Canadian Architect RAIC Gold Medal (May 2011)

Bing Thom archiTecTs

Bing Thom

raic gold medal 2011

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Congratulations to Bing Thom of Bing Thom Architects awarded Architecture Canada’s Gold

Medal!

“The client didn’t want the usual North American department stores and chain stores anchoring his new shopping centre. He went shopping across Europe and Asia for specialty shops that didn’t exist here. He wanted Aberdeen to feel more like a market—a global community place with entertainment, restaurants and shops.”

- Bing Thom, FRAIC

4151 HAZELBRIDGE WAY RICHMOND V6X 4J7 TEL 604.270.1234

www.aberdeencentre.com

Nic Lehoux

Nic Lehoux

Courtesy Bing Thom Architects

2011 RAIC Gold Medal

8 LOOKING FORWARD

25 LEARNING CURVE

Adele Weder fleshes out the character of Bing Thom as master builder, creative overseer and cultural producer.

Trevor Boddy offers a detailed account of Bing Thom’s impressive career trajectory from his beginnings as an undergraduate architectural student at the University of British Columbia.

14 THE NEW GENERALIST Ian Chodikoff interviews Bing Thom and unearths the motivations behind this illustrious architect’s numerous achievements.

29 Working Relationships

Nic Lehoux

A client, consultant and colleague reflect on their inspirational working relationships with master architect Bing Thom.

30 SAILING Away David Covo describes Bing Thom’s design process as being influenced by a passion they both share: sailing.

The design studio of Bing Thom Architects is discreetly tucked under the Burrard Bridge in Vancouver. Photograph by Nic Lehoux.

COVER

The National Review of Design and Practice/ The Journal of Record of Architecture Canada | RAIC rAIC Gold Medal 2011

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nIC Lehoux

forEword

­Editor Ian ChodIkoff, OAA, FRAIC AssociAtE­Editor LesLIe Jen, MRAIC EditoriAl­Advisors John MCMInn, AADIpl. MarCo PoLo, OAA, FRAIC contributing­Editors GavIn affLeCk, OAQ, MRAIC herbert enns, MAA, MRAIC douGLas MaCLeod, nCARb rEgionAl­corrEspondEnts halifax ChrIstIne MaCy, OAA regina bernard fLaMan, SAA montreal davId theodore calgary davId a. down, AAA Winnipeg herbert enns, MAA vancouver adeLe weder publishEr toM arkeLL 416-510-6806

bInG thoM’s vIsIonary abILIty Is In evIdenCe at aberdeen Centre—a deveLoPMent that seeks to ProvIde suburban rIChMond, bC wIth a More CosMoPoLItan sensIbILIty.

AbovE

The RAIC Gold Medal is considered to be the greatest recognition of an individual’s contribution to the architectural profession in Canada.

The Gold Medal has been in existence since 1930, yet it has not been awarded every year. Rather exceptionally, the RAIC Gold Medal has been awarded every year since 2005. And, when reviewing the history of this prestigious award, not every medallist has been an architect. Jean Drapeau, the former mayor of Montreal who oversaw his city’s glorious hosting of Expo 67— not to mention his additional achievement of displacing thousands of lower-income Montrealers while destroying scores of priceless heritage buildings through his urban renewal campaign— received an RAIC Gold Medal in 1967. Jane Jacobs, arguably one of the most important urban thinkers of the 20th century, received a Gold Medal in 1981. Her book, The Death and Life of American Cities, is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first publication in 1961. Other Gold Medal winners may have been architects, but have had little or nothing to do with the practice of architecture in Canada. These include British architects Serge Chermayeff (1973) and Ralph Erskine (1982). With few exceptions, past recipients of the RAIC Gold Medal share one thing in common: effective leadership. As the 2011 recipient of the RAIC Gold Medal, Vancouverbased Bing Thom demonstrates remarkable leadership by consistently exerting his influence on architectural education, promoting collaboration amongst craftsmen and consultants, and ushering in new methods of community engagement.

Having a broad cultural perspective has certainly helped him. Like his mentor Arthur Erickson, a formidable traveller who drew inspiration from the Middle East and Japan, Thom is similarly well-travelled, having been exposed to innumerable cultures and communities around the 6 rAic­gold­MEdAl­2011

world. This has certainly helped him with not only achieving a greater depth and clarity in his architecture, but in expressing a remarkable degree of cultural sensitivity. The fact that Thom is a philosophically minded Asian-Canadian with a global soul has enriched his world view while providing him with the relaxed confidence necessary to connect with tradesmen and consultants possessing disparate skill sets and opinions, along with the ability to engage in meaningful dialogue with clients on an international level.

This world view has certainly benefited Thom in Greater Vancouver, a region that has been dramatically altered over the past three decades.

Former BC Premier Mike Harcourt once remarked that the centre of Vancouver appears to be inexorably shifting to municipalities like Surrey. Although this comment might elicit sneers and guffaws, the reality is that businesses and young professionals are increasingly finding themselves working and living in places like Surrey or Richmond—cities adjacent to Vancouver where Thom is actively working to improve the health, beauty and sustainability of these environments. It may have seemed ridiculous when Erickson once declared that Vancouver could approach 10 million people but today, we can see how Erickson’s prediction may indeed become a reality. It takes leaders like Thom with the foresight to begin planning for this eventuality.

Thom represents one of the last true generalists, even though he is the first to declare that there are many new and emerging approaches to being a generalist architect. As younger generations are discovering for themselves how to leverage their own strengths and beliefs at a time when the profession appears to be offering fewer and not more opportunities for future architects, there is much inspiration that can be drawn from the contributions of Bing Thom.

Ian ChodIkoff

ichodikoff@cAnAdiAnArchitEct.coM

AssociAtE­publishEr GreG PaLIouras 416-510-6808 circulAtion­MAnAgEr beata oLeChnowICz 416-442-5600 ext. 3543 custoMEr­sErvicE MaLkIt Chana 416-442-5600 ext. 3539 production JessICa Jubb grAphic­dEsign sue wILLIaMson vicE­prEsidEnt­of­cAnAdiAn­publishing aLex PaPanou prEsidEnt­of­businEss­inforMAtion­group bruCe CreIGhton hEAd­officE 12 ConCorde PLaCe, suIte 800, toronto, on M3C 4J2 telephone 416-510-6845 facsimile 416-510-5140 e-mail edItors@CanadIanarChIteCt.CoM Web site www.CanadIanarChIteCt.CoM Canadian architect is published monthly by bIG Magazines LP, a div. of Glacier bIG holdings Company Ltd., a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-tobusiness information services. the editors have made every reasonable effort to provide accurate and authoritative information, but they assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the text, or its fitness for any particular purpose. subscription rates Canada: $53.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; $85.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (hst – #809751274rt0001).

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let your imagination run wild

Congratulations to you, Mr. Thom, on receiving this prestigious award.

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Nic lehoux

lookInG ForwArd

BInG ThoM Is ThIs yeAr’s rAIC Gold MedAllIsT. hIs CAreer hAs Been BuIlT on Good relATIonshIps, perseverAnCe And TrusT.

