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CIDA DE ARAGON
RAIC AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE
CANADIAN ARCHITECT
MAY 2021 03
18 ROYAL ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTE OF CANADA AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE
This prestigious biannual awards program continues to distinguish the country’s best architectural projects and practitioners.
SCOTT NORSWORTHY
LECKIE STUDIO
ROBERT STEFANOWICZ
18 Gold Medal Brigitte Shim and A. Howard Sutcliffe
36 E merging Practice Award Leckie Studio Architecture + Design
44 I nnovation in Architecture Grand Théâtre de Québec
48 P resident’s Award for Multimedia Representations of Architecture Canadian Modern Architecture, 1967 to the Present
40 E merging Architect Anya Moryoussef
STÉPHANE GROLEAU
30 Architectural Firm Award MGA | Michael Green Architecture
04 VIEWPOINT
What do awards tell us about the state of architecture in Canada?
06 NEWS
McGill receives $19 M for research on decarbonizing buildings; OAQ award winners announced.
11 RAIC JOURNAL
Tracy Lee outlines how firms can encourage apprenticeship learning within virtual work environments.
50 BACKPAGE
Simon Rabyniuk and Pooya Aledvood parse the legacy of Richard Serra’s Shift .
Architect Michael Leckie—principal of this year’s leading Emerging Practice—is the co-founder of the Backcountry Hut Company, whose Great Lakes Cabin is shown on our cover. Photo by Kyle Chappell.
COVER
V.66 N.03 THE NATIONAL REVIEW OF DESIGN AND PRACTICE / THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE RAIC
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VIEWPOINT
DOCUMENTING THE WIN Architects and designers love to receive awards. And why not? They honour the top accomplishments and best buildings of the profession, creating an occasion for celebration that is often lacking in the industry. For winners—and especially younger firms—they can bring the kind of notice that puts a new studio on the map. Awards help to confer legitimacy, proving a firm’s design abilities to existing and potential clients. At the scale of the profession, awards are a way to communicate the value of architecture and architects in shaping the built environment. At the recent OAQ Awards ceremony, association President Pierre Corriveau underscored how the selected projects add to the public good. “It’s exciting to see how architecture blossoms in our communities and contributes to enhancing the value and vitality of our living environments,” he said. Architectural scholar Jean-Pierre Chupin believes that awards can tell us even more—especially when you examine large sets of awarded projects. Chupin, who holds a Canada Research Chair at the Université de Mont réal, is leading a project (at architecture-excellence.org) to document all of the buildings that have received awards in Canada since 1967—some 3,000 projects in total. Chupin’s interest is spurred by epistemological questions about architectural quality. “Everyone knows what quality is about, but no one can quite explain it,” he says. For two decades, he has co-directed a project researching architectural competitions, which includes an ongoing documentation of Canadian competitions. His research group has so far documented half of all competitions ever held in Canada, cataloguing 5,539 entries and digitizing 52,536 separate documents. That material has allowed for in-depth investigations into the changing societal and political values that inform design selection. (It’s also turned up a good number of unbuilt designs that, in retrospect, should have been constructed—including buildings for Edmonton and Montreal by the likes of Zaha Hadid and Lacaton & Vassal.) Taking a similar long view on awards, Chupin thinks, will help us better understand the “grey zone” of how architectural quality is judged in completed buildings—and how our understanding of quality has changed over time. How do issues such as environmental sustainability begin to manifest through architectural awards in the mid-1990s? Is architecture’s social agenda—a prominent concern in the 1970s—
beginning to reappear as a marker of awardworthy projects? What can awards tell us about best practices in architecture? Chupin’s team is using GIS software to link the location of awarded projects with demographic data. As a first exercise, they documented and mapped 210 Canadian projects that were given awards in 2020, and superimposed census data on their locations. “We found that most of those awards were in downtown, very urban, very wealthy areas with expensive land values,” says Chupin of those preliminary findings— suggesting that the distribution of awards (and of quality buildings) may not be as equitable as we would like to believe. “As we enter the coordinates of more projects, it will start to be even more revealing,” he says. Examining the past year’s worth of awarded buildings yielded a surprising cross-section of projects—including larger institutional works that are well known, but also smaller ones that have received less publicity. “I thought I knew a lot of good buildings, and then you realize that you have never heard of half of them,” says Chupin. This hints at how a comprehensive database will create a valuable repository of the country’s best architecture: a research project which currently has no equivalent elsewhere in the world. The preliminary research also raises the question: Are architectural awards predominantly a recent, North American phenomenon? “For a long time, there were just five to ten major architectural awards in the world,” says Chupin. “In the past 20 years, there are 70 to 80 organizations giving awards—just in Canada.” Surprisingly, there are fewer awards in France, he notes, which has nearly twice the population. Architects certainly can—and ought to—continue to love awards. But by developing a biggerpicture view of them, we can strengthen awards programs, honing them in on defined collective values, and tailoring them to facilitate equity and inclusion. We can also gain fresh insight into how awards are more than just the outcome of great work: they are a telling indicator of architecture’s larger drivers, its measures of success, and its highest aspirations.
EDITOR ELSA LAM, FRAIC ART DIRECTOR ROY GAIOT CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ANNMARIE ADAMS, FRAIC ODILE HÉNAULT DOUGLAS MACLEOD, NCARB, FRAIC ONLINE EDITOR CHRISTIANE BEYA REGIONAL CORRESPONDENTS MONTREAL DAVID THEODORE CALGARY GRAHAM LIVESEY, FRAIC WINNIPEG LISA LANDRUM, MAA, AIA, FRAIC VANCOUVER ADELE WEDER, HON. MRAIC SUSTAINABILITY ADVISOR ANNE LISSETT, ARCHITECT AIBC, LEED BD+C VICE PRESIDENT & SENIOR PUBLISHER STEVE WILSON 416-441-2085 x105 ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER 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 info@canadianarchitect.com WEBSITE www.canadianarchitect.com Canadian Architect is published 9 times per year by iQ Business Media Inc. The editors have made every reasonable effort to provide accurate and authoritative information, but they assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the text, or its fitness for any particular purpose. Subscription Rates Canada: $54.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; $87.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (HST – #80456 2965 RT0001). Price per single copy: $15.00. USA: $135.95 USD for one year. International: $205.95 USD per year. Single copy for USA: $20.00 USD; International: $30.00 USD. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Dept., Canadian Architect, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3. Postmaster: please forward forms 29B and 67B to 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3. Printed in Canada. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in full without the consent of the copyright owner. From time to time we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: Telephone 416-441-2085 x104 E-mail circulation@canadianarchitect.com Mail Circulation, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302, Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3 MEMBER OF THE CANADIAN BUSINESS PRESS MEMBER OF THE ALLIANCE FOR AUDITED MEDIA PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #43096012 ISSN 1923-3353 (ONLINE) ISSN 0008-2872 (PRINT)
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NEWS
STANTEC / KPMB
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ABOVE The new Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower will be designed by Stantec and KPMB. In the background, the Patient Support Centre, designed by B+H Architects, is currently under construction.
PROJECTS Stantec and KPMB to design expanded SickKids campus
The joint venture of Stantec and KPMB Architects is providing architectural design services for the planning phase of The Hospital for Sick Children’s (SickKids’) ten-plus-year campus redevelopment, Project Horizon. The three-phase project will include replacing two of the oldest buildings on the campus with a new acute care hospital, the Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower.
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www.stantec.com
Montgomery Sisam and Christensen & Co. to design new UTM student residence
Toronto architects Montgomery Sisam and Danish architects Christensen & Co. have been awarded the University of Toronto’s new student housing building in Mississauga. The overall vision of the project is to create a home away from home for the community of residents. The building is designed as a layered experience of social situations, all with a focus on ensuring equal access for all students. The variety of shared spaces spans from smaller-scale areas for dialogue and casual meet-ups to atrium-sized common rooms for larger gatherings and events. Sustainability is woven into all aspects of the project, from using healthy materials to working with circular economies. The design nudges user behaviour by incorporating recycling shops, reduces carbon consumption during construction, and explores possibilities for geothermal heating. www.montgomerysisam.com
AWARDS OAQ announces Awards of Excellence winners
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The tower will add new patient and critical care beds to the hospital, increasing the number of beds to 430, including a new Level IV neonatal intensive care unit. Three additional operating suites, for a total of 19, will accommodate new technologies and procedures, and a new emergency department will offer 51 treatment spaces—12 more than the current capacity. The vision for the project includes a central courtyard garden, playgrounds and communal spaces with access to the outdoors and views of the city skyline, welcoming entrances, as well as light-filled corridors that support the intuitive flow of people and services. To ensure the SickKids campus remains fully functional during the construction of the tower, the Stantec/KPMB team is also designing a series of projects in the remaining facilities to accommodate relocated programs, help support patient care and experience, and upgrade the site and building infrastructure.
The Ordre des architectes du Québec (OAQ ) unveiled the 11 winners of its annual Architecture Awards of Excellence in an online gala. The Grand Prix d’Excellence was awarded to Lemay and Atelier 21 for their restoration of the building envelope of the Grand Théâtre in Quebec City. Designed by architect Victor Prus and inaugurated in 1971, the building required major work to preserve its exterior, whose panels are tied to an interior mural by sculptor Jordi Bonet. The jury noted that the addition of a new, fully transparent envelope ensures the longevity of this major modernist work. The project also won the People’s Choice Award. Awards of Excellence were also given to the following projects: Pôle culturel de Chambly (Atelier TAG and Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes in consortium), Visitor Centre at Base de plein air de SainteFoy (Patriarche), Förena Cité thermale (Blouin Tardif Architectes), Habitations Saint-Michel Nord (SBTA), La Doyenne (naturehumaine), hinterhouse (Ménard Dworkind architecture & design), Les blocs de bois (Yiacouvakis Hamelin architectes_ yh2), LightSpeed Phase 3 (ACDF Architecture), Verdun Auditorium (Les architectes FABG), and Skating rink at Parc des Saphirs (ABCP architecture). www.oaq.com
2021-04-30 12:03 PM
WHAT’S NEW RAIC announces Honorary Fellows
Fire Resistant. Design Consistent.
Four professionals who have significantly inf luenced architectural practice around the world have been named Honorary Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC). The 2021 Honorary Fellows exemplify the tremendous impact that architects have—not only on the built environment, but on public life and the world around them. Amale Andraos is the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and co-founder of the practice WORK ac. Andraos is committed to design research, and her writings focus on climate change and its impact on architecture— as well as on questions of representation in the age of global practice. Tatiana Bilbao began her eponymous studio in 2004 with the aim of integrating social values, collaboration, and sensitive design approaches to architectural work. Prior to founding her firm, Bilbao was an Advisor in the Ministry of Development and Housing of the Government of the Federal District of Mexico City. During this period she was part of the General Development Directorate of the Advisory Council for Urban Development in the City. Mouzhan Majidi joined Zaha Hadid Architects in 2015 following a distinguished 27-year career with Foster + Partners. Majidi’s designs, leadership and passion for diversity have led to work in establishing new benchmarks in design innovation, user experience and sustainability. Appointed by consecutive British Prime Ministers as a UK Business Ambassador, Majidi has represented the UK Government and construction industry in promoting design excellence and sustainability worldwide. Thomas Vonier is president of the International Union of Architects (UIA), the only world organization of architects, and the immediate past president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Thomas has worked globally on the challenges of urbanization, conflict resolution, urban insecurity, and changing climate patterns.
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B.C. government funds 12 mass timber research projects
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Photo: Mendoza Photography
The government of British Columbia is funding 12 mass timber demonstration and research projects and has established a new advisory council to accelerate the adoption of mass timber building systems, as part of the province’s economic recovery. The $4.2-million investment in mass timber demonstration projects and research will help architects, urban planners and developers adopt mass timber building systems by supporting the incremental or firsttime costs of design development, research, permitting and construction activities. The demonstration projects reflect a range of different building types and approaches to using mass timber including a firehall with strict post-disaster requirements, an Indigenous health and culture centre, and low-cost housing on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The research projects will study mass timber’s fire performance, the costs relative to steel and concrete, and carbon benefits. All project innovations and best practices will be broadly shared to promote learning and further advance mass timber use provincewide. The grant recipients are: Happy Harvest for Main and Cordova (MA+HG Architects with EskewDumezRipple), BentallGreenOak for 2150 Keith Drive (DIALOG), Reliance Properties Ltd. for 837 Beatty Street (office of macfarlane biggar architects + designers), District of Saanich for Fire Station 2 (HCMA Architecture + Design), First Nations Health Authority for their Metro Vancouver Office (DIALOG),
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NEWS
Bellevue Properties Partnership for Bellevue and 22nd (Perkins and Will), Westbank for Prototype (Henriquez Partners Architects), Faction Projects for The Exchange (Faction Architecture), Canadian Wood Council, GHL Consultants, and CHM Fire Consultants for fire testing, Fast + Epp and GHL Consultants for assessing the transferability of international tall wood building codes to B.C. and Canada, Morrison Hershfield for developing costing data on mass timber construction, and Athena Sustainable Materials Institute for lifecycle assessment research.
