Canadian Architect October 2017 by IQ Business Media

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META-DESIGN

CANADIAN ARCHITECT

OCTOBER 2017

THE ARCHITECTURE OF ARCHITECTURE SCHOOLS

NIC LEHOUX

08 VIEWPOINT

Graham Livesey reflects on the new accreditation values for Canadian architecture schools.

11 NEWS

Solar-powered dwelling, Venice Biennale, GG call for submissions, remembering Selwyn Pullan.

16 INSITES

The threat looming over a significant Vancouver industrial building is part of a wider problem.

38 REVIEW

What we can still learn from Frank Lloyd Wright, especially in Canada.

19 TURNING FULL CIRCLE Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at U of T TEXT Ken Greenberg

29 BAUHAUS OF THE NORTH McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University TEXT David Fortin

43 BOOKS

BOB GUNDU

Jill Stoner on the poetry of space; Oliver Neumann on digital design.

48 CALENDAR

Design-related events across Canada and internationally.

50 BACKPAGE

Living Architecture Systems Group begets the Astrocyte COVER Architect Nader Tehrani (at left) and Dean Richard Sommer in the University of Toronto’s new Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Photo by Nic Lehoux.

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THE NATIONAL REVIEW OF DESIGN AND PRACTICE / THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE RAIC

17-10-03 11:30 AM

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

VIEWPOINT

EDITOR (2017-2018) ADELE WEDER, HON. MRAIC EDITOR (ON LEAVE) ELSA LAM, MRAIC ART DIRECTOR ROY GAIOT ASSISTANT EDITOR STEFAN NOVAKOVIC

Studio at the McEwen School of Architecture, designed by LGA Architectural Parters.

BOB GUNDU

LEFT

Adaptive Learning The building that houses a school of architecture is a vital reflection of its pedagogy and values. It can be a signature building, like the Faculté d’aménagement à l’Université de Montréal by Saucier + Perrotte; or a sensitive renovation of a historic building, such as Université Laval’s school of architecture; or a virtual environment. But above all, a program’s approach must be able to adapt to change. Architecture schools have always required studio space, classrooms, workshops, galleries and offices. Now they need something more. In recent years, digital fabrication and digitally oriented studios have expanded the basic design requirements. At the University of Calgary— where I teach design, architectural history and urban design theory—drafting tables were removed years ago, allowing students to work in open and collaborative environments. In the near future, online professional architectural education will be more prevalent. It is already offered at various schools in the United States, and is essential to the non-accredited RAIC Syllabus program and a pre-professional (Bachelor of Science in Architecture) option offered by Athabasca University in Alberta. Whether actual or virtual, architecture schools should be integrated into the communities they serve, as are the new buildings for the McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. LGA Architectural Partners’ handsomely robust modernism at Laurentian University is a stark contrast to NADAAA’s dramatically swooping forms embracing a heritage building at the University of Toronto, but both reflect a major investment in, and devotion to, the architectural principles taught at those schools. Our professional accreditation system parallels this with careful attention to the needs of student

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EDITORIAL ADVISOR IAN CHODIKOFF, OAA, FRAIC CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ANNMARIE ADAMS, FRAIC ODILE HÉNAULT DOUGLAS MACLEOD, NCARB, MRAIC REGIONAL CORRESPONDENTS HALIFAX CHRISTINE MACY, OAA REGINA BERNARD FLAMAN, SAA MONTREAL DAVID THEODORE CALGARY GRAHAM LIVESEY, MRAIC WINNIPEG LISA LANDRUM, MAA, AIA, MRAIC VICE PRESIDENT & SENIOR PUBLISHER STEVE WILSON 416-441-2085 x105

sand the profession. Despite what some perceive as the leveling tendencies of accreditation procedures, Canadian schools of architecture demonstrate a healthy range of approaches. The recently adopted 2017 Conditions and Terms of Accred itation developed by the Canadian Architectural Certification Board represents a productive collaboration between the Canadian profession (CALA) and schools of architecture (CCUSA). Over the last 25 years, although the basic Canadian curricula have remained the same, the evolving nature of practice and education has prompted significant changes, a process that began with the 1994 NAFTA agreement. These changes include an emphasis on “comprehensive” design, sustainable design, and the integration of digital technologies into the design process. New accreditation terms include policies for student well-being, respect for cultural diversity, stronger emphasis on design education (including digital design skills), training in urban design and understanding diverse modes of practice. New “Program Performance Criteria” focus on how a school teaches not just design but also technical skills, professional development, global perspectives, environmental stewardship, collaboration, leadership and community engagement. Today’s architectural graduates face many challenges, including a poorly structured internship process and low pay. Encouragingly, many recent graduates are entrepreneurial, finding other ways to employ their skills beyond conventional internship. The accreditation changes will help them prepare for further changes down the road. With the enrichment brought about by the accreditation updates, and with the benefit of architecture schools that invest directly in well-designed facilities, Canadian graduates will be better prepared than ever.

SALES MANAGER FARIA AHMED 416-441-2085 x106 CUSTOMER SERVICE / PRODUCTION LAURA MOFFATT 416-441-2085 x104 CIRCULATION CIRCULATION@CANADIANARCHITECT.COM PRESIDENT OF IQ BUSINESS MEDIA INC. ALEX PAPANOU HEAD OFFICE 101 DUNCAN MILL ROAD, SUITE 302 TORONTO, ON M3B 1Z3 TELEPHONE 416-441-2085 E-MAIL info@canadianarchitect.com WEBSITE www.canadianarchitect.com Canadian Architect is published monthly by iQ Business Media Inc.. The editors have made every reasonable effort to provide accurate and authoritative information, but they assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the text, or its fitness for any particular purpose. Subscription Rates Canada: $54.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; $87.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (HST – #80456 2965 RT0001). Price per single copy: $6.95. Students (prepaid with student ID, includes taxes): $27.00 for one year. USA: $105.95 US for one year. All other foreign: $125.95 US per year. Single copy US and foreign: $10.00 US. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Dept., Canadian Architect, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3. Postmaster: please forward forms 29B and 67B to 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302 Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3. Printed in Canada. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in full without the consent of the copyright owner. From time to time we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: Telephone 416-441-2085 x104 E-mail circulation@canadianarchitect.com Mail Circulation, 101 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 302, Toronto, ON M3B 1Z3 MEMBER OF THE CANADIAN BUSINESS PRESS MEMBER OF THE ALLIANCE FOR AUDITED MEDIA PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #43096012 ISSN 1923-3353 (ONLINE) ISSN 0008-2872 (PRINT)

Graham Livesey, MRAIC

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PROJECTS

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

NEWS

ABOVE Prototype shown to Montrealers before next summer’s competition in China.

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ABOVE

Phase I of the new 22-storey CHUM medical complex, which fills two city blocks.

