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1968 Social environmental movements take hold.

WHO SHAPES THE FUTURE OF GREEN DESIGN? You do.

1978 Earth Day brings awareness to Earth’s need for continual care.

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1988 1,000 communities in America initiate curbside recycling.

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1998 EPA launches voluntary programs for energy, water, indoor air quality, waste and smart growth.

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2008 U.S. Green Building Council member organizations grow to 15,000.

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20 Felt studio a stronG BackGround in fine art is evident in the work of kathryn walter, who utilizes industrial wool felt in a plethora of fascinatinG applications, froM accessories to industrial desiGn to architectural interiors. teXt leslie Jen

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contents

13 news

53 calendar

Based in london, canadian architect JaMie foBert deploys a Meticulous attention to detail in creatinG a new flaGship Boutique in paris for the veneraBle haute couture house of Givenchy. teXt alexandra shiMo

32 Fogo island projects entrepreneur zita coBB and norway-Based newfoundland-Born architect todd saunders atteMpt to transforM a sMall island of 3,000 inhaBitants with a variety of site-sensitive architectural proJects. teXt Michael carroll

Buhler Centre in Winnipeg opens; Omer Arbel wins the Ronald J. Thom Award for Early Design Achievement.

Will Alsop. New Work. The Best is Yet to Come at Toronto’s Design Exchange; Interior Design Show West at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

54 Backpage

Jennifer Davis introduces us to the in ­ fluential subject of the Iannis Xenakis ex hibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

40 the keeFer Gair williaMson architect inc. transforMs a historic BuildinG in vancouver’s Gritty chinatown into extended-stay Boutique accoMModation. teXt ian chodikoff

46 river house kathryn walter

aGathoM’s Manipulation of the sectional plane in this sinGle-faMily hoMe creates an enhanced sensorial experience for its inhaBitants. teXt GaBriel fain

septeMBer 2010, v.55 n.09

the lonG studio on foGo island, newfoundland By saunders architecture. photo By Bent renÉ synnevås.

cover

The NaTioNal Review of DesigN aND PRacTice/ The JouRNal of RecoRD of The Raic

09/10 canadian architect

9

viewpoint

editor Ian ChodIkoff, OAA, FRAIC associate editor LesLIe Jen, MRAIC editorial advisors John MCMInn, AADIpl. MarCo PoLo, OAA, FRAIC contributing editors GavIn affLeCk, OAQ, MRAIC herbert enns, MAA, MRAIC douGLas MaCLeod, nCARb regional correspondents halifax ChrIstIne MaCy, OAA regina bernard fLaMan, SAA montreal davId theodore calgary davId a. down, AAA Winnipeg herbert enns, MAA vancouver adeLe weder above PoPuLar CuLture ProPaGates and roMantICIzes the Myth that a sInGuLar CreatIve GenIus Is behInd every suCCessfuL buILdInG when In reaLIty, It Is usuaLLy the dedICated effort of Many. however, CredIt Must be aCCurateLy GIven where CredIt Is due.

Even as children, before any of us understood the significance or repercussions of idolizing largerthan-life architects seeking to create iconic buildings, most of us were conditioned to believe that design originality is paramount in the profession; to ascribe an individual architect’s name to a famous building is very attractive to a fledgeling ego. Many years later, as architecture students toiling away on studio projects until the wee hours of the morning, we doggedly competed with fellow classmates for the most original schemes. When the pin-up deadline arrived, we would receive praise, derision, or something in between, dependent on the fickleness—or if we were lucky, insight—of a seemingly random selection of critics.

Could early experiences like this be at the root of a fundamental schism in the culture of architecture, where lauded students are given the confidence to build illustrious design practices, while the remaining students are destined to pump out working drawings, banished to the fringes of architectural discourse for the rest of their careers? Could this be the moment where the seeds of jealousy are planted in marginalized design students, triggering a lifelong quest for vindication?

Even as the memories of architecture school fade, the need to receive praise for design brilliance remains in the hearts and minds of those architects whose careers have failed to provide them with the satisfaction of building an architectural masterpiece—even if they have developed a specialization in specific areas of practice like health care or project management. For some of these architects, they will occasionally seize the opportunity to take credit for another architect’s design innovations if given the chance. Not only is this ethically questionable, but it also indicates a lack of self-respect, maturity and confidence in one’s own career trajectory and expertise. Many will appreciate this scenario, having experienced the unjust repercussions of this lamentable behaviour. But as so many projects today involve 10 canadian architect 09/10

complex collaborations, it is easy to see how the temptation to take credit for another’s work can arise. There is no easy solution to this increasingly common predicament despite the fact that every professional association has adopted clear ethical standards regarding the proper attribution of credit.

The American Institute of Architects states, “Intellectual property is the most common proof in terms of talent and experience. However, the collaborative nature of contemporary practice sometimes obscures the individual contributions of each team participant.” The complexities of today’s collaborations often require legal negotiations simply to determine the extent to which a firm can take credit for a project. Even then, not all parties can resist the temptation to misrepresent themselves to clients, colleagues and the general public as to the origins of a brilliant design concept behind an innovative project.

The simple fact is that improperly attributing credit may have more to do with ruthless or reckless tactics than it does with massaging a fragile ego. But the reality is such that the culture of architecture lionizes the design architect and places her in the most privileged of positions, while a firm that has rightfully demonstrated its technocratic prowess through sophisticated and detailed construction drawings somehow feels inferior. Even though all stages of the design process are equally important, it is the name and reputation of the design architect that prevails.

It is wishful thinking to believe that the culture of architecture will reorganize itself and flatten out its hierarchy to satisfy all the notoriously inflated egos of a project’s constituent architects.

In the meantime, it is not too much to ask that architects act with maturity, and respect their ethical and professional obligations by resisting the temptation to inappropriately take credit for the work of others.

Ian ChodIkoff

ichodikoff@canadianarchitect.coM

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news PrOjects

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and the University of Winnipeg officially opened the iconic Buhler Centre in late August. For almost 40 years, Plug In ICA has established a significant presence in the Winnipeg arts community and beyond, representing Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2001, a first for an institution of its size. The new Institute in the Buhler Centre will support Plug In ICA’s efforts to increase its visibility and accessibility, while providing new and engaging social and learning activities to multiple communities. It will more than double Plug In ICA’s current exhibition space and has been constructed to meet international museum standards. The LEED Silver facility is four storeys and 45,000 square feet in area. Built on the site of the old United Army Surplus Sales store, it sits adjacent to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The Buhler Centre is also home to three other major tenants: the University of Winnipeg’s Faculty of Business, the University of Winnipeg’s Division of Continuing Education, and a restaurant. Situated at a prominent urban corner, the building is designed with an open portal at grade that allows pedestrians to cut through the building alongside the galleries. A second narrow cut through the building’s core is awash with natural light and forms an urban alleyway where student lounges, classrooms, and offices intersect. Working closely with the design team, Winnipeg- and Berlinbased artist Rodney LaTourelle composed the interior colour scheme. Outside, the reflective tabs on the building’s façade are designed to capture the activity of the city along with those shifts of light that are particular to the Prairies. The architects for the project are David Penner Architect and Peter Sampson Architecture Studio Inc. of Winnipeg in conjunction with DIN Projects. waterfront toronto selects hines to develop new downtown community.

Waterfront Toronto has chosen real estate firm Hines to develop the city’s Bayside site into a mixed-use neighbourhood, complete with 1,700 homes, a bustling retail, restaurant and entertainment corridor, and office and employment space for 2,400 jobs. Situated in a prime downtown location in the emerging East Bayfront waterfront district, the Bayside site consists of 4 hectares (10 acres) of underutilized City-owned land south of Queens Quay Boulevard between Lower Sherbourne and Parliament Streets. The new neighbourhood will be constructed in phases with first occupancy of buildings and new public spaces as early as 2014. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2021. Hines assembled

Jocelyn Tanner

Buhler centre in winnipeg opens.

a design team led by architect Cesar Pelli, who is responsible for such iconic buildings as the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur and Manhattan’s World Financial Center, and Stanton Eckstut, the visionary behind New York’s celebrated Battery Park City waterfront development. The Bayside site will be the single largest parcel of land developed to date by Waterfront Toronto. Backed by an $800-million privatesector investment, the development will result in approximately $1.6 billion in total economic activity and $20 million in development charges for the City of Toronto. Bayside is being targeted as an employment hub on the waterfront, particularly for knowledge-based industries such as information and communication technology companies and the creative sector. A significant retail and entertainment destination on Bonnycastle Street will provide connections to neighbouring public spaces, including the soon-to-becompleted Sherbourne Common, Queens Quay linear park, and the Water’s Edge Promenade.

To ensure the neighbourhood is just as vibrant during the colder months, the design team drew inspiration from successful winter environments like Quebec City, Montreal and Stockholm. These considerations are evident in the area’s nonlinear street network, which creates a variety of intimate and weather-protected spaces, and the planned construction of a winter garden. Rounding out the Bayside design team is awardwinning Toronto-based Adamson Architects. www.waterfrontoronto.ca hBBh+Bh associated architects to design the new student Union Building at the University of British columbia.