OFFICE OF MACFARLANE BIGGAR\
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www.news.gov.bc.ca
McGill architectural research attracts $19 million in support
McGill University’s Building Architecture Research Node (BARN) project was awarded over $7.5 million through the Canada Foundation for Innovation Fund. With additional funds from the Government of Quebec, BARN will receive more than $19 million in research support. Working with an interdisciplinary team of McGill researchers, as well as with private and public sector partners, BARN co-leads Profs. Michael Jemtrud, Kiel Moe, and Salmaan Craig (all of the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture) aim to develop regional, carbon-negative approaches to construction, linking sustainable forestry with timber innovations. The BARN team aims to explore ways to make buildings less carbonintensive to operate. They also will research ways to reduce the amount of carbon embodied in building materials, components, assemblies, buildings and communities. The showcase BARN building, to be located on McGill’s Macdonald campus, will include laboratories for an interdisciplinary team of experts in energy, ecology, landscape, forestry, architecture and con-
ABOVE Designed by office of macfarlane biggar, the 837 Beatty Street Rehabilitation and Addition is a recipient of B.C. Government mass timber research funding.
struction. The building will incorporate a state-of-the-art workshop for processing timber, and space for assembling and testing innovative building technologies at full scale. www.mcgill.ca
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Equity in practice
I appreciated your editorial “Acting on Equity,” along with the two articles by Jaliya Fonseka and Anne Bordeleau of the University of Waterloo’s architecture school (February CA). It’s something that’s been on my mind for many years now (I imagine it began with the influence of the Habitat Forum while I was still a UBC architecture
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student back in ’76.) Directly related to that, I see now that the RAIC has launched the Promoting Equity and Justice Advisory Committee. As you pointed out, there are many actions firms can take to promote equity in the workplace. Beyond that, I am pleased to see that the RAIC has taken up the challenge to address some of these issues at the institutional level. It remains to be seen what this advisory committee recommends and what the RAIC does with such recommendations. We have, though, a start. One of my former students, Kisnaphol Wattanawanyoo (who is now teaching where I taught in Bangkok for many years) posted a quote to which I keep returning. It is from Whitney M. Young Jr.’s keynote address to the AIA in 1968: “You are not a profession that has distinguished itself by your social and civic contributions to the cause of civil rights, and I am sure this has not come to you as any shock. You are most distinguished by your thunderous silence and your complete irrelevance.” Another quote of relevance comes from Che Guevara’s speech at the 7th Congress of the UIA in Havana in 1963: “Technology can be used to subjugate the people or it can be used to liberate them [...] And whoever says that a technician of whatever sort, be he an architect, doctor, engineer, scientist, etc., needs solely to work with his instruments in his chosen specialty, while his countrymen are starving or wearing themselves out in the struggle, has de facto gone over to the other side. He is not apolitical; he has taken a political decision, but one opposed to the movements for liberation...” Both quotes point to our professional obligations to fellow citizens, to the ‘common good’, to equity and justice. Architecture certainly has a role to play in supporting the common good. These are not just words and ideas for us to discuss in academic circles. They have meaning for our actions, as do the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Right—a delineated understanding of the common good. We have obligations to promote and protect human rights. The troubling question is how we act—personally, professionally, and within our representative institutions—to protect the rights of citizens. In that regard, I was quite taken with Jaliya Fonseka’s description of returning to Sri Lanka and his work there on “renovating and repairing the Montessori school.” A revealing moment was when he states: “Every time I approached this work through the lens of my architectural training, I reached a dead end.” When that hammer/nail view of the problem was let go, the perspective changed, and the voices of others were much more easily heard. The question then evolved and expanded to: “How would I create a sense of belonging for the children that attended the school?” In turn, such a question cascades into a whole range of issues, only some of which relate directly to “architectural training.” They are focused first on belonging, children and the common good—including the rights of children (see, for example, the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child). I will be quite interested to see the outcomes of this advisory committee and how it will be applied by the RAIC. There is an evident need to address these issues and much to be understood about our obligations—not just to our employees in architectural firms, but our obligations as professionals to the protection of the rights of citizens.
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Graeme Bristol (MRAIC) is the founder and executive director of the Centre for Architecture and Human Rights, a Canadian foundation advancing a rights-based approach to development in the practice of architecture, engineering and planning. For the latest news, visit www.canadianarchitect.com/news and sign up for our weekly e-newsletter at www.canadianarchitect.com/subscribe
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11 Briefs En bref RAIC releases the Third Edition of the Canadian Handbook of Practice for Architects This third edition is a comprehensive reworking of an essential professional resource that resulted from extensive collaboration by the architectural profession from every region of the country. The Handbook is available at no cost on a comprehensive, searchable website in English and French. As a living document, this resource will be continuously updated and developed over time to reflect the evolution of architectural practice in Canada. Visit chop.raic.ca. L’IRAC publie la troisième édition du Manuel canadien de pratique de l’architecture L’Institut royal d’architecture du Canada (IRAC) a le plaisir d’annoncer la publication du nouveau Manuel canadien de pratique de l’architecture. La dernière édition datant de 2009, cette troisième édition est une refonte complète d’un ouvrage de référence professionnel essentiel. Elle est le fruit d’une vaste collaboration de membres de la profession provenant de toutes les régions du pays. Le Manuel est offert gratuitement, sur un site Web interrogeable très complet, dans les deux langues officielles, le français et l’anglais. Comme il s’agit d’un document évolutif, il sera continuellement mis à jour et enrichi au fil du temps pour tenir compte de l’évolution de la pratique de l’architecture au Canada. Visitez le mcpa.raic.ca. Architecture for Young Readers Project launched in partnership with the Halifax Public Library Fuelled by the desire to strengthen the presence of books on architecture for young readers in their local public library, the RAIC Halifax network is proud to partner with Halifax Public Libraries in developing a book sponsorship project. This collaboration aims to build a comprehensive collection on architecture, specifically targeted towards children, adolescents, and teens. Learn more about the program at raic.org/chapters/novascotia/halifax Projet Architecture pour jeunes lecteurs de l’IRAC Animé par le désir de renforcer la présence des livres sur l’architecture pour les jeunes lecteurs de leur bibliothèque publique locale, le réseau d’Halifax de l’IRAC est fier de s’associer aux bibliothèques publiques d’Halifax pour concevoir un projet de commandite de livres. Cette collaboration vise à constituer une collection complète sur l’architecture qui s’adresse particulièrement aux enfants, aux adolescents et aux jeunes adultes. Pour en savoir plus sur le programme, consultez le site raic.org/chapters/novascotia/halifax
The RAIC is the leading voice for excellence in the built environment in Canada, demonstrating how design enhances the quality of life, while addressing important issues of society through responsible architecture. www.raic.org L’IRAC est le principal porte-parole en faveur de l’excellence du cadre bâti au Canada. Il démontre comment la conception améliore la qualité de vie tout en tenant compte d’importants enjeux sociétaux par la voie d’une architecture responsable. www.raic.org/fr
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RAIC Journal Journal de l’IRAC CHOP is available at no cost on a comprehensive searchable website in both official languages, English and French. Le Manuel est offert gratuitement, sur un site Web interrogeable très complet, dans les deux langues officielles, le français et l’anglais.
Building for the Year Ahead Construire pour l’année à venir Tanner Morton Editor, RAIC Journal Rédacteur en chef, Journal de l’IRAC
The arrival of spring inspires many to think about what we resolve to do better or differently in the year ahead. Covid-19 continues to impact communities across Canada, and while vaccinations are now being administered, challenges still lay ahead—though there is optimism for the future as well. Some can even see the shimmer of a silver lining coming out of the pandemic—a better environment, the ability to adapt and the opportunity for innovation, a renewed focus on worklife balance, and the strength of the human spirit. The RAIC continues to build on the work we accomplished in 2020 to further support our profession, members, and the architectural community in Canada. Over the past several months, the RAIC has been working to establish—and has successfully recruited for—a Promoting Equity and Justice committee. The focus of the advisory committee is to support the development and implementation of the RAIC Promoting Equity and Justice Action Plan. The striking of the committee is only the first step, and there are plenty more ahead. The RAIC is resolved to continue to meet the immediate needs of our members, listening and responding to issues as they emerge, continuing to provide services that you can depend on, and, ultimately, building a resilient, equitable, just, sustainable and successful future for Canadian architecture.
L’arrivée du printemps incite beaucoup de personnes à réfléchir à ce que nous décidons de faire de mieux ou de différent dans l’année à venir. Tant que Covid-19 continue d’avoir un impact sur les communautés partout au Canada, et pendant que les vaccinations sont maintenant distribuées, il reste des défis à relever, bien qu’il y ait également de l’espoir pour l’avenir. Certains peuvent même voir une lueur d’espoir sortir de la pandémie un meilleur environnement, la capacité d’adaptation et l’opportunité d’innovation, une concentration renouvelée sur l’équilibre entre le travail et la vie personnelle et la force de l’esprit humain. L’IRAC continue de s’appuyer sur le travail que nous avons accompli en 2020 pour soutenir davantage notre profession, nos membres et la collectivité architecturale au Canada. Au cours des derniers mois, l’IRAC s’est efforcé d’établir et a recruté un comité de promotion de l’équité et de la justice. L’objectif du comité consultatif est d’appuyer l’élaboration et la mise en œuvre du plan d’action de l’IRAC pour la promotion de l’équité et de la justice. La création du comité n’est que la première étape et il reste encore beaucoup à faire. L’IRAC est résolu à continuer de répondre aux besoins immédiats de ses membres, à écouter et répondre aux problèmes à mesure qu’ils surgissent, à continuer de fournir des services sur lesquels vous pouvez compter et, en fin de compte, à bâtir un avenir résilient, juste, équitable, durable et prospère pour l’architecture canadienne.
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A New Apprenticeship Un nouveau stage A key component of an architect’s education is apprenticeship. How can we nurture informal learning and mentorship in an online working environment? Le stage est un élément clé de la formation d’un architecte. Comment pouvons-nous favoriser l’apprentissage informel et le mentorat dans un environnement de travail en ligne?
DIALOG
Informal apprenticeship is a key advantage of the open studio environment at many architecture firms, including DIALOG’s Edmonton office.
by / Par Tracy Lee
The delicate dance that occurs among collaborators when tackling a design problem is a balance of ideas, communication and ego. A seemingly innocuous comment can spark innovation; heated debates can occur as different paths emerge. It can be exciting. It can be difficult. Emotions that run high must be acknowledged, then relinquished to refocus on the task at hand. I learned this lesson—and many others— as a junior intern while working on a very large, complex project. Its success required close collaboration between several strong leaders. In the crucible of learning that was the open studio working environment, I sat within earshot of two of the project’s architectural principals and sat elbow-to-elbow with talented colleagues. My actual tasks were simple, but by being surrounded by more experienced staff while doing them, I learned lessons of leadership, compassion and collaboration. It was in large part an unconscious process—by overhearing conversations, I understood the context of my day-to-day work in a meaningful way.
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My experience is not unique. In the book Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991), social anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger describe learning as a social process, rather than a matter of individual cognitive development. Through apprenticeship, team members become part of a “community of practice” where “old timers” model behaviours and norms for learners. Learners, for their part, engage through “legitimate peripheral activities”—simple, stepping-stone tasks. For example, an intern architect might be tasked with cutting out model pieces. In doing this activity within a community of practice, they will also be exposed to the work of more experienced practitioners: overhearing discussions, and observing the work on their colleagues’ screens and desks. The context, interaction and social nature of these activities deepen the learners’ understanding of their practice and profession. Like many other Canadian architects, I’ve been working from home for over a year due to Covid-19. One full year of being away from my beloved, energy-filled open studio workplace in Toronto. And one full year of hearing predictions, projections, and postulations that how we work may never be the same.
L’apprentissage informel est l’un des principaux avantages de l’environnement de studio ouvert de nombreux cabinets d’architectes, dont le bureau de DIALOG à Edmonton.
Most of these discussions have highlighted how being physically together on a daily basis may not be as important as we once thought. Remote work and dispersed teams may create opportunities to increase flexibility and leverage faraway talent. There may be cost savings in reduced rent, and fewer commutes could help curtail greenhouse gas emissions. But what about the impact on professional development? How will we replicate the invaluable informal learning experiences that come from being together, when being apart is increasingly the norm? The answer may lie in one of Lave and Wenger’s central ideas: the community of practice. This concept describes an environment that allows for different perspectives, creates a sense of social fabric, and supports different levels of participation. We can leverage Lave and Wenger’s research by identifying strategies that support these characteristics in the context of working remotely. Cohort Learning Learning cohorts are widely used by educational and business organizations and can support learning for architects as well.