8 rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

TeXT

Adele Weder

Twenty-five years ago, as Vancouver prepped for Expo 86, the representative of the Northwest Territories approached Bing Thom with a modest proposal. Their pavilion architect had resigned from the project, and, desperate for any sort of

pavilion, they asked Thom to use their meagre funds to embellish a series of rented construction trailers. Thom declined but suggested that he instead take the budget and design a proper building from scratch. He made a point of travelling to the Arctic to understand it better, and even arranged to have a chunk of local iceberg

leFT the chAN ceNtre for the PerformiNg Arts eNtreNched thom’s PositioN As A leAdiNg West coAst Architect.

transported to the pavilion. The result was a geodesic plywood form with a minimal number of cuts, sheathed in polypropylene and sparkling glass granules, evocative of an iceberg. From there Thom ended up creating the entire pavilion programming: interior space, exhibition, documentary film, even the menu on offer. It was this

pavilion that drew the longest lineups at Expo. It was also exemplary of the architectural imagination as it is supposed to be: inclusive, culturally resonant and not predicated on big wallets.

This idea of architect as master builder, creative overseer and cultural producer has informed the ethos of Bing Thom since his professional begin-

nings. It doesn’t follow that he’s always been in a position to assume such a comprehensive role: over the years his firm, like others, has been periodically jostled by the whims of politics and the pressures of a market economy. But Thom’s formative years were spent in the idealized 1960s and ’70s, which—for better or worse—imbued many young architects with a quixotic vision. That was the era when Thom studied architecture at the University of British Columbia, working part-time for one of his professors, Arthur Erickson.

His post-graduation tenure at Erickson’s was relatively firm, but the imprint of the master would be enduring. So would his sojourn at the studio of Fumihiko Maki in Japan. Then, three months of travel in China with his new bride, at a time when travel in China was almost unheard of.

The travels were not really about architecture, but about an idealistic young couple figuring out how socialism worked—or didn’t. As Thom recalled in a recent interview, they travelled third-class in the hulls of decrepit old boats, in bunks alongside 200 others, at the height of the Cultural Revolution: “But we were very naïve socialists, so everything was heaven.”

When Thom founded his own firm in 1982, he confronted an exceptionally bleak market. Interests rates were hovering near 20 percent and new construction was at a standstill. Bereft of clients, the emerging architect made his own work. His first client was himself: he designed and built his office/studio on the edge of downtown Vancouver.

Built into the crook of the Burrard Bridge, it is conceptually more like a bunker or beaver’s dam than a beacon. Years later, he would apply the same nesting approach to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Near the western tip of the University of British Columbia peninsula, the Chan Centre was designed for a “trophy site,” vaunted for its potential for an expansive ocean view.

Thom was instructed to raze the site’s lush grove of conifers to procure the view, but he convinced his UBC clients to reconsider their approach. The concert-hall experience would be much more powerful, he argued, if the trees were saved and concert-goers could wander into this small, ethereal forest at intermission. The UBC brass ultimately agreed; and as every nighttime visitor to the Chan Centre knows, Thom was right.

In their architectural introspection, these projects reflect Thom’s own persona: he is softspoken and declines to dive into the networking game that’s often so crucial to professional adrAIC Gold MedAl 2011

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Nic lehoux

courtesy BiNg thom Architects frANk mAyrs

vancement. Instead, he manifests his presence more in the public arena, in the debates regarding our collective future. When the architecturally bereft Canada House was unveiled at the 2010 Olympics, plenty of bewildered citizens bemoaned its sheer awfulness; Thom was the one prominent architect who denounced it loudly, repeatedly and on the record.

Thom has also ventured boldly and vociferously into the ongoing debate about the future of the Vancouver Art Gallery—whether to abandon its current site and build an eye-popping new standalone building on a different site, or to maintain its present site and harness the force of imagination to expand and transform it. Few of his peers

have waded publicly into this important civic discussion: it’s risky to provoke the ire of a potential mega-client.

Thom’s attention to the arts speaks to the firm’s farsightedness and also the best kind of self-interest. He recognizes that architectural culture is part of the larger cultural force; and for architecture to thrive, the arts must thrive as well. To this end, he has established a foundation that directs a portion of the firm’s revenues to social and cultural activities. Roughly $400,000 of the firm’s revenues have been redirected towards support for the Vancouver Children’s Festival, the PuSh Festival, and other cultural activities. He has also served as the lead sponsor of

the Arthur Erickson Lecture Series at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture.

For several months in 2008, I worked closely and on contract with the firm compiling interviews and internal writings that could be archived as concise explanations of the firm’s projects and value systems. Instead of garnering a dress circle of acolytes or clones of himself, Thom cultivated a team with strongly diverse skills. Along with coprincipal Michael Heeney, the BTA frontliners include Venelin Kokalov, Shinobu Homma, Ling Meng, John Camfield, Francis Yan, James Brown and Helen Ritts. “We’re trying to find what I call authenticity, and what it is that makes this place unique rather than how this place is like every other place,” Thom said during one of many interviews at that time. “But now you have global forces; you have steel and concrete and glass everywhere, so how do you use local material? How do you create a local patina? How do you sustain the local craftsmen? So on every project, wherever it is— whether it’s Calgary or Washington—when I go to the city, I start by searching for the colour of the land. I look at the colour of the earth: how is it different from the colour of the earth in Vancouver?

And what are the cloud patterns? What is the particular patina of the blue in the sky?”

Thom is not the only architect who asks these questions—and his early mentor, Erickson, pondered them more deeply than perhaps anyone else. The crux is whether architects actually receiviNg PrAise ANd criticAl AcclAim At vANcouver’s exPo 86, thom’s NorthWest territories PAvilioN WAs oNe of his eArly exPlorAtioNs iN PAvilioN Architecture.

leFT

10 rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

courtesy BiNg thom Architects

Nic lehoux

against starchitect obsession and has called for a more nuanced and engaged local architecture, but his stance has sometimes seemed overly idealistic or self-serving. Now, flush with a burst of international attention, he has a watershed opportunity to play a more influential role in the larger scope of urbanism, both through talk and architectural output. Can he truly implement “deep values” into what will likely be a string of new high-budget cultural commissions in different cities over the next few years? Only if he can maintain that skill—exhibited most resonantly 25 years ago at Expo—of creating architectural meaning from just a few dollars and a fierce imperative to understand a faraway place. CA

opposITe Top, leFT To rIGhT BiNg thom meets With stAff iN his office; A detAil from the kogod crAdle At AreNA stAge—oNe of thom’s most receNt ANd sigNificANt Projects to dAte; the office of BiNg thom Architects is Nestled uNderNeAth vANcouver’s BurrArd Bridge; thom With Arthur ericksoN oN A visit to chiNA.

Adele Weder is an architectural curator and critic based in British Columbia. She is the recipient of the 2011 RAIC President’s Award for Architectural Journalism for her article entitled “Call of the Wild” which appeared in the July 2010 issue of Canadian Architect.

horst thANhÄuser

grapple with these questions as they increasingly take on projects in cities on the other side of the world. Authenticity and local culture are terms that pad many a designer’s mission statement and client presentation. They are concepts that are much more complicated to implement in a globalized market where the client and his backers might care not a whit about the local patina.

So far, the firm’s projects do not offer a homogenized “look,” but the pressure to do so will likely mount. With Arena Stage, his most important project to date, Thom has walked the talk. By all accounts, the Washington, DC-based theatre complex responds to both its immediate physical environment and the local history, with the “baby” theatre for new drama cradled within a larger complex containing the historic theatre.

It’s quite probable their next high-profile foreign client will ask the firm to make a brand-new Arena Stage lookalike building for, say, an entirely different kind of city on a riverless plain.