Located at the entry to UBC, the new 255,000-

a collaboraTion beTween DaviD Penner archiTecT, PeTer SamPSon archiTecTure STuDio inc. anD Din ProJecTS, The iconic buhler cenTre waS officially oPeneD by The Plug in inSTiTuTe of conTemPorary arT (ica) anD The univerSiTy of winniPeg in laTe auguST.

aBOVe

square-foot Student Union Building (SUB) has an incredibly advanced sustainability agenda (LEED Platinum and includes elements from the Living Building Challenge) as well as a strong design and social agenda. The base budget is roughly $75 million with the total projected budget to be over $103 million. The Alma Mater Society of UBC Vancouver (AMS) is the client for this project and their goal is to engage the entire student body, including a significant opportunity for social media. In response, HBBH+BH launched a “What’s Your SUB?” campaign that included a micro-website, presence on Facebook, Twitter, a video on YouTube, a team presentation to the student body, and accompanying display panels for student input. Included in the HBBH+BH submission is the building of an onsite Design Cube, to be located in the existing SUB, which will act as a transparent base of operations and conversation during the crucial early design stages. On the digital level, the continued use of Twitter, Facebook and the website will act as a two-way electronic bulletin board. The multiple streams of digital and physical interaction will allow ongoing design refinement and increase the sense of ownership in the process, resulting in responsible and responsive engagement. The new Student Union Building is scheduled for completion in 2014. www2.ams.ubc.ca/index.php/ams/news/category/ news/ 09/10 canadian architect

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design team finalized for Mount royal University conservatory of Music in calgary.

awards

The design team has been finalized for the Mount Omer arbel wins the ronald j. thom Royal University Conservatory of Music in Calaward for early design achievement. gary, a new 700-seat concert hall, ensemble stuThe Canada Council for the Arts announced that dios and practice rooms that are associated with Vancouver designer Omer Arbel is the winner of the University’s outreach programming, serving the $10,000 Ronald J. Thom Award for Early Deover 30,000 students. The Conservatory’s capital sign Achievement. This prize was established in campaign has relied on the resources of the fed1990, in collaboration with the Canada Council, eral government as well as private donors who by friends and colleagues of Thom, an eminent have responded generously to the institution’s Canadian architect, as a tribute to his life and ambitious business plan and expansion of faciliwork. Arbel is a renowned architect and designer ties. Lead architect Pfeiffer Partners Inc. in asso- who established OAO—Omer Arbel Office—in ciation with locally based Sahuri + Partners Vancouver in 2005. Arbel’s inventive exploration Architecture Inc. is working with Auerbach Polof the aesthetic as well as the technological has lock Friedlander Performing Arts/Media Facilifound form in a range of experimental furniture, ties Planning and Design, who are providing full- lighting and architectural design. He is well scope theatre consulting services, while acousknown for the sleek and sculptural 2.4 Chair, and tical design is being provided by the Talaske for some of his most recent objects such as the Group. Located on the Lincoln Park Campus, the Series 14 Chandelier, the Series 22 Socket and 97,000-square-foot Conservatory will be a focal the Series 28 Chandelier. Arbel is the codesigner point of the expanded campus, and is part of a of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic six-phase expansion program that started in medals, and is also the creative director of manu2001 to increase its current student enrollment facturing and design company Bocci. Arbel was of more than 12,000 full- and part-time stuselected by a peer assessment committee, which dents. The $60-million project is scheduled for included Monica Adair, founding partner of the Vicwest completion Cndn ArchinHalf Horz ads:Layout 1 8/23/10Acre 11:04 AM (Saint Page John, 1 the summer of 2013. collective NB); George Baird,

founding partner of Baird Sampson Neuert Architects (Toronto); Bruce Haden, partner of HBBH+BH Associated Architects (Vancouver); Serena Keshavjee, Associate Professor of the art history program at the University of Winnipeg; and Pierre Thibault, founder and senior architect of Pierre Thibault Architecte (Sillery, Quebec). www.canadacouncil.ca

cOMPetitiOns Five finalist firms from around the world to compete to redevelop edmonton’s city centre airport land.

Five design firms from Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, the United States and Canada will compete for the chance to redevelop the 216-hectare site into a sustainable, transit-oriented community. The firms are: Sweco International AB of Stockholm, Perkins + Will of Vancouver, KCAP Architects & Planners of Rotterdam, BNIM of Kansas City, and Foster & Partners of London.

Each of the five finalists has committed to using Edmonton architectural, engineering and design firms and landscape architects as part of their bid. An expert panel of six members reviewed, graded and chose the five finalists, who now have

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four months to prepare detailed plans including display panels, sketches, drawings, and images which best describe their vision for the site. A winner will be selected in early 2011. www.edmonton.ca/city_government/news/airportdesign-competition-lan.aspx Place lalla yeddouna design competition.

L’Agence du Partenariat pour le progrès (APP) together with l’Agence pour le développement et la réhabilitation de la ville de Fès (ADER-Fès) have launched a two-stage competition that is open to architects worldwide, for the urban planning of Place Lalla Yeddouna in the medina of Fez, Morocco. Organized in conformity with the UNESCO-UIA regulations, the competition is part of a program for the economic and social development of this sector through its cultural, artisan and tourist potential. The preservation of the architectural and cultural heritage of the site, registered on the UNESCO world heritage list, is a fundamental aspect of the competition program. At the end of the first stage, the jury will select about eight projects; the selected teams will be invited to participate in the second stage for which they will each receive a fee of $40,000 US. At the end of the second stage, the jury will award a $55,000 US first prize, a $40,000 US second prize, and a $25,000 US third prize. November 8, 2010 is the submission deadline for entries in the first stage. The jury is comprised of Moroccan authorities, representatives from the USA, and also includes the following architects: David Chipperfield, United Kingdom; Matthias Sauerbruch, Germany; Marc Angélil, Switzerland-USA; Meisa Batayneh Maani, Jordan; Stefano Bianca, Switzerland; Omar Farkhani, Morocco; and Rodolfo Machado, USA-Argentina.

The language of the competition is English, and there is no registration fee. www.projectcompetition-fez.com

what’s new Office for Urbanism joins forces with cohos evamy and hBBh.

Toronto-based planning and urban design firm Office for Urbanism recently joined forces with national design firms Cohos Evamy and Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden (HBBH) in a merger aimed at expanding multidisciplinary thinking beyond buildings to include places and spaces, communities and cities. It builds on a merger earlier this year between Cohos Evamy and HBBH and continues a vision to create an innovative integrated professional practice collaborating across studios in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Office for Urbanism is noted for projects such as the downtown plans for Regina,

Lethbridge, Moncton, Iqaluit and Halifax amongst others, as well as a range of site plans, master plans, campus plans and cultural plans in cities across Canada and internationally. Cohos Evamy + HBBH are the current designers for high-profile projects such as Toronto’s upcoming Bay Adelaide East office tower, Calgary’s International Airport expansion, the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, and UBC’s new Student Union Building. Their union will help create a richer dialogue between buildings and cities. heritage canada Foundation releases 2010 top ten endangered Places and worst losses lists.

The Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF) has released its Top Ten Endangered Places and Worst Losses Lists drawing attention to a total of 16 architectural and heritage sites in Canada either threatened with demolition or already lost. The Top Ten Endangered Places List includes: Canada’s Lighthouses—Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ decision to declare virtually all its lighthouses surplus emasculates the new Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act; Kitsilano Senior Secondary and Vancouver schools, Vancouver—provincial seismic upgrade funding is being used to replace rather than upgrade historic schools; Calgary Brewing and Malting Co., Calgary—four of the site’s oldest buildings threatened with demolition with no redevelopment plan in place; Warehouse District, Winnipeg—unrivalled turnof-the-century concentration of buildings succumbing to parking lots and megaprojects; Views of Ontario Legislative Assembly Building, Queen’s Park, Toronto—a massive precedentsetting condo tower project will erase iconic silhouette; Lansdowne Park, Ottawa—massive redevelopment project incompatible with heritage of 142-year-old park; Porter/McKinley Block, Ridgetown, Ontario—a case of demolition by neglect; Redpath Mansion, Montreal—last vestige of city’s famed Square Mile is hovering on the brink of collapse; “Company Houses” of Industrial Cape Breton, Nova Scotia—the once prolific workers’ cottages are suffering from neglect, abandonment, and vandalism; and St. Philip’s Anglican Church, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, Newfoundland—the 115-year-old “Church By The Sea” in need of salvation. Topping the Worst Losses List are the 41 predominantly mid-19thcentury commercial buildings on Colborne Street in Brantford, Ontario, tragically demolished in the name of “urban renewal” which cast aside viable opportunities for their reuse and recycling.

Other examples of historic places needlessly destroyed by the wrecking ball in Ontario include Toronto’s heritage-designated Downsview Hangars, and Hamilton’s historic Century Theatre lost

to unenforced property standards bylaws. In Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, over a dozen historic buildings and hotels from the early 20th century were consigned to landfill to make way for a municipal sports complex. Elsewhere on the Prairies, the Fleming Grain Elevator, the oldest remaining grain elevator on its original site in Canada, was tragically lost to fire, as was the Watson Lake Hotel, the oldest building in Watson Lake, Yukon. The Heritage Canada Foundation is a national, membership-based, non-profit organization with a mandate to promote the preservation of Canada’s historic buildings and places. www.heritagecanada.org/eng/main.html

letters I am writing in my capacity as Chair of the Burnaby Public Library Board in response to the article “Call of the Wild” in the July 2010 issue of Canadian Architect.

While the Library Board appreciates that the writer of the article appears to consider the Tommy Douglas Library, our newest branch, a success, we are disappointed with her characterization of the Edmonds community.

Edmonds Town Centre is a neighbourhood in transition. The regeneration and rejuvenation of that area of Burnaby has been an important City objective for most of the last decade and the Edmonds community has embraced and engaged with that objective. There have been several new, large redevelopment projects in the community, most notably Highgate Village. The Tommy Douglas Library, opened in November 2009, is just one of three new civic buildings in Burnaby’s Edmonds Town Centre. Firehall No 2 opened in 2005 and Council recently approved the construction of a new $46-million pool and community centre for Edmonds.

Burnaby City Council and the Burnaby Public Library Board did indeed have an ambitious purpose for the new library. From the very beginning of the project, City Council and the Library Board shared the same goal for this new branch. Since opening, the branch has seen more than 270,000 visits, and borrowing is up over 30 percent. Of particular note is the substantial increase in user enquiries, up over 40 percent. Library users are also enjoying the feel of the building itself—the space, the openness and the colour.

Burnaby Public Library was recently awarded the BC Library Association’s Award of Merit for Building Projects for the Tommy Douglas Library, recognizing this outstanding achievement in a library building project.

Iqbal Dhanani Chair, Burnaby Public Library Board 09/10 canadian architect

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Register now for Architecture Canada’s ConEd SDCB 303: NET-ZERo ENERGY BUILDINGS: hIGh PERFoRMANCE ENCLoSURE DESIGN and the School of Architecture, university of Waterloo, Principal, Building Science Corporation; offering their insight – this full-day course is certain to be popular.

operations Centre – Gulf Islands National Park Reserve | Larry McFarland Architects Ltd. | Photo: Derek Leper

The year 2030 has been set as the “carbon neutral” target date by architectural associations around the world, including the AIA and Architecture Canada.

