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RIPLEY’S AQUARIUM SHARK ROOF PRODUCT: Soprema ARCHITECT: B+H Architects CLIENT: Ripley’s Aquarium Canada LOCATION: Toronto, ON Resting on top of Canada’s largest indoor aquarium (Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada) boasting some 16,000 marine animals and 5.7 million litres of water, sits an intricate and visually striking roof system installed by Flynn Canada Ltd. Installed above an inverted 2-ply modifi ed bituminous roof system are roughly 17,000 four foot square custom concrete patio slabs, each stone having a weight of approximately 110 pounds. Amongst the 17,000 slabs (the majority being LEED approved solar white slab,) are the two iconic 190 foot long sharks made from using low contrast charcoal coloured slabs. Pairing Flynn’s installation expertise with B+H’s design, we were able to provide a superior and unique roofi ng system that succeeded multiple performance and aesthetic goals that were set forth on this project. Using custom 2-1/2” thick patio slabs has provided excellent protection for the roofs membrane from falling ice caused by the high altitude of the CN Tower in the winter. The roof system also achieved a LEED credit for exceeding the necessary solar refl ective index (SRI) value, and obtained a platinum roof warranty for a period of 20 years. The patio slab shark-design provides large and distinct signage visible to guests of the CN Tower, businesses in adjacent high-rise buildings, and passengers landing at the Billy Bishop Airport in downtown Toronto. This project has been deemed a great success for Flynn Canada as it has provided the aquarium with a fi nal product that will not only attract attention for a lifetime, but will also protect it for the many years to come. Written by: Paul Walker

For more information, please visit www.ﬂynn.ca.

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BUSINESS AND COMMERCE 11 News

New Fitness + Wellness Centre graces UBC’s Okanagan campus; winners of the 2014 Prairie De sign Awards recently announced.

29 Practice

Mark Busse encourages architec ture firms to embrace special ization in an era where clients demand specific expertise.

33 Calendar

The Entire City Project at the Royal Ontario Museum; Lake Effect: Architects Respond to our Access to Water at Toronto’s Architecture Gallery at Harbour front.

14 Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario KPMB Architects unveil another characteristically elegant building in a wildly eclectic downtown Toronto neighbourhood. TEXT David Steiner

34 Backpage

Conversations about global de sign culture engaged 1,200 din ers in one extended table span ning the length of the Esplanade Riel Bridge in Winnipeg.

19 Ivey Business School Hariri Pontarini Architects expand their impressive design portfolio with yet another sophisticated educational facility—this time at Western University in London. TEXT Adele Weder

24 Glacier Skywalk

Nikolas Koenig

Read Jones Christoffersen Consulting Engineers and Sturgess Architecture design a looping transparent observation deck to capture the breathtaking landscape of Jasper National Park. TEXT Alexandra McIntosh

Elementary Teachers’ Federa tion of Ontario by KPMB Architects. Photograph by Maris Mezulis.

COVER

v.59 n.07 The National Review of Design and Practice/The Journal of Record of Architecture Canada | RAIC

canadian architect

July 2014

Editor Elsa Lam, MRAIC Associate Editor Leslie Jen, MRAIC Latreille Delage Photography

canadian architect 07/14

Viewpoint

Editorial Advisor Ian Chodikoff, OAA, FRAIC Contributing Editors Annmarie Adams, MRAIC Douglas MacLeod, ncarb, MRAIC Regional Correspondents Halifax Christine Macy, OAA Regina Bernard Flaman, SAA Montreal David Theodore Calgary Graham Livesey, MRAIC Winnipeg Lisa Landrum, MAA, AIA, MRAIC Vancouver Adele Weder Above Visitors to Canada’s Venice Biennale pavilion peek at photos of Nunavut’s 25 communities. Models for imagined future buildings occupy the centre of the space.