CHUM medical complex opens in Montreal

The Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), designed by CannonDesign + NEUF architect(e)s, has finished the first phase of one of the largest healthcare construction projects in North America. Phase I of the ambitious public-private partnership delivers the hospital’s core healthcare capabilities, including all patient rooms, operating theatres, diagnostics, therapeutics and the oncology program, as well as some heritage conservation and public art within the project. A conference centre, additional offices, ambulatory spaces and parking will be completed in Phase II. www.cannondesign.com / www.neufarchitectes.com

Emily Carr University unveils new campus

Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver has opened a new purpose-built facility designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects. The 290,000 sq.ft. building contains interconnected program areas linked by lightfilled atria that create nodes of visual connection, transparency and social interaction. “Today’s opening marks the start of a new chapter for the University on a campus designed to facilitate learning and studio practices in the major disciplines in art, media, design and graduate studies,” said Dr. Ron

COURTESY OF EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN

Montreal-based Team MTL has unveiled Deep Performance Dwelling, a net-zero prototype that is headed to Dezhou next summer to represent Canada at the 2018 Solar Decathlon China. A multi-disciplinary consortium drawn from Montreal’s Concordia and McGill University students assisted by faculty, Team MTL will be one of 30 teams competing at this international housing design competition, held every five years to crown the most sustainable dwelling prototype. Team MTL has also announced Hydro-Québec as its lead sponsor, with a $250,000 contribution to fuel the project. Already having logged 18 months on the project, Team MTL will ship the prototype to Dezhou next July. During the two-month competition, the net-zero prototypes must meet the demands of everyday energy consumption and even charge an electric car. Throughout the summer, judges will benchmark contestants on ten metrics, including energy performance, air quality and water consumption. All prototypes must fit on a 25-m x 25-m.parcel of land. By building a narrow yet versatile dwelling, the design team hopes to stack the odds in its favour. One of the most distinctive qualities of the Deep Performance Dwelling is its svelte footprint, inspired by the city’s dense rows of townhouse multiplexes. At just five metres wide and able to accommodate up to six inhabitants, Team MTL’s Dwelling will make extremely efficient use of land. In fact, a tidy row of five Dwellingss could comfortably house up to 30 people in the allotted 625-sq.-m. area—roughly the size of two standard house lots. —Austin Macdonald

ADRIEN WILLIAMS

Montreal team unveils Solar Decathlon sustainable housing prototype

ABOVE Wilson Arts Plaza at newly completed Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Burnett, President + Vice-Chancellor of Emily Carr University. “The University’s emphasis is on innovation, new ideas and new practices that add value to Canadian and B.C. culture, industry and the arts in general.” The sustainable building incorporates energy and water-saving measures, and the f lexible nature of the space makes the building more easily adaptable to the evolving nature of arts disciplines. The team for this public-private partnership includes Chernoff Thompson Architects, the Government of British Columbia and Ellis Don Construction Company. www.dsai.ca

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NOTE:

WHAT’S NEW

COURTESY: DOUGLAS CARDINAL INC

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

NEWS

DENNIS HA PHOTOGRAPHY

ABOVE (Left to right) Douglas Cardinal, David Fortin and Gerald McMaster.

An Indigenous design team led by renowned architect Douglas Cardinal will represent Canada at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. At a Toronto press conference, Cardinal said the forthcoming Biennale project, called “UNCEDED”, would show “the true beauty and value of Indigenous Peoples.” The design team includes Anishnawbe Elders and co-curators Gerald McMaster and David Fortin, plus B.C.based architects Alfred Waugh and Patrick Stewart. At the press conference, Cardinal acknowledged the contribution of women in their traditionally matriarchical societies. Members of the selection committee were John Shnier, Lola Sheppard, Nancy Marie Mithlo and Eduardo Aquino. Canada Council for the Arts director and CEO Simon Brault called the project a “storng signal” of the growing appreciation around the world of Indigenous architecture and design from Canada. Brault said that the Canada Council will double its Biennale funding to $500,000. As Canada’s permanent pavilion is undergoing renovations, the project will be presented at the Arsenale in Venice from May 26 to November 25, 2018. www.djcarchitect.com

MARC CRAMER

Douglas Cardinal to lead design team at 2018 Venice Biennale

“Festival Facade,” the projection series that lit up the Vancouver Art Gallery. Shown here: the projection by artist Rebecca Chaperon. ABOVE “Havre,” public art by Montreal artist Linda Covit.

TOP

AWARDS AND HONOURS

www.canadacouncil.ca

Canadian design teams win at CODAworx Call for Submissions for GG Medals

The RAIC and Canada Council for the Arts are calling for submission for the 2018 GovernorGeneral’s Medals in Architecture. The biennial awards recognize and celebrate outstanding design in recently built projects by Canadian architects. Peer assessment committee members this year are David Fortin, Andrew Frontini, Adele Weder, Andrea Wolff and Róisín Heneghan. Deadline for submissions is 4 p.m. EST on December 1. www.raic.org www.canadacouncil.ca

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Design teams across the country received CODAworx awards for the skillful fusion of art and space. The international awards recognize the integration of art into interior, architectural or public spaces. In Montreal, a design team led by Montreal artist Linda Covit won in the Healthcare category for “Havre,” a monumental artwork fronting the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. Havre is a large illuminated sculpture of slender aluminum bands, built on a budget of $750,000. The design team also included

lighting consultant Jean Laurin, fabricator Michel Bernier, installer Formaviva, and structural engineers Nicolet, Chartrand, Knoll Ltee. Toronto-based II By IV Design won in the Residential category “Minto 30Roe,” a faceted lobby screen of plastic laminate and polycarbonate that incorporates a concierge desk and banquette to animate a Toronto apartment building. Vancouver-based Burrard Arts Foundation, Adrian Scott and Go2Productions won in the Institutional category for “Façade Festival,” a transformation of the Vancouver Art Gallery façade with a weeklong series of projections of work by five local contemporary artists. www.codaworx.com/awards

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PASSING

ABOVE Moriyama Prize winner Fuji Kindergarten in Tokyo, Japan, by Tezuka Architects.

Fuji Kindergarten win $100,000 Moriyama RAIC International Prize

Tezuka Architects’ Fuji Kindergarten is the winner of the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize. Located in Tokyo, the Fuji Kindergarten is a single-storey, oval-shaped school that can accommodate over 600 children running freely around its open-air roof. The building is designed to support the Montessori education method, which encourages independence, and for a climate that allows the children to be outdoors much of the year. The $100,000 prize celebrates a work of architecture that ref lects architect and prize founder Raymond Moriyama’s conviction that great architecture is capable of transforming society. Canadian Architect will publish a feature interview with Tezuka in connection with the award in its November issue. www.raic.org www.tezuka-arch.com

MEMORANDA The Missing Middle competition produced by Urbanarium has extended its deadline to November 10. The open design competition is calling for new options to address the Vancouver area’s affordability and social-health challenges with design and social innovation.