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A well-known case study from the 1980s shows the power of a learning cohort. In this study, an anthropologist followed Xerox copier repair technicians throughout their working day. While they were considered independent workers, in fact, it turned out that the technicians frequently met informally with each other. The anthropologist identified these informal chats as valuable learning moments—the repair technicians were sharing knowledge about how to repair machines better. As a result of this observation, Xerox reorganized the tech reps from being independent workers to being part of social learning units. In How to Help Your Employees Learn from Each Other, Kelly Palmer and David Blake describe how peer-to-peer learning leverages our natural inclination to ask a colleague or friend for help when learning a new skill. To develop a successful learning cohort, Palmer and Blake suggest that the group uses an outside facilitator and honors confidentiality to create a safe space for risk-taking and vulnerability.
Storytelling Design organizations regularly leverage the power of stories for marketing and business development. Most architects are very good at telling the story of how a project came to be, and describing how the physical building embodies a story. We love to share stories of how a seemingly insurmountable design problem resulted in a beautiful moment in a building; how a site inspired an entire concept; how a client’s life was improved thanks to our work. We are less familiar with the role of the story as a learning tool. As Harvard University researchers Deborah Sole and Daniel Grey Wilson describe: “Stories can be a very powerful way to represent and convey complex multidimensional ideas. Well-designed, well-told stories can convey both information and emotion, both the explicit and the tacit, both the core and the context.” Project post-mortems or lessons-learned sessions are a good starting point for learning through stories. These sessions can be further elevated by having project leaders model courage when being honest and open in telling the story of a mistake that was made and how it was addressed. There are also valuable personal and professional lessons learned from projects, which are not typically covered in these sessions. For example, a lessonslearned session could include insights on how a client relationship was nurtured, or how a team member dealt with a stressful incident. Such stories provide additional context on the
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L’interaction complexe qui se produit entre les collaborateurs lorsqu’ils s’attaquent à un problème de design est un équilibre entre les idées, la communication et l’ego. L’innovation peut être déclenchée par un commentaire apparemment anodin; des débats passionnés peuvent avoir lieu lorsque différentes voies se dessinent. Cela peut être enthousiasmant. Cela peut être difficile. Les émotions fortes doivent être reconnues, puis abandonnées pour se concentrer sur la tâche à accomplir. J’ai appris cette leçon (et bien d’autres) en tant que stagiaire débutant alors que je travaillais sur un projet très vaste et complexe. Sa réussite a nécessité une collaboration étroite entre plusieurs leaders forts. Assise à portée de voix de deux des principaux architectes du projet et travaillant au coude à coude avec des collègues talentueux, l’environnement de travail du studio ouvert s’est révélé un défi d’apprentissage. Les tâches que j’avais à accomplir étaient simples, mais en étant entourée d’employés plus expérimentés, j’ai appris des leçons de leadership, de compassion et de collaboration. Il s’agissait en grande partie d’un processus inconscient – en écoutant des conversations, j’ai compris le contexte de mon travail quotidien d’une manière significative.
A view from DIALOG’s Toronto office. Peer-topeer learning can take place casually, as well as being encouraged through formal learning cohorts. Une vue du bureau de DIALOG à Toronto. L’apprentissage entre pairs peut se faire de manière informelle, mais il peut aussi être encouragé par des cohortes d’apprentissage formelles.
Mon expérience n’est pas unique. Dans le livre Situated Learning : Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991), l’anthropologue sociale Jean Lave et le théoricien de l’éducation Etienne Wenger décrivent l’apprentissage comme un processus social, plutôt que comme une question de développement cognitif individuel. Grâce au stage, les membres de l’équipe font partie d’une « communauté de pratique où les « anciens » modèlent les comportements et les normes pour les apprenants. Les apprenants, quant à eux, s’engagent par le biais d’« activités périphériques légitimes », c’est-à-dire des tâches simples, qui constituent un tremplin. Par exemple, un architecte stagiaire peut être chargé de découper des pièces de maquette. En réalisant cette activité au sein d’une communauté de pratique, ce stagiaire également exposé au travail de praticiens plus expérimentés, en écoutant les discussions et en observant le travail sur les écrans et les bureaux de ses collègues. Le contexte, l’interaction et la nature sociale de ces activités permettent aux apprenants d’approfondir la compréhension de leur pratique et de leur profession.
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I am lucky to be a part of a learning cohort with members from across the country. Our learning cohort flowed out of a 2019 leadership training program sponsored by the design practice I work for, DIALOG. Our inperson training included peer coaching and was externally facilitated to develop a secure, trusting environment. After completing our training, we decided to set up regular online meetings as we worked on independent projects. We shared and received feedback on our ideas, tested out some work scenarios, and commiserated on our setbacks. It was a place where we could take risks. Although we could not meet in person during the pan-
demic, our camaraderie and friendship flourished, and we continued to learn from each other over a year filled with uncertainty.
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Comme de nombreux autres architectes canadiens, je travaille à domicile depuis plus d’un an en raison de la COVID-19. Une année complète d’absence de mon studio ouvert
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practice of architecture, going beyond the logistics of designing and creating a building. From an organizational standpoint, architecture and design firms can develop and share stories that embody the vision or guiding principles of an organization. Through stories, a firm can differentiate itself from other organizations. Whether staff are working remotely or together, such stories also help them develop an understanding of the underlying values driving their work. A foundational story can be an important aspect of the onboarding process. Further, “oldtimers” can be given opportunities to share stories about their careers, how they came to be in their current role, and what they learned from their own mentors and experiences. Sharing stories can also provide a sense of connection when people cannot gather together physically. A growing body of research indicates that humans are wired to connect to each other through storytelling. Princeton University neuroscientist Uri Hasson found that when his subjects listened to an engaging story, their brainwaves began to synchronize with each other, as well as with those of the storyteller. Akin to drawing or project management, storytelling is a skill that may need to be actively developed. Lave and Wenger describe how members of Alcoholics Anonymous develop this skill over time and through practice. There are opportunities to hone storytelling skills through giving presentations or Ted Talks, and through formal courses and training with organizations such as Toastmasters and Second City. Organizational Culture There are dozens of ways to characterize organizational culture. My preferred definitions are from leadership consultants GothamCulture and Harvard Business
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Review’s Michael D. Watkins. GothamCulture describes organizational culture as “the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.” This leads to, in Watkins’ words, a “consistent, observable pattern of behavior in organizations.” The studio environment of many architecture firms creates vibrant opportunities to observe an organization’s culture in action, with “old timers” and leaders regularly modelling behavior while newcomers observe them. Though seemingly unrelated to a discussion about how architects learn, the story of the American POWs held in Hoa Lò Prison during the Vietnam War provides surprisingly relevant insights into organizational culture and some of the challenges associated with remote work. Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton, by Peter Fretwell and Taylor Baldwin, describes the story of hundreds of American POWs held in North Vietnam from 1964 through to 1973. Following the prisoners’ release, physicians and researchers were surprised to find that, despite years of brutal torture and confinement, 61% of the men self-reported “favourable significant mental changes” compared to 32% of a control group. Further, the rates of PTSD among this group were surprisingly low. Long-term tracking found that a high proportion of these men went on to become some of America’s most successful citizens in their chosen fields, including military service, medicine and politics. What made the difference for the Hanoi Hilton POWs? Fretwell and Baldwin conclude that it was a virtual leader and an organizational culture sustained by a social network. During the earlier years of confinement, the prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton were isolated from each other in individual cells. They were threatened with violence if caught speaking
to each other. In this extreme environment, Commander James Stockdale established the mission “Return with Honor,” along with key principles for behaviour and guidance for the POWs. The mission’s precepts were transmitted by a secret tap code. The prisoners quietly tapped messages between their cells at night, amplifying the sound using a drinking cup held to their ears. Because the men could only communicate directly with those located beside them, every POW knew that he was personally responsible for sharing, supporting and maintaining the mission and culture. If one person did not participate, the chain of communication was broken. Though our current experience is not comparable to the hardships endured by the Hanoi POWs, the story highlights that an organizational culture can be created and sustained even in the face of isolation—if everyone clearly understands that maintaining an organization’s culture is part of their daily duties. We can apply this lesson in the context of architectural practice by identifying behaviours and actions important to maintaining the organizational culture of a firm, and entrenching them as a key part of staff roles. In an all- or partly-virtual environment, the alignment of values between individual staff members and an organization will become increasingly important.
A cross-desk chat at DIALOG’s Edmonton studio exemplifies the kind of communication that emerges naturally in shared physical space—but must be concientiously nurtured when work moves online. Une conversation entre deux bureaux du studio DIALOG d’Edmonton illustre le type de communication qui émerge naturellement dans un espace physique partagé, mais qui doit être consciencieusement entretenu lorsque le travail se déroule en ligne.
Though individual practitioners and organizations will differ in their assessments on what is to come for our industry, this past year of designing and building through a pandemic has shown that we can dramatically—and quickly—change the way we work. Some firms may enthusiastically embrace remote work and never go back. Some may hope that the end of Covid-19 will mean a quick snap back to the status quo. Most will likely land somewhere in the middle: accepting that significant change is afoot with remote work, dispersed teams, and a new role for our physical studios and office spaces. As we reconsider our physical studios or offices and test out new modes of project delivery, we must also give thought to how apprenticeship learning will have to evolve. The informal, ongoing education of architects will have to shift from being a byproduct of working in a studio to an activity that is planned, nurtured and supported. Luckily, there are researchers who study this phenomenon in detail. Their explorations and stories can help us navigate our current crisis— as well as a future brimming with opportunity. Toronto-based architect Tracy Lee is an Associate at DIALOG.
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bien aimé et plein d’énergie à Toronto. Et une année entière à entendre des prédictions, des projections et des postulations selon lesquelles notre façon de travailler ne sera peut-être plus jamais la même. La plupart de ces discussions ont mis en évidence le fait que d’être physiquement ensemble au quotidien n’est peut-être pas aussi important que nous le pensions. Le travail à distance et les équipes dispersées peuvent créer des occasions d’accroître la flexibilité et de tirer parti des talents lointains. La réduction des loyers peut permettre de réaliser des économies, et la diminution des trajets domicile-travail peut contribuer à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Mais qu’en est-il des répercussions sur le développement professionnel? Comment allons-nous reproduire les précieuses expériences d’apprentissage informel qui découlent du fait d’être ensemble, alors que la séparation est de plus en plus la norme? La réponse se trouve peut-être dans l’une des idées centrales de Lave et Wenger : la communauté de pratique. Ce concept décrit un environnement qui permet différentes perspectives, qui crée un sentiment de tissu social et qui soutient différents niveaux de participation. Nous pouvons tirer parti des recherches de Lave et Wenger en identifiant les stratégies qui soutiennent ces caractéristiques dans le contexte du travail à distance.
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cabinet de design pour lequel je travaille : DIALOG. Notre formation en personne comprenait un encadrement par les pairs et était animée par un intervenant externe afin de développer un environnement sûr et de confiance. Après avoir terminé notre formation, nous avons décidé d’organiser des réunions régulières en ligne pendant que nous travaillions sur des projets indépendants. Nous avons échangé et reçu des commentaires sur nos idées, testé certains scénarios de travail et compati à nos échecs. C’était un endroit où nous pouvions prendre des risques. Bien que nous ne nous soyons pas vus en personne pendant la pandémie, notre camaraderie et notre amitié se sont épanouies, et nous avons continué à apprendre les uns des autres au cours d’une année pleine d’incertitudes.
l’apprentissage des architectes. Une étude de cas bien connue datant des années 1980 montre le pouvoir d’une cohorte d’appren tissage. Dans cette étude, un anthropologue a suivi des techniciens de réparation de photocopieurs Xerox tout au long de leur journée de travail. Alors qu’ils étaient considérés comme des travailleurs indépendants, en fait, il s’est avéré que les techniciens se rencontraient fréquemment de manière informelle. L’anthropologue a identifié ces discussions informelles comme des moments d’apprentissage précieux – les techniciens de réparation partageaient leurs connaissances sur la manière de mieux réparer les machines. À la suite de cette observation, Xerox a réorganisé les représentants techniques, qui sont passés du statut de travailleurs indépendants à celui d’unités d’apprentissage social. Dans How to Help Your Employees Learn from Each Other, Kelly Palmer et David Blake décrivent comment l’apprentissage entre pairs tire parti de notre inclination naturelle à demander de l’aide à un collègue ou à un ami lorsque nous apprenons une nouvelle compétence. Pour mettre en place une cohorte d’apprentissage réussie, Palmer et Blake suggèrent que le groupe fasse appel à un facilitateur externe et respecte la confidentialité afin de créer un espace sûr pour la prise de risque et la vulnérabilité. J’ai la chance de faire partie d’une cohorte d’apprentissage dont les membres viennent de tout le pays. Notre cohorte d’appren tissage est issue d’un programme de formation au leadership de 2019 parrainé par le
Mise en récit Les organisations de design exploitent régulièrement le pouvoir des récits pour le marketing et le développement commercial. La plupart des architectes sont très doués pour raconter l’histoire de la genèse d’un projet et pour décrire comment le bâtiment physique incarne une histoire. Nous aimons raconter comment un problème de conception apparemment insurmontable a débouché sur un moment magnifique dans un bâtiment, comment un site a inspiré un concept entier, comment la vie d’un client a été améliorée grâce à notre travail. Mais nous sommes moins familiers avec le rôle du récit comme outil d’apprentissage. Comme le décrivent Deborah Sole et Daniel Grey Wilson, chercheurs à l’Université de Harvard : « Les histoires peuvent être un moyen très puissant de représenter et de transmettre des idées complexes et multidimensionnelles. Des récits bien ficelés et bien racontés peuvent transmettre à la fois des informations et des émotions, à la fois l’explicite et le tacite, à la fois l’essentiel et le contexte ».
