Canadian Architect November 2021 by IQ Business Media

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R E A D Y

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C R E ATO R

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4 VIEWPOINT

GH3*

EMA PETER

DESIGNING FOR INCLUSION

CANADIAN ARCHITECT

NOVEMBER 2021 03

Jury chair Bruce Haden on the complexities and opportunites of the Block 2 competition.

6 NEWS

Toronto Urban Design Awards; remembering Andrew Gruft.

9 RAIC JOURNAL

John Ralston Saul on the symbolic importance of Block 2; reporting from the International Indigenous Architecture and Design Symposium.

40 INSITES 18

18 GROW

A rental development in Calgary by Modern Office of Design + Architecture weaves together community and urban agriculture. TEXT Matt Knapik

25 KATHLEEN ANDREWS TRANSIT GARAGE h3*’s design for an Edmonton bus storage and maintenance facility elevates the g essential services provided by public transit workers. TEXT Trevor Boddy

32 TOM PATTERSON THEATRE SCOTT NORSWORTHY

The Stratford Festival’s newest theatre provides a state-of-the-art stage—as well as plentiful opportunities for audience members to connect to each other. TEXT Elsa Lam

Claudia Carmen speaks to Chinese-Canadian architects Vanessa Fong and Shirley Shen about the intersection between their cultural identities and their work.

43 PRACTICE

Russell Pollard shares the results of a survey on equity, diversity and inclusion among architecture and consulting engineering firms in Canada.

46 BOOKS

New books on property, development, and politics by Rafico Ruiz, Matthew Soules, and Patrick M. Condon.

50 BACKPAGE

A new sound-and-light show brings a decommissioned Niagara hydroelectric facility to life.

Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, by Hariri Pontarini Architects. Photo by Scott Norsworthy.

COVER

V.66 N.08 THE NATIONAL REVIEW OF DESIGN AND PRACTICE / THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE RAIC / THE OFFICIAL

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MAGAZINE OF THE AIA CANADA SOCIETY

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

VIEWPOINT

DESIGNING FOR DEMOCRACY The international design competition for Block 2—the city block directly across from Parliament Hill—is without a doubt the most important competition in Canada so far this century. I am privileged to be the Jury Chair, and Canadian Architect editor (and Block 2 Jury member) Elsa Lam has invited me to share some thoughts about it in this guest editorial. The building program for the redeveloped city block consists primarily of offices for MPs and Senators, along with meeting and committee rooms. However, despite its mostly private program, it will have a very public face. The complex will complete the enclosure of the great Parliamentary Lawn, and so will be a highly visible piece of architecture at the symbolic heart of Canada’s democracy. In his book A Fair Country, Block 2 jury advisor John Ralston Saul (see page 9) notes that a critical aspect of Canadian democracy is its tolerance for ambiguity and complexity. In Saul’s appraisal, these qualities are not weaknesses, but an appropriate response to a vast and diverse nation. This insight has been brought home to me more clearly as I, like many of us, watch the recent internal conflicts of our neighbour to the south, which are often amplified by the rigid text of a fraying Constitution. Buildings, of course, are only a tiny part of creating a durable democracy. But as an architect who is passionate about the role of architecture as a symbol of civic virtues—and a container for civic life—I believe we must not underestimate the value of a prominent investment in our unique democracy at this critical time. I am convinced this perspective is shared by all the participants on the selection side of the Block 2 competition: the jury, the RAIC, advisors, representatives of our Senate and Parliament, and Federal Government employees. This shared sense of contribution has brought an unusual combination of passion, clarity, and humility to the deliberations so far. While such a complex program, site and process can never be free of conflicting views, this particular set of dedicated people and fine conversations have renewed my gratitude and pride in being Canadian. The competition has been set up as a twostage process. Twelve teams were selected through an RFQ earlier this year, and the Stage 1 submissions were received in the summer. Multiple technical advisor teams provided a preliminary analysis of the submissions, and the jury members met in September in Ottawa to narrow the field to a shortlist of six

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for Stage 2. The final entries are due in early 2022, and the prize winners will be selected in April next year. The comprehensive process mirrors the complexity of the site. The disjointed block facing Parliament Hill contains multiple heritage buildings of varied quality, and some empty lots. Critically, it is split into two parts by the former American Embassy and the CIBC Banking Hall; both buildings and the space between them have been gifted to Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis as an Indigenous Peoples Space (IPS) at the heart of the Parliamentary Precinct. As the discussions about the future form and use of the IPS are ongoing, the competition rules set up this portion of the site as an excluded zone. However, the current Canadian conversations about Reconciliation—and the prominence of the IPS on the site—means that the competitors must grapple with the potent issue of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian nation-state. Fortunately, the Jury has perhaps the largest Indigenous representation of any architectural competition that has ever been held in Canada—including six Indigenous members, of whom four were able to attend Stage 1 deliberations. The involvement of thoughtful members of Canada’s Algonquin nation, on whose historic territory Parliament Hill stands, as well as other Indigenous jury members from across Canada, helped shape the jury’s conversation about the appropriate relationship between the IPS and the future Block 2 designs. I found the discussions around this critical issue to be inspirational, and helpful in bringing the jury to clarity. When we met in September, the path at the centre of the Parliamentary Lawn was full of the desperately sad, tiny shoes symbolizing the dead children from the residential school atrocities. It was a heartbreaking reminder of the responsibility of this future architecture to provide an inspirational and timeless backdrop to both the triumphs and tragedies of our Canada. I am excited about seeing the work of Canadian and global architects as they refine their design solutions for Block 2. Nothing would please me more than if the remaining six teams made our final selection next year profoundly difficult.

EDITOR EDITOR ELSA ELSA LAM, LAM, FRAIC FRAIC ART ART DIRECTOR DIRECTOR ROY ROY GAIOT GAIOT CONTRIBUTING CONTRIBUTING EDITORS EDITORS ANNMARIE ANNMARIE ADAMS, ADAMS, FRAIC FRAIC ODILE ODILE HÉNAULT HÉNAULT DOUGLAS DOUGLAS MACLEOD, MACLEOD, NCARB NCARB,, FRAIC FRAIC ADELE WEDER, HON. MRAIC ONLINE EDITOR ONLINE EDITOR CHRISTIANE BEYA CHRISTIANE BEYA REGIONAL CORRESPONDENTS REGIONAL MONTREALCORRESPONDENTS DAVID THEODORE DAVID THEODORE MONTREAL CALGARY GRAHAM LIVESEY, FRAIC CALGARY LIVESEY,MAA, FRAIC WINNIPEGGRAHAM LISA LANDRUM, AIA, FRAIC WINNIPEG LISA LANDRUM, MAA, AIA, FRAIC VANCOUVER ADELE WEDER, HON. MRAIC SUSTAINABILITY SUSTAINABILITY ADVISOR ADVISOR ANNE ANNE LISSETT, LISSETT, ARCHITECT ARCHITECT AIBC, AIBC, LEED LEED BD+C BD+C VICE VICE PRESIDENT PRESIDENT & & SENIOR SENIOR PUBLISHER PUBLISHER STEVE STEVE WILSON WILSON 416-441-2085 416-441-2085 x3 x105 ASSOCIATE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER PUBLISHER FARIA FARIA AHMED AHMED 416-441-2085 416-441-2085 x5 x106 CUSTOMER CUSTOMER SERVICE SERVICE // PRODUCTION PRODUCTION LAURA LAURA MOFFATT MOFFATT 416-441-2085 416-441-2085 x2 x104 CIRCULATION CIRCULATION CIRCULATION@CANADIANARCHITECT.COM CIRCULATION@CANADIANARCHITECT.COM PRESIDENT PRESIDENT OF OF IQ IQ BUSINESS BUSINESS MEDIA MEDIA INC. INC. ALEX ALEX PAPANOU PAPANOU HEAD HEAD OFFICE OFFICE 126 SHEPPARD AVE, TORONTO, 101 OLD DUNCAN MILL ROAD, SUITE 302ON M2J 3L9 TELEPHONE TORONTO, ON416-441-2085 M3B 1Z3 E-MAIL info@canadianarchitect.com TELEPHONE 416-441-2085 WEBSITE www.canadianarchitect.com E-MAIL info@canadianarchitect.com WEBSITE www.canadianarchitect.com Canadian Architect is published 9 times per year by iQ Business Media Inc. Canadian is published 9 times per yearto byprovide iQ Business Media Inc. The editorsArchitect have made every reasonable effort accurate and authoritative information, but they assume effort no liability for theaccurate accuracy The editors have made every reasonable to provide and or completeness of the text, its fitness particular purpose. authoritative information, butorthey assumefornoany 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;

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Bruce Haden, Architect AIBC, MRAIC

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

NEWS

AWARDS

Nine-Marie Lister wins 2021 Margolese National Design for Living Prize

The University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture has named Nina-Marie Lister as the recipient of the $50,000 Margolese National Design for Living Prize. Lister’s transdisciplinary research and practice involves design that connects landscapes, people and wildlife. As Professor and Graduate Director at the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University (renaming in process), she founded the Ecological Design Lab, Canada’s first hands-on community-based research incubator focused on applied urban ecology and design. Lister engages, trains, and supports students working directly with professionals and communities to develop tangible ways to address climate resilience, urban biodiversity, and human wellbeing. She is also the founding principal of PLANDFORM , which engages ecologists, artists, landscape architects, engineers, and planners in collaborative projects aimed at transforming the way communities think about and interact with natural and built environments. margoleseprize.com

Toronto Urban Design Award winners announced

The City of Toronto has named the winners of the 2021 Toronto Urban Design Awards. Awards of Excellence went to the CF Toronto Eaton Centre Bridge (WilkinsonEyre and Zeidler Architecture), the Montcrest School Redevelopment (Montgomery Sisam Archi-

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tects), 80 Atlantic Avenue (BDP Q uadrangle), Axis Condos ( IBI Group), Seneca College Centre of Innovation Technology and Entrepreneurship (Perkins&Will), SQ2 Condos & POPS (Teeple Architects and Kirkor Architects with Janet Rosenberg & Studio), University of Toronto Scarborough Valley Land Accessible Trail (Schollen & Company), Centennial College Downsview Campus for Aerospace and Aviation (Stantec), the Bloor/Kipling & Islington Developments (Henning Larsen Architects with Adamson Associates Architects and PLANT A rchitect); the Meadoway Gatineau Hydro Corridor (Perkins&Will), and the student project Power and Place at Princess Margaret Hospital (Erik Roberson, Zakary Jocobi, and Check Yiu Yo Yo Tang). Awards of Merit went to Thermally Speaking (LeuWebb Projects), Proper TV (superkül), West Block Est. 1928 (architectsAlliance with ERA), Kingston & Co Condos (Teeple Architects), The Massey Tower (Hariri Pontarini Architects with heritage consultant ERA), Ryerson University – Daphne Cockwell Health Sciences Complex (Perkins&Will), Canoe Landing Community Campus (ZAS A rchitects), Guildwood Station (RDHA), St. James Park Improvements (including pavilions by RAW Architects), Garrison Crossing (Fort York Pedestrian and Cycle Bridges) (DTAH), and Yonge Sheppard Centre (BDP Quadrangle). Student Awards of Merit went to xs spaces: a new laneway urbanism for Toronto (Declan Roberts) and Embodied Energy: Living Lab (Madison Appleby and Agata Mrowzowski). Two Special Jury Awards for Inspiring Infrastructure honoured the Storm Water Facility at 480 Lake Shore Boulevard East (gh3*), and the Emergency Exit Buildings at the Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension (IBI Group). toronto.ca

WHAT’S NEW MacBlo Building to be Renamed Arthur Erickson Place

Vancouver’s historic MacMillan Bloedel Building will officially be renamed Arthur Erickson Place. Arthur Erickson designed the Modernist landmark at 1075 West Georgia Street with partner Geoffrey Massey for the forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel during a corporate building boom in the 1960s. The structure, made of reinforced bare concrete, rises above a spacious public plaza with reflecting pools that span the building’s length. The 27-storey building was the tallest in Vancouver when it was completed in 1968, and earned national heritage landmark status for its construction technique of cast-in-place concrete, with subtly tapered walls and deeply recessed windows. The building won the esteemed 1970 Massey Medal for Architecture, among many other awards. “It is rare for an architect to be honoured in this way, and I know that Arthur would be very proud to have the building carry his name, as it encapsulates all he strove to achieve architecturally,” said Erickson’s nephew, Christopher Erickson. “The building’s classic beauty and clarity of structure expresses the ruggedness of our land and majesty of our forests with a powerful cadence that tapers into infinity as it rises from its roots.” www.westcoastmodern.org

patent pending

IN MEMORIAM ™

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860-773-4185 AceClamp.com/vab

Andrew Gruft, 1937-2021

Andrew Gruft, a prominent member of the Canadian architectural and cultural community, has died. Gruft, 84, was Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and

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Landscape Architecture and a fierce advocate for design culture in Vancouver and beyond. He ran a study-abroad program in Barcelona for many years before his retirement from teaching. Early in his career, Gruft worked for Rhone & Iredale, where he was the designer and project architect on the Peace River Power Project. Gruft’s other projects include the 1986 exhibition A Measure of Consensus and the 2005 book and exhibition Substance Over Spectacle. Both projects focused on contemporary Canadian architecture. With his second wife Claudia Beck, Gruft also gained renown as an important collector, curator, dealer and advocate of photo-based art, establishing the first commercial gallery on the West Coast to specialize in photography. The couple later made a substantial donation of photo-based artworks to the Vancouver Art Gallery. “Andrew Gruft was a passionate advocate for Canadian architecture, and central to the creation of a culture of criticism and discourse to support it,” says Marco Polo, Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University (renaming in progress), who was taught by Gruft and later collaborated with him.