Phyllis Lambert is a woman who loves to roar. She unleashed her best imitation of a big cat at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, when she was awarded the festival’s top honour: the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Hundreds of architects, scholars and journalists from around the world rose to applaud the Montreal-born living legend. It’s easy to take the buildings in our backyard for granted, and the standing ovation was a potent reminder of the significance of Lambert’s legacy for global architecture, in the Seagram’s headquarters and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). Canadians had much to celebrate at this year’s Biennale. The Canadian pavilion exhibi tion Arctic Adaptations (see CA, April 2014) won a jury special mention at the Saturday awards ceremony, one of five top prizes given to national pavilions. It’s a first for Canada, and a well-deserved win. The jury commended the exhibition, curated by Toronto-based Lateral Office, “for its in-depth study of how modernity adapts to a unique climatic condition and a local minority culture.” Lateral Office’s information-packed display elegantly flowed within a crescent-shaped space that many curators have found challeng ing. In the darkened room, illuminated alcoves housed soapstone sculptures of Nunavut’s architectural landmarks, and peepholes offered panoramic views of the territory’s 25 communities. Fifteen models of proposed Arctic projects were animated by video projections showing the buildings’ transformation through the seasons—a refreshing and engaging take on the staple architectural model. Beyond these remarkable achievements, Canada’s influence continued throughout the Biennale. Jimenez Lai, founder of Bureau Spectacular and a graduate of the University of Toronto, curated Taiwan’s Pavilion. Lai inhabited the heavy stone rooms of Palazzo delle Prigioni (adjacent Piazza San Marco) with a light, whimsical set of nine mini-pavilions. Visitors were invited to climb, lie and sit atop

Publisher Tom Arkell 416-510-6806 Account Manager Faria Ahmed 416-510-6808 Circulation Manager Beata Olechnowicz 416-442-5600 ext. 3543

the colourful play-structure-like abstractions of Customer Service Malkit Chana 416-442-5600 ext. 3539 domestic elements, including an ancestor altar, Production open-air banquet hall, study alcove, and (nonJessica Jubb Graphic Design functional) outhouse. Sue Williamson The list of Canadian involvement goes on. Vice President of Canadian Publishing Alex Papanou The restoration of the Mies van der Rohe President of Business Information Group Gas Station on Nuns’ Island in Montreal, by Bruce Creighton Les Architectes FABG, featured in an exhibi Head Office 80 Valleybrook Drive, tion held at Palazzo Bembo. Canadians LéaToronto, ON M3B 2S9 Catherine Szacka and Brendan Cormier (both Telephone 416-510-6845 Facsimile 416-510-5140 contributors to this magazine) curated exhibi E-mail editors@canadianarchitect.com Website www.canadianarchitect.com tions on the Arsenale grounds. The core material for the Swiss Pavilion, which focused on Canadian Architect is published monthly by BIG Magazines LP, a div. of Glacier BIG Holdings Company Ltd., a leading Canadian information Cedric Price’s seminal Fun Palace, was drawn company with interests in daily and community newspapers and businessto-business information services. from the CCA archives. And dozens (if not The editors have made every reasonable effort to provide accurate and hundreds) of the curators and researchers inauthoritative information, but they assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the text, or its fitness for any particular purpose. volved in the Biennale have passed through Subscription Rates Canada: $54.95 plus applicable taxes for one year; $87.95 plus applicable taxes for two years (HST – #809751274RT0001). the doors of the CCA’s study centre as visitors, Price per single copy: $6.95. Students (prepaid with student ID, includes lecturers and scholars-in-residence. taxes): $34.97 for one year. USA: $105.95 US for one year. All other foreign: $125.95 US per year. Single copy US and foreign: $10.00 US. While Italy’s shores seem remote from CanReturn undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Dept., Canadian Architect, 80 Valleybrook Dr, Toronto, ada, the Venice Biennale remains the exemplar ON Canada M3B 2S9. amongst a growing number of international Postmaster: please forward forms 29B and 67B to 80 Valleybrook Dr, Toronto, ON Canada M3B 2S9. Printed in Canada. All rights architecture fairs. Unlike specialized trade reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in full without the consent of the copyright owner. fairs or academic conferences, it attracts From time to time we make our subscription list available to select visitors from across the wide discipline of companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made architecture. More importantly, they’re here available, please contact us via one of the following methods: not to collect continuing education points or to Telephone 1-800-668-2374 Facsimile 416-442-2191 exchange academic credentials—but to soak in E-mail privacyofficer@businessinformationgroup.ca new ideas and to be inspired. Mail Privacy Officer, Business Information Group, 80 Valleybrook Dr, Toronto, ON Canada M3B 2S9 In all likelihood, the strong Canadian presMember of the Canadian Business Press ence at this year’s Biennale will yield few imMember of the ALLIANCE FOR AuditED MEDIA Publications Mail Agreement #40069240 mediate returns. But the continuing participaISSN 1923-3353 (Online) ISSN 0008-2872 (Print) tion of Canada and Canadians at the Biennale is key in the long-term endeavour of building and broadening the image of Canadian archi- Member of tecture in the global imagination. Over the next six months, some 300,000 visitors to the Biennale will see a sampling of Canada’s best contemporary architecture and architectural research. In the following year, Arctic Adaptations will tour across Canada. The Biennale— and global exhibitions like it—are some of our We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical best opportunities for showcasing the strengths Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. of our nation’s architectural community. Inc.