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Apprentissage par cohorte Les cohortes d’apprentissage sont largement utilisées par les organisations éducatives et commerciales et peuvent également soutenir
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Les bilans de projets ou les séances sur les leçons apprises sont un bon point de départ pour l’apprentissage par le biais des récits. Ces séances peuvent être renforcées en demandant aux chefs de projet de faire preuve de courage en étant honnêtes et ouverts dans le récit d’une erreur commise et de la manière dont elle a été traitée. Les projets permettent également de tirer de précieux enseignements personnels et professionnels, qui ne sont généralement pas abordés dans ces séances. Par exemple, une rencontre sur les leçons apprises pourrait inclure des informations sur la façon dont une relation avec un client a été entretenue,
An organizational culture with shared stories and values can help a firm to differentiate itself from other organizations, whether staff are working remotely or together. Une culture organisationnelle avec des histoires et des valeurs partagées peut aider une entreprise à se différencier des autres organisations, que le personnel travaille à distance ou en personne.
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ou comment un membre de l’équipe a géré un incident stressant. Ces récits fournissent un contexte supplémentaire à la pratique de l’architecture, allant au-delà de la logistique du design et de la création d’un bâtiment. D’un point de vue organisationnel, les cabinets d’architecture et de design peuvent développer et partager des récits qui incarnent la vision ou les principes directeurs d’une organisation. Grâce aux récits, une entreprise peut se différencier des autres organisations. Que le personnel travaille à distance ou en personne, ces histoires l’aident également à comprendre les valeurs sous-jacentes qui sous-tendent son travail. Une histoire fondatrice peut constituer un aspect important du processus d’intégration. De plus, les « anciens » peuvent avoir l’occasion de raconter leur carrière, de dire comment ils sont arrivés à leur poste actuel et ce qu’ils ont appris de leurs mentors et de leurs expériences. Partager des récits peut également donner un sentiment de connexion lorsque les gens ne peuvent pas se réunir physiquement. De plus en plus de recherches indiquent que les êtres humains sont faits pour se connecter les uns aux autres par le biais des récits. Le neuroscientifique Uri Hasson de l’Université de Princeton a constaté que lorsque ses sujets écoutaient une histoire intéressante, leurs ondes cérébrales commençaient à se synchroniser entre elles, ainsi qu’avec celles du conteur. Tout comme le dessin ou la gestion de projet, la mise en récit est une compétence qui doit être activement développée. Lave et Wenger décrivent comment les membres des Alcooliques anonymes développent cette compétence au fil du temps et par la pratique. Il est possible d’affiner ses talents de conteur en donnant des présentations ou des conférences TED, ainsi qu’en suivant des formations et des cours formels auprès d’organisations telles que Toastmasters et Second City. Culture organisationnelle Il existe des dizaines de façons de caractériser la culture organisationnelle. Mes définitions préférées sont celles des consultants en leadership GothamCulture et de Michael D. Watkins de la Harvard Business Review. GothamCulture décrit la culture organisationnelle comme « les croyances, les hypothèses, les valeurs et les modes d’interaction sous-jacents qui contribuent à l’environnement social et psychologique unique d’une organisation ». Cela conduit, selon les termes de Watkins, à un « modèle
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de comportement cohérent et observable dans les organisations ». L’environnement de studio de nombreux cabinets d’architecture crée des occasions dynamiques d’observer la culture d’une organisation en action, les « anciens » et les dirigeants donnant régulièrement l’exemple d’un comportement tandis que les nouveaux arrivants les observent. Bien qu’apparemment sans rapport avec une discussion sur la façon dont les architectes apprennent, l’histoire des prisonniers de guerre américains détenus dans la prison de Hoa Lò pendant la guerre du Vietnam fournit des indications étonnamment pertinentes sur la culture organisationnelle et certains des défis associés au travail à distance. Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton, de Peter Fretwell et Taylor Baldwin, décrit l’histoire de centaines de prisonniers de guerre américains détenus au nord du Vietnam de 1964 à 1973. Après la libération des prisonniers, les médecins et les chercheurs ont été surpris de constater que, malgré des années de torture et d’enfermement brutaux, 61 % des hommes ont fait état de « changements mentaux significatifs favorables », contre 32 % dans un groupe témoin. De plus, le taux de trouble de stress posttraumatique dans ce groupe était étonnamment bas. Un suivi à long terme a permis de constater qu’une forte proportion de ces hommes sont ensuite devenus certains des citoyens américains les plus performants dans leur domaine, notamment des militaires, des médecins et des politiciens. Qu’est-ce qui a fait la différence pour les prisonniers de guerre du Hanoi Hilton? Fretwell et Baldwin concluent qu’il s’agissait d’un leader virtuel et d’une culture organisationnelle soutenue par un réseau social. Au cours des premières années d’enferme ment, les prisonniers du Hanoi Hilton étaient isolés les uns des autres dans des cellules individuelles. Ils étaient menacés de violence s’ils étaient surpris à se parler. Dans cet environnement extrême, le commandant James Stockdale a établi la mission « Retourner avec honneur », ainsi que des principes clés de comportement et d’orientation pour les prisonniers de guerre. Les préceptes de la mission ont été transmis par un code d’écoute secret. Les prisonniers tapaient discrètement des messages entre leurs cellules la nuit, en amplifiant le son à l’aide d’un gobelet tenu à leurs oreilles. Comme les hommes ne pouvaient communiquer directement qu’avec ceux qui se trouvaient à leurs côtés, chaque prisonnier de guerre savait qu’il était personnellement responsable du partage, du soutien et du maintien de la mission et de la culture.
Si une personne ne participe pas, la chaîne de communication est rompue. Bien que notre expérience actuelle ne soit pas comparable aux épreuves endurées par les prisonniers de guerre de Hanoi, l’histoire souligne qu’une culture organisationnelle peut être créée et maintenue même face à l’isolement – si chacun comprend clairement que le maintien de la culture d’une organisation fait partie de ses tâches quotidiennes. Nous pouvons appliquer cette leçon dans le contexte de la pratique de l’architecture en identifiant les actions et les comportements importants pour le maintien de la culture organisationnelle d’un cabinet d’architectes, et en les inscrivant comme une partie essentielle des rôles du personnel. Dans un environnement entièrement ou partiellement virtuel, l’alignement des valeurs entre les membres individuels du personnel et l’organisation deviendra de plus en plus important. Bien que les praticiens et les organisations diffèrent dans leurs évaluations de ce qui attend notre secteur, l’année écoulée, consacrée à la conception et à la construction pendant une pandémie, a montré que nous pouvons changer radicalement – et rapidement – notre façon de travailler. Certaines entreprises peuvent adopter avec enthousiasme le travail à distance et ne jamais revenir en arrière. Certains peuvent espérer que la fin de la COVID-19 signifiera un retour rapide au statu quo. La plupart d’entre eux se situeront probablement quelque part au milieu : ils accepteront que des changements importants se préparent avec le travail à distance, les équipes dispersées et un nouveau rôle pour nos studios et bureaux physiques. Alors que nous reconsidérons nos studios ou bureaux physiques et que nous testons de nouveaux modes de réalisation de projets, nous devons également réfléchir à la manière dont les stages devront évoluer. L’éducation informelle et continue des architectes devra passer du statut de sous-produit du travail en studio à celui d’activité planifiée, nourrie et soutenue. Heureusement, il y a des chercheurs qui étudient ce phénomène en détail. Leurs explorations et leurs récits peuvent nous aider à gérer la crise actuelle, mais aussi un avenir riche en possibilités. Tracy Lee, architecte basée à Toronto, est associée chez DIALOG.
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BRIGITTE SHIM AND A. HOWARD SUTCLIFFE Architects Brigitte Shim and A. Howard Sutcliffe, the founding partners of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, are designers of some of the finest architecture in Canada. Universally respected by architects, academics and students as well as the general public, their work opens people’s eyes to the beauty of architecture and landscape; to materiality and craft; and to light and spirituality. And at the same time, their work serves as a counterpoint to much of what is happening in both the world and in architecture today. In an increasingly frenetic and digital world that promotes instant gratification, Shim and Sutcliffe focus on slow experimentation through hand sketching and drawing, testing
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by building physical models at all scales, and the study of context and culture to “unlock” and “shape” their projects. Although they refine the local through the lens of the global, most of their studio’s preoccupations stem from their love of Canada and its varied seasonal landscapes. Shim and Sutcliffe are Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC), Honorary Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (Hon. FAIA) and elected members of the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA). In January 2013, they were both awarded the Order of Canada “for their contributions as architects designing sophisticated structures that represent the best of Canadian design to the world.”
PRINTED FROM A DRAWING IN THE COLLECTION OF THE CENTRE CANADIEN D’ARCHITECTURE / CANADIAN CENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURE, MONTRÉAL. © SHIM-SUTCLIFFE ARCHITECTS
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The design of Integral House, in Toronto, envisaged a space that would accommodate private performances of classical music. The curved perimeter is inspired by the volumes used in calculus, the area of specialty of the mathematician-owner, the late James Stewart. ABOVE LEFT A view of the gallery designed for the Frum Collection of African Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. ABOVE RIGHT The Corkin Gallery in Toronto creates a dialogue between new and existing structural elements in the former distillery tankhouse. PREVIOUS SPREAD
The practice has received numerous national and international awards and extensive media attention. Their archives, including some 9,176 drawings and 160 maquettes, are held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. “Over the past quarter of a century, these architects have made an absolutely fundamental contribution to Canadian architectural culture, and the 15 Governor General’s Medals for excellence that they have received over the past 25 years surely testifies to the consistent calibre of their practice,” writes historian Kenneth Frampton. “In my view, Shim and Sutcliffe are among the top 20 architects practicing in the world today.” “Brigitte and Howard are architect’s architects,” writes architect Brian MacKay-Lyons. “In my view, theirs is one of the few Canadian architectural firms whose work consistently enjoys the respect of the architectural community worldwide.” The Shim-Sutcliffe studio is intentionally small so that the duo can be personally responsive to the processes of experimentation, design and execution. They regard their studio as a laboratory for experiments at many scales and durations, and for explorations in not only buildings, but also furnishings, lighting, hardware and landscape. Shim and Sutcliffe have always considered their entire body of work
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as their larger project, and each individual project constitutes an investigation and exploration towards the greater whole. Time is a material in their practice, and each project draws on the experience of previous work and contributes to the next. Projects are realized through research, rigorous sketching, drawing, model making and documenting. Clients are often collaborators on this journey. Several have commissioned multiple projects over long periods of time—most notably Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan, whose four Point William commissions, completed over almost two decades, have been documented in The Architecture at Point William (ORO Editions, 2020). Sutcliffe is an exceptional artist, for whom architecture is his medium, and drawing is his means of expression and exploration. According to Austrian curator and educator Elke Krasny, Sutcliffe’s work is “drawing architecture into existence.” She uses the word drawing in its duality: “Drawing into existence—understood as the process of bringing about and causing to exist—refers to the larger idea of the architecture of insistence which causes architecture to be. Drawing architecture into existence, as Shim-Sutcliffe connect site, material, and spatial composition, has resulted in each of their buildings to become a precedent that manifests in built terms the uniqueness
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BOB GUNDU
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
22 GOLD MEDAL
The city-facing south elevation of the Residence for the Sisters of St. Joseph is defined by Corten steel sunshading fins, accented with green powder-coated aluminum elements. A sculpted Corten canopy provides a sheltered drop-off location at the front entrance. The ground-floor sitting areas are popular gathering spaces for the residents, who occupy private rooms on the three floors above.