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

NEWS

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MEMORANDA Governor General’s Medals in Architecture

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts invite architects to participate in the competition for the 2022 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture. Awarded every two years, the 12 medals recognize and celebrate outstanding design in recently completed built projects by Canadian architects. The submission deadline is December 10. raic.awardsplatform.com

National Urban Design Awards

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Canadian Institute of Planners, and Canadian Society of Landscape Architects have announced a call for submissions for the 2022 National Urban Design Awards. The submission deadline is December 17. www.raic.org

RAIC International Prize Scholarships

Canadian architecture students are invited to submit personal essays on the subject of the societally transformative potential of architecture to win one of three $5,000 scholarships. The deadline for submissions is January 14, 2022. internationalprize.raic.org

ADDENDUM

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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Photo: Mendoza Photography

Our In Memoriam piece for Stephen Cohlmeyer, published in October CA, implied that Cohlmeyer was the sole designer of Pocket Suites. In fact, the original concept, including the name of the project, community engagement, zoning approvals, and assistance with financing, were completed by Paul McNeil, formerly of MMM Group. McNeil also undertook the initial work with non-profit housing group SAM Management, and recommended to SAM that they engage Cohlmeyer Architects to design the building.

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Savings by Design | Affordable Housing

A model of mixed-income, sustainable housing in Vaughan —

“By working collaboratively with Enbridge Gas early and often in the initial building design process, it opened the doors for integrated design with more options for energy savings.” Kelly Miller, The Regional Municipality of York

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The RAIC invites submissions for the 2022 RAIC International Prize Scholarships The RAIC has opened submissions for the RAIC International Prize Scholarships. The Scholarships are awarded in conjunction with the RAIC International Prize and will be presented at the 2022 Conference on Architecture in Vancouver, BC. Students registered in a Canadian architecture program are invited to submit an original, illustrated essay on the transformative power of architecture within its societal context. Up to three $5,000 scholarships will be awarded. The deadline for submissions is January 14, 2022. L’IRAC sollicite des candidatures pour les bourses étudiantes du Prix international de l’IRAC 2022 L’IRAC lance un appel de candidatures pour les bourses étudiantes du Prix international de l’IRAC 2022. Les Bourses étudiantes du Prix international de l’IRAC sont attribuées en marge du Prix international de l’IRAC et seront remises dans le cadre de la Conférence sur l’architecture 2022 présentée à Vancouver (C.-B.). Les Bourses étudiantes du Prix international de l’IRAC sont ouvertes aux étudiants inscrits dans un programme d’architecture du Canada à tout moment dans la période comprise entre la date limite de candidature de l’édition antérieure des Bourses étudiantes du Prix international de l’IRAC et la date limite de présentation des candidatures de la présente édition. La date limite de présentation des candidatures est le 14 janvier 2022. RAIC Partners with Parks Canada to Provide a New Open Access Course The RAIC, in partnership with Parks Canada Agency, is offering a new online course on Heritage Conservation in Canada. The course offers lessons on the principles of the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada, using built heritage sites managed by Parks Canada as learning tools. Learn more at: www.raic.org/continuingeducation L’IRAC s’associe à Parcs Canada pour offrir un nouveau cours en libre accès L’IRAC, en partenariat avec l’Agence Parcs Canada, offre un nouveau cours en ligne sur la conservation du patrimoine au Canada. Ce cours exclusif sur les principes des Normes et lignes directrices pour la conservation des lieux patrimoniaux au Canada utilise des lieux patrimoniaux bâtis gérés par Parcs Canada comme outils d’apprentissage. Pour en savoir plus: www.raic.org/fr/formationcontinue

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 An international design competition is underway to redesign the city block facing Parliament Hill. Un concours international de conception architecturale est en cours pour revitaliser l’îlot urbain donnant sur la Colline du Parlement.

PSPC

Briefs En bref

A Philosophical Approach to Parliament’s Block 2 Une approche philosophique pour l’îlot 2 de la Colline du Parlement Tanner Morton Editor, RAIC Journal Rédacteur en chef, Journal de l’IRAC

In 2020, a design competition kicked off in Ottawa to reinvigorate an oft-forgotten portion of Parliament Hill. Block 2—the city block directly facing Parliament Hill on Wellington Street—will be revitalized through the winning design submitted by one of the twelve teams currently in competition. The project is technically challenging, with a requirement to be zero-carbon-ready. It must also negotiate the presence of several heritage-designated buildings, as well as a mid-block parcel designated as the Indigenous Peoples Space, which is being concurrently designed. But beyond these considerations, there is a philosophical element that needs to be incorporated into the final design of Block 2. To bring these concerns to the forefront, writer and political philosopher John Ralston Saul was invited to serve as the Honorary Chair for the Block 2 Design competition. “I’ve always been interested in what they call Block 2,” says Saul. “I’m not an architect—

En 2020, le gouvernement du Canada a lancé un concours de conception architecturale pour revitaliser un îlot urbain souvent oublié de la Colline du Parlement, l’îlot 2, dont la partie donnant sur la rue Wellington fait face à la Colline. Au terme de ce concours, le projet de revitalisation sera réalisé par une des douze équipes actuellement en compétition. Le projet est complexe sur le plan technique et comporte l’exigence d’être prêt pour le zéro carbone. Il doit également tenir compte de la présence de plusieurs édifices désignés du patrimoine et d’une parcelle désignée « espace des peuples autochtones » en cours de conception au centre de l’îlot. Au-delà de ces considérations, le concept final de l’îlot 2 doit intégrer un volet philosophique. Pour mettre ces préoccupations au premier plan, l’écrivain et philosophe John Ralston Saul a été invité à agir comme président honoraire de ce concours. « Je me suis toujours intéressé à ce qu’on appelle l’îlot 2 », souligne Saul. « Je ne suis pas un architecte – j’ai une formation d’historien, de politicologue et de philosophe – mais l’architecture est l’un des élé-

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RAIC Journal

Journal de l’IRAC

At the centre of Block 2, the new Indigenous Peoples Space will be located on the sites of the former American Embassy and the CIBC Banking Hall.

PSPC 2019-20 Annual Report

Au centre de l’îlot 2, le nouvel espace des peuples autochtones sera situé sur le terrain de l’ancienne ambassade américaine et de la Banque CIBC.

I’ve been trained as a historian, political scientist, philosopher—but one of the pieces I’ve always worked with is architecture. Architecture runs through all my novels, it runs through my essays. It’s always been an element in how I think about things when I write philosophy.” Saul has held a longstanding fascination with the role the three Parliament buildings— East, Centre, and West Block—play in the Canadian psyche. For him, the buildings, originally constructed following an 1859 competition, were central to the shaping of Canadian democracy. When the original Centre Block burned down in 1916, it was immediately replaced by an even more dramatic building: an architectural statement about international engagement and the sacrifice of Canada’s soldiers in World War I. The Great Lawn framed by the three buildings remains a key national congregation space where Canadians and visitors from abroad meet, hold demonstrations and celebrate. Parliament’s siting on a cliff overlooking the Ottawa River is equally significant. “It’s all connected to the idea that Canada is a place of rivers and lakes, and that for thousands of years, everything happened along those rivers and lakes,” says Saul. “Right up until the

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railways, all transportation was by water, most of it by Indigenous means of transport. And the Ottawa River is one of the great liquid highways of Canada.” “The rivers in Canada weren’t about divisions—they were about linkages,” he adds. “It’s hard to think of a more dramatic setting or intentional concept for legislative buildings.”

“But the Wellington side—the Fourth Side of Parliament Square—cannot help but call for drama, inspiration, and frankly, magic. There has to be something astonishing about what is done there, which will fit in with the magic of the other three Parliament buildings.” “This is an opportunity to do something completely different,” says Saul.

For Saul, the design competition and reinvigoration of Block 2 is the third—and final— major architectural opportunity, coming after the 1859 competition and the 1920 Centre Block, to make a built statement at the heart of Canada’s democracy.

What is that statement to be? Saul notes that the project’s success must be based on reexamining and revaluating the earlier designs. “What did we get wrong the first two times around? What did we leave out? What has changed?”

“I’ve always known that at some point we would get around to filling in the biggest missing piece—which was what we now call Block 2, but we could also call the fourth side of Parliament Square, or the closing of Parliament Hill,” says Saul. “I realize that there is the whole utilitarian aspect to what the building on Block 2 will have to be and do [in containing Parliamentary offices, among other functions]. And we know that the Sparks Street side of the building will be some kind of architectural palimpsest, given the number of protected buildings.”

“First of all, we are completely missing the astonishing contribution and role played by Indigenous peoples, first with their own forms of democracy over thousands of years, which we never talk about in modern times,” says Saul. “It was erased from the public conversation.” Working with Indigenous groups to incorporate principles and architectural elements into the design shouldn’t be the only consideration for Reconciliation brought into the project, but it is a important step.

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RAIC Journal

PSPC 2019-20 Annual Report

The city block sits at the junction of “town and crown,” fronting the commercial Sparks Street on its south side, and the ceremonial Wellington Street and Parliament Hill on its north side.

Saul believes that the “single most important task in Canada today” is “rebuilding a 500-year-old relationship with Indigenous Peoples.” “There were all of the treaties and relationships that existed for centuries, and then they were betrayed in vicious, violent, and evil ways,” said Saul. “Indigenous peoples have found a way to reclaim and change the discourse to a more honest narrative that Canada needs to reconcile with to build any lasting relationship.” Indigenous beliefs on the relationship of people to place is another consideration for the project that Saul believes can benefit the design teams. “It’s not about humans being above the place, or building their buildings to look down upon the place. It’s about the people and place being one and the same.” In addition to Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples, there is another core aspect of our national identity absent from major governmental buildings and symbols. “The other big missing element is that we are a country of immigration,” said Saul. “We

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have not—in the other three buildings— imagined how to conceptualize what role immigration has on the Canadian identity.” The challenge will entail designing buildings that convey these ideas without being didactic, or relying on traditional design elements from earlier government buildings. “You have to stand back from all of the assumptions that we have and break those rules to take us down a different road,” says Saul. This fall, the twelve design teams have submitted entries to a first stage of the competition; soon, a shortlist of up to six teams will be announced to advance their designs further, with the winner chosen next spring. The hope is that all Canadians will see an aspect of themselves reflected in the chosen design. “I am incredibly excited and honoured to be part of this process,” says Saul. “Whatever happens with the site, if it is successful, will change how we imagine ourselves.”

L’îlot est situé à la rencontre de la « ville et de l’État » donnant au sud sur Sparks, une rue commerciale et au nord sur Wellington, une rue au caractère cérémonial, et sur la Colline du Parlement.

Journal de l’IRAC

ments avec lesquels j’ai toujours travaillé. L’architecture est présente dans tous mes romans et dans mes essais. J’en ai toujours tenu compte dans ma façon de penser les choses lorsque j’écris de la philosophie. » John Ralston Saul est fasciné de longue date par le rôle que jouent les trois édifices du Parlement – les édifices de l’Est, du Centre et de l’Ouest – dans la psyché canadienne. Il considère que les édifices construits à l’origine dans la foulée d’un concours tenu en 1859 ont été déterminants dans la définition de la démocratie canadienne. Après sa destruction par un incendie en 1916, l’Édifice du Centre a été immédiatement remplacé par un édifice encore plus imposant : un énoncé architectural sur l’engagement international et le sacrifice des soldats canadiens à la Première Guerre mondiale. La grande pelouse encadrée par les trois édifices demeure un espace national de rassemblement, de manifestation et de célébration important pour les Canadiens et les visiteurs de l’étranger. Le fait que le Parlement soit situé sur une falaise surplombant la rivière des Outaouais est tout aussi significatif. « Tout cela est lié à l’idée que le Canada est un pays de rivières et de lacs et que pendant des milliers d’années, tout s’est passé le long de ces rivières et de ces lacs », ajoute Saul. « Jusqu’à l’arrivée des chemins de fer, tout le transport se faisait par voie d’eau, la plupart du temps, par les moyens de transport autochtones. Et la rivière des Outaouais est l’une des plus grandes autoroutes liquides du Canada. » « Les rivières du Canada ne servaient pas à diviser, mais plutôt à créer des liens », souligne-t-il. « Il est difficile de penser à un emplacement plus spectaculaire ou à un concept plus intentionnel pour des édifices législatifs. » Selon Saul, le concours de conception architecturale et la revitalisation de l’îlot 2 constituent la troisième – et dernière – grande occasion pour le milieu de l’architecture d’intervenir de manière marquante au cœur de la démocratie du Canada, après le concours de 1859 et l’édifice du Centre de 1920. « J’ai toujours su qu’à un moment donné, nous finirions par ajouter la plus grande pièce manquante – qui était ce que nous appelons maintenant l’îlot 2, mais que nous pourrions également appeler le quatrième côté de la place du Parlement, ou la zone

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RAIC Journal

Journal de l’IRAC

vicieuse, violente et pernicieuse », fait-il remarquer. « Les peuples autochtones ont trouvé une façon de se réapproprier et de changer le discours en un récit plus honnête avec lequel le Canada doit se réconcilier pour bâtir une relation durable. » Les croyances autochtones sur la relation entre les gens et le lieu sont un autre élément à prendre en considération pour le projet et selon Saul, les équipes de conception peuvent en tirer parti. « Il ne s’agit pas de placer les êtres humains au-dessus du lieu ou de construire leurs bâtiments pour regarder le lieu d’en haut. Il s’agit plutôt de faire en sorte que les gens et le lieu ne fassent qu’un. » Outre la relation du Canada avec les peuples autochtones, un autre aspect fondamental de notre identité nationale est absent des principaux édifices et symboles gouvernementaux.

