Canadian Architect June 2012

$6.95 jun/12 v.57 n.06

Dispatches from Newfoundland

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r egionalArchitects and Hilditch Architect design a new home for the YWCA in Toronto; the Hemingway Fitness and Leisure Centre in Edmonton wins the Prix du XXe siècle.

aryn Sheppard persuasively argues for a T relevant new architectural paradigm for the outdated kitsch representations inherent in St. John’s buildings.

Annmarie Adams speaks wistfully of the contributions of the late Montreal architect and artist Norman Slater, whose work was recently exhibited at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

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Three shiny new convention centres are unleashed across the country, catalyzing community engagement and activating tourism, by John Ota.

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Provencher Roy + Associés Architectes: Socially Engaged Architecture at the Laval University School of Architecture; Yonge Street/Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis at the Eric Arthur Gallery, University of Toronto.

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June 2012, v.57 n.06

Brendan Cormier reminds us that streetfood vendors have a significant place in our designs for public space—something that has been woefully and repeatedly neglected in the city of Toronto.

The Tower STudio by SaunderS archiTecTure on Fogo iSland, newFoundland. PhoTograPh by benT rené Synnevåg.

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The NaTioNal Review of DesigN aND PRacTice/ The JouRNal of RecoRD of aRchiTecTuRe caNaDa | Raic

06/12 canadian architect

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Ian ChodIkoff

viEwpoint

the CIty of MaLMö In sweden transforMed a dereLICt shIPyard Into a dynaMIC CoMMunIty, and waterfront MunICIPaLItIes In atLantIC Canada MIGht benefIt froM adoPtInG sIMILar strateGIes. AbovE

Architects from across the country converged upon the city of St. John’s for the annual Architecture Canada | RAIC conference this month, prompting speculation on the event’s ambiguously stated theme—“Deep Roots in a New Energy City”—and the potential for environmentally sustainable initiatives for this and other Atlantic cities. Rich with revenues from an expanding oil and gas industry, St. John’s is certainly more energetic today than a few years ago. However, with over 30 percent of Newfoundland’s economy derived from oil and gas, there is nothing to suggest that offshore drilling for fossil fuels makes St. John’s a “new energy” city. How might St. John’s and other Atlantic communities become “new energy” cities by adopting sustainable design initiatives to approach carbon neutrality?

The Atlantic Provinces Economic Council has identified the energy sector as the most important industry group in the region; it is believed to represent over 50 percent of planned business investments. While this figure includes the oil and gas industry, when we look at how municipalities in countries like Sweden have adopted renewable energy as a driver for economic growth, there is a huge potential for St. John’s and other cities in Atlantic Canada to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels, even if the reality of oil and gas revenues continue to exist as a strong component of their economies.

The opportunities for wind energy development, along with abundant tidal current and wave energy resources, represent a few examples where renewable energy can become more significant to the regional economy. Over 100 billion tonnes of water flow in and out of Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy every tide—more than all the freshwater rivers and streams in the world 6 cAnAdiAn­ArchitEct 06/12

combined. With wood products and food transformation byproducts becoming increasingly attractive as sources of biofuels in Atlantic Canada, cities like Fredericton and St. John’s could expand their biofuel applications in the areas of transit and district heating. Charlottetown has already adopted a district energy heating system for its downtown; perhaps we will see more district heating systems in the region very soon.

The federal government is already working with the Atlantic provinces and regional utilities via the Atlantic Energy Gateway (AEG) to facilitate the development of the renewable energy sector. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is also helping to support a variety of investments related to innovative projects in the renewable energy sector. Although this fund is primarily designed to bring new technologies to the marketplace, it is conceivable that ACOA could fund sustainable urban planning projects over the next few years as municipalities and real estate developers maximize the links between renewable energy production and urban planning.

To appreciate the advantages of fostering sustainable design in the Atlantic provinces, it is worth considering some of the basic strategies employed by the waterfront city of Malmö, Sweden. Malmö (pop. 300,000) has seen its Western Harbour completely transformed over the past decade through the successful implementation of projects relating to sustainable urban development. By 2020, the city will be climate-neutral and is expected to operate on 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. Since the closing of the Kockums shipbuilding yards in 1987, old factories and cranes along the Western Harbour have been replaced by parks, schools, housing, offices, a television studio and a university. At its peak, 6,000 people once worked in the shipyards. Today, over 10,000 people work in the area with another 8,000 people living in beautifully designed energy-efficient housing. District heating and cooling provides the entire neighbourhood with renewable energy. Solar panels, photovoltaics and underground thermal-mass storage facilities further contribute to low-energy designs, and all of the units are equipped with a recycling system to collect organic material that is later converted into biogas.

With a similar climate to Malmö, St. John’s could feasibly adopt renewable energy strategies that will reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, trigger economic development, and otherwise improve the quality of life for its people.

If St. John’s could emulate Malmö in even just a small way, then it will truly become a “new energy” city.

Ian ChodIkoff

ichodikoff@cAnAdiAnArchitEct.coM

­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 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 80 vaLLeybrook drIve, toronto, on M3b 2s9 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: $54.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; $87.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (hst – #809751274rt0001).

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news Projects

On May 22, the YWCA Toronto hosted an official opening ceremony and open house for the YWCA Elm Centre. Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, this innovative residential community was designed by regionalArchitects, in joint venture with Hilditch Architect. The purpose-built Centre occupies a city block bound by Elm, Elizabeth, Edward and Chestnut Streets that was previously the site of the 1848 House of Industry—an early benevolent institution. Together with the original House of Industry, three new residential towers provide permanent affordable housing to a diverse community, including low-income women, women with mental health and addiction issues, women fleeing violence, individuals of Aboriginal ancestry, and single mothers. The 300-unit building is composed of three distinctive, stepped elements, each corresponding to a distinct programmatic entity with its own unique street address. The YWCA program includes offices, boardrooms, multipurpose/meeting rooms, a restaurant and retail store. The complex also provides offices, a meeting hall and an Economic Development Centre for Wigwamen Inc., a First Nations support organization, and administrative space for the Jean Tweed Centre, which supports women struggling with addiction. The internal courtyard provides a shared space for all residents and traces the path of Taddle Creek, which once flowed through the site. www.regionalArchitects.com juravinski hospital and cancer centre now completed.

Zeidler Partnership Architects recently celebrated the completion of the redeveloped Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre (JHCC), one of Hamilton Health Sciences’ largest hospital building projects. This modern medical facility adds more than 450,000 square feet of new and renovated space, increasing capacity from 234 to 338 beds.

This state-of-the-art facility will further enhance the ability of staff and physicians to provide outstanding care. The new emergency department is one of the hospital’s most dramatic upgrades; the open-concept design boasts a number of features that not only modernize the space, but also ensures it is suited to the unique and varied needs of emergency care. The redevelopment project has enabled the consolidation of two highly specialized services at the JHCC— hematology oncology and hepatobiliary surgery, while creating additional oncology beds and increased capacity in emergency services, diagnostic services, ambulatory clinics and surgery. The creation of nine operating suites will also help

TerrenCe­TourAngeAu

new home for the Ywca toronto opens.

meet surgical oncology and orthopedic care needs across the region. In addition to the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre redevelopment, Zeidler has worked with the hospital on major projects and many renovations over the past few years. At the Cancer Centre, renovations for the bunkers, CT simulator and CyberKnife suites provide comfortable, daylit treatment areas which help cultivate a culture of discovery in research. The CIBC Breast Assessment Centre is a prototype in North America for communitycentred care that concurrently emphasizes emotional and physical health, and is anticipated to open in Fall 2013.

awards Bruce Kuwabara invested as an officer of the order of canada.