The purpose of this course is to provide Canadian Architects with the knowledge and new design solutions required to design energy-efficient building enclosures (roofs, walls, foundations, windows and doors) appropriate for net-zero energy buildings.

With instructors, Dr. Raymond J. Cole, Professor, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, university of British Columbia and Dr. John Straube, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering

Updated attendance records now online The Architecture Canada | RAIC Database for Recording Continuing Education Credits has now been updated with Festival delegate course credit attendance for all participating provincial and territorial associations.

Welcome to Architecture Canada Architecture Canada is RAIC’s new moniker encompassing all the services and benefits offered to members and the public.

Learning objectives 1. understand the basic principles, performance objectives and value of good building enclosure design and identify & clarify common misconceptions; 2. understand how design decisions impact the achievement and performance of low or net-zero energy buildings; 3. understand the significance and value of contextspecific building enclosure design for low or netzero energy buildings; 4. Learn about new techniques and technologies for achieving low-energy, durable, and affordable enclosures; and 5. Gain familiarity with current and future building codes, standards and environmental assessment tools.

Locations Oct. 28, 2010 Oct. 29, 2010 Nov. 11, 2010 Nov. 12, 2010 Dec. 2, 2010 Dec. 3, 2010

Calgary Telus Convention Centre The Fort Garry, Winnipeg Hyatt Regency Montreal Westin Ottawa The Citadel, Halifax Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto (during Construct Canada)

To register: www.raic.org.

Members chosen as 2010 Veronafiere Scholarship recipients

2009-2010 Board Members President Ranjit (Randy) K. Dhar, FRAIC 1st Vice-President and President-Elect Stuart Howard, FRAIC 2nd Vice-President and Treasurer David Craddock, MRAIC Immediate Past President Paule Boutin, AP/FIRAC Regional Directors Wayne De Angelis, MRAIC (British Columbia/Yukon) Wayne Guy, FRAIC (Alberta/NWT) Charles Olfert, MRAIC (Saskatchewan/Manitoba) David Craddock, MRAIC (Ontario Southwest) Ralph Wiesbrock, FRAIC (Ontario North and East/Nunavut) Claude Hamelin Lalonde, FIRAC (Quebec) Paul E. Frank, FRAIC (Atlantic) Chancellor of College of Fellows Alexander Rankin, FRAIC Council of Canadian University Schools of Architecture (CCUSA) Kendra Schank Smith, MRAIC

The Architecture Canada | RAIC Board made the difficult choice of selecting six members from the many applications received to attend Marmomacc and veronafiere this fall in Italy. This year’s recipients are:

Director Representing Intern Architects W. Steve Boulton, MRAIC

• • • • • •

Executive Director Jim McKee

Martin Gerskup, MRAIC Christa Schatz, MRAIC Phoebe hoo, MRAIC Brigitte Ng, MRAIC Eric Wormsbecker, MRAIC Danica Roberston, MRAIC

Editorial Liaison Ralph Wiesbrock, FRAIC

Editor Sylvie Powell Architecture Canada | RAIC 330-55 Murray St. Ottawa ON K1N 5M3 Tel.: 613-241-3600 Fax: 613-241-5750 E-mail: info@raic.org

To maintain the reputation behind designations, the legal name and corporate registration remains the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada – members can continue to use MRAIC and FRAIC with pride. Licensed architects are encouraged also to emphasize the many roles of the profession in society by using the title “Architect” too.

www.raic.org Photos: Christian Zarka, MRAIC

MASThEAD PhoTo: LANGuAGE TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH CENTRE AT uNIvERSITy OF QuEBEC IN OuTAOuAIS | MENKèS SHOONER DAGENAIS LETOuRNEux ARCHITECTS / FORTIN CORRIvEAu SALvAIL ARCHITECTuRE + DESIGN | PHOTO: MICHEL BRuNELLE

Nu M éR O 3 2 . 3 éTé 2010

Inscrivez-vous dès maintenant à la formation continue d’Architecture Canada Conseil d’administration de 2009-2010

ÉNERGÉTIQUE NETTE ZÉRo : CoNCEPTIoN D’ENVELoPPES À hAUTE PERFoRMANCE objectifs d’apprentissage

Président Ranjit (Randy) K. Dhar, FRAIC Premier vice-président et président élu Stuart Howard, FRAIC Deuxième vice-président et trésorier David Craddock, MRAIC Présidente sortante de charge Paule Boutin, AP/FIRAC Administrateurs régionaux Wayne De Angelis, MRAIC (Colombie-Britannique/Yukon) Wayne Guy, FRAIC (Alberta/T.N.-O.) Charles Olfert, MRAIC (Saskatchewan/Manitoba) David Craddock, MRAIC (Sud et Ouest de l’Ontario) Ralph Wiesbrock, FRAIC (Est et Nord de l’Ontario/Nunavut) Claude Hamelin Lalonde, FIRAC (Québec) Paul E. Frank, FRAIC (Atlantique) Chancelier du Collège des fellows Alexander Rankin, FRAIC Conseil canadien des écoles universitaires d’architecture (CCÉUA) Kendra Schank Smith, MRAIC Conseiller représentant les stagiaires W. Steve Boulton, MRAIC Conseiller à la rédaction Ralph Wiesbrock, FRAIC

Centre des opérations de la Réserve de parc national du Canada des ÎlesGulf | Larry McFarland Architects Ltd. | Photo : Derek Leper

L’année 2030 a été établie comme date cible de la « neutralité en carbone » par les associations d’architectes du monde entier, dont l’AIA et Architecture Canada. Ce cours vise à donner aux architectes canadiens les connaissances et les nouvelles solutions conceptuelles nécessaires pour concevoir les enveloppes éconergétiques (toitures, murs, fondations, fenêtres et portes) qui conviennent aux bâtiments à consommation énergétique nette zéro.

Les formateurs seront Raymond J. Cole, Ph.D., professeur à l’école d’architecture et d’architecture du paysage de l’université de la Colombie-Britannique et John Straube, Ph.D., professeur adjoint au département de génie civil et à l’école d’architecture de l’université de Waterloo et associé principal de Building Science Corporation. Ces deux formateurs chevronnés partageront leurs connaissances avec les participants et nul doute que ce cours d’une journée complète remportera un grand succès.

Architecture Canada | IRAC 55, rue Murray, bureau 330 Ottawa (Ontario) K1N 5M3 Tél. : 613-241-3600 Téléc. : 613-241-5750 Courriel : info@raic.org

www.raic.org PhoTo EN CARToUChE DE TITRE : CENTRE DE RECHERCHE EN TECHNOLOGIES LANGAGIèRES DE L’uNIvERSITé Du QuéBEC EN OuTAOuAIS | MENKèS SHOONER DAGENAIS LETOuRNEux ARCHITECTES / FORTIN CORRIvEAu SALvAIL ARCHITECTuRE + DESIGN | PHOTO : MICHEL BRuNELLE

Lieux : 28 octobre 2010 Calgary Telus Convention Centre 29 octobre 2010 The Fort Garry, Winnipeg 11 novembre 2010 Hyatt Regency, Montréal (interprétation simultanée de l’anglais au français) 12 novembre 2010 Westin, Ottawa 2 décembre 2010 The Citadel, Halifax 3 décembre 2010 Palais des congrès du Toronto métropolitain,Toronto (dans le cadre de Construct Canada) Pour s’inscrire : www.raic.org

Crédits de formation continue en ligne

Récipiendaires des bourses 2010 pour Veronafiere

Les crédits de formation continue alloués par les ordres provinciaux et territoriaux participants aux candidats qui ont assisté à des cours ou des ateliers dans le cadre du Festival ont été inscrits dans la base de données d’Architecture Canada | IRAC.

Le conseil d’administration d’Architecture Canada | IRAC a eu la tâche difficile de choisir six membres parmi les nombreuses candidatures soumises pour assister à l’exposition Marmomacc et suivre les ateliers de veronafiere en Italie, à l’automne. Les récipiendaires des bourses sont :

Directeur général Jim McKee Rédactrice en chef Sylvie Powell

1. Comprendre les principes de base, les objectifs de performance et la valeur d’une bonne conception de l’enveloppe d’un bâtiment; relever les idées fausses les plus courantes et les dissiper.

2. Comprendre comment les décisions de conception influent sur la performance des bâtiments à faible consommation énergétique ou à consommation énergétique nette zéro.

3. Comprendre l’importance et la valeur de la conception d’enveloppes du bâtiment adaptées au contexte pour les bâtiments à faible consommation énergétique ou à consommation énergétique nette zéro.

4. Sensibiliser les participants aux nouvelles techniques et technologies permettant de réaliser des enveloppes à faible consommation énergétique, durables et abordables.

5. Familiariser les participants avec les codes du bâtiment, les normes et les outils d’évaluation environnementale d’aujourd’hui et du futur.

Accueillons Architecture Canada Architecture Canada est le nouveau nom de l’IRAC qui englobe tous les services et les avantages offerts aux membres et au public.

Afin de conserver la réputation conférée par les désignations, le nom légal et l’inscription de l’organisme demeurent Institut royal d’architecture du Canada – les membres peuvent donc continuer d’utiliser avec fierté les désignations MIRAC et FIRAC. Par ailleurs, les architectes sont également invités à faire valoir les nombreux rôles qu’ils jouent dans la société en utilisant aussi leur titre « d’architecte ».

• • • • • •

Martin Gerskup, MRAIC Christa Schatz, MRAIC Phoebe hoo, MRAIC Brigitte Ng, MRAIC Eric Wormsbecker, MRAIC Danica Roberston, MRAIC

Photos : Christian Zarka, MRAIC

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Benny Chan of fotoworks, Courtesy of yazdani studio of Cannon design

that’s how she Felt

artist and designer Kathryn walter elevates a basic utilitarian textile to the realm oF the sublime. feLt studio LesLie Jen

designer text

Textiles have traditionally been the domain of female artists and craftspeople—to wit, Canadian practitioners like the late Joyce Wieland and Victoria-based Luanne Martineau, who utilizes traditional and laborious needle-felting techniques in her provocative sculptural work. Artist and designer Kathryn Walter carries on this proud tradition, generating an astonishing range of products independently alongside collaborative installations with other art- and design-related disciplines. However, the industrial quality of the wool felt she artfully transforms provides a definitively gender-neutral complement to hard-edged modern interiors, softening the effect with a literal warm and fuzzy surface that begs to be touched.

