exhibit that included plaster casts of historical evidence from Auschwitz, showcased last year at the Venice Biennale.

As director, Bordeleau’s goals include strengthening the architecture school’s connections with both local and global communities, increasing classroom instruction in cultural histories beyond Europe, and developing a new degree in integrated design that combines elements of architecture, engineering and the arts. www.uwaterloo.ca

Perkins+Will selected to facilitate resilience planning for Toronto and Louisville.

An initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation, 100 Resilient Cities aims to help cities around the world become more resilient—to physical, social, and economic shocks and stresses. The project has recently selected Perkins+Will as a Strategy Partner to facilitate resilience planning for Toronto and Louisville, Kentucky.

Toronto is prone to climate-related shocks such as blizzards, rainfall f looding and heat waves. Additionally, the city has the highest rates of working poverty and income inequality in Canada. Sixty percent of the city’s neighbourhoods will be low- or very low-income neighbourhoods by 2025.

Perkins+Will’s experts will work directly with Chief Resilience Officers and other stakeholders to create resilience strategies for both cities. The firm will build public awareness of resilience issues; examine existing planning assessments to determine how they might contribute to the cities’ resilience; categorize the types of shocks and stresses that may affect those cities; and help the cities identify their assets and their weaknesses and understand scenarios in which these could be impacted by a damaging ripple effect. Ultimately, they will use this information to inform a comprehensive resilience strategy. ca.perkinswill.com

CCA exhibition explores Canada’s wilderness and relationship with its land.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture’s current exhibition challenges basic assumptions about the country’s relationship to nature. It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the

Modern Canadian Environment, on view until April 9, 2017, explores the contradictory relationship between Canada’s idealized wilderness and its simultaneous exploitation.

Curated by CCA Director Mirko Zardini, the exhibition spans a history of Canada’s relationship with the land since 1945. Each of the its narrative sequences includes environmental disasters representing six themes: the failure of the modern project; resource exploitation in Canada’s northern territories; development of energy infrastructures; nuclear contamination; water and air pollution; and industrial fishing and forestry operations.

The exhibition illustrates the necessity to take positions in the face of the climate crisis, from radical efforts like David Suzuki’s Carbon Manifesto to more contemporary and diverse engagements by architects, landscape architects, urban designers, artists and activists.

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NEWS

www.cca.qc.ca

ERRATUM In our article on the Ryerson University ServiceHub (CA, October 2016), Jim Burkitt of Gow Hastings was mistakenly identified as the project architect. He was design director for the project, and the project architect was Allan Banina.

E N J O Y CO M P L I M E N TA R Y A D M I S S I O N T O T H E A R C H I T E C T U R E K E Y N O T E:

T34 Rethinking Retail: Designing Urban Destinations with Draw Retail is changing. E-commerce is here to stay. Industry, more so than ever, must think outside the box when designing the new and redefining the mature. Society is looking to the conventional shopping center for unconventional and diversified activations and experiences.

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IN THE HEIGHTS SOUTH AMERICA’S FIRST BAHÁ’Í TEMPLE IS A STUNNING LANDMARK IN THE FOOTHILLS OF THE ANDES MOUNTAINS— AND A FEAT OF ARCHITECTURAL DETAILING AND MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY.

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At dusk, the luminous façade beckons visitors. The exterior skin is composed of custom cast-glass panels set on an intricate steel structure, while the interior skin is made of exceptionally white Portuguese marble slabs. OPPOSITE The temple’s plan is based on a nine-part circle, with each segment forming a gently curving marble strip that spirals up to meet in a central oculus.

ABOVE

The Bahá’í Temple of South America, Peñalolén, Santiago, Chile Hariri Pontarini Architects TEXT Francisco Díaz PHOTOS Bahá’í World News Service/Raul Spinassé, Sebastián Wilson, Guy Wenborne, and Vanessa Guillén, as noted PROJECT

ARCHITECT

The taxi took 25 minutes (and some grinding gears) to take me from the Grecia subway station in the eastern end of Santiago de Chile to South America’s first Bahá’í Temple, 980 metres above sea level, in the foothills of the Andes mountains. The 9.3-kilometre route crossed through the entire municipality of Peñalolén, home to 240,000 people and to some of the capital city’s most daring architecture of the past decades.

In Peñalolén, unlike in most other parts of Santiago, different social classes live together. This is where the wall of the Andes mountains meets with shopping centers, an active airplane runway, a military precinct (where several former military officers condemned for human rights crimes during the dictatorship are jailed), a hippie-style commune, a former torture center turned memorial site, a sports park that displaced Santiago’s largest slum, two private universities, a nature reserve—and whatever else you might imagine.

The Bahá’í temple, designed by Canadian firm Hariri Pontarini Architects, alights on the precise border between the city and the astonishing landscape of the mountains, with a privileged view towards the metropolis below. The impressive structure resembles a glorious

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flower, its translucent glass petals contrasting with the mountains and merging with the cloudy sky. After experiencing the place, it’s hard to think of this temple anywhere else in Santiago. The Bahá’í faith, with its friendly nature, has built its South American home in an equally welcoming district.

In plan, the building is a 30-metre-diameter circle, its perimeter divided into nine bays. At the ground floor, each of these alcoves contains an entryway framed by a stone column and a curved window. As the biggest, and therefore most inclusive, one-digit number, nine is sacred to the Bahá’í. The nine entries therefore symbolize the accessible nature of the faith. Although the design is driven by the principle of non-hierarchy, an exterior stair is aligned with one of the entries, and from it begins a curving aisle that divides the plan roughly in half, providing access to 389 seats set in arches. Next to this main access, a spiraling feature stair leads to the mezzanine, which runs along the perimeter of the circle, doubling as both a balcony overlooking the ground floor as well as a place where visitors may sit on built-in benches and meditate under the 30-metre-high dome.

In order to deal with Chile’s frequent earthquakes, the temple’s foundations were built over seismic isolators—a system of stainless steel and Teflon discs, developed by Chris Andrews from Halcrow Yolles (now CH 2M) in collaboration with engineers at the University of Toronto and the Catholic University of Chile. The isolators absorb the earth’s movement and allow the building to slowly slide and rise during an earthquake. “It’s like when you are on a boat,” explains lead architect

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Since the faith has no clergy or formal ritual, the temple is conceived to offer ample space for prayer and meditation on its main level as well as on an upper mezzanine, reached by a spiral staircase.