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, recently invested Bruce Kuwabara of Toronto as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Bruce Kuwabara is one of Canada’s leading architects and a recipient of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Gold Medal. Throughout his career, he has been dedicated to raising Canadian standards in architecture and urbanism by integrating design excellence and innovation, city building and sustainable design. He was the design architect for Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg, the first and only large office tower in Canada to achieve LEED Platinum certification, and has won design competitions for civic architecture including Kitchener City Hall, Richmond City Hall, the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and

­The­new­YwCA­elm­CenTre­in­ downTown­ToronTo­offers­A­diverse­ And­mixed­progrAm­Comprised­of­residenTiAl,­offiCe,­AdminisTrATive­And­resTAurAnT/reTAil­funCTions,­All­CenTred­ Around­A­peACeful­inTernAl­CourTYArd.

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Vaughan City Hall. Kuwabara is a graduate of the University of Toronto, and prior to founding Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects with his partners Thomas Payne, Marianne McKenna and Shirley Blumberg in 1987, he worked for two prominent architects, George Baird and then Barton Myers. He is the first chair of the Waterfront Design Review Panel for Waterfront Toronto, and a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. He is currently design architect for the Remai Art Gallery of Saskatchewan, the Departments of Economics and International Initiatives at Princeton University, the new Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Global Centre for Pluralism for the Aga Khan Foundation, and the Athletes’ Village for the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games. Born in Hamilton to Japanese-Canadian parents who were interned in Vancouver during World War II, along with 26,000 people of Japanese descent, Kuwabara has sought meaningful commissions and opportunities to contribute to the communities and institutions which shaped his experience, including the design of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto and ongoing teaching and fundraising for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.

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Prix du XXe siècle honours enduring excellence in architecture.

Architecture Canada | RAIC, in partnership with the Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF), is honouring the Hemingway Fitness and Leisure Centre in Edmonton with the Prix du XXe siècle for its enduring excellence and the mark it has left as nationally significant architecture. The Hemingway Fitness & Leisure Centre by Peter Hemingway was commissioned as a project to mark Canada’s centennial for Edmonton. The facility, completed in 1970, reflects the modern architecture movement of the 1960s in Canada’s prairie provinces, but is unique in its referencing of the Rocky Mountains, the foothills and the rolling flatlands of the prairies through the flowing wave in its roof structure and bold mix of materials. The jury noted it is nationally significant as an example of the architectural creativity and confidence engendered by Canada’s centennial celebrations. This award, created in 2007 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, recognizes the enduring excellence of nationally significant architecture, such as landmark buildings in the historical context of Canadian architecture. winners of the 2012 Prairie design awards announced.

The 2012 Prairie Design Awards for Architecture and Interior Design, a tri-provincial initiative sponsored by the Alberta Association of Architects, the Saskatchewan Association of Architects and the Manitoba Association of Architects, honours those recipients selected by a national jury comprised of Bruce Allan of the Arcop Group, Montreal; David Battersby of Battersby Howatt, Vancouver; and Diana Gerrard of gh3, Toronto. Making a significant contribution to the architectural landscape of Canada, nine Awards of Excellence and Merit were presented to prairie architects, landscape architects and licensed interior designers. Three Awards of Excellence were given to: 5468796 Architecture Inc. of Winnipeg for OMS Stage, Old Market Square in Winnipeg; Vancouver-based Bing Thom Architects for the SAIT Polytechnic Parking Garage in Calgary; and Syverson Monteyne Architecture of Winnipeg for La Cuisine at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in Manitoba. Six Awards of Merit recognized: 5468796 Architecture Inc. for Webster Cottage in Dunnottar, Manitoba; DIALOG Alberta Architecture Engineering Interior Design Planning Inc. with Perkins+Will Canada for Energy Environment Experiential Learning (EEEL) at the University of Calgary in Alberta; MMP Architects Inc. for the Birds Hill Provincial Park Washroom/Shower in Manitoba; ROAD Architecture + Zach Pauls for 10­canadian architect­06/12

Cornerstone Vineyard Church in Winkler, Manitoba; Shearer Design of Calgary for Jennings Capital in Calgary; and Straub Thurmayr CSLA/Landschaftsarchitekten for Instant Garden in Winnipeg. www.prairiedesignawards.com 2012 aiBc architectural awards announced.

An elite group of four recently emerged as winners in the 2012 AIBC Architectural Awards, in which a modest total of seven projects by British Columbia architects were selected from 58 award nominations across four award categories.

Three of the awards went to projects by Busby Perkins+Will Architects (now Perkins+Will Canada Architects Co.) while Vancouver-based Patkau Architects Inc. collected honours in two categories. While there were no recipients this year of the prestigious Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Award in Architecture, there were four Merit selections: Linear House by Patkau Architects Inc., Oppenheimer Park Activity Centre by mcfarlane green biggar architecture + design, Samuel Brighouse Elementary School by Busby Perkins+Will Architects, and the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre by Busby Perkins+Will Architects. Additional honours included the AIBC Special Jury Award which was given to the Winnipeg Skating Shelters by Patkau Architects Inc.; the AIBC Innovation Award which recognized the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) by Busby Perkins+Will Architects; and the AIBC Emerging Firm Award which was claimed by WMW Public Architecture + Communication Inc. www.aibc.ca raic Foundation announces 2012 caGBc scholarship recipient.

The RAIC Foundation has announced that its Canada Green Building Council Scholarship for 2012 will be awarded to Jonathan Goguen-Manning for his Master’s thesis entitled “Urban Courtyards: The Courtyard in an Urban Context.”

The jury felt the choice of subject matter to be particularly significant to sustainable design, noting that the thesis “promises to contribute to the growing knowledge base of urban development patterns and their environmental attributes including qualitative as well as quantitative measures.” The CaGBC provides the RAIC Foundation with a generous annual donation which is invested to build an endowment. The $5,000 scholarship from this endowment aids to nurture the next generation of “green” designers by promoting and encouraging sustainable research and design in Canadian schools of architecture. www.raic.org

the canada research chair on Urban heritage of esG UQaM awards the 2012 Phyllis Lambert Prize.

The Canada Research Chair on Urban Heritage of the École des sciences de la gestion de l’UQAM has awarded this year’s Phyllis Lambert Prize to Elsa Lam for her thesis “Wilderness: Building Canada’s Railway Landscape, 1885-1929,” defended at Columbia University (New York). The jury unanimously recognized the value of Lam’s work and highlighted the “originality of the subject matter identified through a multidimensional approach inspired by the concept of cultural landscape; the great variety of sources; the quality of the examination of records; and the great precision of the writing.” The thesis shows how the Canadian Pacific Railway Company conceived their railway infrastructure and travelled landscapes as an aesthetic project, and explores the role played by big hotels, prefabricated farms, bungalow camps, and Native American festivals in the construction of an imaginary “wilderness nation” between 1885 and 1929. Every year, the Chair awards the Phyllis Lambert Prize to the candidate who submitted the best doctoral or Master’s thesis on the history of architecture in Canada according to an independent jury, this year comprised of professors Marc Grignon, Martin Bressani and Lucie K. Morisset.

what’s new Migrating Landscapes: sponsor a winner with a gift of $3,000.

A national jury has selected 18 winners, made up of individuals and teams of young architects and designers, to be part of Migrating Landscapes, Canada’s official entry to the 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture. Migrating Landscapes Organizer (MLO) is proud to offer you the opportunity to sponsor a winner with a gift of $3,000. Fifty percent of your generous gift will go directly to a winner to help offset their participation, travel and accommodation costs in Venice. The other 50% will be used to ship their architectural model to Venice and to purchase and build the 4’ x 4’ pieces of wooden “landscape” that their model will sit on.