MIKAN

« L’autre grande pièce manquante, c’est que nous sommes un pays d’immigration. Dans les trois autres édifices, nous n’avons pas cherché à conceptualiser le rôle de l’immigration sur l’identité canadienne. »

limitrophe de la Colline du Parlement », dit Saul. « Je suis conscient que le complexe de bâtiments de l’îlot 2 devra avoir un aspect utilitaire et fonctionnel [il abritera notamment des bureaux du Parlement]. Nous savons aussi que la façade du bâtiment donnant sur la rue Sparks sera en quelque sorte un palimpseste architectural, étant donné le nombre de bâtiments protégés. » « Par contre, les édifices donnant sur la rue Wellington – le quatrième côté de la place du Parlement – ne peuvent qu’appeler au spectaculaire, à l’inspiration et, franchement, à la magie. Il faut que l’intervention à cet endroit soit étonnante et qu’elle s’intègre à la magie des trois autres édifices du Parlement ». « C’est une occasion de faire quelque chose de complètement différent », affirme-t-il. Quel doit être le parti architectural? Saul souligne que la réussite du projet doit reposer sur le réexamen et la réévaluation des

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concepts antérieurs. « Qu’avons-nous raté les deux premières fois? Qu’avons-nous omis? Qu’est-ce qui a changé? » « D’abord, nous ne réalisons absolument pas l’étonnante contribution des peuples autochtones et le rôle qu’ils ont joué selon leurs propres formes de démocratie pendant des milliers d’années, ce dont nous ne parlons jamais en ces temps modernes », ajoute Saul. « Nous avons effacé cela du discours public. » La collaboration avec des groupes autochtones pour intégrer des principes et des éléments architecturaux au concept ne devrait pas être la seule considération pour favoriser la Réconciliation dans le cadre de ce projet, mais c’est une étape importante. Saul croit que la « tâche la plus importante dans le Canada d’aujourd’hui » est de « rebâtir une relation vieille de 500 ans avec les peuples autochtones. »

Le défi des équipes participant au concours sera de concevoir des bâtiments qui expriment ces idées sans être didactiques ou s’appuyer sur des éléments de conception traditionnels des édifices gouvernementaux antérieurs.

A historic photo shows the fabric of Block 2 in the early 1900s, when it was known as Banker’s Row. Une photo illustre le tissu de l’îlot 2 au début des années 1900, qu’on appelait alors Allée des banquiers.

« Il faut prendre du recul par rapport à toutes les hypothèses que nous avons formulées et enfreindre ces règles pour nous engager dans une voie différente », souligne Saul. Cet automne, les douze équipes de conception ont soumis leurs candidatures pour une première phase du concours; un jury annoncera sous peu quelles sont les équipes choisies, au maximum de six, pour passer à la deuxième étape du concours. Le gagnant sera choisi le printemps prochain. Nous espérons que tous les Canadiens retrouveront une partie d’eux-mêmes dans le concept choisi. « Je suis extrêmement enthousiaste et honoré de participer à ce processus », conclut Saul. « Quel que soit le projet choisi, sa réussite changera la perception que nous avons de nous-mêmes. »

« Des traités et des relations qui existaient depuis des siècles ont été trahis de manière

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RAIC Journal

Journal de l’IRAC

Report: 2021 RAIC International Indigenous Architecture and Design Symposium Rapport sur le Symposium international sur l’architecture et le design autochtones de l’IRAC 2021

Courtesy Adrian Blackwell

David Fortin and Adrian Blackwell’s presentation discussed issues of Indienous and nonIndigenous land ownership, the subject of an upcoming issue of the Canadian architecture, landscape, and political economy journal Scapegoat.

By Reanna Merasty and Mackenzie Skoczylas Necessary restrictions on in-person gatherings did not dampen the enthusiasm of participants in the second iteration of the RAIC International Indigenous Architecture and Design Symposium this past June. Hosted virtually over two days, the 2021 Symposium featured sessions, poster presentations and discussions on the proposed adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the RAIC Membership. The Symposium focused on Indigenous representation, narratives, and collaborations, with sessions related to two themes: Making Room for New Indigenous Voices on the

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Dans leur exposé, David Fortin et Adrian Blackwell ont traité de la propriété des terres autochtones et non autochtones, un sujet qui fera l’objet d’un article dans un prochain numéro de Scapegoat.

Les règles sanitaires qui empêchent les rassemblements en personne n’ont pas freiné l’enthousiasme des participants à la deuxième édition du Symposium international sur l’architecture et le design autochtones de A full report on the Symposium was publ’IRAC, en juin dernier. Le Symposium 2021 lished in September. The summaries below de deux jours s’est tenu en mode virtuel. Le derive from the report, offering a snapshot of programme comprenait diverses séances, some of the Symposium’s presentations and des présentations par affiches et une discusdiscussions. sion sur la demande aux membres de l’IRAC d’adopter la Déclaration des Nations Unies Indigenous Placekeeping Pedagogy 7-4-4-7: sur les droits des peuples autochtones. Re-Imagining Architecture Le Symposium a porté principalement sur la The opening presentation in the 2021 Sympo- représentation, les récits et les collaborasium addressed the idea that architectural tions autochtones. Six séances y ont été education can shift the current paradigm of présentées, sur les deux thèmes suivants : our built environment to become more inclu- Faire de la place aux nouvelles voix autochsive, diverse, just, and equitable. This would tones à la fine pointe de la pratique de Leading Edge of Architecture, and Practice and Collaborations: Indigenous / Non-Indigenous Co-Design and Building with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Communities.

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RAIC Journal

Journal de l’IRAC

Block 10 is a new Indigenous Hub combining social and educational services in Toronto. The design is by Stantec, BDP Quadrangle, and Two Row Architects.

The design for Nokom’s House is centred on the concept of the lodge, as a place where a community might sit around a kitchen table, sipping tea, and feeling the warmth of the land. Such a setting is envisaged as being appropriate for conversations on decolonizing spaces and developing Indigenous pedagogies. The “kitchen table” analogy also aims to create a female-centred space to conduct research. The design for such a facility aligns with notions of Indigenous planning and Indigenous health and well-being.

Courtesy BDP Quadrangle

Block 10 est un nouveau centre autochtone qui offre des services sociaux et des services d’éducation à Toronto. L’édifice est conçu par Stantec, BDP Quadrangle et Two Row Architects.

versity of Guelph campus will provide a hub for the researchers, their students, and community partners to explore community development and the decolonization of learning.

Supporting Indigenous-Initiated Architecture in Canada through the Architectural Curriculum

mean moving away from culturally inappropriate architecture, and moving towards the foundation of “placekeeping” in the profession. This method of “placekeeping,” introduced by Wanda Dalla Costa, focuses on Indigenous cultures in relation to locality, their history/story, and the importance of preservation. Following research on the detrimental aspects of the current process of architectural education, Dalla Costa presented a set of tools to assist in what she described as “a reimagining of architectural education.” Dalla Costa emphasized how education must be based on accurate history, rather than false histories and narratives. Designers need to connect to human beings and communities to create successful projects. The power should return to the community; dialogue should be continuous and done with compassion. Indigenous and Community Hubs: Their Design and Organizational Structure Brian Porter’s presentation on Indigenous Hubs discussed the importance of collaboration in creating a sense of community and spaces for sharing knowledge and resources. Indigenous Hubs serve as purpose-built facilities that connect amenities for Indigenous People, providing harmonized access to services for families, and facilitating balance and well-being. Porter presented two case studies of Indigenous Hub projects that have involved Two Row Architect. In Block 10, the fluidity of water inspires the ground plan, and is rep-

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resentative of the land. The underlying design strategy references the earth and the values represented by the ground. The building aligns with natural forces through ventilation and airflow, is integrated into the earth, and considers the diversity of all beings in Creation. The second case study, located in Hamilton, is called Biindigen–meaning “welcome” or “come in.” It includes a variety of programs and services for the community. By bringing these together in one building, the facility allows every need to be met in a comfortable, safe environment for the community. The building considers the natural species in its biodiverse surroundings, and is part of the earth, seeping into the landscape. There has been a growing number of Indigenous Hubs and spaces of celebration and representation being built, as places that align with the autonomy and the needs of Indigenous People. In urban centres, these places represent an act of reclamation, and are particularly important for Indigenous people who feel alienated or disconnected from their community. Nokom’s House: Creating Space for Research in Good Relation Nokom’s House is a land-based research lab that brings together three communityengaged Indigenous scholars at the University of Guelph: Dr. Kim Anderson (Métis), Dr. Sheri Longboat (Haudenosaunee), and Dr. Brittany Luby (Anishinaabe). The construction of a sustainable research facility on the Uni-

Alain Fournier and Kawennanóron Lisa Phillips spoke about how Indigenous communities must be included in the design process to create meaningful spaces for their own communities. Working with diverse groups on various projects, Fournier and his firm, EVOQ Architecture, have seen an increase in Indigenous communities beginning to take charge of what is being developed on their land, and advocating for built environments that reflect their own culture and values. Designers and architects can develop cooperative relationships with these communities by letting them speak while practitioners listen, and including them in the early stages of design work. This important connection between Indigenous communities and designers was recently introduced to Université de Montréal architecture students through an Indigenous-initiated project. The project taught the students how to connect with the community, understand the uniqueness of their culture, and go through the design process with the involvement of community members. Lines in the Land David Fortin and Adrian Blackwell are working together to investigate the current relationships that we have with the Land, and to understand the historical roots of the colonial view of “owning the Land.” As Elder Winnie Pitawanakwat asked, “How can someone own the Land?” While there is no real owner of the Land, the colonial worldview differs from that of Indigenous culture, where interconnectivity and respect for the Land are taught. These topics are being explored further within an upcoming issue of Scapegoat

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RAIC Journal

Skylar Sookpaiboon

Funding Sovereignty: Lessons from the IHII Accelerator Funding Pilot Project

Bringing The ‘United Nations Declaration on The Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ to the RAIC Following an initial presentation on April 29, 2021, the RAIC Truth and Reconciliation Task Force hosted a live session about a proposal requesting that the RAIC membership adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (‘The Declaration’). The adoption of The Declaration serves as an important step for the RAIC on its path of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and addresses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 43 and 44. The session was hosted by Task Force co-chairs Dr. Patrick Stewart, MRAIC, Architect AIBC and Alfred Waugh, MRAIC, Architect AIBC. Subsequently, the Declaration passed unanimously at the RAIC’s 2021 Annual General Meeting on June 30, 2021.

l’architecture et Collaborations : co-conception entre Autochtones et non-Autochtones et construction avec les communautés des Premières Nations, des Métis et des Inuits. Le sommaire présenté ci-dessous est tiré du rapport de l’événement publié en septembre. Il offre un aperçu de certaines séances et discussions au programme. Pédagogie autochtone de la préservation du lieu 7-4-4-7 : Réimaginer l’architecture La séance d’ouverture a porté sur la possibilité de s’éloigner d’une formation en architecture axée sur le paradigme de notre environnement bâti pour la rendre plus inclusive, diversifiée, juste et équitable. Autrement dit, de s’éloigner d’une architecture culturellement inappropriée pour aller vers les fondements de la « préservation du lieu » dans la profession. Cette méthode de « préservation du lieu » présentée par Wanda Dalla Costa, met l’accent sur les cultures autochtones en lien avec leur localité, leur histoire et l’importance de la préservation. Après avoir étudié les aspects préjudiciables de la formation en architecture actuelle, Dalla Costa a présenté un ensemble d’outils pour aider à « réimaginer la formation en architecture ». Elle a insisté sur le fait que l’éducation doit faire place à la réalité historique plutôt qu’à de fausses histoires et de faux récits. Les designers doivent établir des liens avec les êtres humains et les communautés pour assurer la réussite des projets. Le pouvoir doit revenir à la communauté; le dialogue doit être continu et empreint de compassion. Centres autochtones et communautaires : Structure conceptuelle et organisationnelle La séance animée par Brian Porter a porté sur les centres autochtones qui renvoient à

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As part of the process of creating Nokom’s House, community members gathered on the land in the University of Guelph Arboretum for a preliminary workshop in July 2019.

Journal, where Indigenous and non-Indigenous creators discuss how the division of Land into property affects communities, work, and personal relationships with the Land. Further explaining the impact that this has on our current society, Fortin described three historical modes of exchange: nations (reciprocal), states (hierarchical and repressive), and capitalist (abstract and violent).

The majority of Indigenous architecture is federally funded, and tends to emphasize outside expertise. The Indigenous Homes Innovation Initiative (IHII) takes a different approach, aiming to better serve the needs of Indigenous communities by involving Indigenous leadership using a pilot funding structure. This experimental approach to funding is based on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, and supports reciprocal rather than hierarchical relationships, connecting the designers with local leadership to find project champions. The creation of this model was in itself led by a team of Indigenous mentors from the start, including Wanda Dalla Costa and Eladia Smoke. From 342 respondents, a committee of Indigenous housing experts selected 24 projects that were then given funding from the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers (CANDO). Having a strong Indigenous presence throughout the process of funding is vital in supporting Indigenous agency, as well as in preserving placekeeping in communities.

Journal de l’IRAC

l’importance de la collaboration par la création d’un sentiment d’appartenance à la communauté et d’espaces dédiés au partage des connaissances et des ressources. Les centres autochtones sont spécialement conçus pour relier les commodités d’usage collectif des peuples autochtones, donner aux familles un accès harmonisé aux services et favoriser l’équilibre et le bien-être.

Dans le cadre du processus de création de la maison Nokom, les membres de la communauté ont tenu un atelier préliminaire sur la terre de l’arborétum de l’Université de Guelph, en juillet 2019.

Porter a présenté deux projets de centres autochtones auxquels la firme Two Row Architect a participé. Dans le projet Block 10, la fluidité de l’eau est représentative du sol auquel le plan de masse fait référence. La stratégie de conception sous-jacente de ce projet renvoie à la terre et aux valeurs du sol. Le bâtiment s’harmonise aux forces naturelles par la ventilation et la circulation d’air; il est intégré à la terre et il tient compte de la diversité de tous les êtres de la création. Le deuxième projet est situé à Hamilton et s’intitule Biindigen, ce qui signifie « bienvenue » ou « entrez ». Il s’agit d’une combinaison de programmes et de services pour la communauté, ce qui permet de répondre aux besoins de tous dans un environnement confortable et sécuritaire pour la communauté. Le bâtiment tient compte des espèces naturelles dans la biodiversité environnante. Il fait partie de la terre et se fond dans le paysage. On constate une augmentation du nombre de centres et d’espaces de célébration et de représentation autochtones en tant que lieux qui font concorder l’autonomie et les besoins des peuples autochtones. Dans les centres urbains, ils représentent un acte de réappropriation et sont particulièrement importants pour les peuples autochtones qui se sentent aliénés ou déconnectés de leur communauté.