With the Washington project attracting the firm’s most trenchant international acclaim, Bing Thom Architects is on the cusp of joining that vaunted club of architects who have become brand names—and brands imply consistency.

The next few years will put Bing Thom’s famously lofty rhetoric to the test. Architects struggle to portray themselves as master builders in a world that tends to regard iconic buildings as market baubles. Thom himself has cautioned

rIGhT thom’s desigN for exPressed coNcrete coNdomiNiums iN vANcouver’s PoiNt grey illustrAtes the iNflueNce of his meNtor Arthur ericksoN.

rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

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Simon Fraser University salutes Bing Thom’s architectural legacy …

In the last century, as a junior architect, Bing Thom helped Arthur Erickson breathe visionary life into Convocation Mall at SFU’s original Burnaby campus.

In this century, as an architectural virtuoso, Bing Thom transformed Surrey’s Central City into a mixed-use development that is home to SFU’s stunning new Surrey campus.

SFU proudly bears Big Thom’s architectural imprint and joins others in celebrating his extraordinary artistry.

OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITY ARCHITECT

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IntervIew

nIC Lehoux

the new GenerAlIst

2011 rAIC Gold MedAllIst BInG thoM dIsCusses the neCessIty of reInforCInG the vAlues of the ArChIteCt And the IMportAnCe of reMAInInG true to A solId foundAtIon of CrAft, InnovAtIon, And estAB­ lIshInG Good workInG relAtIonshIps.

14 rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

IntervIewer

Ian ChodIkoff

the rAIC Gold Medal is largely about leadership and what you can give back to the profession and the community. what are your thoughts about this respon­ sibility?

I think we are living in very chaotic times, but the present and future can still offer opportunities for architects as there is a tremendous rejuggling of priorities of what we as architects can do.

From an international perspective, the whole Eurocentric focus that we’ve had in North America is now going to be much broader. You can see what’s happening in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, as well as in the Middle East. This will initiate a serious reconsideration of our responsibilities as architects. So much of our focus as a profession has lost sight of the fact that we actually have a monopoly to practice, when you consider the power of the provincial regulating bodies. The fact that our monopoly to practice comes with certain obligations–I don’t think that we as architects take

nIC Lehoux

these obligations seriously enough. We’ve forgotten that our client is really society, not the person that pays us. Architecture has to put itself on a higher plane or we’ll simply work ourselves out of a job. when considering issues like complex stakeholder objectives in the public realm, and what various levels of government can expect architects to deliver, the concept of what constitutes a client has changed. what can you expect a client to demand from us?

We often accuse doctors of prescribing poison.

Architects can sometimes prescribe poison too, especially in the way we shape our physical environment. I think that we are not accountable enough. For example, we lack accountability with the level of greenwashing going on in the work that we do. Architecture is like a kind of clothing.

You have an obligation to ensure that the person is wearing suitable clothing designed for them.

Using this analogy, you can also educate the person to ensure that the clothes they have are worn in a proper way. Because of the confusion and chaos that exists in our world, so much of our so-

opposIte top, left to rIGht The graCIous forms of The aberdeen CenTre In rIChmond, bC; bIng Thom’s Landmark arena sTage In WashIngTon, dC has provIded many neW opporTunITIes for hIs fIrm.

ciety is being balkanized in a defensive way.

Therefore, we have a strong obligation to break down these barriers because the only hope for society is to maintain a constant dialogue. Architecture is a physical manifestation of that dialogue, either in the way we plan, express or site a building, or in the way we use materials to construct it. rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

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Wayne Thom

This is not just about expressing the values of whoever is paying us, but ensuring that what we provide is a reflection of society itself.

nIC Lehoux

how can we preserve the concept of “authenticity” in architecture and how can our efforts extend to the current growth patterns in rapidly industrializing nations? how do we deal with the yoke of eurocen­ trism that defines our profession and the global practice? how has your practice

maintained the desire to remain authentic, especially when you try to bring out not just authenticity but meaning in your work?

We must certainly work toward helping change society for the better. That requires a tremendous commitment of time on the part of the architect to delve deeply into the essence of what “community” is about. With a global practice, there is a danger that we’ll quickly fly in and fly out to

examine a site for our commission. We’ll get off a plane, take one look at the site, and then draw a simple back-of-the-envelope sketch. I deliberately don’t take on more than what I can handle.

This is at the expense of building a reputation in the short run but it’s the long run that matters the most. One of the big problems of our profession has been the impact of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. So much of our schooling is focused on being published, becoming famous and giving speeches. In the end, it is the practice of architecture and the building of buildings that counts.

One of architects’ biggest problems is that we all want to be published. What you really need to focus on is building good buildings, and then publication will follow. Publications are increasingly focused on the superficial level of what the building looks like rather than what the building is doing. This is not the fault of the publishing industry, but it can be attributed to the fact that society is increasingly pushing us toward the sound bite and the sound bite is what led to the starchitecture phenomenon in the first instance.

On one hand, this has been good for architects to see the potential of architecture in society. On the other hand, there is the danger that starchitecture will remain a crutch, or a quick fix to larger societal issues.

The CenTraL CITy/sImon fraser unIversITy CompLex In surrey marks a reposITIonIng of surrey as an ImporTanT hub In The vanCouver regIon. opposIte BottoM buILT aT The edge of vanCouver’s yaLeToWn In The 1990s, The 855 Condo ToWer makes some TeCTonIC referenCes To The neIghbourhood’s IndusTrIaL pasT.

left

16 rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

sImon sCoTT

nIC Lehoux opposIte top, left to rIGht The poInTe marked a defInITIve deparTure In Luxury Condo LIvIng near vanCouver’s CoaL harbour; LIke many arChITeCTs Who foCus on Larger pubLIC buILdIngs, The opporTunITy To desIgn sIngLe-famILy resIdenCes permITs The expLoraTIon of arChITeCTuraL Ideas— as Is evIdenCed In The sTaIrWeLL for The aCadIa resIdenCe; The poone resIdenCe ILLusTraTes a sTrong reLaTIonshIp beTWeen arChITeCTure and LandsCape ThaT Can be seen In many of Thom’s LargersCaLed projeCTs; for hIs oWn deveLopmenT projeCT aT 938 hoWe sTreeT, Thom hIred pubLIC arTIsT Chung hoang To CreaTe sCuLpTuraL CLouds, enhanCIng The offICe buILdIng’s presenCe In The doWnToWn Core.

that they required. I knew this because I was involved in several World Expos throughout my career. I kept telling them that “you don’t need all of this land,” not realizing that the government was trying to grab as much as they could because there was an opportunity to take all the old industrial land along Shanghai’s Wang Po River and then resell it to developers for a profit. I never caught on to this. I knew they were doing this on the outskirts of Shanghai, but I never realized that this kind of real estate activity was happening in the heart of the city. This is why I decided to move my work over to Texas and Washington, DC. I am now ready to go back to China. The last time I was involved with China

was for an invited competition for the Shanghai Expo 2010 Master Plan in 2004. I realize that I have been in Washington for 10 years, and in and out of Texas for seven or eight years. I am just beginning to understand how those cities work. In fact, I’m only starting to understand Vancouver. As for working globally, there is a certain amount of naïveté that we carry with us when we go to other cultures. Nevertheless, it is important to have an outsider examine the problems. I know that in Texas and Washington, they appreciate the comments I make. These comments may rattle some people, but they require this kind of dialogue or they’ll continue to navelgaze at themselves.

you must certainly have battled with the challenges of a global practice with your work in China in projects such as the dalian new town Master plan and the yuxi town Centre Master plan and Concert hall.