Based in Toronto, Walter is no stranger to the world of felt. An immigrant from Germany, her great-grandfather established E.F. Walter Inc. in 1893, a company specializing in the manufacture and distribution of everyday felt products such as boot liners, gaskets, seals and other automotive parts.

While not a manufacturer of the textile itself, the Toronto company orders the felt from primarily local sources. Walter’s brother Tim is the current president, the fourth generation of the Walter family to run the company.

With a background in fine art, Walter spent years sculpting, curating and teaching, before establishing a new branch of her family’s business. In 1999, she curated an exhibition for what is now known as the Textile Museum of Canada—aptly titled Felt—which inspired her to get back to her role as maker, this time utilizing the industrial textile that has permeated 20 canadian architect 09/10

her entire life—an irresistible new medium for her art.

In the past, felt evoked memories of Christmas crafts and children’s art projects, but in recent years, it has been reinvented as a highly fashionable material with a broad range of applications. With FELT Studio, Walter has been a key player in this realm, designing chic accessories, furniture, soft sculpture, and interior architectural applications. Her initial foray a decade ago began with the production of accessory items such as handbags and briefcases, which were carried in specialty boutiques like Holt Renfrew and the Art Gallery of Ontario’s gift shop. The scope of her work gradually expanded to include patchwork quilts and furniture items like a cozy felt armchair and more recently, the Spool Stool, beautifully and ever so simply formed from a tightly wound band of thick felt. Eurolite currently distributes her Hanging Pearl pendant lamp; its cylindrical felt shade is punched through with a regular pattern of round holes which cast wonderful patterns of light in any given space.

With her products available commercially, Walter began to garner the attention of architects and designers, with whom she collaborates on a variety of projects, both in Canada and the US. In 2002, Bruce Mau invited her to develop signage for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, rendered most attractively in felt and stainless steel. Shortly thereafter, she designed pleated felt wall installations for Toronto advertising firm Grip Limited and in 2005, she was one of a number of artists asked to individually redesign the guestrooms at the refurbished Gladstone Hotel in Toronto (see CA, September 2005), a large-scale art project that has been more than well received.

Since then, she has developed an impressive repertoire of strategies for these architectural installations, attaining a variety of effects. For example, the Striation series is one of the most popular and sought-after applications in which strips of felt are irregularly layered in a horizontal fashion, achiev-

diana Braun-woodBury

the wosk theater at the MuseuM of toLeranCe in Los angeLes Benefits froM the aesthetiC and aCoustiC properties of kathryn waLter’s striated feLt waLLs. above the artist Busy at work in her studio. bottom three detaiLed iMages iLLustrate the variety of effeCts that waLter has aChieved with feLt: differing widths of feLt strips are woven into a sCreen, 3d feLt waLL tiLes entitLed Grid Convey a strong sCuLpturaL quaLity, and Leftover strips of variegated feLt are Laid horizontaLLy in the Striation series. oPPosite

ance. For this space, Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design commissioned Walter to sheathe the curving walls with the variegated felt strips to create an attractive and superior acoustic environment. And this month, the BC Museum of Mining in Britannia Beach will unveil a striation installation by Walter, who has appropriately incorporated copper—a mined substance—amidst the felt bands.

It’s important to note that aside from some occasional machine-cutting, Walter produces virtually everything by hand, an incredibly painstaking process. For instance, the felt bubble tiles she created for the guestroom wall at the Gladstone Hotel are not embossed or machine-formed, but instead are made individually. She begins by cutting a circle out of the centre of a perfectly square felt tile, into which a slightly larger circular

kathryn waLter

kathryn waLter

kathryn waLter

ing much the same effect as a stonemason does.

It is a time-consuming endeavour, and Walter likens the process to painting, selecting from her palette of chunky felt strips which vary subtly in colour and texture. The end result is a product of substantial materiality that showcases the thickness and fibrous character of the raw textile. To minimize waste, she uses leftover felt scraps to create these extraordinary bricolages of earthtoned felt that evoke mineral accretions found in nature. Projects that have utilized the striation technique include interior sliding panel doors for the Hamburg Residence in New York’s Greenwich Village, interior enclosures for Jamie Kennedy Kitchens in Toronto, and the striking Wosk Theater in Los Angeles’s Museum of Toler-

09/10 canadian architect

21

BJorg Magnea

kat o’neiL

donna paLLotta

anthony guererro

george yu arChiteCts speCified waLter’s Cad-CaM-Cut perforated feLt waLL tiLes for the oxygen Media studios in Los angeLes; a CLoseup view of the perforated feLt and poLyCarBonate paneLs used in diLLer sCofidio + renfro’s studio in new york; a grid of handCrafted feLt BuBBLe tiLes Covers the waLL in suite 416 at toronto’s gLadstone hoteL; sLiding door paneLs adorned with feLt striations enCLose a sCreening rooM in a private new york residenCe.

clocKwise From above

disc of felt is pressed and manipulated by hand, resulting in a convex semi-spherical bubble.

Less labour-intensive are Walter’s perforated tiles and panels, which provide an intriguingly patterned and textured surface. For the tiles, the holes are CAD-CAM-cut and applied to a felt backing, an approach that George Yu Architects commissioned for the entrance and stairwell walls of the Oxygen Media Studios in Los Angeles. Similarly, large rigid felt-and-polycarbonate panels on a steel frame were specified as spatial interior dividers for Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s 22 canadian architect 09/10

architecture studio in New York. The perforated panels create wonderfully porous surfaces which also afford some degree of visual privacy.

More recent developments include the standard process of weaving varying widths of felt into wall surfaces. Felt strips behave as individual fibres at a highly enlarged scale, woven into a cushiony-soft and appealingly tactile product.

In 2007, venerable interior design firm Yabu Pushelberg commissioned Walter to design a woven felt artisan screen for a model suite in Seattle’s Hotel One. And Walter has also moved

into the realm of large-scale iconic motifs for Native Child and Family Services in Toronto, where a thunderbird-inspired graphic defines softly sculptural double-sided sliding walls that are rendered in felt bas-relief, a collaboration with Levitt Goodman Architects and Seventh Generation Image-Makers.

With hands-on experience as an artist and maker of objects, Walter bridges between designers and tradespeople effortlessly. While she is brought into a project early on by an architect or designer, she is equally active at the installation stage of a project, working side by side with millworkers and other contractors to physically complete the work. This truly collaborative process at all levels of the project enables her to maintain creative integrity and quality control of the initial concept right through to the final in-

saBu

Ben rahn/a-fraMe

saBu

a thunderBird Motif is Manifest in feLt Bas-reLief that forMs douBLe-sided sLiding waLLs at native ChiLd and faMiLy serviCes in toronto; a handsoMe Log Carrier fashioned froM feLt is one of waLter’s earLier proJeCts; distriButed By euroLite, the HanGinG Pearl Light fixture Casts intriguingLy spotty patterns. bottom, leFt to right Butter For BeuyS is a Lidded Container that deLightfuLLy aCknowLedges 20th-Century gerMan artist Joseph Beuys and his preoCCupations with feLt and fat; the VeSSelS series—softLy sCuLpturaL Containers Crafted froM a singLe strip of spiraLLing wooL feLt gLued into pLaCe; waLter Moves into the reaLM of furniture design with the SPool Stool.

clocKwise From above

warmth and mythology. Moreover, she displays impressive knowledge about the textile—how it’s made, where it can be sourced, and the versatility and appropriateness of its use. In keeping with her love of the multidisciplinary collaborative process, Walter’s considerable skills with felt are currently being exercised in an exhilaratingly novel fashion—as a costumer and set designer in a dance/theatre workshop that takes place this October. ca

A self-produced publication entitled 124 Pieces of Felt: A Primer for the Home (2006) quirkily demonstrates the numerous potential applications of felt. In it, Walter instructs readers to “make your own furnishings and accessories from a collection of household wares in this do-it-yourself guide to rustic modern living.” Examples of the items she has crafted from felt include bowls, placemats, coasters, furniture liners, window coverings, blankets, pillows, quilts and a log carrier, among others. She acknowledges that the textile does have obvious limitations on a practical level, but this slim volume illustrates that the artist is boldy exploring, expanding material boundaries, and most importantly, creating.

It’s clear that Walter is passionate about felt; she is seduced by its rawness, complexity,

Kathryn Walter continues to exhibit her work in Canada and the US, and is currently featured in FABRICation: Studio Production Textiles for Interiors, a group exhibition of Canadian textile artists on show at Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside until October 17, 2010.

diana Braun-woodBury

diana Braun-woodBury

diana Braun-woodBury

stall. And despite the highly practical nature of the architectural projects in which she’s involved, Walter occupies the enviable position of straddling two worlds: she is a designer who creates very-much-in-demand functional objects and installations, but she also gets to operate purely within the realm of art, conducting explorations in her desired medium with materials of her choosing. Fine art and curation is still a very big part of her practice, and some of her feltworks are not necessarily intended for commercial production. For instance, the highly amusing Butter for Beuys is a lidded container— ostensibly for butter storage—which pays homage to seminal 20th-century German artist Joseph Beuys, whose material preoccupation with felt and fat originated from his claim that Tatar tribesmen rescued him from a World War II plane crash, nursing him back to health by wrapping his broken body in felt and fat. In this realm of soft sculpture, the butter dish appears to be a progenitor or variant of her spiralling Vessels series, where bowls of varying sizes and shapes are crafted from one single long strip of felt, wound into shape and glued into place.

09/10 canadian architect

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Givenchy

Fashion template

a canadian architect’s london-based Firm has devised an elegant strategy oF merchandising For one oF France’s most venerable haute couture Fashion houses.

Givenchy FlaGship Boutique, paris, France Jamie FoBert architects alexandra shimo

proJect

the Façade For the new Givenchy FlaGship Boutique on rue du FauBourG saint-honoré plays to the minimalist approach oF merchandisinG the FashionaBle oFFerinGs within.

above

architect teXt

If there’s a cliché in architecture—the bloated, overblown projects where form dominates content—the antithesis is Canadian architect Jamie Fobert. Not that Fobert’s work lacks for superlatives, as he is currently working with some of fashion’s biggest names, including Givenchy, British fashion house Pringle, and Donatella Versace. Yet while Rem Koolhaas’s Prada store in New York has been criticized for its distractions and superficiality, Fobert’s flagship boutique for Givenchy in Paris has been praised for its elegance and subtlety. Fobert creates church-like spaces in a secular world, calming rooms against the constant din of 24-7 BlackBerrys, microblogs and tweets, places that “are intriguing and arresting in themselves, yet never so much so that they overpower their contents,” according to Alice Rawsthorn, design critic of the International Herald Tribune.