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RAIC Journal

Journal de l’IRAC

Tawaw Architecture Collective

Maison de Nokom : créer un espace pour la recherche en bonne relation La maison de Nokom est un laboratoire de recherche basé sur la terre qui réunit trois professeures autochtones de l’Université de Guelph qui sont engagées dans la communauté : Kim Anderson, Ph. D. (Métisse), Sheri Longboat, Ph. D. (Haudenosaunee) et Brittany Luby, Ph. D. (Anishinaabe). Ce bâtiment qui sera construit sur le campus de l’Université de Guelph servira de carrefour pour les chercheurs, leurs étudiants et les partenaires de la communauté en vue d’explorer le développement communautaire et la décolonisation de l’apprentissage. Le design de la maison de Nokom est centré sur le concept du lodge comme endroit où une communauté peut s’assoir autour d’une table de cuisine, siroter du thé et ressentir la chaleur de la terre. Les chercheuses croient qu’un tel aménagement convient bien aux conversations sur la décolonisation des espaces et au développement de pédagogies autochtones. L’analogie avec la « table de cuisine » vise également à créer un espace centré sur les femmes pour mener les recherches. La conception d’une telle installation est en phase avec la notion de décolonisation de l’espace et du lieu, de la planification autochtone, de la pédagogie autochtone et de la santé et du bien-être autochtones. Soutenir l’architecture d’initiative autochtone au Canada par le programme d’études en architecture Alain Fournier et Kawennanóron Lisa Phillips ont parlé de l’importance d’inclure les communautés autochtones dans le processus de conception pour créer des espaces significatifs pour celles-ci. Comme ils travaillent avec des groupes diversifiés sur différents projets, Fournier et sa firme, EVOQ

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Architecture, constatent que les communautés autochtones prennent de plus en plus en charge le développement de leurs terres et plaident pour que leurs environnements bâtis reflètent leur culture et leurs valeurs. Les designers et les architectes peuvent développer des relations de coopération avec ces communautés en les écoutant et en les incluant dans les premières étapes du travail de conception. Un projet initié par des Autochtones dans le cadre d’un atelier de conception à l’École d’architecture de l’Université de Montréal a récemment sensibilisé les étudiants à ce lien important entre les communautés autochtones et les concepteurs. Il a permis aux étudiants d’établir des liens avec la communauté, de comprendre la spécificité de la culture autochtone et de mener le processus de conception avec des membres de la communauté. Relations à la terre David Fortin et Adrian Blackwell travaillent ensemble sur les relations que nous entretenons avec la Terre et tentent de comprendre les racines historiques de la notion coloniale de la « propriété de la Terre ». Comme l’a demandé l’aînée Winnie Pitawanakwat, « comment quelqu’un peut-il posséder la Terre? ». Bien qu’il n’y ait pas de véritable propriétaire de la Terre, la vision coloniale du monde diffère de la vision autochtone dans laquelle on enseigne l’interconnexion et le respect de la Terre. Ces sujets ont été approfondis dans le Scapegoat Journal. On a demandé à des créateurs autochtones et non autochtones de discuter des incidences de la division en propriétés sur nos communautés, notre travail et nos relations personnelles avec la Terre. Pour mieux expliquer l’impact de cette division sur notre société actuelle, Fortin a décrit les trois modes

d’échanges historiques : les nations (réciproques), les États (hiérarchiques et répressifs) et le capitalisme (abstraits et violents). Financement de la souveraineté : leçons tirées du projet pilote de financement de l’ICLCA La plupart des projets d’architecture autochtone sont subventionnés par des fonds fédéraux et la tendance est à privilégier l’expertise extérieure. L’Initiative pour la construction de logements dans les communautés autochtones (ICLCA) adopte une approche différente et vise à mieux répondre aux besoins des communautés autochtones en impliquant les dirigeants autochtones dans une structure de financement pilote. Cette approche expérimentale du financement est basée sur les appels à l’action de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation, et elle favorise les relations réciproques plutôt que les relations hiérarchiques en mettant les concepteurs en contact avec les dirigeants locaux afin de trouver des champions du projet. La création de ce modèle a été dirigée par des mentors autochtones dès le début, dont Wanda Dalla Costa et Eladia Smoke. Parmi les 342 projets soumis, un comité d’experts en logement autochtone a pu sélectionner 24 projets qui ont ensuite été financés par le Conseil pour l’avancement des agents de développement autochtones (CAADA). Il est essentiel d’assurer une forte présence autochtone dans le processus de financement pour soutenir les organismes autochtones et préserver les espaces dans les communautés. Présenter la déclaration des Nations Unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones à l’IRAC

Architect Wanda Dalla Costa of Tawaw Architecture Collective presented the concept of “placekeeping” as a way to connect Indigenous cultures to locality. She is part of a group of Indigenous designers who worked on this conceptual design for the Indigenous Peoples Space in Ottawa, facing Parliament Hill. L’architecte Wanda Dalla Costa de Tawaw Architecture Collective a présenté le concept de la « création du lieu » comme moyen d’établir un lien entre les cultures autochtones et la localité. Elle fait partie d’un groupe de designers qui ont travaillé sur ce design conceptuel pour l’espace des peuples autochtones à Ottawa, en face de la Colline du Parlement.

Après une présentation initiale le 29 avril 2021, le Groupe de travail sur la vérité et la réconciliation de l’IRAC a présenté une séance en direct sur sa proposition de demander aux membres de l’IRAC d’adopter la Déclaration des Nations Unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones (la « Déclaration »). L’adoption de la Déclaration est une étape importante pour mener l’IRAC vers la réconciliation avec les peuples autochtones tout en tenant compte des appels à l’action 43 et 44 de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada. La séance a été animée par les coprésidents du Groupe de travail, Patrick Stewart, PH. D., MRAIC, architecte, AIBC, et Alfred Waugh, MRAIC, architecte, AIBC. La Déclaration a par la suite été adoptée à l’unanimité par les membres de l’IRAC réunis en assemblée générale annuelle 2021, le 30 juin.

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GEOMETRIC DESIGN MEETS GREAT ACOUSTICS Considering a crisp geometric ceiling design in an office space that also calls for some ultramodern acoustics? AcoustiBuilt® seamless ceilings prove that acoustics can have aesthetics with a smooth drywall visual and Total Acoustics ® performance for collaboration and focus work spaces. And as part of our Sustain® portfolio, AcoustiBuilt ceilings meet today’s most stringent industry sustainability standards. Learn more about trendsetting acoustics at armstrongceilings.com/acoustibuilt

ACOUSTIBUILT® SEAMLESS ACOUSTICAL CEILING SYSTEM WITH AXIOM ® CLASSIC TRIM REGENXBIO CORPORATE OFFICE, ROCKVILLE, MD / EWINGCOLE

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

GROWING TOGETHER A RENTAL APARTMENT DEVELOPMENT FOSTERS COMMUNITY BY OFFERING URBAN AGRICULTURAL SPACE AND INNOVATIVE FORM AT A COMPETITIVE COST. GROW, Calgary, Alberta Modern Office of Design + Architecture TEXT Matt Knapik PHOTOS Ema Peter PROJECT

ARCHITECT

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

OPENING SPREAD Generous rooftop garden areas provide opportunities for urban agriculture and a verdant communal space for residents. ABOVE The building’s raked form responds to height restrictions and creates a continuous outdoor space. OPPOSITE The form also allows for at-grade parking, resulting in significant construction cost savings.

TYPICAL RESPONSE FLAT SITE BELOW GRADE PARKING DOUBLE-LOADED CORRIDOR UNI-DIRECTIONAL VIEWS

CONTEXTUAL RESPONSE SLOPED SITE STEPPED FORM TO ADDRESS PRIMARY VIEW + WESTERLY LIGHT PARKING AT GRADE = $ SAVINGS

REFINED CONTEXTUAL RESPONSE RAKED FORM RESPONDS TO HEIGHT RESTRICTIONS; TOPOGRAPHICAL FORM AS SOCIAL/AMENITY SPACE

LOFT ONE BEDROOM FLAT TWO BEDROOM FLAT AMENITY PUBLIC SPACE PARKING

SITE PLAN

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25M

SECTION

1 PARKADE 2 1 BEDROOM FLAT 3 2 BEDROOM FLAT 4 LOFT 5 COMMUNITY GARDEN 6 AMENITYSCAPE

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GROW, a striking 20-unit rental apartment development by Calgary-

based Modern Office of Design + Architecture, brings new and muchneeded promise to the largely uninspired world of mid-scale multifamily housing in Canada. In a sector preoccupied with margin and brand, GROW placed its bet on a different set of ideals, centered on community and gardens—and its wager has paid off. The project has achieved a diverse unit mix, community space, food production, and innovative urban form, at a competitive cost of $230 per square foot. On one hand, this makes the project a modest and successful 20-unit experiment: GROW eschews the normative template, but still converses in the economics of residential construction. On the other hand, it makes the project a much more substantive provocation, raising the question: why does so much multifamily design promise so little? The project is located on an unassuming interior street in Bankview, a neighbourhood just southwest of Calgary’s urban core. Throughout the past seven decades, Bankview has been subjected to scattered episodes of redevelopment and intensification. On every block, heritage houses intermingle with infill duplexes, walk-up townhomes, modern rowhouses, and mid-rise apartments. The neighbourhood’s complex terrain and staggered street grid further reinforce this medley of form and style. In a sense, Bankview can be read like a catalogue containing hundreds of historic visions for Calgary’s “missing middle.” GROW is that catalogue’s latest and most compelling entry. GROW presents itself boldly to the street, as a composition of three masses that step back to create a terrace that climbs across the façade. The masses are clad in a restrained palette of wood and black metal, punctuated by infrequent openings and small balcony voids. This formal strategy lends the building a substantive presence despite its stepbacks— GROW is sensitive, but not shy. The main entry is set deep into the first mass, creating a satisfying forecourt. The same gesture draws the garage entrance far off from the street. Inside, the circulation is simple and purposefully composed.

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The ramping form produces a series of units that gradually increase in size, from a studio apartment up to a three-bedroom loft. The lowest row of units fronts onto the road, creating individual entrances that pick up the rhythm of the street. The second row of units back onto small, protected patios over the garage. The rest of the units look out over the multi-level roof terrace. The project’s interiors—which are all unique—are thoughtfully resolved. A spare palette of wood floors and sharp white walls allows a sense of mass and space to emerge—an effect that is particularly successful in the lofts. There is no trace of the superficial fanciness and muddled edges that plague typical multifamily offerings. Again, GROW makes different promises. The outdoor terrace is accessed from the second-floor interior corridor, making the roof a semi-private space for residents and guests. The terrace presents a journey that leads upward along the façade, through an extensive rooftop growing space to a deck at the top of the building. A handful of units look out over the terrace, creating a sense of intimacy and connection. The terrace is, at once, resident amenity, social node, habitat, and leasable property. The garden beds, which contain over 1,800 cubic feet of soil, are leased to a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) cooperative called YYC Growers, which includes a network of local farms. In exchange for the growing space and some minor supporting maintenance from the residents, YYC Growers provides each building resident with a weekly Harvest Box. This model has already shown great value for both the residents and the producer. For GROW, it connects the architecture directly to broader conversations about food security, local economy, and community health. GROW wasn’t always destined for these big conversations. In 2015, Modern Office’s founding partners Dustin Couzens and Ben Klumper were asked to review a design for a more conventional building on the site. They pitched a series of optimizations that made more effective use of the slope, discarding an expensive underground parkade in favour

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Source: Building Permit Records, City of Calgary Open Data

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Indoor-outdoor connections are prioritized in the design of the rental units; the east-facing flats include terraces and balconies; several of the units enjoy views to the garden plots, which are presently managed by a local community-supported agriculture (CSA) group. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

of a parking garage tucked against the hillside. This gesture cascaded through the building form, shifting units and creating the form’s distinct terracing effect. As the design advanced, Modern Office sought out further opportunities to leverage the project in pursuit of meaningful residential innovations. “Housing is a banal and problematic typology in architecture,” says Couzens. “Because it is encumbered by return, it is creatively bankrupt. Part of Modern Office’s mission is to reinvest in those ideas.” GROW is the firm’s first major residential project that tests—and proves—that a reinvestment in the promise of multifamily housing can yield a host of meaningful returns, both to the developer and the community. In a city that had a rental vacancy rate of 6.6% in 2020, GROW has an astonishing waiting list three times its capacity. According to Couzens, GROW is a direct response to the challenge of the “missing middle,” which has become a common thread in the debate about affordability, housing policy, and urban growth in cities across Canada. The “middle” typically describes a wide range of housing types: denser than single family houses, but less dense than highrise towers. Proponents of the “middle” typically point to these housing types as solutions that will produce more affordable and sustainable neighbourhoods through densification. Couzens outlines the challenge: “The missing middle needs a value proposition. It is difficult to build in a way that lives up to its promise of affordability. We need to ask more compelling questions about mixed use, and bring innovation to our underused spaces and underused surfaces.”