ABOVE

Siamak Hariri, FRAIC. This innovative system—the latest technology for a temple built to last 400 years—allows the structure to function more or less independently from the ground slab up.

The temple’s most impressive feature, of course, is its floral shape, composed of nine ascending “petals”. As they rise, each petal narrows, finally meeting at the top, where the dome is sealed with an oculus. Transparent glass separates the petals, allowing a milky pattern of natural light to illuminate the temple.

The interior of the petals is clad with translucent Portuguese marble.

Their exterior is made from a material specially devised for the project: a 32-millimetre-thick cast glass, moulded into both flat and curved surfaces, developed in Canada with Jeff Goodman Studio. Each petal comprises some 1,129 individual pieces of cast glass—86 percent flat for the main surfaces and 14 percent curved for the edges—mounted on a steel armature developed by the structural engineering team and optimized by Germany’s Gartner Steel.

To create the fabrication templates for the segments, project architect Justin Huang Ford spent a week at Frank Gehry’s studio in Los Angeles learning to use Dessault CATIA, a software developed for aviation and appropriated by Gehry for architectural works including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. This technology allowed for the geometric resolution of the surfaces and optimization of the costly materials from which they are made, producing the exact form of each of the 10,161 cast glass pieces and 8,001 marble pieces that make up the petals. This precision results in a building that looks smooth and seamless at first glance—but up close, the geometric divisions are visible, and are exactly the same in every petal. The repetition of a single element in a circular pattern creates an “inverted tulip,” according to Claudio Orrego, intendant of Santiago Metropolitan Region.

Orrego was a key figure for the development of the building. As former mayor of Peñalolén municipality, he was pivotal in bringing the temple to his district. Before he arrived on the scene, the location of the Bahá’í temple in Santiago was fraught. The 14 years from the project’s

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announcement to its completion was not entirely because of its architectural complexity—in fact, the initial design barely changed since Hariri Pontarini Architects won the design competition in 2003. Most of the time was spent choosing a site in Santiago.

Initially, the building was to be located in Linderos, 40 kilometres south of Metropolitan Santiago; then, in 2005, the site was shifted to the town of Colina, 30 kilometres north of the city centre. The controversy started in 2007 when the Chilean Ministry of Housing offered the Bahá’í a 700-hectare site in Metropolitan Park—the city’s largest urban green space, atop a hill that is visible throughout Santiago—but some stakeholders questioned the appropriateness of granting such a prominent piece of state land to a specific faith. Finally, by 2008, the Bahá’í community began considering the site in the foothills of the Andes, and eventually purchased the 80 hectares of land from its previous owner, the Old Grangonian Club rugby team. Excavation work started in 2010, and construction followed two years after.

While warm and welcoming Peñalolén in retrospect appears to be the temple’s rightful destiny, the impressive location in the foothills of Los Andes seems, in some ways, at odds with the Bahá’í spirit. For if it allows the flower-like structure to be seen from a distance—and therefore to be recognized as an architectural icon—it diverges from the non-hierarchical nature of the Bahá’í temples. Chilean landscape designer Juan Grimm successfully used pathways and plantings to underscore the idea of nine entries from all directions, but on this site, the circular structure ultimately has a clear front and back, as well as a main entry. The alsowhite Benedictine Monastery in Santiago, by Correa & Guarda (1963), faced a site with similar characteristics, but as the church was expected to be the only point of contact between monks and the community, it was logical that the construction had a single, controlled access. In the Bahá’í temple’s case, it feels evident that the nine-doored building was largely designed before its site choice was finalized.

The fact of being located in the foothills also brings the problem of constructing on a steep slope. In two other buildings located in Peñalolén,

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5M

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VANESSA GUILLÉN

GUY WENBORNE

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The materiality and faceted geometry of the temple’s interior and exterior skins captures the diverse qualities of natural daylight in Chile’s capital city. OPPOSITE TOP Individual marble pieces were assembled into panels for installation. OPPOSITE BOTTOM A handsomely detailed wood-and-steel stair brings visitors up to the mezzanine level, overlooking the main meditation and prayer space.

GUY WENBORNE

ABOVE AND LEFT

Mathias Klotz’s Altamira School (1999) and José Cruz’s Adolfo Ibáñez University (2004), the inclined site was a starting point that became integral to each project. In the Bahá’í temple, by contrast, the iconicity of the building prevails over the location—massive site work was needed to carve out a plateau for the temple and its landscaping to sit upon.

Standing at this huge horizontal surface excavated from the mountains, with the city so distant, it feels as if you are inside one of Julius Shulman’s photographs of the Stahl house in Los Angeles. In that very moment, surveying the expanse of the metropolis below, one can’t help but wonder how many will make the trek to this sanctuary in the heights.

The Bahá’í seem confident that the new temple will boost knowledge of their faith—furthermore, in time, community-oriented programs will occupy new buildings planned for the site, helping to draw people here.

But at present, that doesn’t seem so easy when the building is difficult to reach, particularly for those without cars.

Hopefully, those who hesitate will nonetheless undertake the voyage.

This new white architectural icon in Santiago is worth the effort.

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Francisco Díaz is the editor in chief at Ediciones ARQ, and currently teaches at the School of Architecture at the Universidad Católica de Chile.

A monograph on this project, entitled Embodied Light , will be published by Birkhäuser and released in March 2017. Pre-orders are available via Amazon.ca.

CLIENT THE NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF CHILE | ARCHITECT TEAM SIAMAK

HARIRI, DORON MEINHARD, JUSTIN HUANG FORD, ADRIANA BALEN, MICHAEL BOXER, JAEGAP CHUNG, TIAGO MASROUR, DONALD PETERS, GEORGE SIMIONOPOULOS, JOHN COOK, MEHRDAD TAVAKKOLIAN, TAHIRIH VIVEROS | PROJECT MANAGEMENT DESARROLLLO Y CONSTRUCCION DEL TEMPLO BAHÁ’Í DE SUDAMERICA LTDA. | SUPERSTRUCTURE AND CLADDING GARTNER STEEL AND GLASS GMBH | GLASS CASTING JEFF GOODMAN STUDIO AND CGD GLASS | STONE FABRICATION EDM | LOCAL ARCHITECT BENKAL Y LARRAIN ARQUITECTOS | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT JUAN GRIMM | STRUCTURAL CONSULTANTS SIMPSON GUMPERTZ & HEGER, HALCROW YOLLES, EXP, PATRICIO BERTHOLET M. | CLADDING CONSULTANTS SIMPSON GUMPERTZ & HEGER | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/PLUMBING/HVAC MMM GROUP, VIDELA & ASOCIADOS, THE OPS GROUP | LIGHTING ISOMETRIX, LIMARI LIGHTING DESIGN LTDA | ACOUSTICS VERÓNICA WULF | AREA 2,438 M2 | BUDGET $30 M USD | COMPLETION OCTOBER 2016

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GUY WENBORNE

SEBASTIÁN WILSON

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LAU RELE AF RD.