Architectural photographer Selwyn Pullan did not merely document West Coast Modernism; he helped create it. Often thought of as Canada’s answer to Julius Shulman, Pullan created many of the definitive images of the works of John Porter, Ned Pratt, Arthur Erickson, Fred Hollingsworth, Ron Thom, Barry Downs and other giants of the field. In fact, his work helped them to become giants in the first place. Pullan studied photography with Ansel Adams from 1948 to 1950 at the Art Center in Los Angeles. He would later describe his training under Adams as a pivotal experience in his development as a photographer, attributing the exceptional tonal range and sharpness of his black and white photographs to his early instructor and mentor. After his studies in California, Pullan returned to Canada despite multiple job offers, in accordance with his war veterans’ education grant requirement. After a year freelancing in Halifax, Pullan moved to Vancouver and began his career as an architectural photographer, just as midcentury modernism was gaining momentum. Like the architects whose work he captured with his handmade 4x5 camera, Pullan understood how to manipulate light and form. His work graced the pages of professional journals like Canadian Architect and Progressive Architecture, but also mainstream magazines like Western Homes & Living, which helped a lay readership appreciate the new architecture. Late in life, Pullan received recognition as an artist with a retrospective exhibition at the West Vancouver Museum and a lavish monograph, Selwyn Pullan: Photographing Mid-Century West Coast Modernism (Douglas & McIntyre, 2012), spearheaded by curator Kiriko

PHOTO OF SELWYN PULLAN BY KEN DYCK

Selwyn Pullan, 1922-2017

TEZUKA ARCHITECTS

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

NEWS

Watanabe. As Watanabe wrote in the monograph, “Pullan’s photographs not only reflect the social fabric of Vancouver’s past, but also give nostalgic memories of the disappeared.” Among his surviving kin are friends and family, and his life partner, Margaret Redpath. —Adele Weder West Vancouver houses immortalized by Selwyn Pullan: Arthur Erickson’s Graham residence and Ron Thom’s Forrest residence.

BELOW

The Indigenous Housing Canada Ideas Competition, organized by Architects Without Borders Canada, is accepting submissions until November 14 at 2:00 pm CST. the competition will announce its winners in February. www.awb-winnipeg.com

The submission deadline for the Wood Design & Building Awards is November 21 at midnight PST. The Wood Design & Building Awards program honours excellence in wood architecture for built projects across Canada. www.cwc.ca

SELWYN PULLAN; COURTESY OF THE WEST VANCOUVER MUSEUM

www.urbanarium.org/missing-middle-competition

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INSITES

ANDREW LATRIELLE PHOTOGRAPHY

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

ON BORROWED TIME TEXT

Adele Weder

ARCHITECTURE HAS TRANSFORMED INDUSTRIAL ZONES INTO ART HAVENS— IN VANCOUVER, ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES FACES THE WRECKING BALL

Is the sun setting on Canada’s industrial vernacular architecture? It’s a question now swirling across the country as big cities transition their local economies from manufacturing into real estate arbritrage. In Vancouver, an area known as the False Creek Flats is shaping up as the site of the city’s next heritageversus-development squabbling. Here, where the new Emily Carr University of Art + Design lords over the land, neighbouring warehouses have evolved into artists’ studios and galleries—and may be on the verge of further evolution, if not outright extinction. A few dozen metres from the huge new art school’s main foyer is a 1964 building once owned by Finning Tractor Ltd, which serviced the workhorse machinery of British Columbia’s forestry, mining and construction sectors. A monolith of masonry, it used to be a paint and welding shop, and, years after decommissioning, was transformed between 2011 and 2013 by Measured Architecture (the Equinox Gallery) and D’Arcy Jones Architecture (the adjacent Monte Clarke Gallery). These days, the building showcases artists who are both international names and local heroes, including Fred Herzog, Gordon Smith, Kim Dorland, Roy Arden and Stephen Waddell. Its public

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openings are socio-demographic mixers, where threadbare students and artists commingle with critics, curators, patrons and buyers, along with lay citizens who just come to see the art and have a good time. But the building happens to sit on the very spot that government and transportation officials have decided to carve out a station for their proposed new Broadway subway line extension. The gallery owners have been put on notice that by 2019, the Finning building might transform once again, to a crater in the ground. The pushback has begun in earnest by supporters who feel that that the very presence of this industrial architecture has helped make the neighbourhood newly liveable and desirable. In the March 2014 edition of Canadian Architect, reviewer Steve DiPasquale described the Equinox as “a series of white cubic volumes, carefully placed to float within the existing masonry shell.” Of the Monte Clark Gallery, DiPasquale enthused about the robust glory of the gallery’s ground floor: “Gouged, pocked and stained by years of maintenance on heavy machines, the building’s original concrete is a delightfully varied terrain excavated from beneath several inches of industrial paint.” DiPasquale concluded his review with hope that the Flats would “continue to develop into a welcome complement to the city’s tyranny of the new.” Here’s hoping—for the Flats, and elsewhere.

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ANDREW LATRIELLE PHOTOGRAPHY

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

Exterior of the Equinox and Monte Clark galleries ; images from vintage brochure ABOVE LEFT Brochure photo showing original buildings (future gallery at top left of photo). ABOVE Interior of Equinox Gallery, with owner Andy Sylvester (foreground) and staff. BELOW Exhibition area and main foyer at Monte Clarke Gallery.

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PROJECT Daniels Building for the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto ARCHITECTS NADAAA with Adamson Associates, ERA Architects and Public Work TEXT Ken Greenberg PHOTOS John Horner

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FRONT ELEVATION

BACK ELEVATION

Established in 1890, University of Toronto’s architecture school—of which I am an alumnus—has migrated to several makeshift locations over the years before landing in a purpose-built building. It has finally found its permanent home as the new Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto in a remarkable feat of formmaking, site planning and city building. The lead architects, Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner of Boston-based NADAAA, apply the metaphor of “landscape” to the whole project, describing it as an occupy-able ground plane of layered strata whose topography has been manipulated inside and out, seemingly enlarging the terrain. Working with local architects Adamson Associates, heritage architects ERA and landscape architects Public Work, they seized as an opportunity to reshape the edge of the campus–from hard border to interlacing blurred boundary, fluid and interpenetrating. The circle known as One Spadina Crescent had been an idiosyncratic punctuation point and 19th-century touch of gentility in a patchwork of streets stitched together in a quasi-grid. Until now this circle has projected the unfulfilled promise of something special. In the postwar era, it was neglected and largely inaccessible, swallowed by streetcars and then car traffic. Now seen with fresh eyes as the emphasis shifts from auto-dominance to pedestrian life, its shift from introversion to extroversion is a civic invitation to the larger community. It is fitting that the urban design catalyst for the western edge of the campus should be an architecture school. The reframing of the periphery revives the suppressed relationships of this campus corner on all sides of the circle: the prominent south-facing Spadina Avenue axis is celebrated with a raised belvedere and event space. A generous promenade circumnavigates the building within the circle. Five enhanced crossings of the traffic “moat” and ample bike parking extend the welcome mat inviting the public into the circle. These convivial gestures speak to a new understanding of the university’s place in the city as committed steward and active contributor. The formerly “blind” northern face of the building transforms from a back to a new front, re-engaging in dialogue with the city on all sides. From within the building, strategically placed openings offer 360 degree glimpses of the city outside, creating the pleasurable sensation of being in a ship moored off the edge of the campus. One enters that ship effortlessly through beckoning “portals” bringing the shared sense of the street indoors. Inside, much of the space is defined in plan and section by undulations in the f loor, wall and ceiling that create subtly defined and f luidly interconnected places. No opportunity to use space has been wasted. Defeating the traditional drive to maximize the net-to-gross floor area ratio, “unbounded” circulation spaces are also fitted out as the important spaces of learning The historic Knox Building is now integrated into the new structure. The site posed a special challenge for meaningful heritage preservation that acknowledges the cultural memory of the university. LEFT Exterior and elevations. Drawings courtesy of NADAAA. OPPOSITE Stairway-seating leads to the upper grad studio in the new building. PREVIOUS PAGE

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and gathering. The lower level is exposed by the earth “heaving” down to true ground, exposing and making it habitable. As Faulkner and Tehrani tell it, the visible surface is like the tip of the iceberg, revealing only part of what is usable space below. Tehrani explains that the architects, in close collaboration with Dean Richard Sommer, conceived of the building as kind of a “factory,” a foil for the work of the students themselves. This led to considerations of when to be generic, when figurative and when recessive. The result is respectful and strikingly new, restrained and yet dramatic. The interior layout challenges traditional silos, focusing on the rituals of dialogue around the “crit,” wherein design students present their work for scrutiny and discussion in a semi-public forum visible to observers from many vantage points. Its large column-free space covered by a cantilevered, canopy-like roof suggests a great range of ways to expand, contract and combine programs with a generous margin of flexibility appro-

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ABOVE The graduate studio’s unique clerestories generate a dramatic spatial narrative and extensive daylighting. BOTTOM RIGHT The main floor features an expansive entrance foyer and locker area.