The 18 winning teams from across Canada are listed by province as follows. British Columbia: Amirali Javidan; Mira Yung + IMu Chan; Olena Chytra + Philipp Dittus + Alana Green + Katy Young; D’Arcy Jones + Amanda Kemeny + Daan Murray + Melani Pigat. Alberta: Tiffany Shaw-Collinge. Saskatchewan: April Hiebert + Brad Pickard + Robyn Robertson + Mark Sin + Victoria YongHing. Manitoba: Jason Hare; Travis Cooke + Jason Kun; Andre Silva + Chris Gilmour + Kory Kaspersion. Ontario: Andrew Batay-Csorba + Jodi Batay-

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12-03-13 4:33 PM

architecture champion funds scholarships at the Laurentian University school of architecture.

Blaine Nicholls, a long-time advocate for a School of Architecture in Sudbury and recent recipient of the Community Builders’ Award, has made a donation of $100,000 to the Laurentian University School of Architecture. The gift is the largest private donation made to the School to date, and will be used to support the education of architecture students. Nicholls led the Community Steering Committee that formed in 2007, and helped to lay the foundations of the Architecture project in Sudbury. A partner in the respected Sudbury architecture firm Nicholls Yallowega Bélanger until his retirement five years ago, Nicholls was recently honoured with the Community Builders’ Award of Excellence in Economic Development for his advocacy work. The award recognized him as a driving force behind the success of the project. The School has secured $42 million in funding from various levels of government, and is set to welcome its first students in September 2013. Nicholls told a gathering of Laurentian alumni in Sudbury in April that he made the donation in memory of his mother, who left him the inheritance. “I was saving this 12­canadian architect­06/12

migrATing­lAndsCApes­orgAnizer

Csorba; Erica Peckoskie + George Simionopoulos; Kfir Gluzberg + Liana Bresler. Quebec: Enrique Enriquez; Felix Tue; Jean-Nicolas Bouchard + Philippe Charest; Anca Matyiku + Chad Connery.

Maritimes: Marianna de Cola; Stephen Kopp + Monica Adair + John Leroux + Jessie Croll + Alicia Halas. In return for your donation of $3,000, you will receive: your name on the Canada Pavilion sponsor wall at the Venice Architecture Biennale (you may sponsor a winner as an individual, a group of individuals, a company, or an organization); your name on the Migrating Landscapes website; recognition in Architecture Canada | RAIC’s monthly e-newsletter to 4,300+ members; and a charitable tax receipt from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Foundation. Smaller donations are also very welcome. Your gift would be allocated as outlined above, and you would receive the same benefits as above, but your name would be listed on the Canada Pavilion sponsor wall and on the Migrating Landscapes website at the level corresponding to your gift ($2,500 Patron I, $1,000 Patron II, $500 Supporter, $250 Friend I, $100 Friend II). Those wanting to learn more about the Migrating Landscapes project can watch an enlightening video at https://vimeo.com/42518802 and for more information on sponsorship opportunities, you may contact Johanna Hurme at 204.480.8421 and johanna@5468796.ca or Sascha Hastings at 416.934.1595 and shastings@raic.org. www.migratinglandscapes.ca

­individuAls­Comprising­The­18­winning­TeAms­represenTing­CAnAdA­in­This­YeAr’s­ enTrY­To­The­veniCe­BiennAle­for­ArChiTeCTure,­enTiTled­migrATing­lAndsCApes.

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money for something special, and as the Architecture project became more real, I realized that this was the special kind of project she would have wanted to support,” said Nicholls. The gift from Blaine and Lise Nicholls will be used to provide financial support to architecture students, for the curriculum’s Community Design/ Build component, a central feature of the School’s teaching method. “The challenge with design/build is that there are additional costs to be able to realize the ‘build’ part of the equation,” said Nicholls. “Laurentian Architecture students will not only learn how to design; they’ll benefit from the hands-on opportunity to actually execute their designs and create real results.”

10-week women’s earthbag dome Building apprenticeship in canada.

Kleiwerks International’s Women of the Americas Sustainability Initiative (WASI) is hosting a 10-week, hands-on natural building apprenticeship that brings together a group of women apprentices with an experienced team of earthbag builders and native St’át’imc community members. Their project is to construct a Healing & Cultural Arts Centre near Lillooet, BC. Taking place from July 28 to October 6, 2012, this training immersion provides participants with the opportunity to learn construction while building a dome from start to finish, develop leadership skills through facilitating local groups, work

side-by-side with a community that is creating culturally appropriate local solutions, and document the story to share with wider audiences.

Ideal participants are women who have follow-up projects who intend to share what they learn, and who want to work in the natural building trades and be part of the growing natural building movement. Today’s building industry uses half of our planet’s resources, yet healthy, time-tested, affordable and soulful construction alternatives exist. These alternatives are based on reclaiming and refining the use of local and recycled materials. Coupled with indigenous knowledge and Permaculture design systems, natural building plays a profound role in creating a way of life that is good for people and the planet. Instructors Fox McBride and Chloe Wolsey are teaming up for the first time, combining their extensive and global earthbag dome construction backgrounds. WASI coordinator, Susannah Tedesco, is devoted to rural grassroots initiatives that empower communities to create viable local living solutions.

WASI is an alliance of women leaders who construct, educate, organize, and advocate for strong and empowered communities through ecological design-build practices with the aim of creating a socially and ecologically resilient world. There are 12 seats available. The fee is $3,600, and includes tuition, meals, lodging and field trips. www.kleiwerks.org/wasi-canada-earthbagdomeapprenticeship-2012

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Brian rickS

the Future oF st. John’s terests of progress versus the interests of heritage and culture.

Now, new residential architecture reproduces the “jellybean row” all the time, distilling the look with brighter colours, and clean and tidy trim. New commercial and institutional architecture is undergoing the same process. Developers know that throwing in some double-hung windows and Main Street-style sconces will help their project meet with as little resistance as possible from the City and the public. The qualities of the much celebrated vernacular have mutated into a one-size-fits-all clapboard and white trim glove, smothering any form of new building. The new Courtyard Marriott Hotel on Duckworth Street is a perfect example. Or Stella’s Circle at Rawlins Cross, near the upper limit of the city’s historic downtown. the Practice of everyday Life in st. John’s

Burdened wiTh expecTaTionS of kiTSch hiSTorical repreSenTaTionS of The local vernacular, ST. John’S STruggleS wiTh developing a relevanT urBan archiTecTure ThaT SpeakS of iTS Time. teXt

Taryn Sheppard

This month, architects and their industry-related entourage descended upon St. John’s for the annual RAIC festival and conference, marking the first time the festival has ever been held in Newfoundland. What makes this a good time to bring it here? Festival planners at the RAIC say that members want to get out and see the country a little more when it comes to venues, and after receiving an application from the NLAA to host the festival this year, they jumped at the opportunity.

The theme for this year’s festival was “Deep Roots in a New Energy City.” On the surface, it’s a simple tagline that points out two pretty obvious characteristics of St. John’s: one, it’s old, and two, offshore oil is the new force driving its economy. But it could also be interpreted as highlighting a conflict. Experiencing unprecedented growth, St. John’s is under pressure to serve the cultural interests of the heritage and tourism sectors, as well as the insatiable appetite of new business developments. What will be the eventual outcome? Which will win the race to dominate the urban landscape?