Wayne Thom

I’m slated to give a talk at the Vancouver Institute where I intend to discuss the naïveté that I had as a younger architect working in China, believing whatever I was doing was going to make a difference. I then learned that cities in China don’t really have a taxation system, so the only way to make good money was to take land from the peasants and then resell it to developers for significant profit. As it turned out, my involvement in China at the time was part of the problem, not the solution, and the experience proved to me how naïve I was. I kept saying to the authorities that they had about 10 times the land rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

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selected projects Randall School Development + Rubell Collection Museum SW Washington DC, USA 2010-present

Tulsa Conceptual Development Plan Tulsa OK, USA 2005-2006

Tianjin Financial District Towers Tianjin, China 2010-present

Trinity Uptown Plan Fort Worth TX, USA 2004-2006

BC Place Convention Centre Proposal Vancouver BC, Canada 1995-1997

Shui Wan Cun Towers Shenzhen, China 2009-present

Acadia Residence Vancouver BC, Canada 2002-2004

Pointe Tower Vancouver BC, Canada 1993-1997

Surrey City Centre Library Surrey BC, Canada 2009-2011

Shanghai Expo Masterplan 2010 (competition) Shanghai, China 2004

Chan Centre Vancouver BC, Canada 1992-1997

Private Residence Calgary AB, Canada 2008-2011 Arena Stage SW Washington DC, USA 2001-2010 Aberdeen Phase 3 Richmond BC, Canada 2006-present Surrey City Hall Surrey BC, Canada 2007-present Tantalus Winery Kelowna BC, Canada 2007-present Harwood Condominiums and Heritage House Vancouver BC, Canada 2005-Present Tarrant County College Fort Worth TX, USA 2004-present Whistler 2010 Legacy Plaza (proposal) Whistler BC, Canada 2007-2010 Sunalta Redevelopment Plan Calgary AB, Canada 2008-2009 SAIT Parkade Calgary AB, Canada 2006-2009 Festival of Architecture London, England 2008 BC-Canada House Entrance Beijing, China 2008 SAIT Polytechnic Campus Calgary AB, Canada 2006-2008 Fort Worth Bridges Fort Worth TX, USA 2007 Sunset Community Centre Vancouver BC, Canada 2004-2007 Aberdeen Condos Richmond BC, Canada 2002-2007 Crow Creek Bridge Proposal Tulsa OK, USA 2006

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National Association of Realtors (competition) Washington DC, USA 2004 Georgia Hotel Tower Proposal Vancouver BC, Canada 2002-2004 Aberdeen Centre Richmond BC, Canada 1999-2004 Central City/ SFU Surrey Surrey BC, Canada 1999-2004

Hong Kong 97 Expo Hong Kong, China 1996-1997

Sun Sui Wah Restaurant Vancouver BC, Canada 1993-1996 Downtown Convention Centre proposals Vancouver BC, Canada 1994-1995 Mayfair Lakes Golf Clubhouse Vancouver BC, Canada 1991-1995 Dalian New Town Masterplan Dalian, China 1993-1994

788 Richards Vancouver BC, Canada 2003

Richmond School District Maintenance Facility Richmond BC, Canada 1992-1994

Janacek Cultural Centre (competition) Brno, Czech Republic 2003

Dynasty Restaurant Vancouver BC, Canada 1993

Anacostia Waterfront Initiative Washington DC, USA 2003 Royal Ontario Museum Expansion (competition) Toronto ON, Canada 2001-2002 Yuxi Concert Hall Yuxi, China 2000-2002 Yuxi and Dayingjie Town Centre Masterplan Yuxi, China 2000 Arts Club Theatre Proposal Vancouver BC, Canada 2000 Nike Research Campus Surrey BC, Canada 1998-1999 Vancouver Aquarium Expansion Vancouver BC, Canada 1997-1999 Victoria Inner Harbour Study Victoria BC, Canada 1998 Saskatoon Waterfront Study Saskatoon SK, Canada 1997-1998 Surrey Performing Arts Surrey BC, Canada 1996-1998

McKinney School Vancouver BC, Canada 1993 Chili Club Restaurant Vancouver BC, Canada 1992-1993 West 15th Tower Vancouver BC, Canada 1990-1993 Canada Pavilion, Expo 92 Seville, Spain 1989-1992 855/899 Homer St Tower Vancouver BC Canada 1989-1992 938 Howe St Tower Vancouver BC, Canada 1981-1991 New World Harbourside Hotel Renovation Vancouver BC, Canada 1988-1990 Yacht Club Vancouver BC, Canada 1989 Point Grey Condo Vancouver BC, Canada 1984-1988 Northwest Territories and Hong Kong Pavilion, Expo 86 Vancouver BC, Canada 1985-1986 Private Residence Vancouver BC, Canada 1984

how do you seek out a deeper cultural and urban understanding of the vancouver region? how can your projects exist as catalysts for the communities in which they are situated?

We have found that across Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods, everybody is getting very upset because the city has been growing over the past three decades on outmoded industrial land in the peninsula of the city. Historically, areas such as False Creek and Coal Harbour did not have very many residents living nearby. Today, we are densifying the neighbourhoods in the Vancouver region and many local architects have lost the necessary skills to engage with the community.

I have maintained my engagement with communities such as Richmond and Surrey while working hard to avoid superficial public engagement. Vancouverites are perhaps too Vancouvercentric. They don’t realize that Metropolitan Vancouver is the third-largest urban centre in the country, yet Vancouver proper ranks around eighth. The centre of the region may actually be Surrey, Burnaby or some other place. People on Vancouver’s West Side have an understanding of the city that may have existed three decades ago. I think that Arthur Erickson was right when he predicted that Metro Vancouver might one day be home to 10 million people. Canada is still a wonderful place to raise your children, but we certainly could use a dose of nationalism.

Vancouverites in particular cannot just drift along. I recently met an immigrant from the Middle East that moved here a little over a year ago, and he said to me that Vancouver survives on immigrants, real estate and drugs. Is that the basis of Vancouver? Perhaps he is being overly harsh but when you look at the economic basis of the city, he may not be entirely off the mark. how do you see your role as an architect changing? today, the public is more edu­ cated and they are more organized. how is neighbourhood planning today different from the past?

In today’s world, the planning process just takes more time. You have to expend more energy and effort, go out there to stand up for what you believe to be true. So far, I haven’t had too many confrontational issues. I certainly think that people appreciate the fact that they are talked to before anything is done. what do you think are the significant dif­ ferences between fort worth, washington, and vancouver? Also, what are the simi­ larities when you deal with these individ­ ual communities?

horsT ThanhÄuser

nIC Lehoux

Fort Worth is kind of a Medici city because the Bass family controls roughly 50 percent of the property in the downtown core. As an example of what can happen in a city like Fort Worth, I was having trouble at Tarrant College where I was trying to carve a diagonal path from the bluff to the river, and Ed Bass was absolutely determined to create a passage that was below grade and off the sidewalk. The two of us had a raging battle but in the end I won, largely because I had the public on my side; they realized that my approach made more sense. Washington is different. Arena Stage is located in a very abused part of the city, mainly due to the urban renewal process over the years.