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STEE LES

AV E. EA ST

SITE PLAN Legend 1. Parking court with permeable pavers 2. Additional parking with reinforced grass pavers 3. Wong Dai Sin Temple above 1 PARKING COURT WITH PERMEABLE PAVERS 2 ADDITIONAL PARKING WITH REINFORCED GRASS PAVERS 3 WONG DAI SIN TEMPLE ABOVE

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PRACTICED POISE A TAOIST TEMPLE ON THE EDGE OF TORONTO IS DELICATELY BALANCED ATOP TWO DRAMATICALLY CANTILEVERED PLATFORMS.

Markham, Ontario Shim-Sutcliffe Architects TEXT Katherine Ashenburg PHOTOS James Dow, unless otherwise noted LOCATION

ARCHITECT

It should not be possible for a building to hang in the air—even when the building is a sacred space. But long before the Wong Dai Sing Temple’s defiant post-tensioned concrete cantilevers took shape on paper, the very existence of a Taoist place of worship at the southern edge of Markham, Ontario, was dubious. “It was either an act of sheer will and determination—or simply a miracle,” said Brigitte Shim, FRAIC, in September OPPOSITE A 10-metre-long cantilever elevates the temple over the large parking area required by the municipality, allowing the building to fit on its site. ABOVE On the opposite side, a 5-metre cantilever provides a raised entry courtyard to the building.

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2016. She was accepting the Governor General’s Medal in Architecture, on behalf of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, for the now-realized project.

Shim’s intimation that the temple might have been birthed through divine intervention hints at the fact that this is no ordinary building.

In 2007, the Fung Loy Kok Institute, whose members follow a blend of Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist ideas, with tai chi an important part of its practice, bought land on Steeles Avenue. Their membership (which is predominantly non-Asian) was growing in the suburbs and beginning to plan a new temple. Unfortunately, by then organized religion had become a fly in the ointment of Markham’s real religion: parking. A large Buddhist temple, a mosque and a synagogue lined up in a row on Bayview Avenue had brought a glut of cars into the neighbourhood, and Markham responded by drastically upping its parking requirements for new buildings.

Ironically, a religion devoted to peace, charitable works and the silent practice of tai chi became the target of ferocious NIMBY ism, supported by the town councillors. (A typical claim, in an attempt to deny their charitable status, was, “You’re not a religion, you’re a fitness club.”)

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1 Legend 1. Entry canopy 2. Main entrance 3. Prayer Hall 4. Memorial Hall 5. elevator 6. Support spaces 7. Outdoor terrace

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OPPOSITE TOP Custom luminaires lend a red glow to the skylit interior, and are designed for suspending incense coils. OPPOSITE BOTTOM The sacred space sits on a two-way concrete slab integrated with slender piers, tied to a robust raft foundation. ABOVE The memorial hall is a bamboo-lined space within the temple, where congregants leave offerings and incense in memory of loved ones.

What followed was an epic of municipal obfuscation and opposition.

Shim says the neighbours were “horrible” and the city “really rotten.”

That’s strong language from a woman known for her diplomacy. Stubbornly taking the high road, the Fung Loy Kok people refused to drop the project. Three years into the torturous process, the city rejected a Shim-Sutcliffe at-grade design by demanding that the building, which was smaller than most single-family houses, provide 30 parking spaces on a modest lot of 304 square metres, instead of the 18 that the city had previously necessitated. “We felt bloody and bruised,” says Chris Farano, the Fung Loy Kok director. He went home from that meeting and told his wife about it. She was the one who suggested elevating the building to provide additional parking space underneath.

That serendipitous idea needed design finesse by Shim and her partner, Howard Sutcliffe, FRAIC, and the engineering brilliance of David Bowick, from Blackwell Structural Engineers. It also needed approval from the city, which the councillors refused in spite of a recommendation from city planners. Finally, Fung Loy Kok went to the Ontario Municipal Board, which does not usually concern itself with such small projects, and they gave it the go-ahead.

The result, finished in 2015, is an abrupt departure from the super-sized suburban mansions that line Steeles Avenue’s five lanes. On the left as you face the temple is a gigantic Second Empire fantasy; on the right is a more generic but equally vast house. Serenely self-possessed in this incongruous setting, the Wong Dai Sin Temple balances on a major 10-metre cantilever to the west and a minor five-metre one to the east. David Bowick’s tour

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ABOVE The parking area was designed to double as a sheltered area for community gatherings, and for practicing tai chi outdoors in the summer months—although neighbour complaints have curtailed such activities for the time being.

de force 10-metre cantilever, said to be one of the longest in North America, supports the temple itself, using a concrete slab, seven concrete piers and a stout raft foundation. The building is clad in a warm, rust-coloured weathering steel, with irregularly spaced fins punctuating floor-to-ceiling windows that give light and ventilation to the main worship space.

Depending on the light and the observer, the building resembles an off-centre shield, a lantern, a spaceship, a modernist ceramic by Hans Coper. Shim says modestly, “We were just trying to solve the parking problem and not have to rely on a bunch of crappy columns.” But one of the tai chi adepts in the congregation recognized something close to home. When he saw the temple for the first time, he cried out, “Single Whip!” Sometimes called the centerpiece of tai chi, the Single Whip relies on one bent leg, one straight, both arms outstretched with the hands in different positions—asymmetrical but in balance, ready to meet opposition. For Shim and Sutcliffe, who claim they know nothing about tai chi, it was one more piece of serendipity.

The interior was inspired by traditional temples Shim and Sutcliffe had visited in Hong Kong and mainland China. Stirred by the memory of filtered light and the smell of burning incense, they wanted to create something that accommodated both ancient and modern, that acknowledged the passage of time while aging graciously. With a limited budget, they bought five off-the-shelf, motorized skylights, and placed them irregularly to give a “cosmic” feeling. They designed red light monitors, which they inserted into the skylights to shape the way light enters the space. Shim likens the glowing red lights against the dark blue ceiling to “a series of constellations in the sky.” But there’s practicality as well as poetry here: large, traditional incense coils hang from the monitors and the concrete floor makes it a simple matter to sweep up the fallen ash.