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Last year, the number of visitors to Newfoundland exceeded the population count. This increase in visitors has been attributed to the successful tourism and branding campaign by local ad gurus. The TV spots and print ads depict a powerful, almost mystical landscape populated intermittently by humble, accommodating folk. The ads bombard us with the saturated colours of crooked, picturesque townscapes. They also talk about how when you get here, you can lose track of time, get lost on the barrens, and forget the horrible banality of your normal life because you are so far away from civilization. To be sure, there is a complex placebranding technique at work behind these scenes, one intended to construct a fictional place tailored to the vacation fantasies of others.

The landscapes are super-vast, the streetscapes are supersaturated, the nature is ultra-pure. It’s a hyper-real St. John’s.

City regulations for building within heritage areas ensure that the qualities of the hyper-real St. John’s are cultivated in perpetuity. In the 1970s, there was a movement to protect the character of the downtown, which led to the introduction of heritage status areas. This relatively drastic move had a powerful effect on the development of the downtown in terms of protecting historically important architecture.

But it also polarized the debate between the in-

However, not far beyond Rawlins Cross and the downtown you’ll find a city more typical of North American urbanism: a place where you probably don’t work anywhere near where you live, and you really need a car to get around. An increasingly greater number of people are commuting to work from surrounding suburban areas like Conception Bay South, Paradise and Mount Pearl, which could add up to more than two hours in a car on an average day with decent weather. Public transit options are limited to say the least. The city’s bus system is not exactly reliable, and the ridership is low enough to cause the company the occasional financial and existential crisis.

The rental vacancy rate across the entire city is almost zero, and house prices are averaging out at $300,000 for something you can expect to renovate. There will be over 3,600 new singlefamily dwellings built in the city this year— migration to the city from around the island and other parts of the world means the city’s population is actually increasing for the first time in a long while.

In the past 10 to 15 years, St. John’s has been following in the footsteps of many other North American cities by parcelling up huge tracts of land on its outskirts and cultivating them into power centres a.k.a. smart centres a.k.a. big-box retail developments. The smart centre at Stavanger Drive was the pioneer, springing up near the city airport almost 20 years ago amidst riGht Similar To oTher norTh american ciTieS, ST. John’S iS noT immune To The anTi-urBan effecTS of Big-Box reTail, aS Seen here along STavanger drive.

compleTed in 2008, The gloBal headquarTerS for Bluedrop performance learning received a SouThcoTT award for The reSToraTion of an old TimBer warehouSe. riGht The STella Burry communiTy ServiceS (SBcS)—a leading Social ServiceS agency ThaT provideS programS for adulTS and youTh who have experienced perSonal or family challengeS— compleTed The Brian marTin houSing reSource cenTre in 2009. falling Back on a hiSToriciST vernacular deSign, The proJecT noneTheleSS faciliTaTeS iTS oBJecTive of improving acceSS To affordaBle houSing in ST. John’S. greg locke

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business activity in the downtown by developing new office space. A pattern is emerging whereby new tall buildings (over 10 storeys) are situated in the west end of downtown closer to the harbour dry docks, near Hamilton Avenue and Water Street West. The new Fortis Tower will be the most visible, rising from an old lumber yard site.

Its neighbour is another 13-storey edifice, the Deacon Office Tower, posturing itself as the city’s answer to New York’s Flatiron Building. And a couple of blocks away, a new office tower called 351 Water Street is being erected on the old site of one of St. John’s longer-lived downtown department stores. Hastily being pieced together out of precast concrete, it will unfortunately include a six-storey-high parking garage along Water Street, downtown’s prime commercial and tourism corridor.

Meanwhile, new residential projects in the downtown are trying to accommodate, challenge or mutate the hyper-real vernacular of downtown living, with varying degrees of success. At one extreme is the development of the old Avalon Telephone Building on Duckworth Street, one of the core’s more challenging sites. Located on a slope with a very narrow and irregular footprint, the existing building has been condemned for years, and a new building will be necessary. The design will divide the residence logically and elegantly into three masses, respectfully informed by the site footprint and adjacent buildings. It

also incorporates the subtle use of contemporary materials. At the other end of the spectrum, a new condominium project nearby stretches a vernacular skin of yellow clapboard, white trim, and mansard roofs over five storeys of condominiums, gracelessly placing them on top of a five-storey parking garage with a glass portico and port-hole windows. The result is probably the crassest example of developers paying lip service to architectural heritage the town has seen yet.

Stylistic mutants like this are the direct result of the clash between a booming economy and a narrowly prescribed, heritage-based architectural expression. But they have already tested the limits of that expression and seem to be questioning its relevancy. The idea of an urban Newfoundland experience is no longer as farfetched as it may have once seemed. But at the same time that the city seems to want to forge connections with the rest of the world, it is also obligated to showcase and capitalize on its isolation and obscurity. The preoccupation with the hyper-real vernacular could be seen as a reason why examples of new architecture that participate in a global design discourse are disappointingly rare in this city. ca Taryn Sheppard is an intern architect working at Sheppard Case Architects in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Taryn Sheppard

the thick black spruce that dominate the Avalon Peninsula. This windy, inhospitable and paved expanse of consumer opportunity is at once loved and loathed. It’s spatially distorted and organizationally hostile to human beings without vehicles.

But every couple of weeks a new national or global chain opens for business, and the people rejoice. And we are spending money with abandon; last year, the average disposable income in Newfoundland grew by 6.3%, retail sales increased by 5.1%, and it’s not forecasted to slow down any time soon.

In the past couple of years, a new smart centre has popped up in the west end of town, and another even more massive project is in the works in the southernmost reaches of the city’s edge.

Former Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is the developer of a new 10-square-kilometre residential/industrial/commercial plan that will incorporate a new big-box shopping area in the model of Stavanger Drive. It’s a $5-billion project that will expand the city at its southwest end, where Williams currently has his Glendenning Golf Course. Included in the first phase of development will be 47 acres for residential, 72,000 square feet of retail space, and 324,000 square feet of industrial space. The project is expected to take 20 years to complete.

While there are numerous new financial nodes developing in and around these suburban power centres, there is also a big push to focus more

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PeriPheral Vision concePtually engaging new artists’ studios on Fogo island balance the challenges oF Functionality and the exPression oF sculPtural brilliance.

Fogo Island artIsts’ studIos, Fogo Island, newFoundland saunders archItecture In assocIatIon wIth sheppard case archItects Inc. text trevor Boddy Photos Bent rené synnevåg ProJect

architect

It is beyond question that Saunders Architecture’s studio pavilions for artists have been terrific successes as branding for Newfoundland’s Fogo Island Arts Corporation (Arts Corp). Before the first artist had taken up temporary occupation in this string of stark structures overlooking the North Atlantic, photographs of them had appeared in magazines and newspapers far and wide. With their boldly framed views of rocks and surf, their contemporary abstractions of traditional fishing stages, their black and grey trapezoidal forms framed in wood, the Fogo artists’ studios came to define an institution before it had been fully formed. Their architecture speaks of reconciling the avant garde with the folkloric, a defiantly local romanticism at ease with more universal arguments. These first Fogo images also captured the sense of a Newfoundland renewed as it found its latent strengths, and bolstered by oil wealth, crossed the symbolic line from a “have not” to a “have” province.

As devices of optical inquiry into the nature of landscape, these creations by Norway-based Canadian architect Todd Saunders are as invigorating as a salt wind sharpened by icebergs floating offshore.

But buildings are not logos. Or rather, buildings have too often been reduced to logos, especially for the art world, but this does not mean that the practical obligations for places of creative work cease to matter. Now that these structures are inhabited—used by artists as working studios—the Fogo Island story is a great deal more complicated, the results more nuanced, even while recognizing the formal and tectonic power of the architecture. I had the rare opportunity to push past their imagistic treatment to date by virtue of a small conference that brought together current, past and potential artists using the the tower studIo Is one oF seven artIsts’ studIos located along the jagged shorelIne oF Fogo Island.