I spent a lot of time speaking with people in the community about revitalizing Arena Stage even before the concepts were presented. When I came up with the proposal, the project went ahead without resistance. This was assisted by Anthony Williams, who was the mayor at the time and who had a very strong vision of what the waterfront could be. As for Vancouver, less than 10 percent of my work is in the city. For the Sunset Community Centre, I think the community actually wanted me even more than the Vancouver Park Board. Although Sunset has been celebrated and very well received, the Park Board hasn’t even put us on the preferred list of architects. In some ways, I haven’t worked well with bureaucracy. I work well when there are people in the community with vision—whether or not it is a community association, the mayor, the president of a university, or a creative director. It usually has to be somebody who says, “OK, this is what I’d like to do,” but if it is compromised too much through a committee, it doesn’t work well for me. Maybe I push them too hard, or they are intimidated by the architectural process. what’s happening with your interest in the vancouver Art Gallery (vAG)?

We have a gallery director [Kathleen Bartels] who has been incredibly successful in putting the gallery on the map and bringing people to the facility. [Bartels] has a particularly creative vision and has been determined [to move the gallery to another site in the city]. The Board supports her, but the community is certainly divided. I came to the conclusion that if she is the director, then you have to be realistic and realize that she has been given the mandate to run the organization. So then the idea shifts to “If the gallery does in fact The Chan CenTre for The performIng arTs remaIns one of bIng Thom’s mosT noTabLe projeCTs; The CanadIan pavILIon aT expo 92 In sevILLe Was InspIred by Canada’s norThern LIghTs; bIng Thom and feLLoW prInCIpaL of bIng Thom arChITeCTs, mIChaeL heeney.

Thomas bILLIngsLey

rIGht, top to BottoM

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move away from its existing site overlooking Robson Square, what can you do to make the [vacated building] as good if not better than if the gallery had decided to stay in its current location?” This was how the idea of the concert hall came about. I was really trying to stay within a positive framework rather than focusing on the negative. I think this strategy has been incredibly successful. Everybody is relieved that we are not in a huge battle about what the future of the VAG will be. But given the current economic outlook, people are also asking the question as to whether we can have an art gallery and a symphony hall.

What we’re saying is that you don’t have to look at building both institutions tomorrow, but perhaps over the next 15 years. In situations like these, you have two choices–either Canada is hopelessly going into the toilet, or you believe that we can reinvent ourselves and have a new beginning. I’m one of those who believes that Canada has an enormous future and everybody is going to want to come here. As architects in Canada, we are very, very lucky. how do you become globally competitive and develop a sense of urbanism that allows other forms of experience to develop in vancouver? or Canada?

nIC Lehoux

We have to allow the essence of our culture and values to be expressed through architecture.

Otherwise we will constantly be painted by other people’s perceptions of what we are supposed to

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be. This will become a superficial reading of the direction in which we are headed.

I would like to ask you about the subject of mock­ups in your practice, and the question surrounding innovation.

Increasingly, that’s becoming a problem. I can produce the buildings that I like in Vancouver, but to export some of those ideas elsewhere presents a challenge. In Washington, I was reasonably successful. In Fort Worth, I was not so successful in terms of bringing over anyone beyond the architectural team because the projects were either state-or county-funded. In China, it’s going to be extremely difficult because of the labour costs and approaches to manufacturing and assembly. I’m racking my brains to ensure that [my long-time engineering collaborator] Gerry Epp can fabricate his designs and materials in China. I think Gerry has to open a plant over there since he knows I’m active in China again. The specialty glass people that I use–Advanced Glazing–is another issue. We have worked together on the Aberdeen Centre and in Surrey, but the company is experiencing financial troubles. They’re the only people that can do what I like, but the marketplace has forced them out of business. I know that when Renzo Piano recently completed his museum in Dallas, he flew his people in from Italy to put up the glass roof because nobody else could do it. I can see that we will still be flying crews to China and vice versa to put up curtain walls, but this is a whole different

way of working with craft than what we have done in the past. Our office has used craftsmen like plasterer Peter Gallagher for over 30 years. We are currently working with a three-dimensional plaster application for the Surrey City Centre Library—almost the way Zaha Hadid might detail her buildings. They were using these six-footlong trowels to create these swooping forms for the balustrades. The plasterers are certainly very happy, as they are doing what they were trained to do. One young plasterer came up to me on site to thank me, as the building’s design allowed him to truly practice his craft. what are the central themes and challen­ ges that you work with in your practice?

The essence of everything is the people you work with, whether it’s the staff, the clients or the craftsmen. Everything builds from there; that’s how I founded my practice, and this is what builds relationships. what about your professional history working with Arthur erickson?

That experience was unique. When I worked with Arthur, he gave me free rein and this allowed me to make all kinds of mistakes while exploring my potential. what about the issues concerning public art? wasn’t your building at 938 howe

CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs

as a response To The vanCouver arT gaLLery’s poTenTIaL move from ITs CurrenT sITe overLookIng robson square, bIng Thom proposed ThIs speCuLaTIve underground ConCerT haLL as a suITabLe subsTITuTe for a CuLTuraL venue. opposIte BottoM, left to rIGht The surrey CITy CenTre LIbrary Is CurrenTLy under ConsTruCTIon and Is sCheduLed To open In LaTe 2011; TarranT CounTy CoLLege In forT WorTh, Texas Is a WeLCome addITIon To ThaT CITy’s WaTerfronT.

nIC Lehoux

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street one of your earlier explorations of working with public art?

That was certainly an interesting building for the time. It has always been a very delicate process for me to communicate with public art committees when I have my own artists in mind that I want to work with. I was fortunate enough with Aberdeen Centre in that they were able to accept that one of my staff members would be the public artist, and that’s how we created the Mondrianesque glass on the façade. In the case of artist Chung Hoang for the 938 Howe commercial building project, this was a building that I had actually developed myself with my own money.

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But with the Surrey City Centre Library, I proposed to the public art committee, mayor and city council to use Gordon Smith. Here was an opportunity to work with one of the greatest living artists in British Columbia, if not Canada, an artist who was in his nineties. The result we achieved was the largest painting or mural that he has ever produced, and it will be the dominant public art component in the building. It takes that kind of relationship to be able to get the artist that you want to work with you, but if the artist is chosen by the committee alone, the art will probably have nothing to do with the building. when examining architectural elements in your work, such as the metal cladding for the sAIt polytechnic parking structure, the curtain wall for Aberdeen Centre, and the wood and glass applications for Arena stage, I see a definitive link between art and architecture. Can you speak to this holistic method in your practice?

One of the writers I find very interesting is Ludwig von Bertalanffy who wrote General Systems Theory in 1969. This book really criticized the

nIC Lehoux

CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs

nIC Lehoux

CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs

CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs CloCkwIse froM top left a ConCreTe moCk-up for The surrey CITy CenTre LIbrary; bIng Thom arChITeCTs buILT ThIs moCk-up To experImenT WITh a gLazIng sysTem for The hoTeL georgIa ToWer; experImenTaTIons WITh frIT paTTerns heLped yIeLd ThIs CurTaIn WaLL for surrey CenTraL CITy; deTaIL of The saIT parkade sCreen; a moCk-up of The paTTerned meTaL sCreen for saIT; CrafTsmen experImenT WITh maTerIaLs for The arena sTage projeCT.

linear-reductive method of thinking of Descartes and others. Bertalanffy wrote about systems located within systems and interactions found between systems. The book remains contemporary in that it was already talking about the many things that we take for granted today. For example, in a binary computer system, we have onoff, on-off, yes-no, yes-no, but with the increasingly rapid frequencies of computational power, a computer system can become one rather than only containing individual elements. It’s that gap between on and off where creativity is actually located. We might say that this kind of holistic thinking is rather Asian in that we can live in a world of contradictions. And so, perhaps the architecture that I produce speaks to this idea.