AXONAMETRIC OF ROOF LINE

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The stacks section of the library in the new building. The V-shaped brace supports the bleachers in the Principal Hall. ABOVE Within the historic structure, the interior is elegantly transformed and contemporized into another library section, plus offices and gathering areas. TOP RIGHT The Fabrication Laboratory—or “FabLab,” as it is known. BOTTOM RIGHT Floor plans courtesy of NADAAA . On the subgrade level (not shown), a public gallery will serve as an anchor for the emerging “design arts district.” As lecture venue and specialized exhibition space, it is expected to encourage debate and public interest in architecture, landscape and design after its completion next year. OPPOSITE

open to below

priate to our time. The invitation to discussion is enhanced and dignified by the building itself in a variety of welcoming “spaces of appearance” in the studios and meeting areas enriching the opportunity to participate, broadened by the diverse student programs, interdisciplinary collaboration and increased community outreach and public programming. The addition’s unusual shape has a powerful logic. The circle’s very completeness, disconnection and inward focus had projected a level of remove and aloofness. Within it, the neo-Gothic Knox College building had a clear front and back, but its rectilinear symmetry did not address its 360-degree context. The new expansion engages with Knox College beyond its original footprint with a simple and brilliant move, by extending rear lateral “wings” to frame and complete an implied but never realized interior “courtyard.” The architects ultimately embraced symmetry, while subtly inflecting the north-facing addition with the asymmetrical forces of context—the University campus on the east side and the residential neighbourhood on the west side. Mitigating the singular frontal orientation of the historic structure are the penetrations on the east-west axis of Russell Street described to me by Tehrani as a little like “entering the building through the ears, not the nose.” A looping circulation system frames this new collective space, above the Flex Hall, a large auditorium for school and university community. This is all accomplished within a simple box, economical and compact, superficially banal but in fact spatially intricate providing low-ceilinged cavelike spaces of intimacy within larger organic cavern-like volumes that allow for overlook and a visual connection with the daily life pulse of the school. In combination, these design moves introduce a fine-grained permeability to the site, creating a city-like microcosm within a building. The project carries on a rich architectural conversation across a century and a half. The old—orthogonal and heavily grounded, with cellular rooms of Gothic verticality—is in ardent dialogue the new: f luid, fractal, curvilinear, warped and interpenetrating. At the “ joint,” the

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open to below

SECOND FLOOR GRAD STUDIO

FACULTY / ADMIN OFFICES

GRAD CLASSROOM

STUDENT OFFICE / LOUNGE

GRAD CRIT ROOM

GROUND FLOOR GRAD STUDIO

UNDERGRAD STUDIO

GRAD CLASSROOM

UNDERGRAD LOUNGE

GRAD CRIT ROOM

FLEXIBLE SPACE

FACULTY / ADMIN OFFICES 0

10M

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The historic areas are all treated sparely, but boldly reveal the original surfaces and clearly delineate contemporary interventions.

above and right

CMY

linking elements frame a shared collective passageway. In the new wing, abstracted echoes of the neo-Gothic subtly tie the whole composition together while conveying a contrasting lightness, transparency and luminosity in the night view. The building’s complex multi-layered roof is its pièce de resistance. Inspired by the Scottish trussed bridge Firth of Forth, says Tehrani, it is a highly performative “roofscape,” combining daylight openings within the deep floor plate, water management and space-shaping structure. Its undulating warped form creates natural clerestories that shed tempered and variegated light on the studios and public spaces below. Its north-facing windows exploit opportunities for natural daylighting, producing energy savings. For additional sustainability, the building incorporates stormwater harvesting for grey-water needs and irrigation; its white roof reduces energy by reflecting rather than absorbing sunlight. What we see today is the first of a two-phase project to renovate and expand the iconic existing building and site for the current needs of the Daniels Faculty, while allowing for future expansion and inevitable changes of pedagogy. The ultimate measure of its success will be its ability to be interpretable over time. Its open plan and flexibility embody the lessons inherent in Stuart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. Richly layered, highly articulated and spatially remarkable, the new Daniels Faculty projects a great balance of challenge, enticement and humility. Ken Greenberg, FRAIC is a Toronto-based urban designer, teacher and principal of Greenberg Consultants.

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Client University of Toronto | Architect Team NADAAA—Katherine Faulkner, Nader Tehrani, Richard Lee, Tom Beresford, John Houser, Amin Tadj, Tim Wong, Alda Black, Marta Guerra, James Juricevich, Parke Macdowell, Dane Asmussen, Jonathan Palazzolo, Laura Williams, Peter Sprowls, Noora Al Musallam, Tammy Teng, Wesley Hiatt, John Mars, Mazyar Kahali. era— Michael McClelland, Andrew Pruss, Julie Tyndorf, Alana Young, Tatum Taylor. Public Work—Michael McClelland, Andrew Pruss, Julie Tyndorf, Alana Young, Tatum Taylor. + Adamson Associates Architects | Structural Entuitive Corporation | Mechanical The Mitchell Partnership | Electrical Mulvey Banani International, Inc. | Landscape Public Work | Interiors NADAAA | Contractor Eastern Construction Company Ltd | Heritage Consultant ERA Architects | Building Envelope consultant Entuitive Corporation | Acoustics Aercoustics Engineering Ltd | Civil A. M. Candaras Associates, Inc. | Hardware Upper Canada Specialty Hardware, Ltd. | Area 6,500 m2 | Budget $69 M | Completion spring 2018

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B A U H OF THE A NORTH U S

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LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY’S NEW ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL BRINGS DESIGN EDUCATION TO SUDBURY

McEwen School of Architecture/École d’architecture McEwen at Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario ARCHITECT LGA Architectural Partners TEXT David Fortin PHOTOS Bob Gundu PROJECT

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When the Laurentian University McEwen School of Architecture officially opened on January 19 of this year, we celebrated the long-awaited event in keeping with the season and the community. Outside, LEDilluminated wigwam structures and laser-cut geometric assemblies built by students filled the snowy courtyards, while bonfires burned through-