Fobert may have become the go-to guy for haute couture, yet his portfolio is diverse. His Anderson House won the 2003 RIBA Manser Medal, essentially the prize for the best house in Britain, and he has designed clubs such as East London’s Cargo, a shimmying Mecca for those in 26 canadian architect 09/10

the music industry. Art galleries are always prestigious commissions, especially for someone also making a name in retail, and Fobert is engaged in several of these including the Tate Gallery in St. Ives, Cornwall, an art gallery in Cambridge called Kettle’s Yard, and the Charleston in East Sussex, the original house of the Bloomsbury Group.

“Jamie is a young architect, but he’s very well respected in London,” explains Rob Sharp, features writer at London’s The Independent. “His work is understated, but it has a visceral impact.

He has had a very intelligent selection of projects and has an amazing pedigree behind him.”

Architectural critics say that Fobert’s spaces don’t feel like regular retail—churches and galleries are common comparisons. With their spare aesthetic, absence of furniture and clutter, the Givenchy stores are no exception. Recessed lighting, parquet floors, and objets trouvés in glass cases complete the picture. Even the furniture is based on high art, with the stools modelled on Joseph Beuys’s Fat Chair. Like the German artist, Fobert explored the idea of distortion, but rather than adding fat, he added a stool, cutting off the

legs of a classic French Louis XV chair and inserting a cuboid block on which to sit. The stool thus becomes a hybrid of art and furniture, monarchy and modernity.

The connection between high art and retail is understandable, given the close collaboration between Fobert and Givenchy’s creative designer Riccardo Tisci throughout the design process.

Tisci chose Fobert (on the basis of a recommendation by Rawsthorn) to redesign Givenchy’s flagship Paris store, located on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a legendary street where virtually every major fashion house in the world has a presence. That space would become the template for Givenchy stores around the world— to date there are 15—and became Fobert’s calling card for other haute couture signature spaces.

The relationship between Fobert, the understated 47-year-old Canadian, and the effusive Italian Tisci was cemented during a series of collaborative meetings. Every three weeks, Fobert met with Tisci and Givenchy’s president Marco Gobetti, either in London or Paris. Together, they would examine and discuss contemporary art,

sue Barr Givenchy

make sketches and brainstorm, looking for inspiration in works by artists such as Beuys and David Nash. Tisci shares Fobert’s passion for art—raised a Catholic, he is renowned for infusing his fashion with religious references and for bringing high art into his shows. For this fall’s collection, Tisci presented his line not as a runway show, but as a sombre group of photos. Working closely with the Belgian photographer Willy Vanderperre, he exhibited the fronts and backs of his models, like portraits. “What you do as an artist is you collaborate, and if you collaborate with the right people, then you get great results.”

Unlike some of Fobert’s earlier projects, the Givenchy stores could not be gutted and utterly modelled. The walls and the parquet floor of the Paris shop had to remain unchanged, but Fobert still needed to stamp his own creativity on the building. So he designed a series of black boxes, smaller rooms within the main gallery-like space that would contain the collection. “The boxes sit on the parquet floor and you feel you could actually push them around if you wanted to,” Fobert says. “You clearly can’t, but there’s an impression of them floating.”

The box rooms are smallish, to create intimacy, although there are a variety of sizes and shapes.

The walls were then cut away, either on the vertical or at an angle to open them up, so there’s a sense of spaciousness and continuity, a seamless transition from the larger room to the smaller boxes.

“As you go into the boxes,” explains Fobert, “they become these castings of historic spaces.

They are quite feminine, quite romantic. So your perception shifts as you move through the space.

Rather than most retail where you walk in and every surface is full of product.”

On a practical level, the design becomes a moveable feast—the unchanging outer exterior emphasizing the brand’s permanence and timelessness, and the more transient inner black-box rooms, which can be adapted to fit other stores around the world. In London’s Selfridges, for example, the ceiling and the white marble floor could not be changed, but the box spaces inside the store are immediately recognizable as Givenchy, Fobert says. “It’s a conceptual work. You have this timeless box, but it also feels contemporary and transient.”

The contrast between superficial appearances and deeper subtle beauty was essential to Fobert,

sue Barr

top right throuGhout the Boutique, FoBert modiFied louis xv chairs By cuttinG oFF their leGs to convert the anachronistic entities into modern stools. right inside the store’s autonomous Fashion “Boxes,” customers will discover inlaid Floors BearinG the siGnature Givenchy loGo as well as walls Finished with rich wood panellinG and painted plaster castinGs.

09/10 canadian architect

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8

7

5 1

2

3

4

6

ground Floor

0

5M 5m Jamie FoBert architects

Façade & entry Box 1 Box 2 Box 3 cash desk women’s chanGinG rooms Box 4—private chanGinG room Box 5—menswear

sue Barr

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

and part of Tisci’s vision of the brand. The concept continues throughout other detailing, including the panelling. Hubert de Givenchy was known for fitting out Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy, and many of these famous fittings took place in his renowned haute couture salon in Paris’s 8th arrondissement, where he worked between 1952 and his retirement in 1995.

A simulacrum of the salon’s architecture—including the room’s ornate wooden panels—were copied in casts, which became the negative for duplicate panels in plaster and leather. The molded wall panels are white for women, and grey for men, colours suggesting calming simplicity. “There’s an imprint of the haute couture salon on that bit of wall,” Fobert muses. “I mean, 28 canadian architect 09/10

it’s not important whether people understand that. But it’s there, and people feel it even if there’s no sign that points it out.”

The walls of the box rooms seem to be finished with a simple black sheen until closer inspection.

Made of charred wood and varnished with lacquer, the texture was inspired by British artist Nash. Like the sculptor, Fobert worked with a blowtorch, burning oak samples in the streets of London outside his Shoreditch office. This is highly illegal, and luckily the police never appeared, although several old ladies approached and scolded him. Put wood to flame and cracks appear, forming irregular angular paths swirling in a labyrinth. The resulting carbon becomes strangely removed from the wood and the world,

reminding us of the natural beauty of decay. The resulting effect is intense, but a smooth lacquer finish mutes the effect, masking the fine crinkles, and the chaotic texture is scarcely visible under a glass-like resin. “It’s something very subtle,” says Fobert. “It’s very hard to photograph because it’s so reflective, but when you look closely, it’s very beautiful.”

Beauty and commerce don’t always make good bedfellows, which perhaps explains Fobert’s insistence that the Givenchy boutique is far removed from a typical shop. “We wanted to create something that didn’t feel like a retail space,” he explains. “Tisci didn’t want to hire someone who produced lots of retail. He knew that wasn’t the right way to create something unique.”

sue Barr

Jamie FoBert architects

Ironically, the Givenchy work has led Fobert directly into the belly of the shopping beast, landing him several other plum retail assignments.

Currently, he is redesigning the mammoth 3,000-square-metre women’s shoe department at London’s Selfridges which opens this month, Pringle of Scotland’s Bond Street store, and also the signature and concept for Versace stores around the world. With each, the work demands distilling the ideology and associations surrounding brand down to an immutable idea, and this work draws on Fobert’s experience in fine art.

“Retail is full of possibilities that are in some ways overlooked by the world of interior design,” he explains. “What we do isn’t about surfaces, fabrics and wallpapers. It’s about concepts

clocKWise From above FoBert’s stools desiGned For Givenchy were inspired By Joseph Beuys’s Fat Chair (1964); charred wood varnished with lacquer and plaster castinGs are elements oF the Boutique’s material palette; recessed liGhtinG and autonomous Fashion “Boxes” create an aura oF timeless eleGance; an architectural wood model oF FoBert’s Givenchy Boutique and oFFices; a tradesman prepares a plaster castinG that will eventually Be used in the Givenchy shop.

and extreme explorations of materiality. It’s about working with craftsmen as opposed to buying samples. In the end, we are only truly happy when we feel the work has an authenticity about it.” ca Alexandra Shimo is a Toronto-based author, media consultant and cultural critic. Her first book, The Environment Equation, was published in seven countries.

client Givenchy architect team Jamie FoBert, kevin allsop, pierre maré, hoi chi nG, claire lee, oliver Bindloss, Benna schellhorn local architect FenÊtres sur cour Furniture sice previt contractor prestapool lighting Franck FranJou area 300 m2 budget withheld completion FeBruary 2008

09/10 canadian architect

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rock Star

an unexpected SerieS of architectural projectS for fogo iSland reSpondS to the challenge of embodying modern deSign while alSo reviving newfoundland’S cultural rootS. Fogo Island studIos, Fogo Island, newFoundland saunders archItecture wIth sheppard case archItects text MIchael carroll photoS Bent rené synnevÅg project

architectS

Fogo Island, located on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, supports a dwindling population of 3,000 inhabitants whose livelihoods have been challenged by a diminished fishery and lack of financial investment. This raw yet poetic place, at its most dramatic, appears as an alien windswept landscape, comprised of stark boulders that sit on extensive outcroppings of granite bedrock that rise above Fogo’s thin layer of soil and lichens. It is a place of stunning beauty and the setting for an exciting sociological and economic experiment in which architecture, as a vital component within the fabrication of culture and the identity of place, plays a central role.

An essential element of any inspiring architectural project is an inspired 32 canadian architect 09/10

client—in this case, Zita Cobb, a native of Fogo Island and president of the Shorefast Foundation (www.shorefast.org), a Canadian registered charity, and its offspring, the Fogo Island Arts Corporation (http://artscorpfogo­ island.ca). Cobb, who made her fortune in the dot­com boom, has invested $6 million of her own money in the project, matched by two contributions of $5 million from the federal and provincial governments respectively.

With a total budget of $16 million, the objective of this experiment is to nurture an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit in order to create a series of sustainable businesses founded upon the rich histories and the inherent potential of Fogo Island and neighbouring Change Islands. These business­ es will help diversify the local economies and create a geo­tourism destina­ tion for travellers who are attracted to and inspired by the qualities of a place that lies at the edge of the North American continent.