Architecture is in many ways infinite. The community comes into the building and the building extends back out into the community. There is a sense of endless flow–a sense of the infinite, yet within that infinite there is the finite. In fact, when a building is finished, it is at the beginning of its life, and not the end. When people fuss with your building, it means that they have taken ownership. If they are scared to touch your building, then it is not their building.

CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs

CourTesy bIng Thom arChITeCTs

you established your own office in your early forties, so what advice can you give the profession today?

I think you have to look both ways. You have to go back into history and see what architecture was like before it became a profession. In many ways, professionalization has done a lot of harm to architecture. But on the other hand, you also have to look to the future to know there is going to be a new order. Maybe architecture as a profession is irrelevant. As generalists, architects are still incredibly valuable, but there will be new general-

ists who will be different from what we see today.

Young people need to go and travel. There is a situation of decay in North America and more generally in the West that is debilitating. You need fresh insight from other parts of the world such as China, India and Brazil. Then you can come back and understand how they are learning from our mistakes while making their own progress. It’s like going to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) to see the House of Mirrors.

What’s happening elsewhere is reflecting back to us in distorted ways, and we’re often shocked by what we see. CA

The daLIan neW ToWn masTer pLan (1993-94) Was an earLy foray InTo an expandIng ChInese markeT; a renderIng for The TIanjIn ConCerT haLL represenTs a more reCenT Crop of exCITIng asIan CuLTuraL CommIssIons ThaT WILL hopefuLLy maTerIaLIze for Thom’s offICe In The fuTure.

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When Vision Takes Root Fast + Epp congratulate Bing Thom on a lifetime of designing structures that

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Arena Stage ‘sending up shoots’ in October 2008 Photography by Nic Lehoux

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Learning Curve A look at Bing Thom’s career presents an argument for an oft-overlooked and misunderstood West Coast architect.

TEXT

Trevor Boddy

In an architectural landscape that rewards bland competency over creative innovation, the works of Bing Thom stand out. This was brought home to me the day I learned Thom had been awarded the 2011 Architecture Canada | RAIC Gold Medal, while touring Diamond+Schmitt Architects’ new Kinnear Centre, the core of the Banff Centre.

I have followed the design and construction of the Banff building ever since bumping into Jack Diamond during one of his early site visits, while I was on a visual arts residency there. The corporate dullness of the resulting classroom, restaurant and library complex is the least of the Kinnear Centre’s problems. More significant is its ungainly relationship to its mountainside site, its tooready dismissal of architectural virtues that the campus once knew, and a lack of creativity—par-

ticularly for an institution dedicated to innovation in the arts and management. This unfortunate building was better left on the steppes of North York, or in the outermost office parks of Dallas.

“What could Gilles Saucier have done with this commission and magnificent site?” I thought to myself, “Or John and Patricia Patkau, or John Shnier, or Pierre Thibault?” Or even the collaboration between David Penner, Peter Sampson and Neil Minuk, whose new ultra-low-budget Buhler Centre/Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg is as much the cultural building of this new decade as Diamond+Schmitt’s Banff creation is the university barn of the last. Most of all, what could Bing Thom have done? Thom’s work is unpredictable, and in times when campus archi­ tecture increasingly resembles beltway branch offices, predictability is king. Firms such as Diamond+Schmitt, Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg and Perkins+Will Canada reliably deliv-

Bing Thom’s office designed a fantastic cedar sculpture in London’s Trafalgar Square for the 2008 London Festival of Architecture.

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er the high end of generically urbane and green campus constructions, department by department.

Bing Thom gets the strange but wonderful commissions—or more accurately, he makes them strange and wonderful. The Surrey Central City project comprises a suburban campus for 4,000 students laminated on top of an extant 1970s shopping centre that never closed its doors, topped by an office tower and fronted by a transitrelated plaza; in all, a key demonstration of the hybridity in typologies, building programs, social missions and materiality that is the hallmark of Vancouverism. Surrey Central City was made possible by pushing wood engineering to do things never seen before, courtesy of Thom’s ongoing rAIC Gold Medal 2011

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Courtesy Bing Thom Architects

Courtesy Bing Thom Architects

King at Simcoe Streets was secured, and to give it exterior form. Erickson and Strasman had elaborated a variation of the office’s typical repertoire of cast concrete post and beam for the seating tiers and their soffits. Thom broke radically with this for its exterior shell, applying his knowledge of complex glass construction gained from the Provincial Law Courts and Robson Square project in Vancouver where he was team leader. The sweeping, ovoid roof that resulted is that rare figural object (along with Viljo Revell’s Toronto City Hall) standing out against downtown Toronto’s boxy ground, and the first indication of Thom’s now career-long interest in curving building forms.

Thom’s steep learning curve from this ill-received concert hall got applied, amazingly, to a similar commission he completed years later on his own. This is the clear design and acoustic triumph that is the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on the University of British Columbia campus, one of the world’s most influential performing arts buildings of the past two decades. The same design trajectory then continued on to the similarly acclaimed Arena Stage complex in Wash-

The curvaceous canopy of Thom’s design for the Royal Ontario Museum competition which was eventu­ ally won by Daniel Libeskind; Thom’s de­­ sign for Calgary’s Epcor Performing Arts Centre makes use of the firm’s ef­­forts in researching and developing new for­ mal approaches to architecture; The ele­ gant urban forecourt of the mixed-use Surrey Central City development.

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ington, DC. But all this started with a flawed and multi-authored design for Toronto, the subject of a major refit in the last decade.

Thom can also be seen to have won by having lost in the sad tale of the invited design competition for the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) expansion in 2001-2002. Thom called me in for advice right after he learned that he was to be, strangely, the only Canadian amongst the 20 firms invited to submit credentials for the commission. After congratulating him, I bluntly opined that he did not stand a chance, and neither did 18 of the other usual international suspects who formed the list.

My reasons for this advice was a previous chat with my first editor, William Thorsell (from the Ed-

Nic Lehoux

Nic Lehoux

creative collaboration with Canada’s most innovative engineers, Fast + Epp. More recently, Thom completed a campus plan for Calgary’s Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), where the only component constructed to date, a mere parking structure, is alive with innovation.

Failures are often more indicative of qualities in individuals—and even design firms—than are successes, so two of Thom’s seeming failures (both, as it happens, in Toronto) are worth discussing to understand the commitment to ideas and innovation that underlie Thom’s designs.

Thom took over as project architect for Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall after predecessor Jim Strasman resigned to establish his own practice in 1976, tiring of how Arthur Erickson ran his atelier. The concert hall had been designed from the inside out and independent of a specific site, because many locations were still in play. The acoustics consultant—Bolt, Beranek and Newman—had already been chosen, and that firm’s other designs of the era, such as San Francisco’s Davies Hall, would prove to be as problematic as the Toronto concert hall. Thom’s challenge was to site the building once the then remote locale at

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nic lehoux

monton Journal, he had risen to editor in chief of The Globe and Mail and soon thereafter, CEO of the ROM) after he returned, starry-eyed, from a preview-period viewing of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. “Do it to raise your Toronto profile,” I suggested to Bing, “but whatever you do, don’t drop a pile of unpaid staff time into a commission you cannot win.”