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out the evening. Inside, students, faculty, staff, and community members packed into the home of Canada’s first new school of architecture in 40 years, and as the local Black Bull Moose Singers belted out songs to the beat of their thunderous drums, it confirmed for me that this was not going to be like any other school of architecture. It couldn’t be. When I first arrived in Sudbury in 2012 as a faculty candidate, I saw the city and region as a unique context for the study of architecture. The school would be situated not in a bustling urban centre or capital city, but a somewhat remote mid-size community known more for nickel mining and the Stompin’ Tom Connors song “Sudbury Saturday Night” than for its potential as a northern design hub. And while not very “northern” by latitude, the prominence of the Canadian Shield and multiple lakes scattered throughout Sudbury’s suburban

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and rural areas—including several First Nations communities—lucidly evokes “the North” in terms of a lived experience. Laurentian University’s triple mandate of embracing Anglophone, Francophone, and Indigenous cultures struck me as extraordinary in terms of framing a design curriculum. Having been raised in northern Saskatchewan and proud of my Métis heritage, I beheld the school’s northern emphasis and the opportunity to work alongside Indigenous Elders and colleagues as a truly unique opportunity. Now in preparation for my upcoming term as Director, I see more clearly than ever the importance of this mandate, not only for the community and the university, but also for design education in Canada. The school, which our founding director Terrance Galvin has described as Canada’s “northern Bauhaus,” opened in 2013 after a passionate com-

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FRO

ELM STREET

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ELGIN STREET

munity-led quest. Northern Ontario required a design school that could serve as both economic revitalizer and vibrant think tank, in the heart of downtown Sudbury. Northern-related topics such as the appropriate housing, Indigenous cultures; traditional and evolving northern lifestyles, wood construction, availability of resources, local ecologies and climate-change impact have all guided the program formation from its early community visioning exercises through the final curriculum development. It is the only school of architecture outside of Quebec to offer French-language studio courses, and the first to include offices for Indigenous Elders, who play a central role in the school. Designed by LGA Architectural Partners, the McEwen School of Architecture is thus the first Canadian architecture school of “the North.” The initial design challenge was to define what this meant, bal-

CEDAR

Canada’s first school of architecture of the North offers students an design education based on regional culture, with an emphasis on sustainability and on the development of expertise in wood.

SITE PLAN

50M

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Students gather in the bleachers of the Drawing Studio. ABOVE Atrium Bridge with steel plate guards leads toward the Library. OPPOSITE South end of the Library with a view to courtyard at right. The curtain wall facade with custom-fritted glazing over a CLT structural framework.

TOP

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ancing the goals set forth by the community while providing a state-ofthe-art facility for the 21st century. “As Canadians, we chose to celebrate the cultures co-existing in the Sudbury community—Indigenous, Anglophone and Francophone—to create a building and precinct that would simultaneously allow each cultural group to feel at home in the design or spatial aspects of the new school,” says design principal Janna Levitt. “The design is also universal, in that most places in the world are addressing the forces of climate change and grappling with how to create a compelling curriculum for a post-colonial society.” The design team first created a small downtown campus by repurposing the site’s two existing structures, one of them a two-storey brick building (the former CPR Ticket and Telegraph Building, built in 1914), transformed into faculty offices and a boardroom in Phase One; and the

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other a single-storey former rail shed turned indoor market, which first became the studio before transforming in Phase Two into what is now affectionately known as the Fabrication Laboratory, or FabLab. The site constraints, most notably the angled railway to the west, informs the overall arrangement of the buildings. While the CPR Telegraph building holds the eastern urban edge, the new buildings embrace a courtyard protected from prevailing winds but exposed to southern sun for year-round use. In the day-to-day activities of the school, the courtyard acts as a pivot, visible from all buildings and left mostly vacant for flexibility and outdoor programming. The landscape plan includes outdoor fabrication and assembly space next to the shop, as well as a circle marked in the pavers for future ceremonial fires. To optimize the building’s long-term performance, the design team

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factored in the region’s abruptly changing seasons, harnessing both passive and active systems in their approach, which aimed to transcend standard metrics. “We worked collaboratively with our project partners to develop what we named ‘The LAL Sustainability Manifesto,‘ a new framework with principles specifically designed for northern buildings,” says Levitt. “The parameters focus on conservation, passive survivability, and optimal flexibility to avoid future redundancies.” South-facing elevations of both the primary studio space and the library wing embrace the sunlight while north-facing walls have reduced openings. Digital screens will allow students to evaluate the building’s energy performance, and a green roof creates space for future study and analysis. Meanwhile, the raised floor throughout the Cross Laminated Timber library wing provides a modular infrastructure that can adapt to future service requirements.

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The exposure of structural, mechanical and electrical systems facilitates the school’s didactic role: students can learn about construction methods by walking through the buildings with a sketchbook. Lessons on heritage value and building techniques are also implicit in the CPR Telegraph Building, built of load-bearing walls with a brick exterior and punched windows. The former shed and market-turned-shop has heavy timber post-and-beam construction, with a century-old patina conveying its multiple past uses. The new studio wing is composed almost entirely of steel and concrete, while the library wing showcases CLT construction and the sustainable development of northern Ontario’s forestry industry. These spatial and material conditions allow for an appreciation of architectural qualities on a simple journey from one’s office or studio desk to the library or shop.

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Smaller details further amplify the building’s didactic role. The insulated metal panel walls provide multiple scattered surfaces where drawings can be “pinned up” with magnets. The “Crit Pit,” with its wooden bleachers, can be divided by moving the storage units with pinup boards on either side, but can also function as a large-scale performance or review space. Curious pedestrians often pause here to peek into the sunken room, deepening the school‘s relationship with the community. The project’s regional emphasis is clear. On any winter afternoon, a wood fire crackles in the hearth of the CLT-framed atrium, whose exposed details are oddly consistent with those of a traditional log cabin. As the train rattles by, students hover around laptops to discuss community-led projects in places like Chapleau, Powassan, Sault Ste. Marie,

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or Wahnapitae First Nation. In the next building, student groups weave together birch-bark canoes and plan ice-skating huts, or work on northern saunas, both with hand tools and digital fabrication. Occasionally, Elders lead small ceremonies to offer a prayer and smudge to our students, faculty and community members, in hopes of positive progress. While the full identity of the McEwen School of Architecture will unfold over many decades as we expand and mature, I sense that the infrastructure for this “northern” school, both pedagogically and architecturally, has met its initial challenge. This is already a school of architecture like no other, and it’s just getting started. David Fortin, MRAIC is Assistant Professor at the McEwen School of Architecture, Laurentian University, and becomes Director of the school in January 2018.

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Custom perforated metal screen for magnetic pin-up; library study carrel; steel brace supporting mezzanine level. above Undergrad Studio with mezzanine stairs in background. opposite, clockwise from top

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George Brown College

SAS

School of Architectural Studies

THE POWER OF DOING TOGETHER.

CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING PROGRAM

The architectural technology co-op program at SAS allows students to participate in a 4-month work experience made possible by industry partners willing to host and mentor students in a paid work term.

Thirty (30) co-op students accepted in the co-op program have qualified by way of a competitive divisional select process.

SAS offers an excellent hands-on curriculum with the ideal mix of design thinking, technical abilities and workplace skills. Combining architectural and team skills with a strong work ethic, co-op opportunities allow SAS students to apply school knowledge in practical work settings, hone important work skills, and begin to develop their career goals. Together with a strong knowledge of building code and building science, SAS students also possess a robust fluency in AutoCad® and Revit®.