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CMY

While Calgary’s overall housing stock remains dominated by singlefamily housing, the last twenty years have shown a steady surge toward the middle. In 2000, non-high-rise multifamily units comprised less than 5% of all units constructed. Last year, that share had grown to over 56%. Clearly, development has responded to the opportunity of the middle, and it may not be “missing” for much longer. But this hardly closes the debate. GROW prompts us to ask more nuanced questions, not just about the quantity of middle, but about how it can encourage difference and connection, and how it can create appealing places tailored to the opportunities of each site. How can multifamily development produce fertile ground—both literally and metaphorically—in the city? For Couzens and Klumper, GROW is just the beginning. “GROW proves that the reinvestment in these ideas works, but it’s limited here to twenty units. The task now is to scale the concept.” Matt Knapik studied architecture and urban design at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Calgary, where he has taught as a sessional instructor since 2011. He is an associate at Calgary-based O2 Planning & Design.

CLIENT RNDSQR AND ANDREI METELITSA | ARCHITECT TEAM BEN KLUMPER (MRAIC), DUSTIN COU-

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A WORKPLACE SHINES

A NEW BUS GARAGE IN EDMONTON BUILDS ON THE LEGACY OF EARLY 20TH-CENTURY INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDINGS, CONCEIVED AS ARCHITECTURALLY AMBITIOUS EXPRESSIONS OF CIVIC PRIDE. Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage, Edmonton, Alberta ARCHITECTS gh3* (design architect) with Morrison Hershfield (prime consultant) TEXT Trevor Boddy PHOTOS gh3* PROJECT

ARCHITECT

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One of the few lazy diagonals in a hard-working grid-iron city, Edmonton’s Fort Road is well-named. Dating from the 18th century and by far the oldest street in the city, Fort Trail—now renamed to the blander Fort Road—is a former First Nations then Settler ox-cart trail that meandered from Fort Edmonton to Fort Saskatchewan. During the past hundred and fifty years, first a rail line, then a light rail transit corridor arrived to flank its path. Fort Road is also the unlikely location of two pioneering works by top Toronto architects, separated by two generations. A spirit of innovation and of taking workplaces very seriously links the two buildings constructed on this site: Eric Arthur’s 1936 Canada Packers Plant and Pat Hanson’s Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage, completed last year in its place.

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SITE PLAN

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Sculptures by Berlin artist Thorsten Goldberg cap each stairwell, referencing the topography of mountainous regions around the world at the same latitude as Edmonton. ABOVE LEFT A postcard commemorates the opening of the Eric Arthur-designed Canada Packers Plant, which previously occupied the Transit Garage site. The design was considered one of the province’s first modernist buildings. Its smokestack and portions of its foundations are preserved on the new building’s site. OPPOSITE A sculptural stair graces a skylit atrium within the office portion of the building.

OPENING PAGE

When Canada Packers planned an ultra-modern meat-packing plant at the height of the Great Depression, they turned to Eric Arthur, a New Zealand-born University of Toronto architecture professor who had worked for Sir Edwin Lutyens. They asked him for a contemporary, no-nonsense design, which was realized in association with the workhorse firm of Anthony Adamson. Built in red brick just as this building material was falling out of favour in Alberta, the resulting building—with its unapologetic programmatic expressionism, rounded corners and bold massing—earned my appraisal, in Modern Architecture in Alberta (1987), as Edmonton’s first pure example of modernism. Arthur’s design was published and exhibited internationally as a paradigm of the new functionalist style, winning a Gold Medal at the 1937 London Exhibition of Architecture and Allied Arts. The same is true of the recently demolished Calgary concrete grain terminal so beloved by Le Corbusier, and published by him in Towards a New Architecture. These two remain the most famous and influential Alberta buildings of the first half of the 20th century. Eric Arthur went on to become a prominent preservationist and author of the classic book Toronto: No Mean City. The Canada Packers plant, for its part, fell into disuse in the 1980s, and was bought by a devel oper and demolished in 1995, save for its landmark 50-metre-high smokestack (which had long spread a perpetual smell of bacon over this entire quarter of the city!) Vancouver has a smaller sister Canada Packers building by Eric Arthur on Terminal Avenue, which is also now threatened with demolition, despite its similar renown. Unlike mayor’s houses, churches and art galleries, workplaces are Dangerfields that don’t get no architectural respect. Fast forward eighty years, and a similarly distinguished Toronto architect was awarded the commission for a massive transit bus facility on the site of Arthur’s Canada Packers plant. Pat Hanson and her firm of gh3* are one of the beneficiaries of Edmonton’s enlightened procurement program for civic buildings, under the direction of City architect Carol Bélanger (see CA, August 2021 and July 2015). Hanson and her firm have designed two park pavilions, a fire hall and the Borden Park natural swimming pool for the City of Edmonton. The project for Edmonton Transit is several times larger than all of these commissions combined. Twinkling mischievously when seen passing by on Fort Road, the new Kathleen Andrews Transit Centre is a beguiling and serene sight, with

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its long walls of shimmering reflective metal skin punctuated by stairwells. On their public sides, these stairwells are capped by topographic contours set vertically, a highly successful public art installation. The design by gh3*, in association with Morrison Hershfield Consulting Engineers, is no dumb big box—it’s a far cry from a generic Amazon fulfillment centre or Canadian Tire mega-warehouse. At a time when major employment hubs like these have become the crudest of space enclosures, with barely an inflection evident from their architects, Hanson and her team have applied architectural sophistication to the Andrews Garage’s every element, inside and out, floor plan and elevational grandeur. The entire layout shows deep respect for the important civic business of driving, repairing and storing city buses, including both conventional gas-powered vehicles and a growing fleet of electric buses. Since contaminated soil from previous uses (imagine what dripped down during 50 years of slaughterhouse operations!) had to be removed, bus drivers can park under the main bus level in this excavated zone converted to employee’s garage, avoiding outside treks at -35°C from a staff parking lot. The atrium-lobby, locker and change rooms, and meeting spaces for the union and community groups are all unusually dignified and handsome. Part of the same sensibility of deep respect for the art and craft of driving buses, the complex is named after Kathleen Andrews, Edmonton Transit’s first female bus-driver in the 1970s, after a campaign by her daughter advocating for the building to be named after an employee, not some civic worthy or forgotten bureaucrat. Not only is this tough and functional piece of urban infrastructure designed by one of the leading women in Canadian architecture, but it is named after a woman who wheeled out her bus daily from a less amenable bus barn—there were no female washrooms, at first. From its palette of finishes, landscape embellishments, and amenities for workers to its very name, the Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage is a proud burnishment of Edmonton’s deserved reputation as a blue-collar city. The Garage sits at a good spot to send buses on their way—the intersection of the Yellowhead Trail (the Highway 16 version of the TransCanada Highway) with Fort Road. According to Pat Hanson, both the overall site layout and internal organization of the building “are all about vehicular movement—from the booker’s shack [where staffing is set], to the caddyshack [where drivers check in], to where they drop their accumulated coin fares at the end of a shift.” From the girdling

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GROUND FLOOR PLAN 8

2 7 1

1 MAIN ENTRANCE 2 OFFICE 3 BUS ENTRANCE 4 E XIT STAIRWELLS FROM PARKING BELOW 5 BUS WASH 6 BUS STORAGE 7 BUS SERVICING 8 BUS PARTS 9 MAINTENANCE OFFICE

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OPPOSITE The layout of the facility is designed to optimize the maneuvering, storage, and maintenance of the bus fleet for the city’s northeast quadrant. ABOVE LEFT Locker rooms are located next to the underground staff parking, allowing for drivers to prepare for work without traversing outdoor parking lots in inclement weather. ABOVE RIGHT Gabion basket walls and the heritage smokestack act as quasi-sculptural elements on the site.

circuit of bus routes into and out of the garage, Hanson and her team were determined to “let the footprint be what it wants to be: perfect for the maneuvering of buses.” The roadways are set on a circuit, with a huge room for the storage of up to 300 idle buses, packed head to tail, and another section of 35 diagonal drive-through bays for maintenance and repairs, a string of inductive plate charging stations for electric buses, a gas-station for conventional ones, and a bus-wash, much needed in dusty and mucky Edmud-town. Set on a largely diagonal plan at the northeast corner of the complex are the support spaces for the drivers, while the offices for administration and management occupy 5,000 square metres conforming to the exterior grid. A surprisingly elegant atrium is located at the junction of the diagonal and orthogonal floor plan geometries. Within this cubic, daylit room graced with brightly coloured furniture, a sculptural feature stair adheres to the diagonal layout of the driver’s zone, an almost political gesture of reconciliation between the social classes of workers, both being represented through architecture. The original plans included board rooms and an executive suite for senior managers for the entire Edmonton Transit Service. (This particular garage supports routes solely in the northeast quadrant of the city.) But in the course of construction, senior ETS management decided—in my view, foolishly—that they would rather be in an office tower closer to City Hall than near their own drivers.

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Consequently, much of this office wing—along with an on-site daycare— remains in an unfinished state, awaiting a re-allocation of other City staff and funding. Like Kathleen Andrews waiting for her washroom, drivers will wait for the on-site daycare that will make family life easier. Enclosure for the Kathleen Andrews Garage is a tour-de-force of effective simplicity. Similar to the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg (designed by David Penner Architect, Peter Sampson Architecture Studio, and DIN Projects), the whole complex is wrapped in one of the most cost-effective walls going—freezer panels, normally used for cold-storage warehouses. The Sobotec panels deployed here have a corrugated stainless steel skin. Under the architects’ hand, the corrugations are set vertically, and are variegated in width, adding visual interest at the vast scale of this garage. The building’s most dramatic element is a set of five rooftop light wells and stairs along the Fort Road elevation—a string of unexpected lanterns giving civic scale to this civic building, an effect seldom achieved by infrastructure projects. Hanson speaks of the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto and Edmonton’s Rossdale Power Plant as precedents from the early 20th century of civic infrastructure with high architectural ambitions. The roof lanterns are faced with that rare public art installation that works at city scale, even when driving by, whether in bus or car. Selected from a call for proposals, Berlin artist Thorsten Goldberg researched

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ABOVE Granulated rubber tires are used as a ground cover, set across the site and delineating the preserved foundations of Eric Arthur’s demolished Canada Packers Plant.

on Google Earth to find five mountainous locations around the globe at Edmonton’s latitude, starting with Alberta’s Mount Chown, and including peaks in Alaska, Russia, China, and Ireland. He then crafted their local topographies in three-dimensional steel panels, and set them vertically to crown gh3*’s building. At certain times of day, these topographies have the drama of glaciers calving off the coasts of Greenland, and share a same-but-different visual quality to the corrugated steel walls running below them. Dear Vancouver, with your lame identi-kit public art and your banal Biennale occupying public spaces with elsewhere-unwanted large sculptures, please look to Edmonton for how to commission significant public art, or for that matter, civic buildings. Some powerful landscape embellishments—also designed by gh3*— complete the conception. Set out from the building are metal mesh gabion baskets filled with Alberta river stones. These provide sensual counterpoint to the metallic glimmer, while in places providing some protection from vehicular attack on this essential services building. Providing more security are emergency generators set out from the building for functional reasons, but finished in flat black panels, giving them a sculptural quality that could have them mistaken for even more public art. Alberta sunlight is laser-like, and reflections off the steel elevations are accentuated by a contrasting ground cover of matte black granulated rubber tires. I came around to this idea, as a native Edmontonian remembering that grass is green there only from May to September,

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and more often patchy brown with melting snow blobs. As installed, the black ground cover (which is porous to rainwater and aids the recharging of aquifers) is a brilliant framing device, but I wonder what it will look like after several decades of prairie dust settles upon it. The same rubberoid ground cover is set around the carefully preserved foundation fragments of Eric Arthur’s meat-packing plant, with its heroic smokestack remaining as a reminder of that building’s defiant act of optimism. Feet in the rubber, standing in the shadow of this brick cylinder, and looking across at the Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage glinting in the prairie light, I became convinced that Arthur would approve of what a fellow Torontonian has done here. Vancouver architecture critic/consultant Trevor Boddy FRAIC has collaborated with Barry Johns FRAIC to co-write and co-produce a feature video on Arthur Erickson’s 1962 missing minor masterpiece, the Dyde House, located near the Aga Khan Garden west of Edmonton, to be released by Sticks and Stones Productions in 2022.

CLIENT CITY OF EDMONTON | ARCHITECT TEAM PAT HANSON (FRAIC), RAYMOND CHOW (MRAIC),

LOUIS CLAVIN, BYRON WHITE, ELISE SHELLEY, JOEL DI GIACOMO, JEFFREY DENG, BERNARD JIN |

STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/CIVIL/LEED MORRISON HERSHFIELD | LANDSCAPE GH3*

INTERIORS GH3* | CONTRACTOR GRAHAM CONSTRUCTION | COST CRSP | AREA 50,000 M2 | BUDGET

WITHHELD | COMPLETION MARCH 2020

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STAGE BY STAGE THE STRATFORD FESTIVAL’S NEWEST FACILITY SHOWCASES INNOVATION IN THE THEATRICAL ARTS—AS WELL AS IN ARCHITECTURE. Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario Hariri Pontarini Architects TEXT Elsa Lam PHOTOS Scott Norsworthy except where noted PROJECT

ARCHITECT

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ABOVE A bronze-clad canopy welcomes audience members to the new theatre, which includes a state-of-the-art stage, as well as additional areas for performances, talks, and receptions.

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In the early 1900s, the town of Stratford, Ontario housed one of the continent’s largest railway locomotive repair shops, a five-storey structure stretching three long city blocks. But by mid-century, steam trains were being replaced by lower-maintenance diesel ones, and the town’s economic engine began to fizzle. How to boost the fortunes of the 19,000-person rural outpost? Local journalist Tom Patterson was inspired by the town’s name, shared with the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Although he had no previous experience with theatre, Patterson audaciously proposed to start a Shakespeare festival. He invited prominent British director Tyrone Guthrie to help realize the idea. Guthrie agreed, on one condition: he wanted to design the stage. That stage—crafted by Guthrie with theatre designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch—was a turning point for 20th-century theatre. It’s the first

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thrust stage of the modern era, with a performance platform that reaches like an outstretched hand into the audience. The thrust stage combined the audience-to-performer proximity of theatres-in-the round with the logistical advantages of having a backdrop and backstage area to work with. Its design was inspired by the 1599 Globe theatre in London, where Shakespeare’s plays were originally performed, but improved on it by including a hexagonal acting surface, with steps leading to the audience level on all sides. This allowed for exits through the audience aisles, as well as on downward paths through the so-called vomitoria portals. In all, the thrust design included eight major entrances and nine acting levels, opening numerous dynamic staging possibilities. Guthrie and Moiseiwitsch’s pioneering design was initially housed in a tent, then made permanent in a landmark building—the Festival Theatre, by architect Robert Fairfield—two years later.