Of course, Thom ignored my advice, threw his whole team into every aspect of the commission (study his Phase II competition plan treatment of collections and public spaces, and weep when comparing them with Libeskind’s off-the-shelf metaphysical muddle), and came close to winning it. Thom’s Toronto lessons were hard—the STunning cloud paTTernS are digiTally iMprinTed onTo The MeTal Screen of The SaiT parkade in calgary; The roofTop of The SaiT parkade wiTh The calgary Skyline in The diS­ Tance; an early iMage of ThoM (Second froM lefT) Taking a Break wiTh hiS colleagueS on a joB SiTe; in a MeeTing To diScuSS The anacoSTia waTerfronT STudy in waShingTon.

couver’s south Main Street, near the Punjabi Market. Weddings in the Punjab crucially include a parade of bride and groom around the village or neighbourhood, and local families were forced to book wedding halls in Surrey, 25 kilometres away, because there was no adequate facility nearby. A large room on Main Street was Thom’s key addition to the standard Vancouver community centre recreation-related program (the half-century string of these buildings are one of Vancouver’s undersung marvels of social integration and healthy living). Diagonal pedestrian desire paths across the park site informed Sunset’s crossed pair of internal streets, which double as avenues for wedding processions on even the rainiest of days. Thom’s favoured organic forms are evident here and are rationalized by him as being inspired by the flowing forms of silk saris, drifting above the park’s greensward of a summer’s evening. BTA has long been a green firm without defaulting to the recent sustainability look that The New Yorker critic David Owen calls “LEED Style.” Green features include an investment in geothermal, unusually welldisposed and controlled daylighting, and a re-

courTeSy Bing ThoM archiTecTS

courTeSy Bing ThoM archiTecTS

opposIte BottoM, left to rIGht

bland competency of its leading practitioners spark an equal and opposite market for the fauxheroic gesture, ergo Libeskind, Will Alsop, and even Frank Gehry’s Dundas Street façade for the Art Gallery of Ontario. As yet, our largest city has found no niche for Thom’s commitment to formal and technical invention driven by disciplines of (hybrid) urbanity, (hybrid) social graciousness, and (hybrid) tectonics; in other words, no room in the urban closet for anything but conservatively tailored suits and carnival costumes. To the best of my knowledge, Thom is the first winner of the top award in Canadian architecture who has never completed a building under his own credit in central Canada. Finding a niche in Washington and with a long track record in China, Thom has not completed a Canadian building east of Calgary.

Many of these same patterns—a commitment to technical and programmatic innovation, a sinuous formal repertoire, unconventional but apt urbanism—are apparent in one of the most underpublished key Canadian buildings of the past few years, Bing Thom Architects’ (BTA) Sunset Community Centre for a park on Van-

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nic lehoux courTeSy Bing ThoM archiTecTS

Bing ThoM’S office deSigned a fanTaSTic cedar SculpTure in london’S Trafalgar Square for The 2008 london feSTival of archiTecTure. top The Swooping forMS of The SunSeT coMMuniTy cenTre, a Building ThaT MakeS uSe of pre­caST concreTe in a pro­ greSSive way. ABove The failed coMpeTiTion enTry for The renovaTion and expanSion of ToronTo’S royal onTario MuSeuM. opposIte

freshing concern for the energy content of materials and energy expended during construction.

Drawing on the expertise of Fast + Epp (proving they are masters of all materials, not just wood), the latter concerns led BTA to revive the 1950s intermediate technology of tilt-up concrete construction, at a scale seldom attempted in Canada.

Sunset’s internal streets are framed by walls constructed in this manner, their pours superior to nearly all local conventional cast-in-place concrete, and much cheaper and less consumptive of energy and materials.

Collaboration with Thom and his firm for a major project of my own in London taught me much about how they think and work. My Vancouverism: Architecture Builds the City exhibition had been commissioned for Canada House on Trafalgar Square, and was accepted as a marquee event for the 2008 London Festival of Architecture. Our ambitions exceeded the tiny exhibition rooms within the sandstone walls of Canada House, a former gentlemen’s club designed in 1824 by Sir Robert Smirke, architect of the British Museum. We had obtained generous donations of 28 rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

cash and cedar wood from BC and national forest organizations, and I had negotiated with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and London authorities the use of a tiny zone between the walls of the top heritagegrade building and its wrought-iron fence facing Trafalgar Square. The Square is one of Europe’s busiest urban spaces, with nearly 2 million unique visitors per month.

For the Trafalgar Square installation, Thom remembered a design idea from an intern who had passed through the office several years earlier—the shaping of cedar blocks into rounded male and female ends, then drilling and beading them along a cable, which, when post-tensioned, would make a rigid serpentine of wood. Vertical connectors were devised and tested by the engineers and their related fabricators StructureCraft Builders, and we built our self-supporting cedar wall 35 feet high and 200 feet long in the heart of London. Thom’s dedication to the project was amazing, right up until opening night, when he personally assembled borrowed and jury-rigged light pots to uplight the exhibition’s red cedar structure, casting a glow

(and aroma) that set an eerie, West Coast atmosphere throughout Trafalgar Square.

Just as impressive, Thom took our sculptural creation—never intended as a commercial product—and adapted its concepts to serve as the undulating walls of the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage’s Washington complex. As it was for London, this required a long design dialogue with clients and approving authorities, convincing them of the safety and voluptuous merits of serpentine wood walls.

The key to Thom’s tack in all of these projects is the forces in his life, and the dedication to ideas and originality that has set his course from the very beginning. Immigrating to Canada from Hong Kong in the 1950s, the diminutive Thom scrapped his way through what was otherwise an all-white westside Vancouver high school at the time (Magee), his parents refusing more Asian enclaves further east. Thom began working for Erickson as an office assistant, even before entering architecture school. Having had a similar start, I know the wonderful overview of practice that is possible then, before the templates and received wisdoms of a formal education. By the time Thom graduated from architecture school at the University of British Columbia, he was a thriving force in Erickson’s office, and was afforded the rare privilege of a theoretical and not practical undergraduate thesis which used number theory, the I Ching (one of the oldest classical Chinese texts), and the geometric reconciliation of sphere and cube to interrogate the nature of architectural problem-making and problemsolving. He turned down Ivy League graduate schools to attend Berkeley, attracted by the combinatorial thinking of Notes on the Synthesis of Form-era Christopher Alexander, but was repulsed by the emergent Pattern Language cult there, focusing instead on urban design, politics, and systems theory. He and wife Bonnie backpacked through China in 1972, and Thom turned down an opportunity to work for Louis Kahn, opting instead for a stint with Fumihiko Maki.

There is no figure in contemporary Canadian architecture who has so deftly inherited Arthur Erickson’s double dedication to formal and tectonic innovation—true Modernism, not the fey Neo-Modernism that is thought by too many to be the same thing—combined with a commitment to civic commentary and social engagement. Why he remains a mystery to so many clients and colleagues in this country is a mystery to me, but Bing Thom has sorely earned the accolade of the RAIC Gold Medal. CA Vancouver architecture critic and curator Trevor Boddy hopes to arrange a 2013 Canadian tour of Vancouverism: Architecture Builds the City. His HybridCity was part of the recent WE: Vancouver, 12 Manifestos for the City exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

mArtin tessler

courtesy Bing thom Architects

WorkInG relAtIonshIps

A client, consultAnt And colleAgue reflect on their inspirAtionAl working relAtionships with mAster Architect Bing thom. dianne Watts

Bing Thom is a visionary leader in our community and his work is helping to redefine our downtown core by creating a vibrant, modern city centre. The world-renowned buildings he has created for Surrey—including the Central City development, Simon Fraser University campus, and Surrey City Centre Library—have added beauty and vitality to the area. The iconic buildings are much more than physical structures; they have become the cultural heart of the area, sites of gathering where festivals and community events take place. Many of his innovative and awardwinning designs incorporate the beauty of wood, which not only taps into the spirit of the West Coast, but is also a smart environmental choice.