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of the response to each of their sites, be they located in high-density urban contexts or sparsely populated natural environments.” For Sutcliffe, a detail is not simply a detail, but rather a distillation of a bigger conceptual idea, and his daily focus involves following these details to “draw out” the aliveness of the architecture so that it speaks to its purpose, its context, and to the senses. Education of the next generation of architects is also fundamental to Shim-Sutcliffe’s belief in engaging in and fostering design excellence in Canada and globally. Shim is a full-time tenured professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, where she has taught since 1988. She has also been a visiting professor at several Canadian universities, including at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design, McGill University’s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, and the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture. In addition, Shim has been an international invited visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture, The Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Design, University of Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning, and The University of Auckland’s National Institute for Creative Arts
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and Industries, among others. Both Shim and Sutcliffe have lectured and served as design advocates on architectural juries around the world. Shim’s teaching at the Daniels Faculty and elsewhere always goes beyond simply presenting studio exercises, but addresses pressing issues that are fundamentally shaping the future of our cities and our environment. For example, in 2003, in collaboration with Donald Chong, Shim led a Masters studio focused on Toronto laneway architecture. The research was embedded in a morphological and typological understanding of urban form, as well as including a consciousness of current housing practices and public policy. The resulting publication, Site Unseen: Laneway Architecture and Urbanism in Toronto, was the recipient of a 2003 Award of Excellence for Visions and Master Plans from the City of Toronto Architecture and Urban Design Awards, advancing the intensification of laneways across the city. Juror Bruce Kuwabara commented, “Rigorous and well-presented, the body of work is groundwork for the real thesis— which is about changing the City’s policies regarding laneway architecture. The award also recognizes the research capability of a school of architecture as a generator of intellectual capital and creative equity for a city.” Over the years, Shim has also generously given her time and energy to numerous causes and organizations that raise up the profession and
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JAMES DOW
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
24 GOLD MEDAL
ABOVE Shim and Sutcliffe’s own residence, Laneway House, explores the potential of residual properties in Toronto. OPPOSITE Harrison Island Camp, the couple’s cottage north of Toronto, has served as a ground for exploring the way that prefabricated elements can create a site-specific dwelling appropriate to a remote location.
honour those who lead by example. She is on the advisory council of BEAT (Building Equity in Architecture Toronto), which supports greater diversity and inclusion in the profession. Since 2007 she has also served on the Master Jury and subsequently the Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. A program near to her heart, it celebrates outstanding architecture, landscape and heritage projects from around the world that address design excellence combined with quality of life. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Brigitte Shim emigrated to Canada in 1965. She met Sutcliffe at the University of Waterloo, where both graduated with degrees in environmental studies in 1981 and architecture in 1983. In 1981, Shim also began apprenticing with architect Arthur Erickson in Vancouver. Upon graduating, she worked with Baird/Sampson Architects in Toronto (1983-87). A. Howard Sutcliffe was born in Yorkshire, England, and emigrated to Canada in 1964. After graduating from the University of Waterloo,
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he worked in the studios of Ronald Thom (1984-85), Barton Myers (1985-87), and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (198795). At these firms, he contributed to national and international competitions, as well as to built projects including Kitchener City Hall. In 1991, Sutcliffe was the inaugural winner of the Canada Council’s Ronald J. Thom Award, given for early design achievement. One of Shim and Sutcliffe's earliest collaborations, the Garden Pavilion and Reflecting Pool (1988-89) in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto, was created to accompany a 1960s modern house by Ron Thom. The project demonstrates many of the duo’s lifelong interests and passions: attentiveness to the demands of the topography and setting, reciprocity between built form and landscape, and links between the physical and spiritual. The garden cascades down into a wooded ravine, interweaving pathways, bridges, fountains and landscape to create a dynamic processional route that merges interior and exterior spaces, culminating in a weathering steel pavilion. Within this project are
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SIMON SUTCLIFFE
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 00/21
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many rich spatial and material explorations—of the sort that Shim and Sutcliffe have since continued to investigate and interrogate. Occupying a derelict site, Shim and Sutcliffe’s own residence, the Laneway House (1991-94) is one of the first of its kind in Toronto. It showcases the duo's ability to look beyond the current condition of sites to see their hidden potential. The 17-foot-wide home’s living space includes an eight-by-eight foot pivoting window, which opens onto a compact courtyard garden with a fountain running year-round. Inside, the house feels airy, and demonstrates that thoughtful design with humble materials such as concrete block can create a livable home with warmth, f lexibility and compactness. It includes design elements that the architects have continued to explore in later projects, such as slender cruciform columns, handrails made from steel pipe rail and folded steel sheet, and an intentionally oversized hearth. The couple established their practice, Toronto-based Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, in 1994. One of their first works as a firm was the Craven
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Road House (1996), a live-work urban infill residence that fuses the intimacy of a Toronto Victorian worker’s cottage with the robustness of an industrial loft. Marine plywood and wood siding clad the exterior, creating an abstracted yet tactile insertion into an existing neighbourhood. The firm later added a pavilion-like studio to the property. The house and the studio were recognized with separate Governor General’s awards in 1997 and 2010. Shim and Sutcliffe was first able to extend their practice's architectural thinking to the urban scale at Ledbury Park (1997), in north Toronto. Here, the studio transformed a flat, undifferentiated suburban park into a new topographic landscape that connects the park with the neighbourhood, the architecture with landscape, and the users with Southern Ontario’s extreme climates. The site integrates a small recreational facility with a swimming pool, a skating canal, sports fields, and walking paths. The duo designed fountains, lamp poles, and benches so that Ledbury Park demonstrates public architecture in the
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JAMES DOW
JAMES DOW
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
26 GOLD MEDAL
The luminous seasonal dining hall at Moorelands Camp is inspired by local barns and vernacular building techniques. ABOVE RIGHT The Point William boathouse on Lake Muskoka is one in a series of projects that Shim-Sutcliffe has created over two decades on the lakeside Ontario property.
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best sense—elevating both the locale and its activities by making them inviting and accessible. The project received a Governor General’s Award in 1999. For Moorelands Camp (2000), on Lake Kawagama, Ontario, ShimSutcliffe used glulam wood-frame construction combined with steel rods to create a seasonal dining hall that is filled with natural light—a luminous clearing in the woods. “This is a modest project that exhibits a very strong spatial and tectonic idea. These qualities are further buttressed by a careful repertoire of appropriately straightforward fabrication details,” commented Governor General’s Awards juror George Baird. Another set of notable projects emerged from Shim-Sutcliffe’s tenure as the College Architects of Ron Thom’s Massey College at the University of Toronto. From 1995-2014, the studio was responsible for overseeing the repairs, upgrades and renovations necessary to maintain the building and ensure its evolution while maintaining Thom’s core vision. Their work as stewards of the college included utilitarian aspects, such as HVAC upgrades and barrier-free access, as well as renewing public spaces such as the Robertson Davies Library, St. Catherine’s Chapel and a new West Gate. These alterations are neither emulations of nor juxtapositions with Thom’s work, but rather didactic “conversations” demonstrating the architects’ shared preoccupations as well as their distinct but complimentary approaches.
Cultural spaces in which to experience art weave through much of Shim-Sutcliffe’s body of work, including the Corkin Gallery in the historic Distillery District (2004), the Frum Collection of African Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2008) and Integral House (2009). Each displays a high-level aspiration to architectural excellence and commitment to craft and detail that enhances the art it contains. Sacred spaces designed by the firm demonstrate Shim-Sutcliffe’s commitment to embedding the spiritual in architecture and landscape. At Congregation Bet Ha’am Synagogue (2008) in Portland, Maine, the building’s section shapes how light enters a powerful spiritual gathering space. The Atherley Narrows Bridge project (unbuilt) addresses concepts of spirituality and preservation of the 5,000-year-old Mnjinkaning fishing weirs. The Residence for the Sisters of Saint Joseph (2014) progresses from communal spaces for collective worship and ministry, to private spaces for individual contemplation, where elderly sisters can receive dignified care. The Wong Dai Sin Temple (2015), in Markham, is asymmetrically balanced on a long-spanning cantilever—an elegant allusion to the Taoist community’s commitment to spiritual development through the physical practice of tai chi. In 2020 the duo received the Culture and Spirituality Forum Award for Outstanding Achievement for their “demonstrated sensitivity to spirituality in their built and unbuilt works.”
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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
28 GOLD MEDAL
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Shim-Sutcliffe’s urban work includes an infill fabric building on Scollard Street, in Toronto’s tony Yorkville district. ABOVE RIGHT The design’s skylit open stairwell brings natural light into all parts of the narrow building.
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Shim-Sutcliffe’s works are all distinguished by their attention to detail. The architects frequently design hardware, fixtures and fittings for their projects, and they enjoy collaborating with local fabricators and craftspeople to realize their vision. The HAB Chair, originally designed as a prototype for a Lake Muskoka boathouse, has since 2004 been produced by Nienkämper, and in that year received the Chicago Athenaeum and Museum of Architecture and Design’s Good Design Award. As their long-time clients Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan describe it, since their very first projects, Shim and Sutcliffe have consistently exhibited “a very high standard of design, sensitivity to building in harmony with nature, scrupulous attention to every last detail, and meticulous concern for execution.” “Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe have created a truly outstanding body of work which they will continue to expand in years to come,” writes architect John Patkau. “Their accomplishment is a gift of great value to Canadian culture.” “The poetic quality and independence of their design work, their thoughtful and holistic consideration of site, materiality, typologies, the senses, and their inventiveness have made Shim and Sutcliffe exemplars of architectural practice in Canada,” writes Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director Emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. “To me,
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it is clear that they are abundantly worthy of being awarded the Gold Medal of the RAIC and stand as strong exponents of Canadian values.” Jury Comments :: By their relentless pursuit of excellence, Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe have produced a significant body of exceptional design works covering architecture, landscape, interior, furniture and hardware—all developed to an incredibly high standard, with craft, rigour, sense of place, and mastery of proportions. Their work demonstrates a dedication to material expression and exquisite detailing across multiple scales, in addition to creating an intimate connection with each site. They continue to be an inspiration to other architects by demonstrating that exceptional projects are possible and by their tireless commitment to advocacy, teaching and mentoring. We wish to recognize them as a powerful collaborative duo, whose commitment to craft, tectonics, site and ecology will have a lasting impact on Canadian architecture. The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC).
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JOSH PARTEE
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
30 ARCHITECTURAL FIRM AWARD
JULIA LOGLISCI
MGA | MICHAEL GREEN ARCHITECTURE
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In 2013, architect Michael Green recorded a TED talk entitled “Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers.” To date, it’s been viewed more than 1.3 million times and translated into 31 languages. “For many viewers, the idea of a massive building made of wood was a bizarre paradigm shift,” notes blog DesignMilk. “For Green, whose Michael Green Architecture works exclusively with timber buildings, it was another step on the long path towards building a lower-carbon future.” In the decade since its founding in 2012, MGA | Michael Green Architecture has established itself as an internationally recognized leader in the tall wood movement, and as an expert in advanced wood construction. The firm has garnered four Governor General’s Medals for Architecture and two RAIC Awards for Innovation. Michael Green has spoken at the White House and at the Paris COP 21 Climate Summit; Green and principal Natalie Telewiak have also delivered numerous presentations at wood and construction conferences and at universities. Michael Green has authored publications and guidelines to advance the wood construction industry, including the books The Case for Tall Wood Buildings and Tall Wood Buildings, now both in their second editions. This research has been put into action in MGA’s built projects. When completed, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre ( WIDC) in Prince George, B.C., was the tallest modern mass timber building
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BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
31
OPPOSITE The exterior of Peavy Hall, part of the Oregon State University Forest Science Complex, is clad in Oregon Red Alder, which has been modified through a process called acetylation to increase dimensional stability and resist rot. ABOVE The Catalyst Building is a 15,000-square-metre CLT office and academic facility that is pursuing Zero Carbon and Zero Energy certification. A floorplate system placing CLT panels atop glulam ribs was developed to provide the nine-metre-long spans required for flexible office and multi-functional academic uses.