Architecturally, the project calls for the renovation—and in some cases the restoration—of a number of existing “salt­box” houses and deconse­ crated churches. The project’s overall vision does pay homage to the region­ al vernacular, as documented in Robert Mellin’s book Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching, and Other Tales from a Newfoundland Fishing Village. However, it also engages the transformative power of contempo­ rary architectural design with the new construction of a five­star, 29­room inn and a series of studios for an arts residency program that is designed to attract an international roster of contemporary artists and designers. Both

the hotel and the studio projects were designed by Saunders Architecture, founded by Todd Saunders, a graduate of McGill University’s School of Architecture who was born in Gander, Newfoundland and has been based in the coastal city of Bergen, Norway since 1997. Jim Case of Sheppard Case Architects in St. John’s made Saunders’s design concept a reality through his efforts in coordinating the project’s various consultants and local tradespeople.

On June 2, 2010, near Joe Batt’s Arm, the Fogo Island Arts Corporation officially opened the Long Studio, an elongated and slightly distorted box that measures just over 100 feet in length and about 18 feet in width. Al­ though this solitary, off­the­grid building is firmly grounded by a concrete foundation at its western end, the 1,200­square­foot studio gradually takes flight, as it begins to hover on a series of slits that lifts the tube­like struc­ ture above the ground to frame a view of the North Atlantic Ocean that peri­ odically includes icebergs originating from the glaciers of Greenland.

Saunders, as an insider to the Newfoundland psyche, has also brought an outsider’s design sensibility to the Long Studio in a fresh approach rooted in his astute observations and memories of this place. As a result, the proj­ ect seems strangely familiar. It fits the landscape, as the studio’s form seems to trace the gentle slope of the bedrock, and the project’s south ele­ vation, an uninterrupted 100­foot­long wall of black­stained rough­sawn pine planks, rises towards the sea. The project’s robust architectural char­

the long studIo hovers stoIcally over Its sIte as the atlantIc ocean pounds agaInst the rocks at Joe Batt’s arM. above In contrast to Frequently harsh newFoundland weath­ er, the studIo’s InterIor reMaIns calM and serene. oppoSite top

acter certainly resonates with the sensibility of this place. Yet the Long Stu­ dio in its abstraction and detachment is also an alien objectile. It has a dual character as a viewing device that frames the landscape, the sea or a cloud overhead, but also as an introverted place of repose for the artistic soul—a well­insulated industrial object designed to weather any storm.

As a further study of contrasts, all the exterior surfaces of the studio are clad with pre­finished rough­sawn pine planks stained black to counter the interior that is lined entirely with smooth wood planks painted white. A three­foot­wide “servant zone” to the left of the entry area is filled with mechanical equipment, storage areas, a water tank, a compost toilet, a sink, a shower, a kitchenette, an eating area, a wood­burning stove, and a ladder that leads to an elevated sleeping loft for the occasional overnight stay. The overall tube­like structure, clipped at both ends at a 45­degree angle, forms a parallelogram in which an angular geometry ricochets throughout its length. Saunders has carefully choreographed a sequence of events that responds to the seasons during which the studios will be used—spring, summer and fall. It begins with a covered exterior entry area that provides 09/10 canadian architect

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34 canadian architect 09/10

a degree of shelter from the rain and wind. This entry zone then mutates into an exposed exterior patio—a notch in an otherwise uninterrupted black box—that faces south to capture the sun. The last zone is a fully enclosed in­ sulated workspace, designed to filter light and to direct views.

Upon entering the studio’s interior, one is immediately struck by the drama of an elongated space that is further delineated by the horizontal lines of the white pine planks and flat countertops of the kitchenette and work area. A large triangular skylight, screened by the exposed timber framing below it, provides ample toplighting that reduces the need for ex­ tensive electrical lighting (and larger arrays of photovoltaic panels), and which provides full­colour rendition for the work produced by visiting art­ ists and designers. The Long Studio terminates with a large glass window that hovers above the horizon—a lookout from which to watch the weather change throughout the day and season. In this hollow box that filters its en­ vironment, one can imagine, in the dead of night, the slight creak of the el­ evated structure as it moves slightly in response to the powerful winds that ride the North Atlantic, or the slight taste of the salt once the studio’s oper­ able windows are opened and the ocean breeze flows through on a warm afternoon in July.

As mentioned earlier, the Long Studio is the first of several studios that Saunders has designed with the support of Case. The second project, cur­ rently under construction, is located at the end of Shoal Bay. Entitled Tower Studio, this sculpted black box is grounded to its site but shifts and twists as it ascends skyward. Some of its triangulated surfaces help mark and partial­ ly shelter the entry area, while another faceted surface is a skylight that allows natural light to filter into the studio’s white interior. The Tower Studio features a rooftop terrace with sweeping views of the ocean and rocky coastline.

Construction has also started on the Fogo Island Inn, and its basic mass­ ing consists of two intersecting rectangular forms. The lower volume stretches from east to west, housing the entry and lobby area, a restaurant that features local organic fare, an art gallery, conference rooms and a cine­ ma. The upper rectangular box sits 30 degrees relative to its base, and it con­ tains 29 well­appointed suites, along with an extensive spa that opens onto the Inn’s expansive rooftop. This volume also cantilevers 60 feet towards the southwest over the site’s rocky terrain. It is supported by a forest of 30­foot­ high columns that echo the slits once used in the construction of cod­drying flakes and fishing stages typical in many Newfoundland outports.

Beyond the individual projects, Zita Cobb, Elisabet Gunnarsdottir— Director of the Fogo Island Arts Corporation, Jim Case, and Todd Saunders are invested in answering the question formulated by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur some 40 years ago: “...how to become modern and to return to sources; how to revive an old, dormant civilization and take part in univer­ sal civilization.”

Unlike Kenneth Frampton’s seminal 1983 essay, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” perhaps the direction of the Fogo Island projects is more adventurous in its tone. Maybe it harks back to the initial conception of critical regionalism formulated by Alex Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre that favours a more radical approach: one does not draw directly from the immediate context, but takes elements, strips them of their traditional meaning, and then reassembles these ele­ ments in strange and unfamiliar ways.

As Saunders has proposed, maybe these few projects sited on the margins of Fogo Island are a hint of a “new” Newfoundland architecture and culture, clockwiSe from oppoSite top the sharp angularIty oF the studIo’s dark carapace Is a wonderFul contrast—and coMpleMent—to the rugged landscape; another vIew oF the studIo—resplen­ dent In Its strIkIng geoMetry—hoverIng over Its rocky con­ text; the exterIor canopy provIdes a strong FraMIng eleMent; the wooden deck oFFers the sensatIon oF BeIng on a Boat.

09/10 canadian architect

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1 2

Site plan—long Studio 1 2 3 4 5

studIo eatIng/work area wc/shower exterIor area storage/MechanIcal

4 3

5

0 0

5M 5m

one that engages difference, uses the advances of communication technology to work globally, and challenges static notions about Newfoundland identity held by the status quo, government bu­ reaucrats and tourism officials. Culture is always a moving target that constantly needs to be rede­ fined through a region’s cultural production, and this includes architecture. Hopefully, these in­ spired projects initiated by the Shorefast Foun­ dation and the Fogo Island Arts Corporation are the beginning of something truly remarkable not only for Newfoundland and Canada, but for cul­ tures worldwide that have suffered through the process of global industrialization, and con­ sequently, a loss of place and cultural identity arising from the devaluation of the inherent self­ worth of its citizens. ca Born in Newfoundland, Michael Carroll is a partner in the Montreal design firm atelier BUILD. He is based in Atlanta and is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Southern Polytechnic State University.

Section—long Studio

36 canadian architect 09/10

0

5M 5m

Barr’d islands

JoE Batt’s arm

lookIng Back at the studIo FroM the exterIor deck; a Foggy early MornIng sets a hIghly atMos­ pherIc stage along the atlantIc coastlIne; the spectacularly rocky newFoundland landscape.

clockwiSe from oppoSite top

2

1

EastErn ticklE

tilting

Fogo 3

6

dEEp Bay

5

sHoal Bay 7

Fogo island (nEwFoundland)

capE covE sEldom comE By

island HarBour

stag HarBour

fogo iSland

littlE sEldom

4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Fogo Island Inn long studIo turpIn’s traIl studIo short studIo wrIter’s studIo Fogo studIo tower studIo

client shoreFast FoundatIon and the Fogo Island arts corporatIon architect team todd saunders, ryan Jørgensen, attIla Berés, colIn hertBerger, crIstIna MaIer, olIvIer BourgeoIs, pÅl storsveen, nIck herder on-Site SuperviSor dave torravIlle builderS arthur payne and edward waterMan Structural dBa consultIng engIneers mechanical/electrical core engIneerIng Inc. area 200 M2 budget $16 M completion long studIo—June 2010; tower studIo—July 2011

09/10 canadian architect

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“By modeling sustainable urban development, we can be part of the solution”

David Stonehouse, Evergreen Brick Works, Toronto, Canada: Winner of the Holcim Awards Acknowledgement 2008 North America

Develop new perspectives for our future: 3 rd International Holcim Awards competition for projects in sustainable construction. Prize money totals USD 2 million. www.holcimawards.org In partnership with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Switzerland; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA; Tongji University, Shanghai, China; Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City; and the Ecole Supérieure d’Architecture de Casablanca, Morocco. The universities lead the independent juries in five regions of the world. Entries at www.holcimawards.org close March 23, 2011.

The Holcim Awards competition is an initiative of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Based in Switzerland, the foundation is supported by Holcim Ltd and its Group companies and affiliates in more than 70 countries. Holcim is one of the world’s leading suppliers of cement and aggregates as well as further activities such as ready-mix concrete and asphalt including services.