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Work with the School of Architectural Studies to support your business and help our students gain valuable work experience.

Students must work a minimum 560 hours in order to earn their co-op credit Students must be in their co-op placement no later than Fall 2017 semester. Upon completion of required 560 hours, students are available for a “Flexible” work term through the months of January to April, by way of an arrangement directly between the student and the employer to work part-time while completing their final semester courses online. The Government of Ontario allows a tax credit for eligible businesses that hire students from George Brown College’s Co-operative Education Program. The co-operative education tax credit reimburses businesses up to a maximum of $2000 for each work placement.

SAS Co-op opportunities available Contact: ilotech@georgebrown.ca

INDUSTRY LIAISON OFFICE

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Co-op students are available for a 15-week work term from September to December.

More tax credit info at. http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/credit/cetc/

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p e

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FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 00/17

REVIEW

FRANK REVELATIONS TEXT

Adele Weder

Edited by Barry Bergdoll and Jennifer Gray, Frank Lloyd Wright: Unpacking the Archive is both an exhibition catalogue and an essay anthology that sheds light on how we should think of Wright now.

HOW FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S TALIESIN ARCHIVES CARRY NEW MEANINGS FOR OUR ERA

A discussion of the Frank Lloyd Wright legacy usually involves taking a side. Was he an anachronism from the start—as his critics snipe, “the greatest architect of the 19th century,” regardless of his long career in the 20th? Or, as some admirers insist, the greatest architect of any age, stymied only by the hegemony of the International Style? At New York’s Museum of Modern Art this fall, the exhibition “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive” and its accompanying catalogue disavow either extreme. The exhibition title itself carries a strong double meaning. Its contents have been literally unpacked after transport from Taliesin to Columbia University’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library—and curators Barry Bergdoll and Jennifer Gray have metaphorically unpacked some of the baggage weighing down the Wright legend. In walls and cases filled with historic renderings, they have included a few “greatest hits” (with the obligatory Fallingwater rendering), plus lesser-known works, including some that should make us wince. As it turns out, Wright’s archives bring social issues to the forefront, albeit not in a way that is always flattering to the Master. “Unpacking the Archive” suggests that while Wright may have offered few enduring solutions, he tackled important questions, including those that still resonate today. Such as this: How does one interpret a culture not of one’s own? The 1923-24 Indigenous-themed Nakoma Country Club in Madison, Wisconsin relays a design challenge is even more important today. Wright had intended to adorn the clubhouse with animal symbols borrowed from the 12 clans of the Winnebago tribe—

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“a design feature that would have added a degree of specificity to his American Indian references, since Winnebago peoples once inhabited the land around Madison,” the didactic panels inform us. But in the exhibition and catalogue, essayist Elizabeth Hawley also points out his careless interchangeability of “tipi”, “teepee” and “wigwam.” So what is the use of showcasing such sloppiness? Because in colonial countries around the world, and particularly in Canada in this Year of Reconciliation—we still grapple with how to handle words, images and facts related to the land’s diverse Indigenous nations. It is useful to see, in this informed and annotated context, the examples of how Wright tried to get things right, and what he got wrong, and why. And this: Sustenance, and the renewed interest in local farming. As frustrated communities watch the creeping land grab by successive governments and mansion-builders on the surrounding region’s farm-

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OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM Model of Davidson Little Farms Unit project, 1932-1933. RIGHT Rendering for interior of the 1923-24 Nakoma Country Club. BELOW Perspective drawings of Nakoma Memorial Gateway, Madison, Wisconsin, 1924, with cropped detail of title and project description.

lands, we can look at Wright’s little-known 1932-35 agricultural venture, Davidson Little Farms Unit. Its rectilinear layout, exhibited as a model with didactic panels, would be untenable for our land-starved time. But the yearning for agricultural self-sufficiency—very big in the starvation years of the Depression—is newly revived, thanks to the growing paucity of fertile land in our age of zealous real estate development. And this: Building Systems. Today’s architects continue to search for prefab solutions to ever-burgeoning housing needs. From Habitat 67 to more recent experiments with shipping containers, we are still flailing. Part of the challenge is that our need for replicable housing is at odds with our predilection to celebrate solitary-genius architects whose unique creations cannot be replicated, and Wright himself was caught in this paradox. For curator Bergdoll, the history lesson is clear: “The cult of genius got the upper hand over the concept of systems,” he said in an interview.

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INSITES

Site plan of Galesburg Country Homes, Michigan, 1946-49. Detail of 1956 press conference in Chicago unveiling the 6.7-metre-high rendering of the Mile-High Illinois skyscraper concept.

ABOVE LEFT

And, finally, this: Urbanism. Wright’s solutions involved sprawl and separation of uses, which Jane Jacobs would later show as misguided.But his concept of urban organization echoed that of his peers. And although Wright’s plan for country homes at Galensburg, Michigan, is no model of sustainability, it looks eerily beautiful, like a cluster of blood cells under a microscope. It reminds us that the seductive qualities of order— or semblance of it—can lure us away from the complex and sometimes messy-looking true urbanism. The bravura of the times reached its zenith with Wright’s Mile-High Illinois: a conceptual proposal for a skyscraper of that unfathomable height, to be built with a “taproot” construction system of continuous inner core rooted deeply underground. It was—and remains—a farcical concept. Its celebration is a sign of those times, and also of our own, as developers in Vancouver and Toronto forgo gentle densification in favour of sky-high towers. But it’s a tribute to Wright’s audacious imagination that six decades later, his tower scheme remains a mind-blowing concept. Wright famously sought beauty by way of graceful proportions and spatial complexity. In that realm, he usually succeeded. He was wrong about many things, along with the rest of his cohort. Nonetheless, both his triumphs and his failures have taught us much about the way homes, traffic, cities and human beings operate as part of larger systems—and for that we might be grateful. A visitor, pondering the self-assured drawings on MoMA’s walls, might well think: what are we taking as gospel in our own current thinking, that the next generations will laugh or sneer or groan at? Perhaps that will be the greatest take-away of all.

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ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES/THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/AVERY ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK. © 2017 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION, SCOTTSDALE, AZ.

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

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Join Canada’s A & D community for an evening of celebration @

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Canadian Architect and Canadian Interiors magazines are marking the 50th Awards of Excellence and the 20th Best of Canada Awards and are holding an Architecture & Design Party – a PARTi – to celebrate! PARTi will be an exclusive gathering of architects and interior design professionals: a chance to celebrate, network, reconnect and mingle with industry peers and colleagues.