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EMA PETER
EMA PETER
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
32 ARCHITECTURAL FIRM AWARD
in the world. The facility was conceived to showcase the potential for building mid-rise and high-rise structures using engineered mass timber products. With the exception of a mechanical penthouse, there is no concrete used in the building above the ground floor slab. The Catalyst Building (completed with architect of record Katerra), constructed out of cross-laminated timber, is pursuing Zero Energy and Zero Carbon certifications, which would make it one of the largest buildings in North America to meet both standards. It’s the first office building in Washington State constructed out of cross-laminated timber (CLT), and a milestone in the advocacy for sustainable office buildings in the United States. Located near a railway and pedestrian bridge, the design demonstrates how a prefabricated mass timber construction approach can address site-specific conditions and limitations through deep integration between construction materials, construction techniques, operational practices and design. MGA also designed the T3 office building in Minneapolis (with architect of record DLR Group)—the largest modern mass timber building in the United States at the time of its completion. To respond to its site, straddling the Historic Warehouse District and the urban
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core of downtown Minneapolis, the design marries traditional, industrial proportions with modern materials and detailing. The firm has its sights set on yet greater heights. In partnership with Gensler, MGA collaborated with Google-affiliate Sidewalk Labs to develop a proof-of-concept for the world’s tallest mass timber building—a 35-storey structure on Toronto’s waterfront. MGA is currently working on a 23,000-square-metre multi-activity centre in the mining town of Gallivare, Sweden (with architect of record Maf Arkitektkontor), a nine-storey mixed-use mass timber building in France (with architect of record Calq), two multi-residential developments in Victoria, B.C., and, in collaboration with Human Studio, a wood-framed affordable housing development in Prince Rupert, B.C. MGA’s projects range in scope, size, context, and budget—but all demonstrate an ambition to create sustainable and meaningful spaces constructed of natural materials. In addition to its expertise with wood, MGA’s team has also gained experience in areas such as LEED, Passive House, and net-zero carbon construction. Social and urban sustainability are also integral to their approach. The Dock Building, located on Jericho Beach in Vancouver, provides
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ED WHITE
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
33
ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT North Vancouver City Hall’s 67-metre-long atrium roof is built of cross laminations of large-format Laminated Strand Lumber (LSL); the Dock Building’s interior is predominantly construction-grade plywood, providing a tough, easily replaceable interior finish; the Wood Design and Innovation Centre celebrates wood throughout its structural elements and interior. BOTTOM Created in partnership with Gensler and in collaboration with Sidewalk Labs, Proto-Model X is a proof-of-concept for the world’s tallest mass timber building—a 35-storey structure in Toronto.
support spaces and workshops for a large marina of sailboats, on a very modest budget. The simple design demonstrates that all projects—from working industrial buildings to boutique museums—can and should be realized with grace and architectural dignity. Ronald McDonald House of British Columbia (completed by MGA; project started at mcfarlane green biggar architecture + design) is a 73unit residence for out-of-town families with children receiving medical treatment at BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The design ambition was to preserve the nurturing, closely bonded social connections found in the organization’s original 12-family Shaughnessy house. Built with a tilt-up CLT wood structure, the design integrates layered spaces to help families find both solace and community as they go through one of the most significant and challenging moments of life with their severely sick children. MGA’s signature aesthetic results from reductive design and careful material choices. “We believe that to build for a more sustainable planet, we must use less and waste less,” they write. “That includes building less—and certainly only providing what is needed and nothing more.” They seek sustainable, local sources for their timber
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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
34 ARCHITECTURAL FIRM AWARD
ABOVE Inspired by the rich culture and traditions of the Lax Kw’alaams Band, this housing project in Prince Rupert, B.C., proposes affordable and fully adaptable housing units to serve the Band’s community. The project was designed with Human Studio. The façade artwork was designed by Russell Mather and is being painted by Russell Mather along with a group of volunteers from the Coast Tsimshian Academy.
and other materials, create buildings that will remain useful and attractive beyond the typical design life, and emphasize passive design in their approach to building performance. The firm gives back to the professional community through educational initiatives in timber construction and sustainable practice. In 2014, Michael Green founded the Design Build Research Institute (DBR), an education and research non-profit. DBR provides designbuild courses for students of all ages, along with free online education courses to help the public, industry professionals, public policy makers, code authorities, and the development industry understand how to build with mass timber. The firm has cultivated long-standing relationships with policymakers, allowing them to advocate effectively for changes that allow for the more widespread use of advanced timber construction beyond MGA’s own work. “Rather than shying away from the unknown, we are passionate about pushing past the limits of what industry and the public think is possible for buildings,” writes MGA. “We are leading a revolution in wood that has our network throughout the Pacific Northwest region and across Canada deeply engaged and excited about the future.”
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Jury Comments :: MGA | Michael Green Architecture deserves recognition as a leading architectural firm because of their ability to consistently deliver leading-edge timber buildings, carefully designed to a high degree of aesthetics and performance. This firm shows its passion for innovation and sustainability through its many finely crafted wood buildings—and displays its commitment to education through the designbuild studio held every year to expose young architects to the design and construction of actual structures. They have distinguished themselves for their ability to translate focused material research and technical pursuits into a notable and innovative body of work that embodies a deep commitment to sustainability. MGA has become one of the world’s leading voices on the future of wood design through their advocacy, and in doing so, they carry the banner for Canadian architecture internationally. In this sense, the work of Michael Green Architecture acts as an ambassador for Canadian architecture. The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC).
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Carpente
Training to Clad it Right the First Time Carpenters and Allied Workers Local 27, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, in conjunction with our contractor partners and field leaders, and with the assistance of the College of Carpenters, has developed a premier Exterior Cladding training program to provide real-world hands-on training to installers and industry professionals. This course was developed to address an increasing demand in the industry for skilled workers to install these products. This course will provide training to our broader membership on how to properly install various architectural panels/exterior cladding, including Insulated Metal Panels (IMPs) and Aluminum Composite Materials (ACMs), using the most up-to-date technologies and techniques. The six-day course will include a two-day certification course for Elevated Work Platforms and swing stages and a four-day course teaching the best practices for the installation of exterior cladding. For our inaugural session in March of 2021, four journeymen instructors were provided training on how to install exterior cladding, including IMPs and ACMs. The materials were generously donated by Riverside Group Ltd. These instructors will now travel to the Carpenters’ Union Training Centres across the province to ensure that each training centre will be teaching this course to UBCJA members. If you have any questions about this exciting course, please contact Paul Daly (Local 27 Coordinator) or Darren Sharpe (UBCJA Cladding Coordinator) at 905-652-4140.
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EMA PETER
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
36 EMERGING ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE
LECKIE STUDIO ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN Vancouver-based Leckie Studio is an 20-person practice founded by architect Michael Leckie in 2015. The studio operates across a range of scales and typologies, including architecture, interiors, product design and environmental design. During his architectural internship, Michael Leckie worked at firms including Patkau Architects in Vancouver and Atelier 66 in Athens, Greece, developing an appreciation for modern regionalist practices in different parts of the world. Leckie Studio’s work is primarily located in the Cascadia Region (also known as the Pacific Northwest), with completed projects in Canada, the United States and Mexico. In the midst of global mediatization, the studio writes that it “strives to continually reassess the notion of modernism, meaning and truth.” In architectural terms, it uses an approach informed by critical regionalism, creating places grounded in both site and context. The studio’s designers believe that architecture has the potential to transform mundane realities in positive and meaningful ways.
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This is evident in a start-up venture co-founded by Michael Leckie, The Backcountry Hut Company. The company sells prefabricated building systems that take a “kit-of-parts” approach, giving clients a balance of support and agency in the design and construction of small shelters. The resulting buildings can range in size from a 10-squaremetre A-frame cabin to a 185-square-metre two-storey dwelling. Leckie Studio’s associated research into mass timber prefabrication has opened up multiple other opportunities, including custom structures for remote worksites and demountable community pavilions. Leckie Studio is often purposefully modest in its approach, espousing German designer Dieter Rams’ maxim, “Less but Better.” For the Ridge House in Portland, Oregon, it created a compact three-storey home that replaced a larger traditional house with failing foundations. The architects were challenged to create a much more spatially efficient version of its predecessor, within the budget that had originally been allocated for a renovation and addition. The resulting home
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KYLE CHAPPELL
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
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offers a range of spatial qualities, richly compensating for its smaller size in comparison to the original house. In Full House, a single-family residence in Vancouver, the studio created an intergenerational home that can be reconfigured to operate across a variety of family configuration scenarios. The architecture is easily reconfigurable to accommodate a range of programmatic scenarios. It can transform from being one large, five-bedroom intergenerational home to two discrete dwelling units: a three-bedroom suite and two-bedroom suite, or a four-bedroom suite and one-bedroom suite. The firm has completed other notable residential projects in both rural and urban settings. Camera House, in Pemberton, B.C., uses a series of vaulted rooms to focus daylight and frame views of the surrounding forest and distant mountains. In the Vancouver Courtyard House, a home with a long, narrow floorplan is given unexpected visual depth through the introduction of a central, three-sided courtyard. Social and urban sustainability are at the core of Bricolage, the team’s
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LECKIE STUDIO
OPPOSITE Ridge House is a modernist single-family three-storey home situated in Portland’s Alameda Ridge neighbourhood on a site with dramatic views of the city’s southwest hills and striking skyline. ABOVE LEFT Camera House comprises a series of vaulted rooms that relate to specific features of the site. ABOVE RIGHT Designed to be self-assembled, The Backcountry Hut Company’s System 00 is a DIY cabin kit based on the classic A-frame. BOTTOM Leckie Studio’s entry to the City of Edmonton’s Missing Middle Infill Design Competition proposes a variation on the stacked rowhouse typology.
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EMA PETER
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
38 EMERGING ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE
ABOVE The demountable installation Untitled (392 Sheets of Plywood) is part of an ongoing trajectory of material exploration and research that informs the work of Leckie Studio.
second-place entry to the City of Edmonton’s 2019 Missing Middle Infill Design Competition. The project proposes stacked rowhouses with an equal mix of affordable rental studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom units. Studio units can be internally connected to the dwellings above or below. The City of Edmonton has awarded Leckie Studio the opportunity to proceed with the proposal, with anticipated completion in 2024. Currently under construction is the Arts Student Centre at the University of British Columbia, a compact three-storey building that will provide a new home for the Arts Undergraduate Society. The cylindrical form is a response to the building’s idiosyncratic site within a continuous campus commons, and simultaneously at the corner of an intersection. Leckie Studio takes an integrated approach to environmental sustainability, aiming first and foremost to create lasting, resilient designs. The practice pays close attention to the sourcing of materials that go into its projects, seeks out techniques that prolong the lifespan of wood while reducing the necessity for chemical treatments, and collaborates with contractors who prioritize sustainability in their construction practices. Leckie Studio’s multi-family residential and institutional designs integrate passive energy and natural daylighting, while its single-family residential designs are informed by Passive House standards. For the IDS Vancouver installation Untitled (392 Sheets of Plywood), the studio created a sculptural enclosure where visitors could take refuge from the trade show floor. The space was loosely bounded by 392 sheets of pine plywood, which were assembled through interlocking, friction-fit connections. After the show, the structure was dismantled and subsequently re-purposed with minimal material waste.
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Working with colleagues Rodrigo Cepeda and Clinton Cuddington, Michael Leckie is the co-founder of the non-profit Cascadia Architecture Foundation, which aims to serve as a platform for critical discourse in architecture, landscape design and planning throughout the Pacific Northwest. Leckie also recently led a graduate level design studio at the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Jury Comments :: In a short time, Leckie Studio Architecture + Design has produced a diverse collection of exquisite projects which demonstrate their extraordinary commitment to regionalism and their skillful understanding of materials, all evidenced by the enthusiastic support of their clients. Their work demonstrates careful attention to craft, materiality, and the specificity of place. The various projects enter an elegant dialogue with nature, and the use of wood contributes to this integration. Leckie Studio’s beautiful and well-executed buildings show a depth of research, craft and understanding of materiality. They have also demonstrated a commitment to sustainability with their focus on research into sustainable prefabricated mass-timber construction. With their lovely DIY cabin, they offer a refreshing option for the construction of small remote cabins, incredibly accessible to anyone with basic building skills. Their work displays a high degree of conceptual clarity and attention to detail in executing an impressive breadth for a young firm, spanning from private residences to public buildings. There is no doubt: Leckie Studio has a bright future ahead. The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC).
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Experience. Innovation. Enormous Business Park in Fast-Growing Texas Town Uses BILCO Smoke Vents
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CASE STUDY
McKinney National Business Park | McKinney, Texas
Photo: Courtesy of LoopNet.com
McKinney, Texas, is a city on the move. Located about 30 miles north of Dallas, the city has seen its population explode since the turn of the century. Slightly more than 15,000 called the Texas town home in 1970, and about 21,200 resided there as recently as 1990. Now, however, the city is approaching nearly 200,000 residents. It is ranked as the fourth fastest-growing city nationally since 2010, and the population rocketed up by 203 percent between 2000 and 2018, according to a report from Orion Investment Real Estate. It is tied with nearby Frisco, Texas for the highest population growth and highest job growth in the nation, according to another report. A recently developed business park will give McKinney newbies a place to go for work. McKinney National Business Park will open in multiple phases, accommodating more than 1 million square feet of industrial space. Two 75,000 square foot buildings, located on 71.88 acres, are ready for occupancy. Adjacent remaining land, 62.21 acres, can accommodate up to nine more buildings ranging in size from 50,000 to 300,000 square feet. The park is adjacent to McKinney National Airport.
Sun Commercial Roofs. “It was a pretty typical installation. We didn’t have challenges that made this extremely difficult.”
“In this deal, it was all about location and timing,” Craig Phelps, a senior associate at Jones Lang LaSalle real estate company, said in an interview with the CoStar News. “There’s been a lot of success with industrial real estate in Dallas, and developers are looking for that next development spot. McKinney makes a lot of sense because there’s a demand for last-mile distribution, and this is where the population is located.”