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DOUBLESPACE

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OPPOSITE TOP A public garden wraps the river-facing side of the building, including paths and terraces that echo the building’s form. OPPOSITE BOTTOM The theatre drum is rendered in cream-coloured brick with flush mortar joints, creating a solid presence that contrasts with the fluid, transparent spaces facing the river. ABOVE Situated at the front of the building, the Members’ Lounge is one of several reception and gathering spaces that aim to bring audience members together during intermissions and following performances.

The innovation of the Festival Theatre’s thrust stage propelled the Festival for its first 50 years—and with its newest project, the Festival sought a design that would set its path for the next 50 years. “With a stage retaining its essential character but able to accommodate innovative design ideas of the future, and with expanded facilities behind the scenes, our art will flourish as never before, opening up new avenues of creativity,” the Festival’s Design Committee wrote to a group of prospective architects for the commission. Siamak Hariri, the architect eventually selected through a limited design competition to create the new Tom Patterson Theatre, recalls being inspired by the clarity of the Festival’s vision. Working from a “purely aspirational” starting point, he says, “is when architecture hits its high note.” Just as Robert Fairfield’s building replaced a tent, the new theatre takes the site of a much-loved, but woefully inadequate structure. The festival’s earlier Tom Patterson Theatre was housed in a 1906 hiproofed structure originally built as a curling rink; it held an elongated thrust stage with chairs set up on rings of bleachers around the perimeter. The seats were notoriously uncomfortable, the backstage was cramped, and each winter, the entire setup was dismantled so that the facility could be used as a badminton court. “The stage worked beautifully, but nothing else in this building worked,” explains the Festival’s artistic director, Antoni Cimolino.

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To replace the makeshift space, Hariri envisaged a luminous civic building that drew inspiration from the Avon River and its adjacent parklands. The performance space is the solid core of the building— a rock in a metaphorical stream, rendered inside and out as a pale cream brick drum, with flush mortar joints that give the volume additional solidity. Around the core, Hariri crafted a building that undulates like aquatic plants in a current, reaching out fluidly towards the river. The spaces created through this dynamic perimeter house the theatre’s many public functions: an education workshop, a f lexible hall with a removable stage, a skylit café, and a members’ lounge. Like liquid eddies, the building’s numerous reception areas invite audience members to meet, gather and linger in a way that feels inviting and natural. The five-metre-high doors of Lazaridis Hall can be opened up to the lobby, creating a continuous string of spaces for very large gatherings. In addition to hosting secondary performances, the rooms invite evening events, the development of new repertoire, and a ramped-up program of audience engagement activities—all reflecting the Stratford Festival’s evolution over recent years. “These are spaces for how we interact with art today,” says Cimolino. “People no longer want to do what they did 30 years ago—see the play, go to dinner, go home. They now want to understand more, they want to get behind the scenes, they want to meet the personalities,

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WATERLOO STREET

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MORENZ DRIVE

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IDE

IVE

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MAIN LEVEL PLAN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

TOM PATTERSON THEATRE STAGE HOUSE INFORMATION DESK LOBBY BOX OFFICE RESTROOMS LOUNGE SEATING LAZARIDIS HALL EDUCATION SPRIET MEMBERS’ LOUNGE STAGE WORKSHOP COAT ROOM

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

EXHIBITION SERVERY/BAR REHEARSAL HALL OUTDOOR CLASSROOM GARDEN TERRACE COMMUNITY GARDENS PARKING ENTRANCE DRIVE MAIN ENTRANCE OUTDOOR TERRACE GARDEN PATHWAYS ELEVATOR

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OPPOSITE The building’s undulating perimeter and elevation above grade create an intimate relationship with the surrounding landscape and Avon River beyond. ABOVE A bespoke thrust stage is at the centre of a performance space whose curved wood detailing evokes the theatre’s previous home in a repurposed curling rink.

they want to see what the play’s resonances are in modern society.” The new building makes room “to bring people together, to explore, to build community,” he says. “People make lifelong friends here. The more opportunities we give people to meet others that love theatre, the stronger the Festival becomes.” A key design decision was to lift the building seven feet above Lakeside Drive, creating views that clear the road and settle on the river. From inside, visitors enjoy sweeping river vistas, stretching from the building’s east to west end. “This is theatre, too—crafting experience and point-of-view,” says Hariri. Seen from the river, the theatre remains a low-slung presence, marked by bronze mullions, full-height curtain wall, and Algonquin limestone accents. The entrance walk is lined with cherry trees, and the north side wrapped by meadow-like gardens, designed by Holbrook and Associates with The Planning Partnership. The landscape architects avoided the common trope of choosing flora named in Shakespeare’s plays, opting largely for local, drought-resistant plant and tree species. Inside, the reception areas are detailed as carefully as a stage set, with sumptuously curved brass handrails and bespoke benches, tables, and other furnishings. The marble bars feature stones of different colours— white marble from Greece, red stone from Turkey, and yellow stone from Italy—so that audience members can landmark where to meet at intermis-

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sion. There’s twice the number of required washrooms, to avoid line-ups. Acoustics are dampened in gathering areas to facilitate conversations, with elegant wood-slat ceilings that trace long horizontal lines overhead. For the main theatre at the heart of the building, Hariri worked hand-in-glove with the Festival’s on-staff experts, who took charge of building the stage itself. They selected Canadian birch: a wood type not commonly available, so the choice entailed purchasing a woodlot and having the wood custom-milled for the construction. The birch is stained to a deep brown, and beaten with chains to deliver a matte finish that averts reflective glare from the stage lights above. Any of the stage’s floor panels can be removed to create an opening to a large trap room below, creating a multitude of staging possibilities—a welcome change from the earlier stage, which had no trapdoor. The theatre is equipped with state-of-the-art, silent LED lights, as well as concealed acoustical amplification systems that account for the microsecond differences in time it takes for a human voice to travel to audience members at the front versus the back of the room. The rake of the seats was carefully calibrated, in close collaboration with Cimolino, to strike the delicate balance between preserving personal space and sightlines, allowing easy access through the theatre, and enhancing the sense of an audience connection to the stage. A nod to the earlier dome-ceilinged curling rink is provided by curving the

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ANN BAGGLEY

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ABOVE With its full-height curtain wall, fin-like bronze mullions, and Algonquin limestone accents, the new theatre has a jewel-like presence along Stratford’s Avon River.

walls and ceiling, and cladding them with walnut wood, which also supports the theatre’s acoustics. Custom-designed velvet seats create a uniform field of dark orange colour throughout the theatre, adding to the sense of entering another world. For the Festival’s artists, many of the most exciting design features are behind the scenes. The trap room is not only large, but also a full storey tall, allowing actors to walk down a flight of steps in the middle of the stage, and for elaborate props such as cauldrons or even elevators to materialize from below. The stage and backstage areas, as well as an adjacent rehearsal hall, are all on the same level, allowing stage sets for the repertory of performances to be easily rolled in and out. The sprung floor of the rehearsal space is a European type specifically designed to bear the weight of lifts and other stage-construction vehicles. That area has ceilings that match the height of the real stage, and large, east-facing windows looking onto an outdoor classroom—making it a far more lovely workspace than typical rehearsal rooms, often relegated underground. For now, that rehearsal hall is perhaps the building’s most active space. The Tom Patterson Theatre’s plans for inaugural 2020 performances of All’s Well That Ends Well and Richard III—a selection harking back to the very first Stratford Festival—were derailed by the pandemic. This past summer, the Festival opened with a limited number of performances on an outdoor stage, and an online program of filmed performances from previous seasons. (The new theatre is digitally equipped for filming, but the high cost of talent makes this only feasible with a season of live performances.)

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There are regular building tours and occasional special events—an elaborate lunch reception for a single table of four was underway when I visited—but most of the building, along with its jewel of a stage, has been quiet. “It’s like an instrument that’s never been played,” says Cimolino. One of the key innovations of the thrust stage design is that it gives performances immediacy: instead of declaiming and exaggerating their movements to be visible to those at the back of a large theatre, actors on a thrust stage can perform with greater intimacy. But it also allows audience members to see each other around the theatre. The audience’s collective mood and reactions become part of the performance. “You feel like you’re part of humanity, in a way that you don’t feel going to the movies,” says Hariri. Ultimately, the Stratford Festival’s audiences come to the theatre to see a show—but also to see each other. When they finally arrive at the Tom Patterson Theatre, after the long pandemic closure, this intimacy— forged in the theatre, as well as in the generous riverside spaces that accompany it—will certainly be one of the Festival’s greatest pleasures. CLIENT STRATFORD FESTIVAL | ARCHITECT TEAM SIAMAK HARIRI, LINDSAY HOCHMAN, DORON MEINHARD, ANNE MA, JEFF STRAUSS, STEFAN ABIDIN, MIREN ETXEZARRETA-ARANBURU, LEANDRO ABUNGIN, STEVE KANG, ANNA ANTROPOVA, JIMMY FARRINGTON | CONTRACTOR ELLISDON | HARDSCAPE/MASTERPLAN HARIRI PONTARINI ARCHITECTS | PLANTING PLAN HOLBROOK & ASSOCIATES | LANDSCAPE COORDINATION THE PLANNING PARTNERSHIP | THEATRE PLANNER FISHER DACHS ASSOCIATES | ACOUSTICS AERCOUSTICS ENGINEERING | A/V NOVITA TECHNE LTD. | LIGHTING MARTIN CONBOY LIGHTING DESIGN | LEED RDH | STRUCTURAL THORNTON TOMASETTI | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL ARUP | CIVIL MTE | SIGNAGE/WAYFINDING ENTRO COMMUNICATIONS | AREA 77,000 M2 | BUDGET $70 M | COMPLETION SUMMER 2020 (PROJECTED OPENING DATE SPRING 2022)

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INSITES

SCOTT NORSWORTHY

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

AES MUS

EAST-WEST CONNECTION TEXT

Claudia Carmen Chan

CHINESE-CANADIAN WOMEN ARCHITECTS SHIRLEY SHEN AND VANESSA FONG REFLECT ON THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN THEIR CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES. Amidst the diversity of emergent narratives on culture and identity, I’ve been thinking about my own experiences with architecture, as a Chinese-Canadian woman. I found myself reflecting on how, like architecture, Chinese culture is founded on structure, order and relation. The ancient Chinese were fascinated with numbers and mathematical patterns, acquiring a sophisticated understanding of how they relate to alchemy, divination and astronomy. Certain arrangements and sequencing of numbers were imbued with cosmic significance. The ubiquitous yin/yang symbol stems from this set of inquiries; in the classical text I-ching, this dualism represents a philosophy of balance which permeates language, culture, food and traditional medicine, collectivizing those indigenous to China and its diaspora across time and place. It is no wonder, then, that mathematics is the most essential of extracurriculars, insistently instructed to the ambitious and diligent Chinese student. More than mere calculation, mathematics is tied to ancestral wisdom that provides the guiding principles governing all facets of daily life. For many children of Chinese ex-pats, the study of mathematics

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takes its place alongside the cultural activities of calligraphy, watercolour painting, Chinese language, piano and ballet, all practiced with rigour to complement scholastic pursuits. For the artful but pragmatic-minded, architecture is seen as an especially promising vocational choice that blends both creative inclination and an aptitude for mathematics. To explore how these cultural notions play out in practice, I spoke to two emerging Chinese-Canadian female architects at the helm of their respective practices. UK-born, Toronto-raised Vanessa Fong leads VFA // Architecture + Design in Toronto. Shirley Shen is co-founder of Vancouver-based Haeccity Studio Architecture and registered in Washington State. She was born in Richmond, BC, and has bounced back and forth across the Pacific Ocean between Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States and Canada. The determination and discipline ingrained in Chinese culture guided both Fong and Shen through McGill’s School of Architecture; they graduated a couple of years apart. Fong’s formative trajectory, like that of many Chinese youth, was steered by her parents, whereas Shen’s was self-directed. In both cases, the structured and community-minded framework of their youth allowed each to foray naturally into the role of engaged architectural practitioner. In addition to her triple full-time occupations as mother of three boys, architect, and business owner, Fong has been active with Ontario Association of Architects (OAA). She was a Council member for five years, has held the position of VP of Communications for four, and is currently on the OAA’s Discipline Committee. Similarly, Shen is both the Creative

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EMA PETER

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

For the Cleaver Residence, architect Vanessa Fong of VFA chose a clean limestone exterior to foreground a layered landscape design. Curio House, designed by Shirley Shen’s firm Haeccity Studio Architecture, is a multi-generational home in Richmond, BC. The layout refers to the traditional Chinese courtyard typology and to principles of feng shui in its hierarchy of spaces.