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The most purely contemplative space is the memorial hall, a slim, rectangular temple-within-the-temple where ancestors are honoured with offerings, burning of incense and plaques inscribed with their names.

Most new memorial halls have growing pains that go on for decades, as bare walls wait for the usual marble or granite plaques. Shim-Sutcliffe’s solution was to line the walls immediately with plaques made of bamboo, a material that not only is sustainable but has cultural connections with Taoism. Then, when someone dies, the family buys a plaque and has the ancestor’s name inscribed in gold leaf on the bamboo.

It would be nice to report that Markham has seen the light and welcomed their new neighbours. But there remains one more hurdle. No sooner had the congregation discovered that the space under the large cantilever was superb for tai chi in the warm months, when someone complained and they were threatened with a fine. The zoning bylaw that allowed the temple specifies no outdoor activities—even silent activities, as infrequently as once a month. After Shim pleaded their case to several councillors and the mayor, the temple has applied for a minor zoning amendment. The hope is that by June, the quiet courtyard will see yellowclad members perfecting the Single Whip, asymmetric but poised.

Katherine Ashenburg is a Toronto-based writer, speaker and teacher.

CLIENT FUNG LOY KOK—INSTITUTE OF TAOISM | ARCHITECT TEAM BRIGITTE SHIM, HOWARD

SUTCLIFFE, MONICA LEUNG, ANDREW KIMBER | STRUCTURAL BLACKWELL STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS | MECHANICAL BK CONSULTING INC. | ELECTRICAL DYNAMIC DESIGNS AND ENGINEERING INC. | SITE SERVICES MASONGSONG ASSOCIATES ENGINEERING LTD. | LANDSCAPE NAK DESIGN GROUP | GEOTECHNICAL CANADA ENGINEERING SERVICES INC. | PLANNING BOUSFIELDS INC. | PLANNING LAWYERS SHERMAN BROWN | CONTRACTOR GILLAM GROUP INC. | AREA 304 M2 | BUDGET WITHHELD | COMPLETION MARCH 2015

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BECAUSE IT’S 2017: GENDER DIVERSITY IN CANADA’S ARCHITECTURE PROFESSION TEXT

Rhys Phillips

“Because it’s 2015” is, of course, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s much-reported retort to a journalist who questioned his first cabinet’s gender parity. In October of that year, the Ontario Association of Architects initiated a Women in Architecture series on its blog, 23 years after the organization first formed a Women in Architecture Task Force.

The state of diversity in the profession has been under increasing scrutiny both inside and outside of Canada. Despina Stratigakos’ recently published book, Where Are the Women Architects?, summarizes American and British research identifying barriers women continue to face as practicing architects, before cautiously positing evidence of an emerging “third wave” of feminism in architecture. The latter, she writes, challenges almost 20 years of equity stagnation in the profession that followed significant advances from the 1970s to the 1990s.

While much less research has been undertaken in Canada, voices such as Vancouver’s Women in Architecture group are responding to strong anecdotal evidence that advances in gender equality in education are not being consistently transferred to professional practice.

How should the profession respond to ensure more timely progress?

WHERE ARE THE LEAKS IN THE PIPELINE? Given architecture’s complex licencing process, data on the representation of actual practicing architects can be tricky to obtain. The best general measure is the 2011 census, which reports that women represent 28.9 percent of architects nationwide.

Notably, the percentage of female architects varied widely from province to province. Equally significant are changes from the previous 2006 census. The proportion of female architects in Quebec and Ontario moved upwards (5.5 and 3.3 percent respectively), while in British Col-

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umbia, the rate declined by 2.2 percent. Results of the 2016 census are currently being tabulated, but based on the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA)’s figures studying the gender wage gap in Ontario, it is reasonable to assume the national rate will exceed 30 percent, with Quebec passing the 40 percent mark. In addition to reporting that 51.4 percent of students enrolled in Ontario’s architecture programs were women (approximately 10 percent higher than in the U.S.), the OAA’s data revealed that during the past ten years, 33.1 percent of newly licensed Ontario architects were women. By 2015, 45 percent of intern architects were women.

This suggests Canada is ahead of both the U.S. and the U.K., at least nationally. But there are still significant problems. In the States, a study by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) found that the “licensure pipeline” has seen the percentage of women intern architects rise steadily from 1984 to reach 40 percent female in 2013. But, the ACSA argues, the virtual flatlining of practicing women architects at 25 percent since 2005 suggests significant “practice pipeline” holes.

Similarly, in Canada, representation outside Quebec suggests that the strong advances in the back end of the pipeline have not been appropriately reflected by a proportional national increase of practicing women architects. In contrast, the representation of women as practicing lawyers and doctors in Canada, both professions with similarly demanding licensing, apprenticeship requirements and long hours, is significantly higher. Some 40.3 percent of doctors in Canada are women—which rises to 51 percent for those aged 35 to 44 and 61.4 percent for those under 35.

The strong number of women training to become architects is promising. But unequal progress in practice representation raises key questions.

What are the barriers to retention, as well as advancement to leadership levels? And, why is Quebec significantly ahead?

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Number of Architects in 2011 by Gender and Province CANADA

ATLANTIC PROVINCES

QUEBEC

ONTARIO

TOTAL

15,255

MALE

10,905

FEMALE SHARE OF FEMALE

MANITOBA

SASKATCHEWAN

ALBERTA

540

4,190

390

2,565

4,350

135

28.5%

25.0%

5,985

435

155

1,270

2,635

4,425

340

130

925

2,090

1,630

1,560

95

25

345

540

38.9%

26.1%

21.8%

16.1%

27.2%

20.5%

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE Major American and British surveys over the last 15 years have suggested a plethora of barriers to women staying in architecture. Back in 2004, Sandra Manly and Clara Greed of the University of the West of England found multiple reasons why women left the profession at a higher rate than men. These included: Low and unequal pay; Long working hours coupled with inflexible/non-family friendly working hours; Being sidelined to limited areas of work, often based on protective paternalism, preventing development experience; Stressful working conditions with more job satisfaction elsewhere; Macho culture and sexism; and Lack of “returner” training after a maternity leave.

Twelve years later, the American Institute of Architects (AIA)’s 2016 national survey found all the same barriers—but added fewer job offers on graduation, slower rates of promotion, a lack of women role models, and a broader set of poor return-to-work strategies, including lack of upgrading for technological advances.