BILCO smoke vents are ideally suited for large expanses of unobstructed space, such as factories and warehouses, as in the case of McKinney National. Automatic smoke vents protect property and aid firefighters in bringing a fire under control by removing smoke, heat, and gases from a burning building. Vents are activated upon the melting of a fusible link and options are available for smoke detector and fire alarm activation. The size and number of smoke vents on each project are established by community fire codes.
The buildings include 16 smoke vents manufactured by BILCO. There are eight 6-foot by 6-foot smoke vents on each building. They were installed by Sun Commercial Roofs of Dallas. Vicky Kimball of Blue Sky Sales procured the vents for the roofing contractor. Alston Construction served as the general contractor and Goulas & Associates served as the architects.
While safety measures have improved over time, fires at industrial or manufacturing businesses still are a concern for property owners. According to the National Fire Protection Association, municipal fire departments responded to 37,910 fires at facilities between 2011-2015. Those fires resulted in $1.2 billion in direct property damage, 16 civilian deaths and 273 civilian injuries.
“The architect specified the smoke vents, and we go by the specifications that they provided to us,” said Terry Marquis of
The smoke vents will help the firefighters and protect the businesses, ensuring McKinney’s growth as a thriving community in the Lone Star state.
Keep up with the latest news from The BILCO Company by following us on Facebook and LinkedIn. For over 90 years, The BILCO Company has been a building industry pioneer in the design and development of specialty access products. Over these years, the company has built a reputation among architects, and engineers for products that are unequaled in design and workmanship. BILCO – an ISO 9001 certified company – offers commercial and residential specialty access products. BILCO is a wholly owned subsidiary of AmesburyTruth, a division of Tyman Plc. For more information, visit www.bilco.com.
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SCOTT NORSWORTHY
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
40 EMERGING ARCHITECT
ANYA MORYOUSSEF Architect Anya Moryoussef is the director and founder of Anya Moryoussef Architect (AM_A), a practice started in 2016. Her professional career includes awardwinning work with firms in Canada and abroad. She demonstrates a commitment to design excellence and innovation in the practice of architecture, and serves the profession and the community through teaching, mentorship and speaking engagements. Moryoussef graduated from the Master of Architecture program at the University of Waterloo with Commendation and Honours, achieving the highest academic standing in her undergraduate degree and receiving the RAIC Student Medal for Outstanding Thesis. Following graduation, she apprenticed with Sarah Wigglesworth Architects in London, UK. Her work included the designing the jewel-like Bermondsey Bicycle Storage, working on the multiple-awardwinning Sandal Magna Primary School, and designing and directing a studio at the Bergen Arkitektskole in Norway. Returning to Toronto, she joined a small design-forward firm with a focus on residential projects, where she became the firm’s first associate.
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“My role was to take the vision of a house, as established by the partners, and turn it into a livable, enduring, beautiful place to live,” writes Moryoussef. “I was taught that this takes craft, vision, collaborative relationships with consultants and builders, and a close understanding of the client.” Half of the projects for which she was the project designer or architect were recognized with awards. As the firm grew in size to 20, Moryoussef found herself in a more managerial role, and left to craft a practice on her own terms. “These terms were: do ambitious work, support my soon-to-be growing family with my income, and make buildings,” she writes. “I did not regard these expectations as grand, but I soon learned how grand they were with the prospects that faced me as a sole practitioner starting from the ground up.” “The work I found was predominantly domestic. The scopes were limited. The disjunctions between budgets and aspirations were seemingly irreconcilable. But the clients, and their existing homes, were full of promise: they were the assets. On the surface, they were everyday people with modest means who had sought out an architect to uplift their daily lives; looking more deeply, I saw the drama, potential and beauty in their visions of themselves and their lives.” Moryoussef ’s steadily growing body of completed projects is distinguished by design quality and vision, combined with immense livabil-
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DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY
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The compact Studiolo was designed for a screenwriter with a background in architecture, and focuses on a desk washed with light from above. The Craven Road bungalow is conceived as an air-filled home, where the movement of natural light through the space marks the passage of time. BELOW At the University of Toronto, Moryoussef expanded a main corridor to incorporate a front porch-like waiting area for the Department of Postgraduate Medicine. OPPOSITE
SCOTT NORSWORTHY
ABOVE
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MARK HADDEN
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42 EMERGING ARCHITECT
ABOVE While working at Sarah Wigglesworth Architects in the UK, Moryoussef was the project designer for the Bermondsey Bicycle Storage—a bicycle shed in South East London made to look like a crown jewel.
ity. One of her first solo projects, the Studiolo, is a laneway annex for a screenwriter. “I saw the client as he saw himself and, like an actor in a role, I put myself in his shoes and imagined the setting: a place for one, with pathway, entryway and doorway leading into it that are all at the width of a single body,” recalls Moryoussef. The slender entry leads to “a desk whose placement, against a wall washed with light from above, focuses his solitude.” “The enjoyment I have received from working in the Studiolo is immense,” says the client. “The interplay of light and shadow throughout the year make the space seem alive. It revitalizes my creative spirit every time I enter it and sit down to work. It is an ever-changing environment, with the one constant being an overriding sense of creative possibility.” For Greenwood Semi I, Moryoussef renovated an Edwardian house for a small family, carefully calibrating the relationship between modern and heritage elements. “We kept the existing thresholds, entirely or partially, of the original five rooms of the ground f loor,” writes Moryoussef. “We observed the spaces as discrete, but changed their dimensions and relations to each other though millwork interventions and the placement of lighting. Framed interior views—through the enfilade, peek-throughs, and mirrors—were implemented to create a sense of privacy and intimacy but also togetherness (along with a bit of life as theatre).” “Many spaces are beautiful, and many spaces are livable, but not many spaces are both,” the clients comment. “As we use our space each day, we continually appreciate the way in which our home enhances and embraces the way that we live. Anya’s intensive attention to all layers of the conceptual, philosophical, aesthetic and practical architecture of our space has made a house our home.” Moryoussef ’s Craven Road Micro House, completed for a retired public school teacher, is a one-storey, 17-foot-wide house that is given ample light and spaciousness with a careful arrangement of windows, including a sawtooth roof. “I conceived of a home filled with light, air, and the passage of time,” writes Moryoussef. “I obsessed over every inch to give Laurel small lux-
uries like a separate bath and shower and proper entryway to take off her shoes and hang her coat; I sourced salvaged kitchen appliances from a demolition site and simplified the millwork so that she could afford trees. I studied window placements to ensure light came in from all directions, but seldom directly, and that Laurel could look outside, but the outside world could not stare in.” “It’s a simple idea, constructed with ordinary building materials—but a beautiful idea that’s executed beautifully,” wrote Alex Bozikovic of the house in the Globe and Mail. “Judging from this house, [Anya Moryoussef] can turn something small into something very grand.” Jury Comments :: Anya Moryoussef’s work and intellectual approach are distinguished by the sensitivity and clarity of the goals she seems to have set for the profession of architecture. Throughout her career, Moryoussef has demonstrated an enduring commitment to design excellence along with the skills to achieve not only well-designed buildings, but to design architecture that addresses the principles of social justice and social equity. From simple pavilions to homes and public buildings, her work has shown itself to be highly attuned to her clients’ needs and budgets, while time and again creating designs of a high calibre, precisely detailed, and beautifully executed. Moryoussef is an immensely talented and determined architect who has demonstrated the success of clear and focused commitments to the pursuit of design excellence and a deep connection with her clients. Her designs exhibit incredible skill, restraint, and innate understanding of materials. She has earned the respect and admiration of her peers through her joy for her work, her design achievements, and her devotion to architectural education. Moryoussef is already giving back to her profession, sharing her knowledge and experience with the next generation. The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC).
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STÉPHANE GROLEAU
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
44 INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURE
GRAND THÉÂTRE DE QUÉBEC Lemay / Atelier 21 Stéphane Groleau
ARCHITECTS PHOTOS
Since its grand opening on January 16, 1971, the Grand Théâtre de Québec has been a prized cultural icon in Quebec City. The building is admired for its brutalist architecture, by Victor Prus, who designed it as a solid box made of prefabricated concrete panels, with a projecting roofline, sides subtly canted inwards, and transparent base. The architecture is entwined with an integrated artwork—a monumental concrete mural by sculptor Jordi Bonet that covers close to 60 percent of the interior, making it one of the largest sculptures of its kind in the world. By the turn of the century, moisture had caused the concrete panels’ steel anchors to disintegrate, threatening both the exterior envelope as well as the interior mural, both of which are linked to the structure. The concrete anchors could not be simply removed and replaced. An innovative solution was urgently needed to protect the building’s heritage elements. To halt the corrosion of the anchors, Lemay and Atelier 21 worked to create a transparent exterior envelope that would fully encapsulate the building—a North American first. The box adapts to the building’s unusual shape, adopting its structural logic and composition in order to quietly surround the original architecture.
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Because of the heritage building’s fragility, designing and constructing the envelope was a complex endeavour. The project had to stay open throughout the process: construction noise could not interrupt shows or rehearsals, architectural and technical solutions could not hinder building access, and interior spaces were off-limits. Since the interior mural was connected to the exterior concrete panels, any operation had to have zero impact and vibration on the existing envelope. Coordination with several levels of decision-makers was essential. Weather conditions were also a major challenge: installation of the new envelope was only possible under specific climatic conditions, when it was sufficiently warm and without strong winds. Finally, because the new glass panels needed to be precisely attached to a steel armature, the steel could not be exposed to any significant temperature variation from the moment of its final assembly to the installation of the glass. The construction systems were almost all custom designed. The delicate steel structure on which the glass rests is the result of intense and sustained teamwork among architects, engineers, construction specialists and manufacturers. The custom fabricated fasteners have a minimal
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STÉPHANE GROLEAU
TYPICAL BAY
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PLAN, SECTION AND ASSEMBLY DIAGRAM
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STÉPHANE GROLEAU
GRAND THÉÂTRE DE QUÉBEC
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 05/21
46 INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURE
A glass envelope fully encapsulates the heritage theatre, halting the deterioration of its concrete structure. TOP One of the world’s largest artworks made of sculpted concrete is integrated with the existing structure. The sculpture, which could not be removed, is protected by the intervention. BOTTOM The new envelope is custom designed to the form of the theatre, including its tapered walls and sawtooth corners.
PREVIOUS SPREAD
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visual impact, with only a small 200 mm x 200 mm aluminum square visible, maintaining the transparency of the new protective layer. The construction system also had to allow for maintenance, which is achieved with a suspended platform inserted in the two-metre void between the existing building and the new envelope. The construction uses 900 ultra-clear laminated glass panels, each of which weighs a half tonne. They are supported by four fasteners at their corners, composed of two exterior plaques that cinch against the glass, and an intermediate stainless steel component that connects to the new steel structure and allows the panel’s alignment to be adjusted. Positional accuracy within two millimetres was achieved through techniques used for the first time in North America. For instance, two-tonne sand trays were suspended at the bottom of the structure to simulate the weight of the glass plates before they were affixed, allowing for workers to ensure the structure was precisely positioned before attaching the glass. Each time a panel was installed, ballast was removed to maintain the final position of the whole structure. The secondary, tempered air layer created by the new envelope allows for a low-f low heat recovery system, increasing the building’s energy efficiency. Computational f luid dynamics (CFD) simulations and energy simulations were undertaken to ensure that the air temperature within the construction void could be maintained at a minimum of five degrees Celsius. The structural elements required additional tests, including testing of the joints between the glass panels, which led to the development of a bespoke silicone joint base. As we face more challenges related to the preservation of modern heritage, the refurbishment of the Grand Théâtre de Québec provides a set of technical solutions that may be applicable to other projects. Moreover, it models a transdisciplinary approach, in which architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, architectural historians, manufacturers, and other specialists work together to push boundaries and find cost-effective, low-impact tactics. The result is a simple, efficient solution that responds to the particular technical needs and aesthetic expression of Victor Prus and Jordi Bonet’s theatre. The building’s striking brutalist lines and artistic narrative are not only preserved, but are ultimately enhanced by this subtle, functional and environmentally advanced solution. Jury Comments :: The Grand Théâtre de Québec demonstrates a host of notable innovations in the spirit of honouring the original Victor Prus building and sensitively protecting the existing degrading structure and Jordi Bonet mural. The new glass casing is quiet and understated, with a technical rigour that speaks to what must have been remarkable teamwork between the architects, engineers, and manufacturers. It skillfully addresses the challenges faced by the concrete façades and unique interior sculptural murals by developing from the exterior a meticulous envelope system and creating an in-between controlled environment. The team’s choices throughout the process demonstrate how intelligent, quiet innovations can significantly extend the life of public buildings for the betterment of the community, climate and environment. The jurors for this award were Pat Hanson (FRAIC), Michael Green (FRAIC) and Leila Farah.