OPPOSITE ABOVE

Director and co-owner of an architectural practice; outside of the business, she’s recently undertaken a new teaching position at the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, is mother to a toddler son and advises the City of Vancouver as a Heritage Commissioner. Both Fong and Shen note that their training never fully prepared them to be the only young Chinese-Canadian, female architect in the room—an experience familiar to both. Most of Canada’s architects are still white and male; to change this dynamic demands courage and clarity of voice. There are few role models for their intersectional identity in Canada: prominent among these is architect Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe, who Fong cites as an inspiration. When Fong first joined the OAA Council, she was the only female visible minority Councillor under fifty. Since then, she’s been actively creating space for other young BIPOC professionals to bring new energy and representation to the Board of Governors. “Diversity is important to change the groupthink mentality,” she says. She’s also intentionally kept the makeup of her own firm diverse: 10 of her 13 team members are female and come from different cultural backgrounds. Shen recalls being very much treated like a model minority when living in the States. In her book Color of Success, Ellen D. Wu describes this typecasting as referring to visible minorities that are “well assimilated, upwardly mobile, politically unthreatening and definitively not black.” To be placed on such a racial rubric implies that one is always kept subordinate to the “golden” white standard, while at the same time being regarded as favoured or privileged over those of other racial backgrounds. It’s an unfair and

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faulty triangulation that can feel impossible to extricate oneself from. Being wedged into such a positionality leads many Chinese-Canadians to continually reach for white proximity, often subconsciously. It can thus place them in inadvertent competition with other Asians or cultural groups; it can also spur a kind of self-directed racism. Shen says, “Part of the reason I chose McGill for undergrad was because I thought that, demographically, there would be fewer Asians in Montreal. Had I gone to school in Ontario, it would have been harder to escape Asian culture—and at that time, having just finished high school in Hong Kong, that’s what I wanted a break from. Hong Kong was very materialistic and capitalist to me. That culture didn’t completely embrace me, and so I didn’t completely embrace it, either.” After spending four years in Montreal, Shen felt an unexpected desire to return to the Far East to revisit her deeper ancestral roots. She travelled through mainland China for a year and a half, an experience that would help shape her Masters thesis at MIT in Boston, which addressed cultural relativity in architecture. She was especially interested in investigating how architecture can be used as a site for cultural exchange, as well as how it expresses cultural context. “Cultural identity isn’t static. Instead, it should be constantly reworked on the interior by the inhabitants,” says Shen. “During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, all of China was trying to express itself through massive building projects: they had to invent a whole new language on “Modern Chineseness.” I found that a lot of the projects being built were very much about this outward expression, which, in fact, is pretty static.”

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INSITES

“Buildings don’t move or change that much, which is at odds with identity—something that is constantly changing,” Shen continues. “As someone who’s Chinese-Canadian in Canada, people see me as Chinese. I am other. I might be the same exact person, but if I’m in Hong Kong, they see me as Western. Identity is relational. It depends on who you’re interacting with. How people perceive me depends on where they’re coming from.” Shen ultimately returned to the West, setting up her practice in a historic society building in Vancouver’s Chinatown; she co-leads the firm with husband and partner Travis Hanks. Her cultural knowledge and heritage emerges in Haeccity’s portfolio of built work. A recent project is a single-family, bungalow-style residence in Richmond, BC, which mirrors the spatial sequencing of the siheyuan courtyard typology, an architecture that carries a 2,000-year-old history of accommodating multiple generations and the customs of a collectivist culture. In 2019, she led a community revitalization project for Kam Wai Dim Sum restaurant, in an effort to help preserve and restore the vibrancy of Vancouver’s rapidly changing Chinatown. For Fong, the disciplined approach of her inherited culture has influenced how she exercises business savvy in her practice. Born into a family of immigrants originally from Hong Kong and Macau, she understood just how hard her parents had to work to establish themselves in Canada. “I played into the demands of being a successful Asian,” she says. She consistently carried a 90%+ average in school, and in Grade 13, she was interviewed at Princeton for early entry into its Biology program. She describes how she purposefully failed all of her AP exams because the pressure became too much: it took her 23 years to confess this to her parents. “I couldn’t just say ‘I can’t go through with it’. I actually couldn’t have

an open discussion with my parents about it until this past summer. My mom told me that she remembers thinking how stupid I was at that time. In Chinese culture, you’re represented by your children, and their academic performance reflects on you as a parent.” The success of Fong’s current practice arises, perhaps, from between these narratives of unspoken tension and relentless determination. It’s also the space where one contends with identity, where one negotiates with a constant push and pull of influences. How much does one let go of their heritage to be taken seriously within the dominant cultural narrative? For Fong, her growing body of work embodies a contemporary Canadian architectural language, with an emphasis on strong rectilinear lines and raw materials such as wood, brick and natural stone, Her architectural style aptly reflects Ontario’s landscapes, which are, after all, where she grew up. Both Fong and Shen are carving space not only for themselves, but also for a new wave of young Chinese-Canadian women and other visible minority architects. Their examples will certainly help others to claim their hyphenated identities as an important part of their architectural practices. There is much to celebrate as we continue to witness the rise of young Asian women in Canadian architecture, making their influence felt in effecting policy change; creating cultural work that enriches our cities and rural landscapes; and tilting the conversation at large towards a true and fully integrative participation of people from all racial and gender identities in the profession. Claudia Carmen Chan 陳家雯 trails four generations of transient Chinese-Canadian migrants and is the descendant of two head-tax payers. She is a communications specialist working across architecture, design and culture.

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Q: My employer is genuinely committed to supporting a diverse workforce.

MEASURES OF DIVERSITY

12%

DISAGREE SOMEWHAT AGREE

50%

MOSTLY AGREE

33%

AGREE

Russell Pollard

WORKPLACE CONSULTANT RUSSELL POLLARD PARSES THE RESULTS OF A RECENT SURVEY ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION IN CANADIAN ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING FIRMS. In January 2021, workplace people and culture consultancy Framework Leadership conducted a survey on workplace culture, leadership and inclusion within Canadian architecture and consulting engineering firms. The aim was to better understand where the industry stands in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and to consolidate the experiences of employees and jobseekers in these professions in both a quantitative and qualitative way. Over six hundred people responded to the survey, representing individuals at different stages of their careers, in different areas of the country and in different roles within their organizations. Many employers have acted to support diversity in the industry. An important finding was that the majority of employees—83%—believe that their employers are genuine in their commitment to diversity in the workforce. This commitment was backed up by several examples of employers investing in DEI-related training and education, supporting existing or new DEI committees and initiatives, and donating to organizations that support DEI in the broader profession. Some employers have begun to embed an equity lens into each stage of project work. Support for diversity is important to prospective and current employees. In what remains a competitive talent market in these professions, the work of DEI is also an important consideration for recruitment and retention. The survey asked respondents to identify their top factors for making employment decisions. “Quality of relationships with colleagues” and a “Supportive, inclusive workplace culture” were among the top answers selected—ranking third and fourth after salary and project opportunities. An important consideration for inclusion in the workplace is psychological safety. This relates to individuals’ feelings of belonging, and whether or not they can learn, make mistakes, contribute, and challenge others without judgement or negative repercussions. Psychological safety is necessary when teams put forward new ideas, or when determining the best solution for a given mandate. There is also a relationship between psychological safety and employees’ intentions to remain with their employer. 11% of employed respondents indicated they are actively looking for new opportunities, 37% indicated they are open to new opportunities but not actively looking, and 52% indicated they are not actively looking at all. Respondents who indicated higher agreement levels with questions related to psychological safety were more likely to be intending to remain with their current employer. This further bolsters the business case for supporting DEI at work.

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Q: Are your employer’s processes for advancement transparent?

21%

NO YES UNCERTAIN

11% 68%

Q: Are salary ranges by role or level made public in your organization?

12% 8%

NO YES I AM NOT AWARE

80%

Results demonstrate that people who are members of different identity groups experience the workplace differently. Decades of research have shown that women and men experience the workplace differently. The current survey reinforced that gender affects access to opportunities, mentorship and leadership roles. Women indicated lower agreement levels than men with the statement that read: “Members of leadership initiate conversations with me about my career development and advancement.” To better understand how members of various other identity groups experience the workplace, an intersectional approach to the assessment was applied, looking at the overlaps between social identity and systems of power. The results showed that men who identify as LGBTQ2S+ have much lower than average agreement levels with the statement that members of leadership initiate career development conversations with them. Interestingly, men with caregiving responsibilities indicated the highest agreement levels with this statement—whereas women with caregiving responsibilities indicated lower-than-average agreement. Women with disabilities had the lowest agreement levels with this statement.

Source: Framework Leadership

TEXT

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PRACTICE

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PRACTICE

For organizations and employers that aim to support diversity and establish equity, an intersectional approach should be applied to ensure that differences in experiences and needs within identity groups are recognized. Transparency is important to supporting diversity and equity. Understanding that people experience workplace culture and leadership differently heightens the need to establish equity. Only 11% of respondents indicated that their employers’ processes for advancement are transparent. When these processes are not transparent or observable, and leaders do not initiate conversations on career development, it creates barriers to advancement. A well-communicated and clear process helps people take ownership of their career development in an organization, and can reduce the impact of leaders’ conscious and unconscious biases. Apart from career advancement, salary is another area where a lack of transparency was identified. Salary is the top decision-making factor related to employment for 40% of respondents, and among the top five factors for 71% of respondents. Yet only 8% of respondents indicated that salary ranges were made public by their employer. Having established and communicated salary ranges for roles in an organization can reduce the perception (and reality) of pay inequities. Half of respondents have recently experienced discrimination in the workplace. Just over half of respondents (52%) indicated that they have witnessed or been subject to discrimination in the workplace in the past twelve months. 36% of employed respondents indicated that they were subjected to discrimination in their work. Sexism, ageism and racism were the most prevalent grounds for discrimination. On the positive side, people who expressed confidence that reporting discrimination would result in a fair outcome were less likely to experience discrimination. This speaks to the need for workplaces to have prominent and enforced codes of conduct, along with fair processes for dealing with any incidents. Of course, architects and consulting engineers do not operate in silos. Survey responses indicated that discrimination comes from people external to the workplace—including clients, contractors and project consultants—as well as from colleagues and members of senior leadership. Individuals who aim to progress in their careers are expected to build strong relationships with clients, yet clients may discriminate against them based on gender, age, race or sexual orientation. This highlights the fact that this is an industry issue—not only a workplace one. Jobseekers indicated discrimination in their search for employment. In 2013, the Ontario Human Rights Commission outlined how employers and regulatory bodies must not discriminate against internationally trained immigrant professionals. However, this survey found that having “no Canadian experience” remained a key barrier to employment for these professionals. Many respondents—even those educated in Canada—indicated that they have changed their names on job applications to mitigate the impact of bias in the recruitment process. Another potential barrier for AED jobseekers is a dependence on peer networks. Many jobs are not posted publicly, or people with connections are given preference. When asked where they first learned of their current role, 41% of employed respondents stated that it was “Through a personal or professional contact” and only 22% stated that it was “Through a public job posting.” This phenomenon has been identified in the AED sector in the United States and the United Kingdom as well. Although peer networks will likely always play a role in recruitment, relying solely on them limits the pool of candidates that firms attract. Flawed recruitment practices can also result in an underdeveloped employer brand.

Q: Have you experienced discrimination in the workplace in the last twelve months?

26%

48%

YES, I HAVE BEEN SUBJECT TO IT YES, I HAVE WITNESSED IT YES, I HAVE BOTH WITNESSED IT AND BEEN SUBJECT TO IT

16% 10%

Q: What form of discrimination have you experienced in the workplace? (% is of those who have experienced discrimination) SEXISM AGEISM RACISM ETHNICITY BEING A PARENT SEXUAL HARASSMENT HOMOPHOBIA RELATIONSHIP STATUS RELIGION ABLEISM TRANSPHOBIA

80% 54% 37% 30% 27% 26% 20% 18% 12% 10% 8%

Every individual and organization will have its own approach to necessary change. For years, architecture firms—and indeed, most service sector businesses—have acknowledged that their employees are their greatest resource. The work of supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace is about ensuring that all persons have the resources, opportunities and relationships to contribute meaningfully and to grow. As the architecture profession actively seeks to become more diverse, employers will benefit from starting meaningful change early. Doing so will give them a competitive advantage in attracting the best of the current and future members of the architectural workforce. This work cannot be done by employers alone, however. Many of these issues reflect the culture of the industry and broader, systemic barriers. For several years, DEI efforts have been led by organizations like Building Equality in Architecture (BEA), the Black Architects and Interior Designers Association (BAIDA), and the 30x30 Women in Engineering initiative by Engineers Canada. These are incredible organizations, communities and initiatives to support and connect with, and they deserve much of the credit for the progress the industry has seen over the years. Supporting diversity and inclusion ultimately requires individuals— regardless of their formal leadership position or personal authority—to develop their own knowledge, skills and awareness. The goal is its own reward: building respectful, genuine relationships with colleagues and clients alike, and contributing to improving the industry. Russell Pollard is a consultant on workplace culture, leadership and inclusion for professional services firms and is active as a volunteer and guest speaker in the construction industry. He can be reached at russell@frameworkleads.com.

All graphs courtesy Framework Leadership

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BOOKS

Slow Disturbance: Infrastructural Mediation on the Settler Colonial Resource Frontier Duke University Press, 2021 REVIEW Lola Sheppard and Mason White

At the end of the 19th century, off the rugged coast of Northern Labrador, a remarkable enterprise took place: an extensive network of health outposts, cooperative stores, and local industries was established to service the fisherfolk who settled and worked in these remote villages. The author of this expansive vision was Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, a British medical doctor, social reformer, author and entrepreneur. Grenfell first travelled along the coast of northern Newfoundland and Labrador in 1892, aboard a medical ship delivering urgently needed health services to isolated fishing settlements. Shocked by the lack of medical care for the settler fishing communities, he expanded the mission to establishing health outposts that were supported by numerous volunteer doctors and nurses. This eventually led to his creation of the International Grenfell Association (IGA) in 1914, which created greater economic stability and accountability for his growing ambitions. Beyond wanting to care for the physical health of fisherfolk, the Grenfell Mission

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also sought financial justice for the debt-based economy upon which Newfoundland fisheries were based. Grenfell’s efforts came as fisheries shifted from merchant to industrial capitalism. From the 1890s to 1930s, the IGA sought to bring the cooperative movement flourishing in the UK to the region. This would counter the structure of debt that effectively enslaved local fisherfolk to merchants. Over nine decades, through ongoing international outreach and fundraising, Grenfell and his successors oversaw the construction and operation of twenty seasonal and yearround hospitals and nursing stations, as well as schools, orphanages, cooperative stores and light industries such as lumber mills, community farms and handicraft manufacturing. This vast social and economic infrastructural network had the town of St. Anthony’s as its key centre of services. The Association eventually handed over all its medical services to provincial control in 1980. Slow Disturbance documents the Grenfell Mission’s build-out of medical infrastructure, its design of cooperative finance, its mapping of the North Coast of Labrador through experimental aerial surveying techniques, and its use of film for fundraising. Each medium is a notable part of the Mission’s impact. The book explores how resource frontiers get “made and unmade” through what author Rafico Ruiz terms “infrastructural mediation.”