His architectural contribution will be remembered as one of the driving forces behind the transformation of Surrey into British Columbia’s next great metropolitan centre.

Dianne Watts is the current Mayor of Surrey, British Columbia.

Barry Johns

Bing hired me in Vancouver to work on Robson Square about two years after a job offer from Arthur Erickson’s Toronto office fell through at the last minute, just before I graduated. I was impressed with his sensitivity with respect to that little piece of personal history known as Robson Square, and our friendship remains to this day.

I remember Bing during those heady, extraordinarily busy and stressful years. He would always find time to listen and explore new ideas that kept surfacing in the studio. With a ready laugh, he could bring a discussion, a sketch or a small model to another level before getting on with his other duties. He was always a critical

thinker and very astute about a much bigger picture, given the politics of juggling and managing three big influences in the office—the complex urban paradigm that became Robson Square, Arthur (of course), and our client. In this context, Bing gets a lot of deserved credit for the overwhelming success of the project and for pushing a young team of architects to new heights of personal discovery.

Each time when we have reconnected, Bing seems ageless to me—he harbours a passion for the profession that continually resurfaces in conversation, fuelled by the belief that we are all deeply responsible for changing people’s lives for the better. His proven ability to bring projects to fruition where there are questionable sites, budgets, or political will, is exemplary. It seems to me that his international team of diverse professionals—not coincidentally—carries on an early Erickson tradition of reaching into the culture of various places for inspiration, and complements a life devoted to the improvement of a global society through exemplary work. His selfless giving back to the community through the Bing Thom Architects Foundation is a fitting testament to the powerful impact this architect brings to our profession.

I am proud to know him as a friend and colleague.

Barry Johns is the Executive Director of Design at Group2 Architecture Engineering Ltd. in Edmonton, and is the incoming Chancellor of the RAIC College of Fellows.

Gerald epp

“You’re going to have to work for your fee.” That is basically what I remember from our first interview with Bing Thom 20 years ago. “No problem,” I thought. He was one of Vancouver’s elite architects, and we wanted the job.

Working through the process—and not just the

Bing thom wAs the project Architect for Arthur erickson’s iconic roBson squAre And provinciAl lAw courts; working with gerry epp, thom developed the elegAnt structurAl system for the expAnsion to the vAncouver AquArium.

ABoVe, leFt to rIGht

projects themselves—has been interesting. To paint a picture of our working relationship, those who know Bing will know of his vision and how he expects the impossible. He will often shamelessly pick on the one who has the most to lose— the structural engineer. When you want to deviate from the tack he is on, you begin to realize there is a certain urgency to capture the direction he is going. This process is, at the same time, a moving target and just when you feel a Eureka moment coming, Bing will say, “Okay, let’s go the other way.” Then it’s back to the drawing board, and you are forced to reach even higher for an idea that you know will finally silence the man. But this process is not completely impossible, and I can recall many pleasurable moments arising from the various structural challenges that we ultimately resolved.

Over time, Bing and I became interested in the old master-builder concept (in our case, he is the master, and I’m the builder). This is how Bing operates. He thinks about the whole picture, and the entire budget is his. The client trusts him with it, and for good reason: he puts the money where it counts. I have seen this many times. He listens closely to builders while bringing a team around him that he can trust. He is compelled to grasp everything about the problem, and he understands that his relationships allow him to achieve such goals. He is fiercely loyal and he pays his bills. Could an engineer ask for more?

Gerald Epp is a Partner in the Vancouver-based structural engineering firm Fast + Epp. He is also President of StructureCraft Builders Inc. rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

29

At the helM The sense of advenTure, inTelligence and rigour ThaT Bing Thom Brings inTo his design pracTice has Been honed on The open waTers Through his oTher passion: sailing. teXt And photo

david covo

What do a few imaginatively recycled but otherwise ordinary industrial buildings at the foot of the Burrard Bridge and a handsome 35-foot wooden sailboat reaching across English Bay have in common? Bing Thom.

The simple compound by the bridge is his office and studio—modest in appearance, compact in scale, not always easy to spot, much like Bing himself. Under-designed is how he and partner Michael Heeney describe it, but it provides a perfect home for an architectural practice founded on Vitruvius’s proposition that great buildings are well crafted, intelligently planned, and not merely beautiful—but delightful as well.

The boat is called Sonya’s Spirit. Like his buildings, it operates in elegant harmony with the environment. And like the studio, it is a place of refuge and reflection, providing a frame of reference for action that is in perfect tune with the forces of nature.

The office is organized around three large spaces on two levels. These are the studios— undivided and high-ceilinged, cluttered but not 30 rAIC Gold MedAl 2011

untidy. Workstations are distributed around the periphery, and common worktables with shelves of reference materials fill the inside zones. There are models everywhere—big models that you can walk around and models that you can hold in your hand, small-scale models of sites and buildings, large-scale models of a room or wall assembly, and full-size fragments that explore complex joints and innovative combinations of materials.

Some are exquisitely crafted in wood and paper; others are nothing more than bits of Styrofoam held together with pins and tape. Most are beautiful; all are eloquent. According to Bing, none are precious.

There is also a collection of full-size mock-ups in the parking lot. Bing and his colleagues build these with the assistance of professional craftsmen and use them to engage the risks associated with adventurous design thinking. These mockups—and Bing and Michael describe each house they build as a kind of mock-up—give everyone, including clients and builders, opportunities to evaluate feasibility, aesthetics, even performance.

The concern for craft and program and the exuberant delight in invention that characterize

Above Bing Thom happily capTains his BoaT Sonya’S Spirit in vancouver’s overwhelmingly picTuresque english Bay.

the studio’s built work is everywhere. It’s a vision that’s clearly shared by everyone on the team and Bing has something to say to each person about every sketch, model, material sample or computer image as he makes his way through the studio with easy grace and a familiar economy of motion.

He moves the same way in the boat, where he talks about architecture and architectural education, the city and local politics. We take turns at the helm but it’s his optimism about the power of architecture to shape us as a society that guides the conversation.

When we’re not sailing, he draws as he talks, usually with a brush pen on a napkin. Occasionally, we exchange books. Recently, I gave him Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman and opened my _ mail a few weeks later to find a copy of Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows. I use one of his napkin sketches as a bookmark. CA Architect David Covo is an Associate Professor of Architecture at McGill University, and Past President of the national sport governing body for sailing in Canada.

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Introducing Folio.

Looks from Mother Nature.

Performance by Father Time.

A collection of rubber tiles inspired by nature.

Six foliage patterns, each strong enough to go it Arbor

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Case in point: Arbor and Branches, the two patterns shown here. Folio lets you create accents and insets, borders and highlights. The perfect balance of beauty and performance, Folio is a great

Branches

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Johnsonite_CanArcht_GoldMedalMag.indd 1

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