One reason for stunted promotion rates, reported the AIA San Francisco chapter’s Equity by Design Report (2014), was that women were less likely to see promotion systems as fair and “effective,” with senior male architects often engaging in “in-group favouritism.” The U.K.’s Architectural Review ran an international survey in 2016 that also raised the problem of weak mentoring. This issue dovetails with the frequent finding that women architects lack role models; in the States, less than 18 percent of licensure supervisors are women.

A related issue is women’s limited opportunities to lead on projects.

In the Equity by Design study, women architects reported they were more likely to be assigned production and construction documentation roles than their similarly situated male counterparts. According to architect Melissa Higgs of HCMA Architecture + Design, who is active with Vancouver’s Women in Architecture group, a disparate ability to access hours of leadership- and management-related work experience is the numberone problem faced by female interns, followed by lack of mentorship.

As for more diverse role models, many have noted the continued poor recognition of women’s achievements in architecture. Examples range from the Pritzker Prize’s male-dominated record of awardees, to sexist obituaries for Zaha Hadid—even by renowned critics.

On the positive side, in Designing Women (2000), McGill architecture professor Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred offer insights on why women have done so well in Quebec. The Quiet Revolution of the 1960s coincided with Montreal’s building boom, which included highly visible work by women architects, not a few of whom trained in Eastern Europe, where women played a much more central role.

With women architects at the centre rather than at the margins, female entry into the profession skyrocketed in the 70s and 80s.

Some reasons women give for leaving architectural practice—such as low pay, stressful working conditions and more job satisfaction else-

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BRITISH COLUMBIA

SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA, NATIONAL HOUSEHOLD SURVEY

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where—also apply to men. But according to the Architectural Review, only 28 percent of women report overall job satisfaction compared with 41 percent of men, suggesting that the adverse impact of these pressures is gendered. Female architects’ satisfaction levels were much better in firms with more women managers and with balanced mentoring programs.

Tellingly, all surveys find a significant divergence in how men and women assess the state of gender diversity in architecture. Men are only half as likely as their female counterparts to have seen discrimination against women, and hold similarly divergent perceptions about the fairness of promotion and pay levels. The AIA found that 84 percent and 81 percent of female respondents wanted a change in office culture and increased job flexibility, respectively, compared to 63 percent and 58 percent for men. With males still dominating management roles and partnerships, a significant disconnect remains between how men and women perceive the extent of the problems and the best ways to respond.

Certainly, the issues of work/life balance, flexible work arrangements and return from maternity leave play a central role in women’s professional experience. Historically, women in female-dominated jobs—from office cleaners to f light attendants, to professional nurses—have found ways to cope with these issues in the modern economy. Yet an Australian journalist still felt it appropriate to title a 2015 article “Women in Architecture: To Be or Not To Be a Mother,” and childless women form an abnormally high percentage of women in architecture.

Not incidentally, Quebec’s remarkable increase in women architects from 2001 to 2011 (25.2 to 38.9 percent, compared to Ontario’s increase from 21.3 to 26.5 percent) coincided with the first 12 years of that province’s affordable daycare program, introduced in 1999.

However, as Stratigakos told the Princeton University blog, “The simplistic explanation, trotted out for decades, that women leave practice to have babies doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.” She points out that not all mothers leave architecture, and women without children are also struggling in the profession.

The most disturbing conclusion of the recent surveys and history of architectural recognition may be this: it is not a lack of educational attainment or career interest that creates the gender gap. It is not even systemic barriers that unintentionally exclude women. Instead, it is the presence of significant subtle (and sometimes overt) attitudes and biases that both exclude women, and disproportionately lead them to abandon architecture as a profession. As one senior woman architect who asked not to be identified told me, “Being a woman in business, there is still an attitude that women can attain a certain level within an organization—but that women just may not be as good, or as appropriate, as men.”

THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY There is a need for—and signs of—Stratigakos’ third wave of architecture feminism, as well as for much stronger messaging by professional organizations. But change also requires direct action by individual firms to ensure that barriers are identified and eradicated. Architecture is increasingly drawing from evidence-based design studies; the same precept must be applied to its human resource practices.

Since 1986, Canada’s Federal Contractors Program (FCP), which cov-

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WIA VANCOUVER

JAYA BEANGE

SCOTT NORSWORTHY

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Building Equality in Architecture Toronto hosts an all-gender social at Harbourfront Centre; Liz Wreford, Elsa Lam and Johanna Hurme discuss equity on a Winnipeg panel; Women in Architecture Vancouver members on a construction tour of Telus Garden.

LEFT TO RIGHT

ers provincially regulated employers (including most architects) with major federal contracts, requires employers to apply just such an approach by developing and implementing an equity plan.

Under the FCP, employers must first tally their representation of women (as well as Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minority groups), classified by their occupational group. This is followed by a workforce analysis, where representation is compared against availability (the expected representation without barriers) to determine “gaps” or areas of under-representation. The third, and most difficult step, is an employment systems review that involves a complete audit of all employment systems, practices and processes, including attitudes, for adverse impact. From the findings, an employment equity plan is devel­ oped that aims to remove identified barriers, implement special measures like targeted mentoring to speed up the closing of gaps, and introduce supporting initiatives, such as accommodation and harassment policies as well as equity champions in management. Like all proper business plans, goals rather than quotas are set, then used to assess progress.

As a data-based system, employment equity works best with larger firms, but its principles can also be used even with smaller practices.

Some provinces—notably Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec—have required similar structured action, but legislated employment equity survived into the new millennium only in Quebec. Certain larger firms, however, remain subject to the FCP through their federal contracts.

I spoke to three such firms that have recently completed successful compliance reviews with Labour Canada: AECOM Canada Architects, IBI Group and Diamond Schmitt Architects.

Paul Vincent, vice president with AECOM, reports that 45 percent of the international firm’s approximately 130 Canadian architects are female, including its lead architect for North America. The key first step, he says, is developing and regularly communicating clear corporate values, including a commitment to a diverse and inclusive workforce.

This is backed up by regular workforce analyses to monitor representation, an appointed architecture “diversity champion,” a mandatory annual code of conduct course, and a well-communicated complaints process. A zero-tolerance policy toward harassment or discrimination is also conveyed to contractors and subs.

Good representation of women has been achieved by using general recruitment sources, although the firm has used targeted recruitment to improve Aboriginal representation in their workforce. Once hired, women architects can avail themselves of an active mentoring program, which Vincent believes has helped reduce turnover. The firm’s Women Excel Program, explains HR Director Sharon Burton, is an online program that also helps bring women together with mentors and allows for open communication on topics including gender integration. AECOM’s flexible work environment includes options to work from home and a parental leave top-up program.