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Fogo studios to talk about the production of art in remote places. Artists have Fogo residencies ranging from a few days to a few months in the studios, which are reserved for their creative work, while each is also assigned a comfortably restored typical Newfoundland outport house for sleeping and eating. The Long Studio—the first of the studios to be completed—is also the largest and in many ways the most successful. Since this studio has already been reviewed by Michael Carroll (see CA, September 2010), I will concentrate on the newer constructions. I got to visit the studios at all times of the day and in all modes of weather, talked to the inhabitants about their usability as working studios, and saw them in action as packed-out social spaces for openings and parties. squish studio

The Saunders website has a single image of the interior of the Squish Studio. The image features a barefoot Bohemian sitting on a ledge of one of the studio’s carefully composed built-ins. Freshly painted during the last stages of construction, the gleaming white studio has absolutely no other signs of inhabitation other than a raging fire in the glass-fronted stove. Of course, reality plays out differently from this imagistic fantasy. Even with the fire raging, this room is drafty, and artists I encountered there grumbled about depositing their boots at the door to maintain the fiction of pure white-painted floors in a working studio. Courtesy of those built-ins and a compact galley kitchen, this is actually one of the more practical studios. Some of the many senses of “squish” here are the forced perspective of its walls and its framing of views, with side walls at both entrance and window ends extending out to emphatically direct vision. But it does not take long for all this framing to feel heavy-handed, the boxed-out visuals seeming like an extra-large flat screen that cannot be turned off (the studios are without curtains, shutters, blinds or any other devices to

nestled Into the landscape and protected From the wInds BlowIng In From the atlantIc ocean, the BrIdge studIo overlooks a small Body oF water. right the BrIdge studIo Is delIcately posItIoned on a rocky sIte.

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temper this tyranny of opticality). The Squish Studio floats above the landscape (a frequent massing device for Saunders), but it also floats above the daily grind of a working studio. bridge studio

Bridges are necessarily linearly directional forms, a constructed necessity to get from point A to point B or vice versa, usually over water. But directionality in a studio space can be relentless.

One takes a short bridge to reach this studio adjacent to an inland pond, and the studio is itself a bridge between land and sky, with an upward tilt to its massing. Additionally, once inside, a few stairs must be negotiated to reach the work area. Architectural decisions like these accumulate to mean there is exactly one place to sit comfortably in this studio, and exactly one view available. Would a side window have utterly compromised the parti pris of the bridge, distracted from the purity of form? The artist from Asia assigned this studio when I was there had only visited it a half-dozen times during a month-long residency, getting more done in his well-heated, WiFi-equipped (most studios have no internet access, a crucial absence for 21st-century visual artists) restored house in town. The Bridge has a cozier working environment than the Squish Studio, and its linearity and single-minded directionality seem to create a better space for narrative and time-based media than for the inevitable spatiality of the plastic arts. Besides, it boasts wonderful flanking tables to array research notes and drafts of texts.

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The most awkward Fogo studio for work and occupation is the tower. Not a straight vertical form, the tower jumps over in plan as it rises, then squinches at transition points accommodating either skylights or greypainted soffits, in contrast with the black used for all other exterior walls.

This studio was being used by a husband-and-wife writer/video artist team during my visit. Because access to the second floor and the roof deck (and its sublime vistas) is achieved solely by a wall-mounted vertical ladder, the female of the pair had never visited any level other than the ground floor during her residency. Unfortunately, there is no window at eye level on this level of the studio; however, there is an immense skylight on the second level through which light pours, requiring its residents to rig a blanket as improvised solar control. Top light is fine for a painting studio, but the room’s size and appointments make this difficult. With so many levels above this vexed workroom, it is also slow and difficult to heat, so cold in June that these artists also eventually retreated to their restored salt-box residence.

aboVe, leFt to right the exterIor walkway leadIng to the BrIdge studIo; the desIgn oF the BrIdge studIo Forces one’s attentIon toward the vIew aFForded By the sIngular wIndow to the south.

conclusion: studio ideal and studio reality

Canada has another collection of architecturally ambitious studios in a raw natural setting for use by visiting artists. The late-1970s Leighton Colony at the Banff Centre features stand-alone studios of similar sizes to those at Fogo Island—designed by an array of architects including Ron Thom, Richard Henriquez, Douglas Cardinal and Fred Valentine. The Leighton’s architectural zoo (one studio by each Late Modernist species native to Canada) has its own quirks and inadequacies too, but generally, the studios are more successful as working spaces. This is because they are set in a forest and are inward-looking, without the pressure Saunders faced in reconciling short- and long-distance views to and from his creations perched so self-consciously on the primal, wave-swept rocks and fields of

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his native Newfoundland. This is the irony of Saunders at Fogo: the optical and imagistic agendas of his studios conspire to make them less useful as working spaces for visual artists.

Non-artists are often surprised at the roughness or banality of the studios where even the most prominent artists shape their creations, in the same way non-architects feel a disconnect when they visit our lodgings and sit on the furniture we can afford. Precisely because so many architects are failed or wannabe visual artists, we are more likely to let arty form-making confound the practical functional needs of art galleries, and it seems, studios for visiting artists. We spin the visual delight for these building types when what is really required is a little more everyday commodity and firmness.

But there is good design news from Saunders Architecture’s atelier. Now rising on a prominent site on the island is the 29-room Fogo Island Inn he has designed for Arts Corp’s sister entity, the Shorefast Foundation. In plan, the splayed wings of the hotel form an X, opening up to the landscape without

the Form oF the sQuIsh studIo appears to Be constantly transFormIng From day to nIght due to Its torQued geometry.

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being consumed by it. The guest rooms and the spa are single-loaded on the second and third floors, with framed views of sea and shore. A restaurant, gallery and other public spaces inhabit the ground floor with a section left as a covered porch set with multi-angled columns, a spectacular framing device that makes arrival at the Fogo Island Inn as dramatic as the landscape.

Indulgence in the optical—the cult of the view—is perfect for a luxury hotel in a remote natural setting. The “work” here is enjoying the vistas and getting a sense of the place, and Saunders gets this right, as did Chris Rowe’s architecture (though not the interiors, which were designed by others) for Cannon Design at the similar Sparkling Hill Resort outside Vernon, BC. While the Vernon spa is set at mountaintop rock level, at Fogo Island it is at roof level. Saunders has incorporated his trademark flanking

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the extreme acute angles oF the sQuIsh studIo result In a wIldly dIstorted BuIldIng In a suBlIme landscape; From thIs perspectIve, the sQuIsh studIo seems relatIvely stoIc as It overlooks the ocean; an IconIc Image oF the long studIo.

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roof and wall frames here, which will protect the saunas and open hot tub from the wind. Gazing past the granite shores towards the icebergs, there may be no better place for the world to come to understand our idea of the North. As Saunders has designed a number of superb villas and interpretive centres in his adopted home of Norway, it’s high time he got a larger Canadian commission to prove that his is a major talent. ca Trevor Boddy’s essay “Mega + Micro” on the last decade of Canadian architecture (portions of which have previously appeared in Canadian Architect) received second place for the Pierre Vago Award for best architectural criticism published worldwide 2008-2011 at the Tokyo UIA World Congress of Architecture.