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2014 Awards of Excellence Canadian Architect invites architects registered in Canada and architectural graduates to enter the magazine’s 2014 Awards of Excellence. Eligibility

Projects must be in the design stage, scheduled for construction or under construction but not substantially complete by September 18, 2014. All projects must be commissioned by a client with the intention to build the submitted proposal. All building types and concisely presented urban design schemes are eligible.

Judging Criteria

c) drawings/images including site plan, floor plans, sections, elevations and/or model view 4. Please do not submit any material in CD, DVD or any other audio-visual format not confined to two dimensions, as it will not be considered.

Entry Fee

$100.00 per entry ($88.50 + $11.50 HST). Please make cheques payable to Canadian Architect. HST registration #809751274RT0001.

Awards are given for architectural design excellence. Jurors will consider the scheme’s response to the client’s program, site, and geographic and social context. They will evaluate its physical organization, form, structure, materials and environmental features.

Publication

Presentation

Awards

1. Anonymity. The designer’s name must not appear on the submission except on the entry form. The project name and location should be identified and MUST match the project name on this submission form. 2. Each entry must be securely fastened in a folder or binder of dimensions no greater than 14´´ x 17´´. One (1) copy of this entry form must be enclosed within an envelope and affixed to the front of each folder, without tape or adhesives. Clips are ideal. 3. Each project folder must include: a) first page—a brief description of the project (500 words or fewer) b) second page—a brief description indicating the project’s ability to address some or all of the following issues (1,000 words or fewer): i) context and/or urban design components ii) integration of sustainable design iii) innovation in addressing program and/or the client’s requirements iv) technical considerations through building materials and/or systems

Winners will be published in a special issue of Canadian Architect in December 2014. Winners grant Canadian Architect first publication rights for their winning submissions. Framed certificates will be given to each winning architect team and client. Details to follow upon notification of winners.

Notification of Winners

Award winners will be notified after judging takes place in October 2014.

Deadline

Entries will be accepted after August 7, 2014 and will NOT be returned. Send all entries to arrive by 5:00pm on Thursday, September 18, 2014 to:

Awards of Excellence 2014 c/o Leslie Jen Canadian Architect 80 Valleybrook Drive Toronto, Ontario M3B 2S9

Name of Project Name of Firm Address City & Province Telephone E-mail Architect/Architectural Graduate submitting the project Signature according to the conditions above

Client Client Telephone

Postal Code

Projects Innovative Fitness + Wellness Centre graces UBC’s Okanagan campus.