At IBI Group, a recent workforce analysis revealed gender disparity only at the senior architect level—a “legacy” from the original partnership structure, says Jane Sillberg, Global Director of Human Resources. “We need

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to focus at the leadership level when it comes to gender,” she says. This focus includes a well-structured succession plan, as well as an initiative that identifies the top 20 percent of young high-performance architects and elicits their perspectives on the practice. Although both programs are open to men and women, “we are particularly working with women who may face challenges,” says Sillberg. She notes that women frequently become licensed later than men, often into their early thirties. When combined with having families, this requires flexible work arrangements.

Diamond Schmitt Architects has been under the FCP since 2003, and successfully completed its most recent compliance review this spring.

In the analysis prepared by Labour Canada, 32 percent of senior and middle managers and 42 percent of professionals and technicians at Diamond Schmitt were women, in line with Labour’s assessment of availability.

Equally important, over half of the firm’s associate architects and 60 percent of its directors are women.

Given Jack Diamond’s long-term involvement with human rights, including as a Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, it is perhaps not surprising that the company has a long-standing, strongly articulated equity policy. Like AECOM, it offers a work/life balance program as well as parental top-up for new mothers and fathers taking leave.

This is augmented by an employee assistance program that provides counselling resources 24/7. To eradicate any forms of harassment, the firm has established appropriate policies and procedures, and implemented officewide training. Other initiatives include active mentoring and networking for women in the firm, with a focus on ensuring women have access to leadership roles. The firm is a Gold Member of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), a non-profit organization promoting equality through advocacy, mentorship, networking and promotion.

Employment equity practices can be readily adapted to smaller operations. Johanna Hurme, an outspoken advocate of women in architecture and founding partner of Winnipeg’s 5468796 Architecture, notes that through a conscious decision and due diligence in its recruitment, the collaborative-based firm of 16 sustains equal numbers of men and women employees.

DIVERSITY AND THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE Paul Vincent makes a compelling business case for diversity when he says: “Ultimately, we are an ideas firm and a problem-solving operation. The world is changing and you have to do things in different ways—and to do that, you have to have people that come in with a different pair of glasses.” The dramatic shift in women training as architects, coupled with the similarly huge demographic shift underway, adds urgency. But in the end, it is simply the right of women to take their place within the profession that must drive change.

Rhys Philips is an Ottawa-based architecture critic. He helped craft and enforce the Federal Government’s employment equity policies as an official with both the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Labour Canada.

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1

WINNIPEG WARMTH TEXT

Lawrence Bird Courtesy The Forks, unless otherwise noted

PHOTOS

EACH WINTER, ARCHITECT- AND ARTIST-DESIGNED SHELTERS TRANSFORM WINNIPEG’S RIVERTOP SKATING TRAIL INTO AN EVER-GROWING TREASURE TROVE OF CONTEMPORARY ART. In 2009, Peter Hargraves, MRAIC, founder of Sputnik Architecture, stood in a frigid north wind on an old railway bridge with the principals of 1x1 Architecture, 5468796 Architecture, and Architecture 701.

Below them, a narrow path wound atop the snow-covered river: the Forks’ Red River Mutual Trail.

This strip of ice for skaters—with an adjacent path for walking, skiing, and fat-tire cycling—was an early initiative of The Forks, Winnipeg’s lauded regeneration of a former railyards site. Visitors flocked to the trail. The year before, the 8.5-kilometre-long track had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the globe’s longest naturally frozen skating trail. Here and there alongside it, small huts were set up where skaters could shelter from the cold.

Hargraves’ idea, which had been simmering for a year, was that the trail should be adorned not with run-of-the-mill shacks, but with models of what creativity and built form can do for public space. All that was necessary was to rebuild them the next year—and why not every year?—with the involve-

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ment of artists and architects. There was no shortage of impassioned creative types in Winnipeg willing to gift their talents to this kind of project.

The idea took. A few days later, on the initiative of Sasa Radulovic, MRAIC, the group took their ideas to Paul Jordan, then COO and today CEO of The Forks North Portage Partnership. Hargraves was bowled over when, rather than simply granting permission to build the new huts, the Forks offered $10,000 in seed funding. The Canada Council followed suit, as did the Manitoba Association of Architects, the Winnipeg Foundation, and Manitoba Homecoming. Alexander Reford, of Quebec’s Jardins de Métis, helped the team develop a competition brief and structure.

Thus were born the Warming Huts: an annual event in which local and international artists and architects install shelters along the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, each one a jewel of invention, humour or drama. In their first year, 2010, the Huts were designed by Antoine Predock (at the time working on the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, also at The Forks), Richard Kroecker of Dalhousie University, and the four architects who

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Conveying a sense of contemporary coziness, the fluorescent yellow Hygge House is a winning entry from the 2013 competition by Manitoba firms Plain Projects, URBANINK, and Pike Projects. 2 Greetings From Bubble Beach, by Team 888, will include deck chairs, flamingos, and a leaning palm tree inside a transparent geodesic done. 3, 4 Anish Kapoor’s Stackhouse will invite visitors to enter a womb-like structure built of ice layers.

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were at that first meeting, all working in collaboration with designers or artists from other disciplines. Huts are retained from past years, and today, the project sponsors three kinds of new installation each year: the top three entries of an international design competition, a Hut by an invited creator, and two Huts by local educational institutions, such as the University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture.

The Huts contribute to a mid-winter atmosphere of cultural ferment in Winnipeg, alongside the RMTC Master Playwright Festival, the WSO New Music Festival and the Festival Du Voyageur. Another such event is RAW:Almond, a pop-up restaurant on the Assiniboine River run by Joe Kalturnyk and Mandel Hitzer. RAW:Almond has its own newly designed structure each year, contributing to the dialogue initiated by the Huts, and invites chefs from elsewhere to work alongside local chefs in an atmosphere of invention and play.

The Warming Huts have garnered attention in other ways. In 2014, the New York Times featured a striking Hut by Pike Projects, Plain

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Projects, and URBANINK . Winning entries have come from climes as far-flung as Russia and Israel. RAW Design, a Warming Huts winner in 2014, has exported the concept to Toronto, which is now mounting installations from its third annual Winter Stations competition.