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1 client shoreFast FoundatIon and the Fogo Island arts corporatIon architect teaM attIla Béres, ryan Jørgensen, ken BeheIm-schwarzBach, nIck herder, ruBén sáez lópez, soIzIc Bernard, colIn hertBerger, chrIstIna mayer, olIvIer BourgeoIs, pål storsveen, zdenek dohnalek structural dBa assocIates (long studIo) serVices engineering core engIneerIng (long studIo) builder shoreFast FoundatIon construction suPerVisor dave torravIlle construction teaM arthur payne, rodney osmond, edward waterman, germaIn adams, John penton, Jack lynch, roy JacoBs, clarke reddIck area 130 m2 (long studIo), 30 m2 (sQuIsh studIo); 50 m2 (tower studIo); 30 m2 (BrIdge studIo) budget wIthheld coMPletion 2010-2011

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design Lessons

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I wish I had met Norman Slater (1921-2003). The Montreal architect and artist taught at the School of Architecture at McGill University from 1977 to 1986. He died in 2003, in the midst of an intense period that saw the loss of so many giants of the postwar Montreal architectural and urban scene including Norbert Schoenauer (died 2001), John Schreiber (2002), John Bland (2002), Guy Desbarats (2003), Harry Mayerovitch (2004), and Harold Spence-Sales (2004). These architects and educators gave

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1960-’70s Montreal (and Expo 67) its über-cool, modern vibe, and taught a generation of students to think big and make beautiful places.

For two months, the Université du Québec à Montréal’s (UQAM) Centre de Design and curator Réjean Legault gave those of us who missed Slater in person a chance to discover him through his complex work, and those lucky enough to have known him an opportunity for rediscovery. Norman Slater: Design Lessons, which ran from November 2011 to January 2012,

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featured a stunning exhibit, a bilingual catalogue, a walking tour, a roundtable discussion, the work of UQAM students inspired by Slater’s ideas, and a dramatic video projection on the façade of the design school. In its exceptionally broad sweep, Norman Slater: Design Lessons accomplished what most low-budget, university-based exhibits can never do: touch audiences beyond its own student body and make a big difference.

The difference accomplished by the Norman Slater exhibition is that the architect’s complicated oeuvre was tracked, catalogued, and organized for the first time. While almost all the drawings, photographs, models, furniture, and even jewelry in the show came from his widow’s collection, public sculpture by Slater was also rescued from demolition (and obscurity) and highlighted in the exhibition. Video interviews with Slater’s longtime colleagues Joseph Baker, Guy Legault, and Harold Ship enlivened the large, rectangular exhibition hall.

An MIT-trained architectural historian and former head of the Study Centre at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Legault and architect Gary Conrath assembled the Slater material they found in a stunning display that would surely please even a perfectionist like their subject.

Emphasizing Slater’s beloved aluminum, 100 2’ x 4’ panels framed in aluminum were suspended from the Centre de Design’s open-truss ceiling and walls illustrating 25 Slater projects. The regularity of the hanging panels was punctuated by large works of public art by Slater, most notably the 3,000-pound aluminum ingot he designed for the Canadian Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958, and colourful, triangular pieces from an original setup of 17 aluminum tripods designed in 1959-60 for pharmaceuticals giant CIBA. My favourite part of the exhibition was a massive “drafting” table with stools (inviting visitors to linger and enjoy) which featured blueprints, sketches, magazines and other evidence of Slater’s creative process as well as real examples of his designs for household objects. Since Slater apparently worked out many of his design ideas by trial and error in the basement workshop of his home, the inclusion of an iconic and “messy” drafting table is particularly appropriate.

Especially clear in the exhibition were the multiple scales of work he produced over his prolific, four-decade career. Always intensely interested in technical problems, Slater devised a way to install the famous, arched concrete curtain wall of Montreal’s swankiest hotel, the Château Champlain. He designed the lighting systems at Place des Arts and for La Ronde at Expo. Particularly beautiful were Slater’s many large-scale decorative screens, well-represented in the show by images of Steinberg’s grocery stores, the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, the Alcan offices in Place Ville Marie and Morgan’s Department Store in the city’s upscale Rockland Shopping Centre. These large-scale art projects showed the same painstaking commitment to high design illustrated in the exhibit’s smallest object: a prototype for an exquisite bracelet designed in the 1980s for Henry Birks & Sons.

For those who missed the show, Legault and colleagues have produced a handsome 200-page catalogue of photographs and essays. This includes a touching tribute to Slater the teacher by Mark Poddubiuk, following up on his back-page feature on Slater for Canadian Architect in 1996, as well as a tribute from Slater’s friend Harry Stilman. Poddubiuk, who studied under Slater in 1982, remembers him as an unremarkable teacher until he presented the curtain wall of the Maison Alcan to his design studio. “To a second-year architecture student, Norman Slater’s attention to detail, to verifying performance, and to ensuring consistent quality control on the construction site was completely unfamiliar...Slater let us see the domain of technicians and standard product catalogue details. It was the very stuff of architecture. And it placed the architect at the very point of making the building.”

Poddubiuk’s statement is interesting, given that one of the main messages of the exhibition concerns boundary-crossing, or what Maurice Cloutier summarizes in the catalogue as “Norman Slater: unclassifiable.”

­ArchivAl­photogrAphs­depict­two­of­slAter’s­coloUrfUl­ geoMetric­pUblic­Art­scUlptUres—reAching­skywArd­At­A­technicAl­college­in­donnAconA­(1965)­At­top,­And­MArching­ rhythMicAlly­At­cibA-geigy­phArMAceUticAl­in­dorvAl­(1960)­At­ bottoM.

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­seen­in­the­bAckgroUnd,­slAter’s­ornAMentAl­ grille­grAces­the­oUtside­of­MorgAn’s­depArtMent­store­At­the­ UpscAle­rocklAnd­shopping­centre­in­MontreAl­(1959);­the­ Artist’s­AlUMinUM­Mobile­hAngs­At­the­cAnAdiAn­pAvilion­dUring­ the­brUssels­world’s­fAir­(1958);­slAter’s­expertise­extended­to­ stAndArdized­MAteriAl­selection­for­MontreAl’s­Metro­systeM­ (1964);­the­Artist­wAs­coMMissioned­to­design­these­whiMsicAl­ light­stAndArds­At­lA­ronde­AMUseMent­pArk­(1967).

cLocKwise from toP Left

of his involvement in large infrastructure projects, his design decisions are still all around us. For example, in 1962-65 he was hired to determine standard materials and equipment for Montreal’s new metro system in an attempt to establish “visual uniformity.” The black granite edge and orange dotted lines, for example, that define the subway platforms were Slater’s specification.

Norman Slater: Design Lessons highlights this distinctive role as a Montreal design consultant working between multiple professions, inspiring us to see Slater’s prolific output all around us. ca Annmarie Adams is the Director of the School of Architecture at McGill University.

coUrtesy­stM

coUrtesy­centre­de­design

Equally comfortable among architects, artists, industrial and graphic designers, Slater’s output in multiple fields recalls other internationally known polymaths such as Jean Prouvé (1901-1984), Marcel Breuer (19021981) and Charles (1907-1978) and Ray Eames (1912-1988). Legault addresses this theme as ambiguity, reading Slater’s multi-scaled output as evidence of “a somewhat atypical practice in the world of creation.” Slater studied architecture at McGill under Bland and Gordon Webber, but he also attended László Moholy-Nagy’s Institute of Design in Chicago, then headed by Serge Chermayeff, to learn about product design; later he headed to London’s Royal College of Art to study wood, metal and plastics, returning to his hometown of Montreal in 1955.

The common denominator through all of Slater’s educational ventures was photography. Slater used photography as a tool of exploration in his design work, more so than drawing. His photographs, however, captured everyday scenes such as people in doorways and children playing, differing radically from classic architectural image-making. A camera may have been the way the working-class kid from a single-parent family discovered the streets of Montreal and his early love of architecture.