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Lush Life the renovation of an oLd warehouse in vancouver’s chinatown has resuLted in a series of quirky Loft apartments with a stunning rooftop swimming pooL. The Keefer, VancouVer, BriTish columBia Gair Williamson archiTecT inc. teXt ian chodiKoff photos ed WhiTe proJect

architect

Vancouverites are particularly adept at rediscovering parts of the city that were once—or still are—dodgy and decrepit. For instance, when the restaurant Campagnolo opened on Main Street several years ago, people commented on the ethical judgement of locating a trendy establishment in an area where clients literally must step over the downtrodden to enjoy a delicious plate of BC mussel risotto. The phenomenon of upscale enterprises moving into such neighbourhoods has been recently repeated elsewhere in the city, much like The Keefer at the edge of Vancouver’s Chinatown. But who are we to criticize those who serve bottles of expensive champagne to a stylish clientele while the less fortunate stumble by, glimpsing lavish interiors and multi-coloured cocktails in the process?

The Keefer is a mere two blocks from Main and Hastings Streets, the epicentre of this country’s most economically depressed and troubled neighbourhood where homelessness, drugs and prostitution continue to pose significant social problems. Originally a warehouse, the building was recently transformed into a lounge and fourunit boutique hotel, where rooms cost $700 a night. Once upon a time, the masonry and exposed-timber building was located on the shores of False Creek. But with decades of infill, the building no longer faces the water and now sits at the gateway to Vancouver’s Chinatown with the famous Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens as its neighbour. Cam Watt, a detail-oriented entrepreneur in his late 40s who once owned

40 canadian architect 09/10

Canadian Springs, a company specializing in bottled water and water filtration systems, purchased the property several years ago. Watt decided to enter into the real estate development business by transforming this abandoned building, which was originally constructed in 1910 for the Vancouver Gas Company by the well-known local architecture firm of Sharp & Thompson.

Known for his ability to sensitively transform historic buildings into vibrant and relevant components of contemporary urban life, Gair Williamson Architect Inc. has received praise for such projects as the minimally appointed Salt Cellar (2008) and the recently completed Judas Goat (2010), both of which are located in Gastown’s Blood Alley. Gair Williamson only takes on a couple of projects every year to evolve a practice he founded in 2002. He is also very generous in nurturing the talents of his young staff, such as Chris Woodford, the lead project architect for The Keefer. Woodford is a native Newfoundlander who ventured west in search of new professional frontiers after finishing his architecture degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

He worked for a few firms before joining Williamson soon after The Keefer’s conceptual design was completed. The project allowed Woodford to not only cut his teeth on a building of reasonable complexity, but it gave him the necessary professional experience that allowed him to become a licensed architect.

The building’s reconstruction included the overhaul of the ground floor to accommodate a

1,200-square-foot lounge designed by David Battersby of Battersby Howat, which was later filled with artwork by Douglas Coupland. Since Williamson’s firm is effectively a two-person operation, with Woodford handling much of the technical requirements for the project, it was decided early on that designing a commercially viable lounge was better left to Battersby.

Above the lounge, three full-floor suites at 2,400 square feet each were created within the building’s existing shell. The outer masonry walls were in fairly good condition but some of the existing timbers were either rotten or split and had to be strengthened, modified or otherwise partially replaced. This micro-design strategy saved the client a considerable amount of money but required site visits nearly every day. Custom components to reinforce and alter the existing structure were designed to preserve the aesthetic of the building’s industrial legacy while avoiding excessive amounts of building materials being sent to the dump.

The addition of a new 2,200-square-foot penthouse is situated beneath a dramatic rooftop terrace spanning the entire length of the building.

The most spectacular feature of the rooftop is the 8’ x 40’ lap pool. Set within a complex steel structure, the bottom and one of the sides of this dramatic pool is comprised of transparent acrylic, thereby allowing precious West Coast daylight to filter into the dining room of the penthouse suite below.

As it was initially designed, the warehouse

Three confiGuraTions for The enclosed Balcony include: an enclosed decK area, an exTension of The lofT inTerior, and a compleTely open ouTdoor space. aBove a sTriKinG imaGe of a laTe-niGhT sWimmer GlidinG aBoVe The penThouse lofT’s dininG area.

opposite Bottom

09/10 canadian architect

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encLosed BaLcony

aBove, top to Bottom a roofTop pool decK oVerlooKs The doWnToWn easTside; enclosed Balconies fill in The BuildinG’s exisTinG liGhT Well While The penThouse addiTion is clearly disTinGuished from The oriGinal BricK sTrucTure; exposed BricK and TimBer characTerizes The projecT’s Typical lofT inTeriors; meTal panels and operaBle WindoWs define The Ground floor of The BuildinG— ciTy heriTaGe officials requesTed ThaT The archiTecTs proVide a clear disTincTion BeTWeen oriGinal and neW consTrucTion.

42 canadian architect 09/10

aXonometric

9

9

8

7

rooF level

5

1

6 2 1

Penthouse

1

3

2

1

tyPical suite

4

Ground fLoor Floor ground 1 Bedroom 2 KiTchen + dininG room 3 liVinG room 4 lounGe 5 priVaTe sTair To roof decK

6 7 8 9

cLient cam WaTT architect team chris Woodford, Gair Williamson, Tiphaine maisonneuVe-leBrec, elizaBeTh poWell structuraL john Bryson & parTners mechanicaL jade WesT enGineerinG co. lTd. eLectricaL sml consulTanTs Group lTd. geotechnicaL Geopacific consulTanTs lTd.

section

00

Balcony pool Bar decK

BuiLder heaTherBrae Builders code GaGe BaBcocK & associaTes lTd. BuiLding enveLope Bc BuildinG science parTnership acoustics BroWn sTrachan & associaTes area 12,100 fT2 Budget $6.5 m compLetion decemBer 2009

0 0

10’ 10’

aBove

10’ 10’

building would have likely been able to support the new loads placed upon its structure. However, modern codes and new design features required structural and seismic upgrading. Other technical challenges to overcome included a new elevator core and the removal of existing glazing for a light well on the east façade to create infill balconies that can be configured into various positions—a seamless extension of the suite, a completely enclosed room, or a balcony separated from rest of the unit. Notwithstanding a few months’ worth of structural remediation, roughly 12 months had elapsed from the time Woodford began drawing up the $6.5-million project to reaching completion.

The entire project would not have been possible were it not for financial incentives offered by the City of Vancouver. A 10-year property tax exemption along with the Heritage Building Rehabilitation Program (HBRP) established by the City in 2003 contributed to Watt’s ability to make the project a reality. The HBRP allowed the transfer of density to heritage properties for the purpose of providing developers with incentives to rehabilitate historic buildings. The redevelopment of The Keefer was one of the last of the projects to benefit from the HBRP before it ended in 2008. The City also insisted that the contemporary design aesthetic of new spandrels, doors and mullions at the ground level must not conflict with the heritage aesthetic of the original building. The overall results certainly benefited from these requirements.

While the owner had originally envisioned the building as a hotel, the three suites will eventually be sold off as condominiums, leaving the penthouse for Watt’s private use. Amongst its many accolades, the project won a 2010 Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Award in Architecture. While one could debate the merits of introducing this type of exclusive development to such a low-income neighbourhood, The Keefer is a wonderful project that respectfully and stylishly rehabilitates a historic building, one that remains an important part of Vancouver’s complex urban fabric. ca

The BuildinG in iTs pre-renoVaTion chinaToWn conTexT.

09/10 canadian architect

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testing ground

a single-family home operates as a conceptual testing ground for a young firm intent on exploring sectional dynamics on complex sites.

The RiveR house, huTToNviLLe, oNTARio AGAThoM Co. text GAbRieL FAiN photos MiChAeL AwAd proJect

architects

The River House is located in an unlikely place for contemporary architecture about an hour west of Toronto in the suburban community of Huttonville. Designed by husband-and-wife team Adam Thom and Katja Aga Sachse Thom of Agathom Co., this house for a couple and a child represents an important experiment and conceptual testing ground for the young firm as they develop a body of work primarily focused on singlefamily dwellings. Although the River House is not without its flaws, it does establish a set of key themes which play a generative role in the firm’s 46 canadian architect 09/10

ongoing work. These include the relationship between landscape and building, the celebration of circulation, and the sculpting and layering of spaces in section.

Agathom is perhaps best known for Molly’s Cabin—a well-publicized project that displays their understanding of how a building can be carefully calibrated to a difficult site. Similarly, the River House makes a strong gesture towards its naturally sloping and wooded terrain while being sensitive to an existing creek on the southern edge of the property. Even if the irregular

wedge shape of the house was dictated largely by local zoning restrictions, the architects manage to take control of the design at key moments by framing the landscape and making it integral to the experience within.

But as a whole, the design parti of the River House seems to be highly driven by formal games. This inherent sense of playfulness does come at the expense of total conceptual clarity.

Take the highly articulated front elevation with its second-floor setback. Here, the combination of wood, stucco, glass and concrete appear misplaced and in direct contrast to the more contextual cedar-clad south elevation. Equally confusing is the manner in which the low profile of the building is broken only once with an L-shaped concrete tower—oddly registering elements of a chimney that was removed in an early design stage. Perhaps more consequential in terms of inhabitation is the interior, which is defined

largely through diagonal walls and stairs. This creates an interesting dynamic, yet is highly problematic as the geometry creates a number of strange corner conditions. The garage, for example, squeezes into the body of the house and abruptly protrudes into the study. On the second floor this results in an unusual entrance to the child’s bedroom and an awkward triangularshaped closet.

For all of these formal weaknesses, however, there are many elements of the design that demonstrate an exceptional degree of rigour and thought. The manner in which the architects reinterpret the notion of movement through the domestic realm is clearly developed and represents a recurring motif in their work. The interior of the house is defined as a series of complex circulation paths which both flow around diagonal walls and shift in section to create a kind of artificial interior topography. The entrance is

described by the architects as a “tornado”—an almost Piranesian double-height space where multiple paths converge and diverge. A bridge on the second floor between the master bedroom and the child’s bedroom completes the sequence and offers views back towards the entrance space below and out into the distant landscape.