In Ruiz’s analysis, each of the Grenfell Mission’s modes of infrastructure becomes a practice of communication: both to the local settler-fisher, as well as to a larger international audience of scientists, donors, politicians and the military. Ruiz is a media theorist and Associate Director of Research at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Although the Grenfell Mission built hospitals, docks, roads, and cooperative stores, Ruiz positions this as more than physical infrastructure. Grenfell and his team used the term “plant” to describe the operational capacity of these infrastructures. Ruiz notes that this term can also be understood as to found, to establish, to settle in a place, or to form a colony—all strategies to inhabit the Labrador Shore with a Christian-focused, settler-colonial presence. While the intention of the Grenfell Mission may have been oriented towards charitable works, all infrastructures have ongoing, material durations, which are intertwined with environment and societies, argues Ruiz. To this end, he offers an innovative methodological approach: the book sets up a critical scholarly argument, bracketed at front and back by interviews with people who grew up in (or had direct relationships with) the Mission. These interviews offer a vivid image of daily life in its outposts. The book’s text is complemented by numerous maps, aerial

PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

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PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

The International Grenfell Association used many different media to document its work in creating infrastructure along the coast of Northern Labrador. These two images are from a 1920s collection of magic lantern slides, and were used by Grenfell during fundraising lectures in Canada and the United States. The slides were intended to illustrate the needs of the region and the work of the Association.

LEFT

photos, and stills from the films produced by the Mission as part of their outreach and fundraising. These spatial and visual artefacts are evidence of the many forms of mediation that were at work. The book’s title, Slow Disturbance, refers to anthropologist Anna Tsing’s description of interspecies collaborations which emerge from “contaminated diversity”—as well as humandisturbed ecosystems that have adapted, and in which biodiversity remains comparatively high. For Ruiz, the phenomenon of slow disturbance can be used to understand how the Grenfell Mission’s infrastructure and architecture reshaped the social and economic fabric of settler communities. This disturbance has effectively rewritten our geographic and environmental understandings of this region. Leveraging the work of media theory, Ruiz extends economic historian Harold Innis’s classic description of Canada’s economy as dependent on extractive “staples” such as fur, lumber, and fish. For Ruiz, this was not merely a process of economic transformation, but one intimately tied to the settler-colonial project, intertwining people, geography and environment in an evolving, durational set of spatiosocial relationships. Infrastructural mediation also took the form of visual and spatial knowledge-gathering and dissemination. Part of Grenfell’s goal was to survey the northernmost coast of Labrador,

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known as Meta Incognita, or “unknown shore.” The survey “Northern Labrador mapped from the Air” developed at the instigation of Grenfell, employed the novel tool of oblique aerial photography. The maps created would allow for safer summer fishing in previously uncharted water. However, the same method later became a powerful tool for military reconnaissance: local innovations were bound together with larger mediative phenomena. Ruiz’s study also touches upon the mediation that occurred through the Grenfell Mission’s films, which vividly document sealing activities, infrastructures, and its social projects. These films were made to depict the Mission’s good works and establish the material need of local fisherfolk. Although Slow Disturbance may best be filed under media studies, the book makes powerful observations on architecture and infrastructure as mediums—something that architectural theorist Keller Easterling has written about extensively, including in her recent book Medium Design (2021). Easterling argues that design in any “medium”—whether a biological, technological or political milieu—is “the design of interdependencies, chemistries, chain reactions.” For Easterling, the nonphysical has physical consequences. Conversely, Slow Disturbance positions the construction of the built environment within a broader creation of political, social and economic relations and struc-

tures. For Ruiz, building a physical “plant” inevitably entangles questions of communication, mediation and place. Indeed, the Grenfell Mission’s impact went far beyond the construction of hospitals. It was a comprehensive act of “world-making” in ways only possible in the 19th and early 20th century. One might understand the Grenfell Mission as part of the legacy of utopian social visions such as Tony Garnier’s Cité Industrielle—but operating at a much larger territorial scale. It was strongly shaped by Christian and settler values of care and charity, and the creation of permanent settlement—yet another of many slow disturbances in that period of history. Ruiz consistently refers to the Grenfell Mission as an infrastructural “story” or “narrative,” and this characterization is significant to understanding settler-colonial histories during the present moment of reckoning. These stories need to be rewritten and told again to truly understand infrastructure’s impact on geography and people. Lola Sheppard is Professor of Architecture at the University of Waterloo. Mason White is Professor of Architecture at the University of Toronto. Together, they are co-founders of the architecture practice Lateral Office, based in Toronto, which focuses on architecture’s capacity for community empowerment in rural and northern communities.

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BOOKS

HUFTON+CROW. COURTESY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century By Matthew Soules. Princeton Architectural Press, 2021

Sick City: Disease, Race, Inequality and Urban Land By Patrick M. Condon, 2021 REVIEW

Adele Weder

The axiom “form follows finance” is not new, but its effect on architecture and affordability is undeniably at a crisis point. Two new books on the subject, both by professors in the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, aspire to unpack the effects of this phenomenon on the shape and operation of big cities. (Disclosure: I have collaborated on past editorial projects with both authors.) Matthew Soules’ Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century explores the visibly tangible effects of a globalized economy. Its title references three of the most unsettling new architectural formats generated by the global commodification of real estate.

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And that’s just the hook: the bracing reality is that finance capitalism determines the shape of our built environment far more than any red-blooded architect would care to admit. “Icebergs” are created by those who, having maxed out their allowable height and footprint, go deep underground—several storeys, in fact—to the point where the structure we see above ground level is just the quasi-literal tip of the proverbial iceberg. In London, England—where the super-wealthy are not content to be confined to expensive-but-narrow Victorian townhouses—ruthless, shrewd property owners take advantage of the fact that conventional building codes restrict height, but not depth. “Zombies” are houses and condo units left vacant by absentee speculators who buy them not to live in or rent out, but to hold, like gold ingots in Fort Knox. The term “ultra-thin” applies to those buildings whose height is proportionally much greater than their footprint, yielding a pencil-thin tower of penthouses. That’s the kind of residential unit that is, in moral terms, the least needed and yet the most profitable—hence its proliferation. It’s useful to understand just why and how architecture mutated to create these products of architectural Darwinism. At this, Soules excels. He unpacks not just the market logistics that have led to these mutations, but also

the broader political economy that drives them. The Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Mortgage-Backed Securities that emerged in the 1980s have facilitated the commodification of shelter, allowing legions of middleclass and affluent investors to pool resources, feeding the corporate beast of mega-developments and mass holdings of rental buildings. The new semiotics of wealth include such creations as Vancouver House, the twisting tower designed by Bjarke Ingels Group with DIALOG. The sales package for its individual luxury units included a promise to donate housing to needy Cambodians, like a medieval Pope’s swap of indulgences for church donations. But the architecture of Vancouver House won’t necessarily be used as housing, luxury or otherwise. “This top-heavy building transforms from a triangular plan at its base to a rectangular plan up top—a formal metamorphosis that increases the most expensive and profitable floor area at its apex,” observes Soules. “While enhancing profitability, the sculptural dynamism masks an absence of lived vitality. If its usage follows existing patterns, its upper units will be owned but will sit empty for much of the time, while the form itself minimizes the more modestly priced units that are most likely to be regularly inhabited. It is a dead space masquerading as dynamic—a kind of animated zombie.”

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COLLECTION OF NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

Condominium towers, including Zaha Hadid Architects’ One Thousand Museum (second from left), 2020, in downtown Miami. ABOVE In this 1914 postcard image, a billboard created as political performance art illustrates the problem of inflating land values. Political economist Henry George argued that land values should be taxed to recapture their value and reduce incentives toward land speculation.

OPPOSITE

Over eight chapters, the extent to which our capitalist society determines architectural form is clearly and concisely laid bare. “Like any discipline, architecture possesses internal logics and cultures that are unique to itself […] those internalities can be said to be autonomous,” writes Soules. But, he avers, “I believe they have no meaningful autonomy from the workings of capitalism.” In much the same spirit, Patrick M. Condon observes with horror the current political economy and its effect on our communities. In Sick City: Disease, Race, Inequality and Urban Land, he delves well beyond architectural form to attack the political basis of land use and ownership. Where Soules has observed the architectural travesties as though circling the globe on a satellite, Condon gets down into the trenches, into the minutiae of zoning bylaws and municipal tax structures that exacerbate class disparity and undermine individual well-being. The book focuses on the United States, although, as Condon acknowledges in a preface to the Canadian edition, the same inequities he outlines plague our own metropolises, particularly Toronto and Vancouver. Condon outlines the inherent problems created by “land Rent”—the formal economic valuation of land in both the short and long terms, which he capitalizes to distinguish it

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from the ordinary rent that people pay to live and work in a place. The instrumentalization of land Rent (for instance, through REITS) exacerbates inequality among races and social classes—in housing, healthcare, and community life. Conventional planning and zoning do little or nothing to help, and in many cases make matters worse through public policies that ultimately favour speculation over habitation. Most trenchantly, Condon blows apart the speciously self-serving argument of the development industry—often mindlessly adopted by municipalities—that increasing the housing supply automatically increases affordability. That fallacy relies on an overtly simplistic reading of the law of supply and demand, as though houses are cranberries or other locally sold, non-essential products. Condon plunges into the statistical complexities of global and local land-use economics in daunting detail, with varying degrees of clarity. In his preface, Condon notes that because of the urgency of the subject, he “resolved to write this book in months rather than years.” That haste is evident in the finished product. It’s hard to criticize a call for social and racial equality, especially since this author has served as an insightful, brave and sometimes-misunderstood critic in the cacophony of commentary on this subject. But the very importance of his argu-

ment calls for a constructively honest critique—so here goes. This book would be far more effective and influential if—like a building or a city—it were structured and designed more carefully. It does not appear to have had the benefit of a substantive editor or graphic designer. The book’s serifed font is not reader-friendly, and the annotations of its charts, graphs and maps are reproduced at a size and resolution that makes them almost unreadable in places, and certainly less compelling than if reproduced at an appropriate scale and resolution. These graphic shortcomings are not mere trifles. If part of an author’s claim to authority includes a grounding in design—urban, architectural, or other—it’s hard to captivate and convince a wider readership when the design of the book itself is mediocre. A revamping of any further editions would be a great idea. In the meantime, Condon is generously offering the electronic version of this book for free and is selling the physical version at cost, he notes in the preface. We can hope that his most salient arguments can reach and compel some emerging scholars to further investigate the root causes of urban economic disparity, now and in the future. Architectural curator and critic Adele Weder is a Contributing Editor to Canadian Architect.

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BACKPAGE

COURTESY NIAGARA PARKS

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21

NIAGARA SPECTACLE TEXT

Christine Leu

A NEW SOUND-AND-LIGHT SHOW BRINGS THE FORMER NIAGARA PARKS POWER STATION TO LIFE. The draw of Niagara Falls is powerful. The sight and sounds of water crashing over the edge of the escarpment into the gorge below was thought, in the Romantic Era, to evoke passion and terror—qualities of the sublime. In subsequent decades, the location’s appeal expanded with the addition of a variety of sideshow attractions and touristic facilities, from hotels to casinos. That culture of entertainment has continued to the present day. Its latest addition is the playful light-and-sound show Currents, presented by Niagara Parks and multimedia designer Thinkwell, and housed within the Niagara Parks Power Station. Recently renovated and opened to the public, the Niagara Parks Power Station was designed by William Birch Rankine to harness the power of the Horseshoe Falls. Inaugurated on January 1, 1905 by the Canadian Niagara Power Company, the historic generator hall once produced thousands of kilowatts of energy. The decommissioned space is the backdrop for an interactive nighttime display that traces the site’s history, from the presence of Indigenous

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Peoples, to the innovations of power generation within the building, to a contemporary portrayal of people as a source of energy. As an architect, to me the remarkable building and its engineering innovations were intriguing in themselves. But the engaging of architecture with projections in Currents was unique. Some of the show’s strongest moments were when the building’s arched windows were reimagined as portals to an under-the-falls experience, with water rushing down the sides. The dreamy and serene quality of water was conveyed through illuminated pixels, washing around the feet of audience members. In another sequence, the large generators within the space were internally illuminated and activated, helping move the show beyond walls and f loors as projection surfaces into a spatial experience. I found myself wondering whether the engaging qualities of such a show could have applications for our industry. Describing a projected future is nothing new for architects. Architectural drawings, renderings, and

ABOVE A multimedia show in a 100-year-old generator hall helps visitors to visualize the site’s history—as well as its possible futures.

now virtual reality graphically communicate the architect’s vision—whether it be a building, a city, or beyond. Using light and sound within an existing building holds new possibility in conveying the power of a design concept within a three-dimensional space. It is not a far leap to imagine an architect leading a client into a building and, instead of rolling out drawings or donning a VR set, turning off the lights to start a show. After Currents ended, I wandered towards the mist and roar of the Falls. It was a lovely summer night, and I wanted to see one of Canada’s most famous natural wonders, as I had done so many times as a youngster, whenever relatives from abroad came to visit. Peering over the edge of the same metal handrail from my youth, I felt the same delicious rush of terror, as I stared into the dark, rushing waters. Architect Christine Leu is co-founder of public art practice LeuWebb Projects. She is also a sessional instructor at Ryerson University (renaming in progress).

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Canadian Architect November 2021

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