John Bland called him an architect’s architect, perhaps because Slater was much sought after as a consultant for specialized problems. Because

06/12­­canadian architect

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report

William P. mcelligott

conventional Wisdom

Previously dismissed as a necessary evil, the imPermeable megastructure of the convention centre has been reconceived, acting as a catalyst for international exPosure, community engagement and sustainability. teXt

John ota

It was not long ago that convention centres were the antithesis of great architecture. Massive, windowless buildings lost by suburban airports, they were purposely conceived to allow delegates to dash in and out of town so that they could fly home the same day. Convention visitors would have the same generic experience whether they were in Orlando, London or Hong Kong.

But convention centres have entered a brave new world where bland is out and unique is in.

28 canadian architect 06/12

Thankfully, the design of new convention centres in Fredericton, Ottawa and Vancouver have concussed the old model. Hip, compact and happily snuggled into the downtown, these new convention centres use their surrounding restaurants, shops and nightlife as a magnet to lure conventioneers to their respective locales and encourage them to spend, spend, spend. On top of it all, the new gleaming, state-of-the-art structures are blazing a new image for their downtowns and a new spirit for their citizens.

While the programmatic requirements for a convention centre are complex, the challenge put forward from the clients is basic. “The City told us it had to be sustainable and smart,” says Ken Fukushima, project lead for Cannon Design collaborating with ADI Architects of Fredericton in

the design of the Fredericton Convention Centre.

The new convention centre had to be economically and environmentally sustainable, and that it had to be flexible in its ability to adapt to different event plans and business models.

Economic sustainability starts with the needs of the convention planners who sell bookings to organizations looking for a business meeting venue. As airfare and accommodation costs escalate, organizations have become increasingly wary of face-to-face meetings while using e-mail and video-conferencing to lower their costs. Clearly, convention planners have their work cut out for them, and building an architecturally attractive convention centre is therefore a necessity.

“An iconic design is a conversation starter,” says Peggy Nieghorn, Manager of Communications for the Ottawa Convention Centre. “When we’re selling space at a trade show in Vegas or Frankfurt, a beautiful new building is an attention-grabber from the outset. We try to sell a unique experience, and excellent design makes for initial interest. After that, the client wants to look at the floor plan to see if they can work with the building. Stimulating space and functionality go hand in hand.”

With light flooding through curving floor-toceiling windows, panoramic views to the Parliament buildings, and a futuristic presence that pops right out of the quiet downtown landscape, the recently opened Ottawa Convention Centre not only provides stimulating spaces for conventions, but has become a new symbol of prosperity for the nation’s capital. Like a giant motorcycle helmet visor, the 192,000-square-foot building is shoehorned into a compact site overlooking the Rideau Canal and provides a refreshing foil to the staid historical surroundings.

A key business goal of the $170-million building was to make it marketable to event planners at an international level and to provide highly memorable delegate experiences. “When people choose to go to a convention, they choose the city first and then they choose the convention,” says project lead Ritchard Brisbin of Brisbin Brook Beynon Architects’ Ottawa office.

Brisbin went for the memorable experience with a sweeping glass façade that he likens to the hull of a barge or tugboat that historically navigated the nearby Ottawa River. Made up of 1,045 triangular window panes assembled in a crystalline pattern, it forms the outer skin of the building while allowing passersby to view the inner workings of the convention centre.

Keith minchin

the neW ottaWa convention centre is defined by an exPansive visorliKe glazed façade that affords vieWs of the rideau canal and the doWntoWn beyond. above the neW convention centre in fredericton is an imPortant element in revitalizing and organizing the city’s doWntoWn core.

opposite

In Fredericton, civic leaders wanted their new convention centre to become a tourist attraction capable of competing within the Atlantic region’s tourism market. This has arguably been achieved, as the image changer for downtown Fredericton is the wavy glass façade of the convention centre that flows along Queen Street. Inspired by the shoreline of the nearby St. John River, the undulating front wall is a visual contrast to the otherwise rectilinear streetscape of the surrounding buildings.

The ground floor of the 75,000-square-foot convention centre consists of the entrance lobby, a variety of meeting rooms for up to 160 people and a business centre. As visitors take the escalators to the second level and the 11,000-square-foot ballroom, they are offered views to the surrounding

attractions through continuous glazed walls.

But the city’s ultimate goal for the $28-million convention centre is to attract tourists to Fredericton. “Of course great meeting rooms are important,” says architect Ken Fukushima. “But what really matters is to showcase the whole city as a meeting place. This convention centre was designed to encourage you to leave it and experience the other great buildings, restaurants and shops downtown.”

Environmental sustainability is a front-andcentre question posed to convention planners from an ever increasing green-aware clientele.

Both the Ottawa and Fredericton Convention Centres have been built to a LEED Silver designation, but the clear leader of the pack is the Vancouver West Convention Centre that has achieved LEED Canada Platinum certification, the first convention centre to gain such recognition in the world (see CA, November 2009).

With a folding origami-like green roof that shoots out into the waters of Burrard Inlet, the Vancouver Convention Centre West is the ultimate green welcome centre and a perfect fit for the emerald city. Built atop an artificial concrete reef

that supports resident marine species, the aim of the $883-million building is to drive home the message to convention delegates that Vancouver is fully committed to the environmental agenda.

“Vancouver has made a public declaration to be the greenest city in the world by 2020,” says Jinny Wu, Communications Manager for VCCW. “The environmental features of the centre are a natural fit for this mandate.” Wu reveals that the convention centre has a public tour program and that an impressive 11,000 people have toured the building to experience the sustainable aspects of the building.

Adaptability of spaces is another client requirement for the new convention centres, and when the architects were laying out plans for the Fredericton Convention Centre, a key goal was to have flexible spaces that allow for a variety of functions. Every square foot in the front of house has been designed as a potential meeting space with plug-in power for laptops, wired and wireless connectivity throughout the building, and seating designed right into the window sills for impromptu chats between sessions. Meeting rooms are designed with partitions, IT equip06/12 canadian architect

29

daniel st. louis

William P. mcelligott

Keith minchin

clocKWise From top leFt looKing out to fredericton’s doWntoWn from inside the neW convention centre; the neW ottaWa convention centre Provides stunning vieWs of the city; the undulating Queen street façade of fredericton’s neW convention centre.

ment and presentation screens that can fold and swing, and are equipped with adequate storage space for chairs that can be set up in a variety of configurations. Large, flexible kitchen facilities were designed with suitable preparation areas and equipment that allows for the preparation of everyday meeting refreshments—to accommodate private caterers that manage gala dinners for up to 1,000 guests.

Similarly, all the spaces at the Ottawa Convention Centre (OCC) are open and multi-functional. In the past, built-in seating and single-use spaces such as an auditorium meant that a convention centre could save money by not having to move furniture. The problem was that the space was only good for one function and would therefore be vacant most of the time. With Ottawa’s new facility, all spaces are flexible—including the lobby that is also used for receptions, exhibitions and pre-conference functions. Even the elevators at the OCC have been specified in a range of sizes to accommodate 24,000 pounds of tombstones for funeral directors’ conventions or to haul up a Hummer for the auto show in a 39’ x 39’ elevator.

While the Fredericton Convention Centre was designed to host out-of-town delegates, it has also brought unexpected returns to the community. Prior to the convention centre, the 30 canadian architect 06/12

city centre consisted of high-quality tourism attractions, but nothing to pull them together.