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Two Books that explore the poetry of space

canadian architect 10/17

books

This Being by Ingrid Ruthig, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2016 Midway Radicals & Archi-Poems by Ted Landrum, Signature Editions, 2017 REVIEW BY jill stoner

Poems create space in multiple ways. Two recent books, Midway Radicals by Ted Landrum, and This Being by Ingrid Ruthig, are both by poets educated in architecture. Landrum is on the faculty of the School of Architecture at the University of Manitoba; Ruthig trained as an architect in the 1980s, but for decades has been a full-time writer and visual artist. Ruthig writes about space; Landrum writes with space. Ruthig uses conventional syntax to privilege content; Landrum engages in word play to privilege form. Taken together, the two books reveal something about the range and scope of both poetry and architecture. Ted Landrum’s poems look obscure and feel obscure, much like an architect’s construction drawings may appear to the uninitiated. And just like the verbal notations that help to explain architectural drawings, the notes compiled at the end of the book are essential to unraveling the mystery of words on the page. In the endnotes, Landrum reveals that most of the poems are essentially “adaptive reuse” of existing prose or poem writings by such diverse authors as Aristotle, Edgar Allen Poe and Lyn Hejinian. Take, for example, “So nets a beginning,” which begins as follows: piercing some point corners have presence warmth in the room structured dance architect, weave among portent fragments of fragments Landrum describes this poem as a section cut through six of Ted Berrigan’s sonnets of 1964, implying that even Berrigan’s poems are works of architecture, within which a space may be discovered. “Lamp of Beauty,” he tells us in the endnotes, is a “radical abbreviation” of John Ruskin’s classic text Seven Lamps of Architecture. The typography of these poems satisfies at first sight, like the intrinsic beauty of an architectural drawing. But as always with writing that looks both tantalizing and obscure, we are invited to dig deep. It is clear that Landrum worked hard to construct this language: each poem with its own rules

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drawn from other texts, each poem a literary evolution, or mutation or dissection. Ingrid Ruthig, a self-described “recovering architect,” paints vivid scenes with words. (She is also, as mentioned, an artist, and has produced stunning collages that combine image and text in formal patterns. It is here, and not in her poems, that her work may overlap with Landrum’s.) There is nothing abstract or architectural, radical or obscure, in the poems of This Being. Some of her metaphors are as broad as our state of being in the world: A man slips into a bank, withdraws a life from his pocket. Others are as specific as a set of coordinates in the vast Canadian prairie. The poem “Winter Abandons Canada” is a most poignant challenge to contemporary intersections of politics, climate and identity. Ruthig writes: “Even skeptics have to question / if we’re still who we reckon we are.” Though two of the poems evoke Paris in summer, where “the streets sweltered / people prostrated nude on the floor,” these are interludes in a collection that honors the Canadian landscape. When in “Elegy for a Northern Town,” she observes how “ . . . kids steer rowboats by maps / stitched to shorelines,” we sense the town hanging on by a thread. Present within This Being are Ontario and the north, freezing winds and fertile soils, deep roots of tradition and looming winds of change. If there is architecture here, it manifests as the edifice of a Canadian soul, built of words that are both monumental and humble. For a nonCanadian like me, the poems embody the emotional structure of what it means to belong north of the 49th parallel. Jill Stoner is Director of the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University. Her 2001 book

Poems for Architects (William Stout Publishers) is an anthology of 48 poems that reveal the spatial sensibility of the 20th century.

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BOOKS

When is the Digital in Architecture? Canadian Centre for Architecture and Sternberg Press, 2017 Andrew Goodhouse (editor); various authors REVIEW BY OLIVER NEUMANN

The interrogation format of the book title When is the Digital in Architecture? bespeaks the ongoing debate about the relationship of digital technology and design. But this anthology of essays is also a history book, albeit covering a very recent past from about 1985-2005. Although premised on the Canadian Centre for Architecture series of exhibitions over those two decades, it is very much a stand-alone text, a “critical and historical project, rather than a summation” of design, as Nathalie Bredella suggests in her essay in the book. This anthology of essays by experts in the field provides an overview of the effects of digital media on architectural thought and production: how it changes the way we shape, make and think about the buildings we live in. Full disclosure: in the mid-1990s, I studied architecture at Columbia University under many of the essayists in this book, including Bernard Tschumi and Stan Allen. I have also studied with Hani Rashid and Saskia Sassen. After graduation, and worked for Asymptote Architecture in New York for almost a year. It was a transformative time. We worked in midtransition from the analog to the digital age, and the challenges were enormous. At Asymptote, we used digital technology to design dramatically leaning walls, but the engineering process was still analog. Three-di-

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mensional modelling and its real-world applications was just beginning, so we still had to translate digital ideas to analog in order to build things out of bricks, wood, steel or fabric. Today and into the future, as Stan Allen sees it, there will be “creative hybrids” that combine digital techniques with analog thinking. Digital technology is new and charting its history is necessarily an incomplete task. In analog history, archeologists make assumptions about how whole buildings had looked by way of fragments of information. Now we are shifting to what essayist Greg Lynn calls an “archeology in archiving”—that is, you do not need to assume a completeness in the digital age, because the information and the findings are infinitely changeable. In the digital age, consistent with a shift in theory, we are no longer biased towards finding an elusive “complete” history, as we realize that completeness is merely a theoretical construct. An archeology does not have to be based on a complete documentation. It can be selective. The introduction of computer technology in architectural education parallels its use in offices. As everybody has experienced, computer technology is being constantly upgraded, making our digital tools and storage devices very quickly old and outdated. Much information that was once safeguarded and stored does not exist any longer in a useable form. This has had a major effect on the idea and practice of documentation, and its inherent limits. The use of digital technology in architecture brings up the age-old question of architecture’s connection to engineering and mathematics. But architecture is a qualitative profession, about humanist values. Computer language is basically composed of zeros and ones: there is no in-between in digital technology. Digital technology demands new ways to establish architecture’s connection to the humanities and its place within history. For a book as densely thought-provoking as this one, a concluding summary with comments from the editor would have been helpful to provide a critical assessment. Such a chapter could also position digital design methods within the current debate. And, ironically for an anthology about the digital, this publication could have benefited from more attention to its analog production: by the time I had completed my reading and this review, the binding was falling apart. Despite these limitations, most architects will find this book rewarding. It provides a critical overview of the history of digital technologies and their impact on the discipline of architecture. It enriches the discourse about a field of growing relevance within architectural education and practice—even while the nature of that relevance is constantly changing. Oliver Neumann is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

RZLBD Hopscotch: Seeking a Territory for a Vision

Dan Hanganu: Works 1981-2015

Artifice Books, 2017

Dalhousie Architectural Press, 2017

Part monograph, part manifesto, this book by Toronto architect Reza Aliabadi references his boutique firm and his ideas about living space. Aliabadi asks a lot of questions, many of them variations of: “Is architecture the walls that enclose the space or the space in-between the walls?” One response is what he calls an “anti-architecture” of invisible voids. He has been dubbed “a high-order poet of volumes and voids” by the late John Bentley Mays, and both his texts and his buildings make a case for the accolade.

This monograph pays homage to one of the country’s most distinctive architects. Dan Hanganu’s Romanian heritage and Constructivist influences would inform his later work, setting it apart from International Style hegemony with landmarks like Pointe-à-Callière Archeological Museum in Montreal. Edited by Essy Baniassad, with essays by Kenneth Frampton, Adele Weder, David Coho and Gilles Prud’homme, and summaries of projects throughout Quebec, this book is a distillation of a remarkable life and career.

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calendar across canada

11/29—12/01

Vancouver 10/11

James Dow

CanaData West From economists and CEOs to heads of government agencies, this conference will combine a rich pool of expertise into a day of thought leadership for Canada’s construction industry.