In 2017, the competition winners range from the humorous (Bubble Beach by Team 888 from Chicago) to the haunting (Ice Lantern by Lisa Tondino, Alexandra Bolen, Mathew Rodrigues and Drew Klassen).

One entry—Open Border, by Dutch designers Atelier ARI—goes beyond playfulness and phenomenological effect. Joyce de Grauw and Paul van den Berg’s seven-foot-high red barrier spans the Assiniboine River, and is clad in transparent red insulating strips. As skaters and walkers pass through, they will enter briefly into a “red world”: a space literally as well as visually warmer than its snowy surroundings. While a delightful place, this permeable wall seems to also offer another message. As the artists (both trained in architecture) put it: “Walls are built to keep people in or out. This wall not only gives the opportunity

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to go through it over the full length, but is also a place to come together.” With the Syrian refugee crisis and the Brexit vote, Europeans have begun to question their famously open borders. While de Grauw and van den Berg come down clearly on the side of inclusiveness, the ambiguity of their Hut underlines the complexity of the situation: it is a shared space, but still a barrier. The piece translates well to the North American context of walls, physical and procedural, raised up against migrants and refugees. It speaks just as much to other institutional and social barriers: between neighbourhoods, income levels and ethnicities.

Anish Kapoor’s Warming Hut, Stackhouse, is just as intriguing.

Kapoor’s participation is a coup for Hargraves and for Winnipeg. One of the world’s pre-eminent artists, he creates structures and spaces— Chicago’s Cloud Gate, London’s Orbit—that elude definition as either masculine or feminine, hard or soft; his surfaces, whether dark and smoky, vivid or mirror-like, resist penetration by the eye. Whether angelic or disturbing, his works seem to be simultaneously about generation and decay. In Stackhouse, he explores these themes in a material he has never used before: ice. A slit-like aperture penetrates a cube

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of stacked ice blocks, leading to a spherical space within. Like Open Border, this is both an object, and a place to dwell. But in contrast, it is deeply internalized, a condition complicated by the simultaneously translucent and opaque qualities of ice. The space inside will alter with the changing light, shifts in the weather, and drifting snow. It will be dark with murmurs of light; pure and impure. Its most significant change will play out over the longer term, as the hollow cube moves from its birth in winter to its demise in the spring. Which will survive longer: Stackhouse, or the frozen river holding it up? Kapoor’s interest in sullied spaces, and objects that refuse to be simply objective, will be played out in that transformation.

While Kapoor was likely interested in the difficulties of working in this environment—Hargraves warned him in an early communication, “It’s dangerously cold here”—it is noteworthy that Stackhouse turns on the one phenomenon that threatens all of the Huts: a gradually warming environment. While every year the Warming Hut team hopes for cold weather, recent warm winters have made the Red River Mutual Trail shorter, and the season for the Huts briefer, with construction more rushed. In this

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For the 2012 festival, Gehry Partners created Five Hole, an abstracted igloo built from chiselled ice blocks. 6 Woodpile, which debuted in the 2011 festival, was designed by Tel Aviv architects Noa Biran and Roy Talmon as a place for setting up a fire. 7 Designed by Tanya Tagaq with Sputnik Architecture, In the Light of the Kudluk used steel forms as moulds for a series of shelters built from packed snow. 8 Joyce de Grauw and Paul van den Berg’s Open Border will create a permeable barrier across the ice. 9 RAW:Almond is a competition-designed dining pavilion on the frozen river.

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context, the art and architecture of the huts becomes inevitably political.

Harvesting ice from the rivers and sculpting them into works of art connects artists and citizens to the changing cycles of nature, to the threatened life flowing through the rivers at the heart of the city.

Related to this view, Hargraves would also like to see the Huts engage Aboriginal heritage, as several public spaces in The Forks already do. The native presence represents a memory of river use dating back millennia, combining awareness of place, identity as a community, and ephemeral construction. One step in this direction was the invitation of Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq as last year’s guest artist. Collaborating with Sputnik, she created In the Light of the Kudluk, which packed snow into corten steel formworks to create a series of animistic figures. The figures melted away in the spring—a kind of shapeshifting. Like Kapoor’s

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piece, In the Light of the Kudluk’s realization depended on its own demise.

When Hargraves first established Sputnik Architecture, he took the firm’s name from a memory. As a young boy in South Africa, one evening he looked up at the night sky to see a small light crossing the heavens, moving quickly and freely compared to the fixed stars around it. Years later, a satellite seemed an auspicious namesake for a small and agile firm focused on imaginative projects. And so it was. The image of a point of light passing through the dark sky resonates beautifully with the Warming Huts: small circles of warmth in a snowy landscape, ephemeral, yet somehow burning all the brighter for that.

Lawrence Bird practices in architecture, urban design and the visual arts. He works in Winnipeg for Ager Little Architects.

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Canadian Architect 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302, Toronto ON M3B 1Z3 www.canadianarchitect.com

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Canstruction Toronto Information Night

What is the Geography of Energy?

January 12, 2017

January 19, 2017

Canstruction Toronto is an annual design-build competition to raise awareness about the growing hunger gap. The 18th annual event occurs in May 2017. www.canstructiontoronto.org

David Adjaye at McGill University January 16, 2017

David Adjaye, architect and principal at Adjaye Associates in London and New York, lectures at McGill University’s School of Architecture, followed by a reception.

This lecture at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design brings together professors and authors Pierre Bélanger and Jessica F. Green to discuss the geography of energy.

Ice Breakers

Hip Pop Art

January 21-February 26, 2017

January 30-February 12, 2017

This public art exhibition transforms Queens Quay with installations by RAW, Polymétis, Platant, Ferris + Associates, and Curio Art Consultancy with Jaspal Riyait. www.waterfrontbia.com

The Gladstone Art Hut is an art gallery and incubator for Toronto artists. In early February, emerging artist Andre Alexander will take up residence with a new body of screen-printed work inspired by hip hop and pop art.

www.daniels.utoronto.ca

17 Volcanoes: Works by Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, Armin Linke and Bas Princen

Come Up to My Room

To January 22, 2017

February 4, 2017

www.cca.qc.ca

joinmade.org

www.gladstonehotel.com

Winterus Maximus

Transforming rooms in the Gladstone Hotel, this exhibition showcases the work of new and established artists, designers and collectives.

Presented by the CCA in collaboration with the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, this exhibition examines the transformation of contemporary landscapes.