To remedy the situation, the architects designed a two-storey interior public street through the convention centre that would connect the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and Fredericton Playhouse with shopping and restaurants. The centre’s public walkway has enabled a lot of community involvement. Schools can use the ballroom as rehearsal space, the playhouse shares washrooms and cloakrooms with the convention centre, and the government makes use of the centre’s video-conferencing facilities. The increased downtown activity at the convention centre has also triggered gossip of a new fourstar hotel to be developed next to the site.

In Ottawa, the increased traffic from the new convention centre has spurred an expansion of the neighbouring Rideau Centre with a new hotel in the planning stages. The increased space and updated facilities now allow the OCC to host two medium-sized conventions of 2,500 people simultaneously, a basic requirement to remain competitive in today’s convention centre market.

However, the biggest surprise spinoff has been an increase in bookings from the international market outside North America. According to Nieghorn, it is the eye-catching building that has

caught their attention. “The international convention attendee is a much more discerning market,” says Nieghorn. “They pay more per person, bring their spouses, stay longer and take in more entertainment. In the past, we only hosted two or three international conventions. Now we have 16 on the books for the near future.”

Like modern-day piazzas, the new convention centres are places to meet and gather in the downtown; they effectively promote the city and are evolving as an iconic symbol for the skyline.

Moreover, an unexpected additional benefit of these buildings is the ways in which they are changing the way citizens see themselves and their cities. City halls used to be the iconic structures that led the charge in promoting a civic identity and in moulding a civic image. Of late, convention centres are projecting this function by welcoming visitors, generating revenue from tourism dollars, and projecting an exciting image of the city. As Brad Woodside, Mayor of Fredericton says about the convention centre’s impact on his city, “Our citizens say to themselves, ‘Hey, look at us, we’re not just bystanders. We’re leading the way.’” ca John Ota works on courthouses for the Province of Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General.

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calendar Provencher Roy + Associés Architectes: Socially Engaged Architecture

April 19-September 1, 2012 This exhi­ bition at the Laval University School of Architecture features the work of Montreal­based Provencher Roy + Associés Architectes. Reflecting the firm’s commitment to socially en­ gaged and sustainable architecture, the exhibition provides an overview of the firm’s distinguished projects and a glimpse into the life of its cre­ ative workshop. www.praa.qc.ca/en/news.html Lynne Cohen: Nothing is Hidden

May 3-June 30, 2012 This exhibition at the Design Exchange in Toronto showcases the photography of Lynne Cohen, a Montreal­based artist whose work captures institu­ tional and domestic interior spaces including living rooms, factories, spas, retirement homes, laborator­ ies, offices, showrooms, shooting ranges, and military installations. www.dx.org

Half of the Darkness

Très Grande Bibliothèque

May 3-July 21, 2012 Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art in Toronto presents this solo exhibition by Québecois artist Pascal Grand­ maison. Consisting of a massive archive of negative photographic prints, the installation considers the history and technology of the medium, drawing upon its specific properties as a mode of visual rep­ resentation. www.prefix.ca

May 15-September 9, 2012 Curated by Rem Koolhaas and Clément Blan­ chet of OMA, this exhibition at the CCA presents materials produced by OMA in response to an internation­ al competition launched in 1989 by France’s then president, François Mitterrand, to design the new Bib­ liothèque nationale de France. www.cca.qc.ca

Yonge Street/Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis

May 10-August 10, 2012 Taking place at the Eric Arthur Gallery, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the Uni­ versity of Toronto, this exhibition of photographer Peter MacCallum’s work examines urban form by set­ ting up a direct comparison between streetscapes in two very different cities between the years of 2007 to 2011: Toronto and Paris. www.daniels.utoronto.ca

the canadian institute’s condominium congress

June 18-19, 2012 This event at the Metropolitan Hotel in Toronto will provide strategies to address legal risks in the current explosive condo market, given that a huge boom in this industry has created innumer­ able challenges such as construction deficiencies, delays in completion and structural deficits. www.canadianinstitute.com eiFS council of canada aGM and seminar

June 20-21, 2012 This annual general

meeting, seminar and golf tourna­ ment at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario features guest speaker Dr. Ted Kesik, Professor of Building Science at the University of Toronto, who will speak about de­ livering value, quality and perfor­ mance to exterior wall enclosures. www.eifscouncil.org World cities Summit 2012: liveable and Sustainable cities— integrated Urban Solutions

July 1-4, 2012 This event takes place at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Marina Bay Sands, Singa­ pore, and will explore how cities can build resilience and improve their quality of life and environment by adopting integrated solutions to in­ creasingly complex challenges. www.worldcities.com.sg For­more­inFormation­about­ these,­and­additional­listings­ oF­Canadian­and­international­events,­please­visit www.canadianarchitect.com

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Backpage

When the Street eatS the Vendor

Although they form An increAsingly vitAl component of successful public spAces, street food vendors Are frequently neglected in the design And conception of toronto’s streetscApes And plAces of gAthering. brendAn cormier photo AndreA Winkler teXt

Last year, amidst the dust and din of jackhammers outside Toronto’s Union Station, news broke that six street food vendors would lose their spots as part of the station’s renovation process—with no plans of bringing them back when the project was complete. Around the same time, eight vendors were removed from the Bloor-Yorkville area as a part of its ambitious Bloor Street revitalization project. And in 2007, just after the debut of Daniel Libeskind’s Crystal, the Royal Ontario Museum put forth a request to have three hot dog vendors and one ice cream truck removed from outside its doors so as not to hamper the image of the new addition. The message would seem clear: for Toronto city builders, the ideal city doesn’t include street food.

But if we look elsewhere, we get a different impression. On an unseasonably cold October evening in 2011, a shabby parking lot in the Distillery District was transformed into a lively space by an ensemble of food trucks and a throng of food lovers. The night was Nuit Blanche, the city’s 34 canadian architect 06/12

dusk-to-dawn art event, with most of the spectacle happening on the other side of town, but still thousands of people flocked here in the cold to try out new culinary treats. In fact, food events like these have become immensely popular in the last few years. With the growth of farmers’ markets, community gardens, and pop-up food festivals, people are increasingly embracing food as a way to engage in the city’s public spaces and vice versa—using public spaces to engage in food.

The contradiction here is astounding: while the public is constantly inventing new ways to use city spaces for food activities, hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested into architecture and streetscape projects that ultimately result in the removal of street food.

This raises an interesting question. As designers of these projects, to what degree are we complicit? Architects and urbanists today are normally staunch supporters of public space. In fact, a cornerstone of our architectural and urban design education is rooted in supporting and protecting the vitality of public space. As a result, we’re normally the first in line at that hot dog stand—at least metaphorically. However, to a large extent, this enthusiasm for street food has failed to appear in our designs. And when a client fails to provide space for vendors, we tend to blame the client and not the architect.

True enough, in an era where architecture is

converted shipping contAiners function As colourful street food stAlls At the lively scAdding court food mArket in toronto.

aBoVe

increasingly positioned as a commodity, one that becomes more valuable the more iconic it looks, supporting street food can be a tricky prospect.

From the client’s perspective, the messy aesthetics of the street—intensified by vendors with their signs and accoutrements—is often interpreted as a direct threat to their investment, sullying the clean rendered image that they were originally promised. The ROM wanted vendors to be moved so that the building would photograph well; after all, hot dog vendors weren’t included in Libeskind’s original drawings. So as purveyors of these renderings and promises, we have to be careful as to what message we’re transmitting.

Considering food vending and food-related activity in public space design is then a necessary first step. The more we propose food amenities in our streetscape plans, suggest it in our renderings, and raise the topic at meetings, the more our clients will listen. If we really care about vibrant city life, it’s time we put food on the urban design agenda. ca Brendan Cormier is an urban designer, writer and currently the managing editor for Volume magazine.

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