11/23/2017—01/13/2018

Cut/Drawn John Patkau’s exhibition of steel fabrication as a study in sculptural form, at the Gallery Jones.

www.canadata.com

10/26

The Copp House book launch Photography by Michael Perlmutter, text by Adele Weder and drawings by Lőrinc Vass, the latest monograph in the series of West Coast Modern houses by UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and ORO Editions, at Inform Interiors.

www.galleryjones.com

Saskatoon 10/21

Remai Modern Art Gallery opening Saskatoon celebrates the longawaited unveiling to the public of the KPMB-designed gallery.

www.informinteriors.com

www.remaimodern.org

Toronto

10/28/17—01/28/18

True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada The influence of Scandinavian craft and industrial design on the growth of Canadian culture, curated by Rachel Gotlieb and Michael Prokopow. Featured designers are Kjeld and Erica Deichmann, Thor Hansen, Karen Bulow, Niels Bendtsen, Molo Design et al; at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

—12/31

Urban Now: City Life in Congo An exploration of different urban sites in Congo through photography and video by artists Sammy Baloji and Filip De Boeck, at the Power Plant Gallery. www.thepowerplant.org

10/23

Heritage Toronto Awards Annual awards celebrating the preservation and promotion of Toronto’s heritage by groups, individuals, and organizations.

www.vanartgallery.bc.ca

10/16—10/19

2017 IFLA World Congress Hosted by the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects at the World Design Summit, exploration of design themes, including transformation, beauty and participation.

The Buildings Show Including Construct Canada, the HomeBuilder & Renovator Expo, IIDEXCanada, PM Expo, and the World of Concrete Pavilion, the Building Show is North America’s largest exposition, networking, and educational event for the design, construction and real estate sectors.

www.csla-aapc.ca

10/16—10/25

World Design Summit With workshops, seminars, and speakers including Jan Gehl, Bill Browning, Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena et al, this interdisciplinary congress aims to develop a framework for addressing global issues through design.

www.thebuildingsshow.com

—11/30

With New Eyes: Architecture for Toronto by Francesco and Aldo Piccaluga Architects Curated by Roberto Damiani, exhibition at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura celebrates Italian-Canadian architects Francesco and Aldo Piccaluga.

www.worlddesignsummit.com

—12/10

Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams Exhibition at UQAM Centre de design explores the “geodesic moment” and role of Montreal and Quebec in the development of this structural system, with drawings, photos, books and documents from the University of Calgary’s Canadian Architectural Archives.

www.iictoronto.esteri.it

—01/28/2018

The Evidence Room Originally at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, now at the Royal Ontario Museum: architecture’s terrifying role in creating the Auschwitz gas chambers. www.rom.on.ca/en/evidence

www.centrededesign.com

Montreal –03/04/18.

Greystone: Tools for Understanding the City The material history of Montreal’s Greystone buildings from the late 17th to early 20th century. Curated by Phyllis Lambert, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

jeffrey lindsay archival holdings, CAA

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www.cca.qc.ca

www.heritagetoronto.org

ABOVE Looking up at Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, c. 1950.

ABOVE The AKA Chair, c. 1953, attributed to Sigrun Bülow-Hübe, coming to Vancouver Art Gallery.

POP/CAN/CRIT This day-long series of panels and discussions at the Design Exchange among top industry professionals. www.spacing.ca/popcancrit

11/06—11/07

CCPPP National Conference on Public Private Partnerships The Canadian Council for PublicPrivate Partnerships’ annual national conference will gather leaders in the infrastructure sector. www.p3-2017.ca

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10/27

Row houses Lusignan/GuyFabre, Saint Jacques, Montreal, built in 1866 (photo c. 1973).

Saint John 05/30—06/02/2018

RAIC Festival of Architecture The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s annual Festival of Architecture will come to New Brunswick in 2018, with continuing education sessions, tours, and awards. The RAIC has issued a call for presenters for the event. www.festival2018.raic.org

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INTERNATIONAL

Chicago

New York

Philadelphia

Los Angeles

—01/07/2018

10/26—10/28

—11/05

Chicago Architecture Biennial Second edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, now the largest architecture and design exhibition in North America.

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure Architects, engineers, policy makers and related professionals discuss the theme “Sustainable Cities for an Uncertain World.” At the New York Marriott, Brooklyn.

Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture Retrospective of Kahn’s work spanning over two decades, at the Fabric Workshop and Museum.

www.icsiconference.org

London

—12/09

10/25—10/26

Partners in Design: Alfred H. Barr and Philip Johnson Exploration of the work of the Museum of Modern Art’s first director and the curator/architect.

London Build 2917 Expo Symposium with 150+ speakers, exhibitions, workshops, meetings and recruitment opportunities.

10/21/17—01/01/18

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors Exhibition of the Japanese artist’s kaleidoscopic “infinity rooms” of endlessly reflecting light and forms. At the Broad museum.

www.chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org

www.thebroad.org

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

CALENDAR

www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org

www.londonbuildexpo.com

www.greyartgallery.nyu.edu

Rotterdam —01/18/2018

STEVE HALL

Scaffolding Curated by Greg Barton, exhibition at the Center for Architecture looks at scaffolding as a kitof-parts technology for novel forms of inhabitation and access. www.cfa.aiany.org ABOVE

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—01/07/2018

The Other Architect CCA exhibition on architects who shaped the cultural agenda without the intervention of built form. www.theotherarchitect.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en

Installation view of “Vertical City” at the Chicago Biennial.

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BACKPAGE

RENDERING BY NICOLE JAZWIEC/PBAI

CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/17

STELLAR OFFERING TEXT

Adele Weder

PHILIP BEESLEY’S SENTIENT CREATIONS

Could architecture someday be alive—thinking, feeling, reacting, even caring—just like a sentient being? It’s a question much too strange not to take seriously. Architect Philip Beesley and his team at the Living Architecture Systems Group f lung that question high into the air at the 2010 Venice Biennale, and it has been swirling around ever since. Since the original Hylozoic series, the nomenclature of the group’s creations has shifted into even more adjectival arcana: Epiphyte Springs, Aerial Wells, Cellular Whispering Fields, Sentient Veils. This is such stuff as dreams are made of, except that in reality it’s made of precision-cut mylar fronds and steel filigree, viscid chemical com-

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positions, tiny glass vessels, veins of LED s and miniature sound-speakers, bursting out of skeletons created by 3-D printing. Call it theoretical research, or premonitions of earth’s next ruling life forms. Architects might yet become the unacknowledged rulers of the world. The Living Architecture Systems Group’s latest love-child of science and art, designed in partnership with Salvador Breed and 4D Sound, is dubbed the Astrocyte. Showcased earlier this month at Toronto’s EDIT Festival, the Astrocyte suggests a futuristic Christmas tree exploding in slow motion over the concrete f loor of the abandoned Unilever soap factory. As one approaches the Astrocyte, its leaf-like

appendages f lutter and murmur, responding kinetically to the presence of a human, thrumming like a power line or a swarm of crickets. It lightens the room with an uncanny sense of life: the post-mechanical, post-digital evolution of the jerky cartoon robot, a creation sensitive to the slightest motion, a small step towards structures that can emote in tandem with humankind. Beesley himself describes this new mutation of phantasmagoria as “an aerial scaffold interwoven with artificial intelligence incubating future hybrid growth of thousands of photocells.” All of which qualitatively answers the question: can architecture be alive? Hell, maybe!

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