At the River House, the architects also begin to make a notable effort to enhance the inhabitant’s sensorial experience of the house, again through the manipulation of the sectional plane. For example, windows do not simply function as openings, but rather as conceptual devices designed to create everchanging relationships between the viewer and the exterior ground plane. A key moment occurs in the sunken kitchen where the landscape curiously appears at eye level. The architects seem to take advantage of this relationship by inserting a vertical piece of glass at the end of a long counter in order to provide glimps-

opposite beAuTiFuLLy TexTuRed CoNCReTe wALLs ARe AChieved ThRouGh The use oF ARTFuLLy CoNsTRuCTed pLywood FoRMwoRk. clocKWise from aBoVe The bRidGe oveRLookiNG The doubLe-heiGhT sTudy is oNe oF MANy FoRMAL GesTuRes iNTeNded To deveLop visuAL CoNNeCTioNs wiThiN The iNTeRioR spACes ANd To The LANdsCApe beyoNd; jATobA pANeLLiNG, sToNe TiLes ANd siTe-CAsT CoNCReTe deFiNe The hoMe’s iNTeRioR MATeRiAL pALeTTe; The CoNFLATioN oF ANGLed suRFACes CoMpRisiNG The doubLe-heiGhT eNTRy is desCRibed by The ARChiTeCTs As A “ToRNAdo.”

es of those approaching the house.

The exploration of the tactile realm also complements these formal strategies. One of the most exciting features of the design is a finely crafted jatoba staircase which rises to the second floor between two walls of exposed poured-inplace concrete—something very few residential 09/10 canadian architect

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architects today would dare to try. Recalling the material poetics of Brutalist architecture, the imprint of the plywood formwork used for pouring is clearly registered on the wall surfaces. The experience of walking up this staircase, illuminated by a small opening to the north, seems to heighten the transition from the public realm to the private spaces of the house.

It is important to note that all of these strategies are now being refined in Agathom’s current work. In a residential project at the base of an enormous hill in Toronto’s High Park—referred to as the Reverse Ravine House—the architects have taken their sectional experiments in response to the terrain one step further by adding a secret passage to the basement on one level, the top of which doubles as a countertop on the halflevel above. There is certainly no shortage of diagonal walls and stairs in Agathom’s work. But in another house renovation underway in Peterborough, the use of non-orthogonal geometry begins to work in service of their overall design parti. Here, a new timber roof gently tilts away from the existing suburban house to create a dramatic aperture that lets light in. It will be interesting to see how the firm will develop these earthwork/roofwork themes in later work—particularly how they will be applied to typologies other than single-family dwellings.

What is commendable in the River House is Agathom’s embrace of the contradictions and slippages which occur between what is perceived in reality and the logic that drives architectural intentions. The preoccupation with most young firms is the need to justify every single design move. Agathom seems to be fearless in this respect, and have demonstrated that they take enormous risks in all of their buildings. Adam and Katja represent a model of a young architectural practice that seeks to re-examine, study and refine key principles at play in each of their works, and in so doing, arrive at better design solutions in subsequent projects. ca Gabriel Fain is an intern architect at Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects. He is currently completing a Master of Architecture degree at the University of Toronto.

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48 canadian architect 09/10

The CedAR-CLAd souTh eLevATioN is AN AbRupT CoNTRAsT To The CoNCReTe ANd sTuCCo deFiNiNG The NoRTh eLevATioN oF The hoMe.

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client MiCheLe peTTiNeLLA ANd FAMiLy architect team kATjA AGA sAChse ThoM, AdAM ThoM structural hALCRow yoLLes mechanical hydRoNiC heATiNG iNC. landscape/grass roof NATvik desiGN iNC. interiors AGAThoM Co. millWorK GibsoN GReeNwood contractor duFFy + AssoCiATes area 2,497 FT2 Budget wiThheLd completion spRiNG 2010

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calendar Will Alsop. New Work. The Best is Yet to Come

August 25-October 18, 2010 Acclaimed British architect Will Alsop offers a glimpse into his approach to design in this exhibition at Toronto’s De­ sign Exchange, which presents an assemblage of memorabilia that re­ flects Alsop’s work, relationships and interests. Themes explored in­ clude the public view, beauty, light, proportion, the dirty canvas, tyr­ anny of style, behaviour, materials, colour, immediacy, the health risk of boredom, and urban migration. www.dx.org Brasilia

September 9-November 27, 2010 This group exhibition of vintage photo­ graphs at New York’s 1500 Gallery celebrates a city planned and built from scratch in the very centre of Brazil, which replaced Rio de Janeiro as the country’s capital. The archi­ tectural, figurative and photojournal­ istic images in the exhibition high­

light the idealism of Juscelino Kubit­ schek’s socialist government and its team of visionary urban planners, architects and landscape designers including Lucio Costa, Oscar Nie­ meyer and Roberto Burle Marx. www.1500gallery.com Extreme Climates: Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects and Manitoba Hydro Place

September 21-November 27, 2010 This exhibition at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto was conceived by KPMB, the design architects of the award­ winning Manitoba Hydro Place, and showcases advanced technologies and the art of architecture. www.daniels.utoronto.ca 15th annual Canadian Art Gallery hop

September 25, 2010 The Canadian Art Foundation presents a day of art,

conversation and celebration, be­ ginning with a morning discussion panel, followed by an afternoon at galleries across Toronto, and con­ cluding with a magazine launch for Canadian Art’s fall issue at the Angell Gallery. www.canadianart.ca/galleryhop Universities as city Builders

September 29, 2010 Ryerson Univer­ sity President Sheldon Levy leads this panel discussion from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Toronto’s Design Ex­ change which features architects Will Alsop (RMJM), Craig Dykers (Snøhetta), and Eb Zeidler (Zeidler Partnership Architects). www.dx.org Glass connections 2010

September 30, 2010 This one­day ses­ sion at the Delta Hotel and Confer­ ence Centre in Burnaby presents the latest technologies used to im­ prove the productivity of glazing building envelopes, and is a highly

focused educational and networking event for architects, engineers, de­ signers, spec writers, glaziers and commercial construction contract­ ors and building owners. www.canadianglassassociation.com interior design Show West

October 14-17, 2010 Taking place at the Vancouver Convention Centre, this show features some of the top architectural, interior, and land­ scape design firms in the country and numerous retailers showcasing quality products and services. It provides a forum for both trade and consumers alike to explore design in a contemporary context through public workshops, presentations and innovative special features. www.idswest.com For more inFormation about these, and additional listings oF Canadian and international events, please visit www.canadianarchitect.com

Interior Design Resources for Professionals This highly illustrated introduction guides the interior designer through Maureen Mitton all of the steps needed to develop a professional portfolio by providing basic Portfolios for Interior Designers elements and principles of graphic design. Popular software used in portfolio development and creation, including Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator is introduced in terms of how each program may be most useful for certain portfolio elements. This book also uses extensive, real world examples of portfolios, including illustrations of actual portfolios. Examples of cover letters, resumes, and discussion of job search processes are also covered in detail.

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53

BackPage

drafting Music, coMPosing architecture

The Canadian CenTre for arChiTeCTure’s exhibiT IannIs XenakIs: Composer, arChIteCt, VIsIonary peers inTo one man’s parallel CreaTive lives, and The synChronous forms ThaT underlie boTh his musiCal and arChiTeCTural CreaTions.

Jennifer davis iannis xenakis arChives, biblioThèque naTionale de franCe

teXt

Photos

After a long day’s work at the architecture office of Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis could be found at home hunched over his personal drawing board, drafting out schematics for his now famous musical compositions.

Enticed by the chance to explore Xenakis’s creative process, architectural theorists, musicians and electronic music buffs alike have been drawn to visit the current exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Wandering amongst the gallery’s display of colourful sketches, geometric charts, musical scores, architectural photos, and technical blueprints—all the while listening to iPods playing Xenakis’s music—one can start to visually trace this enigmatic man’s radical methods. Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Archi­ tect, Visionary tells the story of one man’s evolution from a failed WWII Communist revolutionary to one of the most influential avant-garde composers of the late 20th century.

As the exhibition’s title implies, this man’s 54 canadian architect 09/10

identity resists easy categorization into one discipline. Adept in mathematics, music, engineering and architecture, the parallel creative lives that Xenakis maintained on the surface shared the same deeply rational yet iconoclastic roots on the interior. His fluid thought process, a proclivity to cross-pollinate, and a fine dexterity on paper enabled him to conceive and illustrate common mathematical foundations that would underpin the structures of his sonic and architectural creations alike.

Metastaseis (1953-54), Xenakis’s breakout orchestral composition, was one such piece penned by this shy Greek exile while working for Le Corbusier. It is no coincidence that as he drew the ruled parabolas that mapped out instrumental sounds, he employed the Modulor, the proportional system derived from geometries found in nature, and often used in the architectural projects of Le Corbusier. A gallery visitor sees 46 intersecting lines that compose a graceful hyperbolic paraboloid on paper while listening to 46 musical instruments slide between pitches that converge and diverge into moving “sound masses.” This approach to sound was unprecedented in musical history, and foreshadowed an innovative architectural project that would establish Xenakis as an architect of note some four years later.

Le Corbusier’s atelier was commissioned to

design the Philips Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels World Fair. Xenakis was charged with the task of designing a building to feature the Poème élec­ tronique, a futuristic immersive spectacle of projected images and innovative music. Xenakis returned to the geometry of Metastaseis to derive the asymmetrical form of this “music receptacle” with surreal acoustic properties. This time, the parabolic curves translated into the vectors of supporting wire cables, a construction innovation that distinguished the Pavilion as the world’s first self-supporting hyperbolic paraboloid building.

Drawing enabled Xenakis to see the link between the global and detailed scales, keeping sight of his true meta-mission of seeking the hidden fundamental geometries of the nature of music and architecture that can provoke a visceral response. The quest of this rational mind was to take these eternal forms that we are intuitively aware of in the spatial and sonic worlds, and give them a new life, whether in sound or concrete. His was a rare perspective of the world, and the diverse audience Xenakis attracts today is the true gauge of this man’s creative legacy.

Outstanding in many fields, Xenakis stands alone. ca Jennifer Davis did a research residency at the Cana­ dian Centre for Architecture in the summer of 2010.

She is currently pursuing a Master of Architecture degree at the University of Toronto. Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary is on display until October 17, 2010 at the Canadian Centre for Architec­ ture in Montreal.

CreaTed afTer hours when he worked for le Corbusier, xenakis’s seminal ComposiTional drawing study for metastaseIs (1954) beCame a revoluTionary way of musiCal ComposiTion and inTerpreTaTion. aBoVe paraboliC shapes used in xenaxis’s musiCal noTaTions influenCed his arChiTeCTure, as Can be seen in his design for The philips pavilion aT The 1958 brussels world fair. toP Left

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