CLIENT GRAND THÉÂTRE DE QUÉBEC | ARCHITECT TEAM LEMAY—ERIC PELLETIER, GABRIEL TESSIER, SARAH PERRON DESROCHERS, AMÉLIE TURGEON, OLIVIER BOILARD. ATELIER 21—CHRISTIAN BERNARD, MATHIEU TURGEON, ANTOINE CARRIER, JACQUES BERRIGAN, ANDRÉ DAGENAIS, ÉLIE D. CARRIER, MARC LEBLOND. | STRUCTURAL/CIVIL WSP (OLIVIER MARQUIS) | GLASS/FIXTURE DESIGN ELEMA CONSULTANTS (FÉLIX BÉDARD) | MATERIALS SIMCO | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL WSP (JEAN GARIÉPY) | CONTRACTOR POMERLEAU (SÉBASTIEN COUILLARD) | STEEL STRUCTURE MÉTAL-PRESTO (CLAUDE ROSEBERRY) | GLASS MANUFACTURER VITERIE LABERGE (JEAN-FRANÇOIS BERTHIAUME) | LIGHTING LEMAY / ATELIER 21 + GUY SIMARD ARCHITECTE | LANDSCAPE LEMAY / ATELIER 21
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CA Aw
OPEN FOR ENTRIES JULY 1 Deadline: September 16th, 2021
CANADIAN ARCHITECT INVITES ARCHITECTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS TO ENTER THE 2021 AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE Architecture project entry fee: $175 *
Architectural photo entry fee: $75 *
Since 1967, our annual national awards program recognizes the architectural excellence of projects in the design and construction phases. Submissions will be accepted in PDF format, up to 12 pages with dimensions no greater than 11” x 17”. Total file size is not to exceed 25MB. There is also the option to submit a video up to two minutes in length. This year, we are also presenting the fourth edition of the Canadian Architect Photo Awards of Excellence, open to professional and amateur architectural photographers. Winners of the architectural project and architectural photo competitions will be published in a special issue of Canadian Architect in December 2021. For more details and to submit your entry, visit: www.canadianarchitect.com/awards
IMAGE: TAZA WATER RESERVOIR AT TAZA PARK, PHASE 1, TSUUT’INA NATION. DESIGN BY ZEIDLER ARCHITECTURE. WINNER OF A 2020 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
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48 PRESIDENT’S AWARD FOR MULTIMEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF ARCHITECTURE
CANADIAN MODERN ARCHITECTURE, 1967 TO THE PRESENT Elsa Lam and Graham Livesey George Baird, Brian Carter, Ian Chodikoff, Odile Hénault, George Kapelos, Lisa Landrum, Steven Mannell, Sherry McKay, Marco Polo, Colin Ripley, Lola Sheppard, David Theodore, Larry Wayne Richards, Adele Weder, Mason White EDITORS
CHAPTER AUTHORS
The book Canadian Modern Architecture, 1967 to the Present is the first comprehensive volume on modern and contemporary Canadian architecture to appear in over 25 years. The 50-year retrospective is co-edited by Canadian Architect editor Elsa Lam (FRAIC) and architectural educator Graham Livesey (FRAIC). It is co-published by Princeton Architectural Press and Canadian Architect magazine, and includes 15 original essays, along with some 500 photographs and drawings.
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“Lam and Livesey have brought together many of the most distinguished academics and critics in the field, and the result is a long and coherent conversation about the importance of modern Canadian architecture,” writes Alex Bozikovic in The Globe and Mail. “The book is highly readable and heavily illustrated, an asset to professionals and to average citizens.” Adds architectural historian Kenneth Frampton, who wrote the book’s foreword, “this anthology […] amounts to a major achievement of collective scholarship. […] By any standards, this is an encyclopedic tour de force.” National Movements This book is divided into four sections. The first section, on national movements, most explicitly addresses the idea of Canada’s institutions being expressed through architecture.
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The book begins with the architecture created to mark Canada’s centennial year. Marco Polo (FRAIC) and Colin Ripley (MRAIC) describe a set of programs developed by the federal government to celebrate 1967 using architecture, including keystone projects in each province. The year was also marked by Expo 67, whose experimental pavilions came to embody a watershed moment in Canada’s political and cultural history. Authored by George Kapelos (FRAIC), the second chapter examines the architecture of key Canadian public institutions commissioned by federal, provincial and municipal governments. The examples include national museums, city halls and civic centres, embassies and consulates, and the architectural legacy of the three Olympic games hosted in Canada. Lisa Landrum (FRAIC)’s essay studies the history of university architecture in Canada since the early 1960s through four celebrated campus designs: Massey College and the Trent University campus by Ron Thom, University of Toronto Scarborough’s Science and Humanities Building by John Andrews, and Simon Fraser University by Arthur Erickson. In the final chapter on national trends, Odile Hénault presents the transformative changes that have occurred in architecture for Indigenous communities in Canada since the 1980s. She details the impact of initiatives such as British Columbia’s school design program for First Nations communities, which emphasized high-calibre architecture and local involvement, and the emergence of a new generation of Indigenous designers. International Influences In the 50 years since 1967, Canadian architects have played a crucial role in the development of many international trends. In his essay, George Baird (FRAIC) explains how the concept of the “megastructure” building was widely embraced in Canada during the 1960s and 1970s. The concept is strikingly manifested in Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67, and was also used in designs such as Arthur Erickson’s University of Lethbridge and Robson Square, and Craig, Zeidler & Strong’s Eaton Centre and Ontario Place. Larry Wayne Richards (FRAIC) studies the impact of postmodernism on Canadian architecture. Two of the most internationally celebrated postmodern projects are in Canada: Mississauga City Hall near Toronto, which reinterprets tropes from agricultural imagery, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, whose classical ordering system derives from the historic Shaughnessy House preserved on the property. Ian Chodikoff (FRAIC) looks at a number of important urban revitalization projects in Canadian cities, in which architects were part of a larger team. Vancouver has a history of urban reinvention, exemplified in its 1970s revitalization of Granville Island and its more recent Woodward’s redevelopment. Chodikoff 's chapter also looks at key sites in Toronto and Montreal. In the last essay on international influences, Steven Mannell (FRAIC) details the history of sustainable design and legislation in Canada, demonstrating how Canadian architects have responded to evolving demands for sustainable construction. Early self-sustaining single-family home experiments in the 1970s eventually led to designs for larger buildings, and Canadian architects are becoming increasingly proficient as the world moves towards low-carbon design. Regional Responses As the country with the second largest landmass in the world, Canada is defined by its strong regions. In architecture, the concept of “Critical Regionalism” is particularly pertinent, and Canadian architects have found a variety of ways to respond to local geographies, climates and cultures. Sherry McKay starts off this section on the West Coast. The iconic mid-century modern West Coast House was essential to the emergence
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of modern architecture in Canada in the 1940s and 1950s. The experiences of architects working on these houses led them to take a similar approach to working with landform and vistas in designs for Vancouver’s larger buildings. Next, Graham Livesey (FRAIC) lays out the evolution of Prairie architecture, starting with the pioneering work of Étienne Gaboury, Clifford Wiens and Douglas Cardinal. While the region presents diverse landscapes, the most notable architects in the Prairie provinces have striven to create iconic works that relate to the region’s strong horizons and large skies. Heading east, Brian Carter (Hon. FRAIC) looks at the recent architecture of the Atlantic Provinces. The school of architecture at Dalhousie University was an important inf luence for many architects, including Brian MacKay-Lyons, who studied and currently teaches there. A group of younger firms are now also building on the unique traditions of the region. To wrap up this section, Lola Sheppard and Mason White (MRAIC) review the architecture of Canada’s Arctic region since the 1960s. They examine efforts to develop standardized housing for First Nations communities, experiments in developing new towns for the North, and technological solutions that have informed the approach of some architects to building in the region.
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Centers of Influence Canadian culture is defined in large part by its three largest cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. During the last 50 years, each of these cities has spawned a range of important architectural practices. David Theodore (MRAIC)’s essay explores distinctive aspects of Quebec architecture since 1967. Theodore shows how Quebec’s cultural revolution of the 1960s fostered the emergence of important Francophone practices. The province’s design competition system has built on this legacy, yielding cultural projects that often engage directly with historic sites and structures. Elsa Lam’s essay on Toronto traces the legacy of people and firms that followed in the wake of the 1956 international competition to design a new city hall. It also details the architectural impact of a string of policies, including the effect of the 1970s Municipal Reform Council, the Two Kings planning changes in the 1990s, and the “cultural renaissance” provincial investment program of the early 2000s. Finally, Adele Weder (Hon. MRAIC) looks at the developmentdriven landscape of Vancouver since Expo 86, and the way well-considered works of architecture have been inserted into the fabric. While Vancouver’s predominant image is one of sleek towers, architects such as Bing Thom, Peter Cardew and Patkau Architects have designed striking, humanistic projects. Jury Comments :: This book brings together some of the foremost observers on architecture in Canada. In 15 chapters, these authors clearly explain the themes and regional trends that have shaped the country’s built form in this period—a period in which, as the editors suggest, a truly Canadian architecture was born. This assembly of expertise and regional knowledge allows the book to provide a depth of insight that no one individual could offer. Canadian Modern Architecture is a timely body of work whose diversity and variety are entirely Canadian. The jurors for this award were Michael Cox (PP/FRAIC), Wayne De Angelis (PP/FRAIC) and Alex Bozikovic.
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BACKPAGE
ECOLOGICAL REHEARSALS TEXT AND PHOTO
Simon Rabyniuk and Pooya Aledvood
RICHARD SERRA’S SHIFT, LOCATED IN KING CITY NORTH OF TORONTO, IS A PROTOTYPE FOR CONTEMPORARY ECOLOGICAL ART. In the face of the climate crisis, contemporary ecological artists are investigating radical contingencies between site, mediating systems and viewers. French artist Pierre Huyghe’s work, for instance, creates haunting architectural spaces, inhabited by humans as well as other living beings and processes. Korean-American Anicka Yi, on the other hand, creates uncanny sculptures by deploying unorthodox materials such as ice crystals and bacterial agents in open-ended, evolving environments. But this kind of approach might also be found closer to home. We propose recuperating Richard Serra’s Shift, first performed in 1972, as a prototype for contemporary ecological art. Prototypes demonstrate the potential of a concept, while perhaps leaving certain claims unfulfilled. Works such as Shift, along with other pieces of ecological art, reflect a larger need to think about how spatial practices, like sculpture or architecture, perform—rather than their mere imageability. Constructed in a farmer’s field in King City, north of Toronto, Shift entails a series of concrete walls, alongside which today, native and invasive species root leeward. These stems, leaves, roots and flowers fill in a zigzag territory, bounded by the cultivated fields around
the walls. The former, a community of species, stands in contrast to the single-mindedness of this year’s alfalfa crop. In the fields, the typically straight paths created by agricultural tools instead bend. These two zones—one entropic and the other industrial—both register the spatial effects of Serra’s site-specific sculpture. We walk this land fifty-some years after Serra. Some artists document their performances through notes, photography, film or video. In this instance, each wall testifies to the original vectors of Serra and collaborating artist Joan Jonas’ footsteps. Each wall cuts through, rather than braces against, the site’s topography. They rise or fall (depending on your point of view) with the slope of the land. Akin to misaligned retaining walls, they are objectively poor objects: eroding concrete, cast without reinforcement. Despite this, they sculpt relations beyond our lines of sight. When viewed from above, they trace relationships between land and artifact, seasonal growth and decay. A friction comes into view between the sculpted environment and the larger development processes beyond the surrounding woodlots. Through the 60s and 70s, minimalist artists, including Serra, claimed that the space around
ABOVE The walls of Richard Serra’s Shift trace a zigzag through a farmer’s field in King City, Ontario.
a work of art was the subject of sculpture. Modernist art critic Michael Fried accused their work of “theatricality” for taking this position. In fact, Serra consistently performs his sculptures. In the handwritten drawing (and later film of the same name) Verb List (196768), Serra first writes down, and then speaks the actions that his studio hands enact in the creation of work. In Gutter Corner Splash (1969), he hurls ladles of molten lead into the corner created at the intersection between the gallery floor and wall. Gesture, material and place intersect and coalesce as a residue. Reflecting on related sculptural practices, art critic Johanna Burton describes how these residues energize the spaces they inhabit. Ecological art, such as Huyghe’s and Yi’s, registers the force of living and non-living processes on each other. Shift is prototypical for this kind of pursuit in sculpture. Given its firm foundation, set in an Ontario field, we have the pleasure of witnessing its force and the shifting relations it catalyzes, year after year. Simon Rabyniuk is a sessional lecturer at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Pooya Aledvood is an architectural designer at Moriyama & Teshima Architects.
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