Toronto Design Offsite Festival

Interior Design Show

Warming Huts

Winter Stations

January 16-22, 2017

January 19-22, 2017

Opening January 28, 2017

February 20-March 22, 2017

www.todesignoffsite.com

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www.warminghuts.com

www.winterstations.com

www.mcgill.ca

January 19-22, 2017

www.gladstonehotel.com

At this annual festival, storefronts in Toronto display exhibitions, galleries host immersive installations, and local and international designers spark discussion with lectures and workshops open to all.

This annual trade show in Toronto showcases new products, furniture and concepts, and includes a panel featuring Megan Torza and Heather Dubbeldam in conversation with Alex Bozikovic.

Winnipeg’s winter design competition features winning work from Chicago, Nova Scotia, and Rotterdam, as well as two huts by local groups and an invited submission by sculptor Anish Kapoor.

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CALENDAR

Edmonton’s MADE hosts its second annual winter race, where designers create chariots to harness to fat-tired bikes, then compete on a course along the city’s downtown streets.

The third edition of this design competition transforms six lifeguard stands in the heart of The Beaches neighbourhood at the east end of Toronto into temporary public art installations.

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BACKPAGE

JOURNEY’S END TEXT AND PHOTO

Ricardo L. Castro

THE 170-YEAR-OLD MOUNT ROYAL COMPANY’S LANDSCAPE-ORIENTED APPROACH COMES FORWARD IN A NEW MONTREAL CEMETERY. Heading along the Trans-Canada highway towards the west tip of Montreal Island, one used to drive by a meadow-like clearing, with a gate barring access to a Domtar cement facility. Today, the gates are swung open, the cement facility is demolished, and nestled within the clearing is an elegant building for the most sacred of rites: human burial.

Cemetery design has a long historical trajectory in Canada, and particularly in Montreal.

In 1847, the non-profit Mount Royal Company was established, and in 1852, its Trustees built the Mount Royal Cemetery, bringing to the endeavour a strong sense of landscape stewardship. The project became one of the best examples of the picturesque landscape tradition in North America—a tradition that fostered garden or rural cemeteries, as opposed to traditional small churchyard and plot burial grounds. As the city’s population grew, the group brought the same values to the construction of the Hawthorn-Dale Cemetery in Pointaux-Trembles on the island’s eastern tip, completed in 1910. All of the Company’s profits are devoted to the embellishment and improvement of its properties.

In 2012, the Company’s Trustees commissioned the Montreal firm Marosi + Troy Architects to design a funerary complex on the grounds of a third cemetery, named

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Belvedere. Located in Senneville Village, on the western tip of the island of Montreal, it is the latest cemetery of the picturesque type in Canada, and began to operate last year. The Mount Royal Company developed the project with the same altruistic ideals that guided their original projects from the past two centuries.

What are the values behind a landscape-oriented, public-minded cemetery? The architects’ design criteria included a series of precise prescriptions: avoidance of an institutional character and the negative connotations usually associated with funeral homes; an emphasis on the relationship with the natural qualities of the site; the creation of inviting outdoor areas; a careful treatment of light, colour and texture; and an emphasis on the spiritual quality of the place. Furthermore, to reinforce the project’s visibility in the landscape and give it a unique character, the clients asked for a tower-like element to be included.

Marosi + Troy skillfully choreographed these criteria in their design. The result is an expressive hierarchical treatment of ceiling heights and roof volumes; in warmer months, the latter shelter broad verandas.

This contributes to organizing a complex program that includes an all-denominational chapel, reception and foyer, visitation rooms,

ABOVE A masonry-and-zinc-clad funerary complex by Marosi + Troy sits quietly within the picturesque landscape of Belvedere Cemetery.

as well as the special areas needed for the discreet handling and preparation of the deceased.

The architects’ choice of masonry cladding and a zinc roof unifies the varied volumetric composition. Their grouping of spatial volumes, under a single but highly articulated roof, allows for a variety of sensorial experiences that heighten the spiritual settings of the place. These are, perhaps, akin to those elicited moving through the picturesque surroundings—where one may be lured to connect visually and spiritually, here and there, with specific features of the site.

Marosi + Troy’s manipulation of natural light is a great boon to the building. Large window panes define the vertical surfaces of the main public areas, allowing a direct borrowing of surrounding views, and enhancing the luminous quality of the interior spaces. The strategic placement of four skylights in the commemorative areas serves to accentuate the spiritual nature of the interior. One of the skylights is housed in a distinctive vertical volume, easily visible from the Trans-Canada highway that abuts the site, and serves to wash one of the end walls of the chapel with light. At night, acting as a beacon, it marks the presence of this new and memorable funerary complex in Montreal.

Ricardo L. Castro, FRAIC is an associate professor at the McGill University School of Architecture.

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2016-12-21 4:09 PM

5th INTERNATIONAL LAFARGEHOLCIM AWARDS FOR SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

Total Prizes of $2 Million We are committed to sustainable construction and projects that support PROGRESS - PEOPLE PLANET - PROSPERITY - PLACE. LafargeHolcim Awards Silver 2014 – $50,000 USD. Lieu de vie on the new Paris-Saclay university campus hosts a mix of activities including indoor and outdoor sports facilities, food outlets and various public spaces across more than 4,000 sq m of floor area. Using rough materials, robust and long lasting techniques, the “urban shelf” is organized vertically with its different activities superimposed on one another, using the roof as a panoramic playground for football and basketball games. Paris, France

LafargeHolcim Awards Gold prize – $100,000 USD. The central flower and vegetable garden at Benny Farm was always the neighborhood focus of social interaction. At the core of the design is the establishment of participatory models and investment in sustainable construction, centered on common energy, water & waste management. Montreal, Canada

Enter your project in one of these categories: l Architecture, building and civil engineering l Landscape, urban design and infrastructure l Materials, products and construction technologies Professional and Next Generation awards.

LafargeHolcim Acknowledgment Prize – $7,500 USD. The sustainable library and classroom building demonstrates environmental responsibility and stewardship for the student body and the community. Such forces are put to work in an ingenious way by the warped concrete roof that is shaped so as to increase the velocity of air currents, thus eliminating the need for mechanical ventilation. Vancouver, Canada

LafargeHolcim Acknowledgment Prize – $25,000 USD. Heritage Reframed: University building renovation and extension.

The complete DFALD restores the architecture, landscape and urban design within the round of Spadina Crescent. The site’s hydrology is evident in the roof profile, shaped to guide water into pools, bio-swales and ultimately to cisterns for irrigation. Toronto, Canada

For more information: application.lafargeholcim-awards.org

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