The University of British Columbia opened its Okanagan campus in Kelowna in 2005—home to 8,300 students. In 2011, to fulfill a growing need for more fitness and recreation facilities, the university held a design-build competition to provide an addition to the gymnasium. The winning design by McFarland Marceau Architects, in concert with Kindred Construction, was completed in 2013. The two-storey 820-square-metre addition provides space for cardio and strength training, yoga, dance and spin classes, and martial arts. The design is an essay on athleticism and performance, which examines the potentials of cross-laminated timber panels in terms of structural capability and aesthetic expression, while efficiently providing new training facilities for student athletes. The design solution juxtaposes the staid original building with a striking new form. A bent plane, clad in standing-seam metal, encapsulates the second storey of the addition and cantilevers over an orthogonal base. On the interior, CLT panels are reconceived as deep, slender beams slotted together to form a cellular grid that supports the outer skin—and are joined to CLT columns by a moment connection to form a unified frame. The approach to program is similarly unified, providing multi-use training spaces with the common theme of warm wood finishes and exposure to framed vistas. The low ecological footprint of wood construction and its carbon-sequestering properties mesh with the sustainable ethos of the university. Coupled with such green elements as a campus geo-exchange heating system, natural light and ventilation, passive sun shading, and recycled and low-emitting materials, the mass timber solution contributes to an exceptionally healthy environment for fitness and wellness. http://mmal.ca/ubco/page1.html

Thunder Bay Consolidated Courthouse recently opens.

Designed by Adamson Associates Architects, Thunder Bay’s new state-of-the-art 23,225square-metre project in the downtown core consolidates the city’s two existing courthouses—the courts of both the Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Justice— into one contemporary seven-storey building. An expression of confidence in the potential for urban renewal of the community, the project makes several bold gestures responding to the powerful natural landscape. Stone and wood are used prominently at the building’s base—both for their durability and for their symbolic value—suggestive of gravity and permanence befitting an important civic building. The predominantly glass tower that sur-

The new Fitness and Wellness Centre on UBC’s Okanagan campus utilizes an innovative mass timber solution, furthering sustainability objectives while creating a striking organic form.

ABOVE

mounts the base features a glazed curtain wall with textured articulation on the building’s north face, designed to evoke the region’s many waterfalls. The grand 1,200-square-foot civic plaza on the site’s northeast corner serves as a ceremonial space of assembly for the courthouse leading to the public entrance, which opens into a lobby and generous two-storey glazed atrium faced in natural stone and filled with natural light. Universal accessibility and the creation of a logical and intelligent circulation plan was pivotal to the design, as North American courthouses must incorporate three internal circulation systems—public, private and secure. Aboriginal input was crucial to the design from the project’s earliest stages, and elders and leaders of various native communities were consulted to solicit their ideas for the courthouse in the context of their traditions, resulting in a unique civic project that reflects and accommodates Aboriginal culture. Targeting LEED® Silver, the building is connected to its exterior environment through a number of sustainable strategies. The result is a thoroughly modern building that references the past in its embodiment of the permanence, grandeur and civic authority of the Courthouse, while looking to the future with an innovative and sustainable design that furthers the delivery of justice in Ontario. www.adamson-associates.com/projects/thunder-bayconsolidated-courthouse

Awards Winners of the 2014 Prairie Design Awards recently announced.

Winners of the 2014 Prairie Design Awards were recently announced at the RAIC Festival of Architecture in Winnipeg, decided by a jury comprised of Russell Acton of Acton Ostry

Architects, Elaine Cecconi of Cecconi Simone, Heather Dubbeldam of DUBBELDAM Architecture + Design, Chris Phillips of PFS Studio, and Paul Samyn of the Winnipeg Free Press. In the Recent Works category, an Award of Excellence distinguished two projects: The Avenue on Portage in Winnipeg by 5468796 Architecture Inc. and the University of Manitoba ART Lab also in Winnipeg by LM Architectural Group and Patkau Architects Inc. Four Awards of Merit were given to Douglas Park School in Regina by Number Ten Architectural Group, Graduate House— University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon by Stantec Architecture Ltd., Jasper Place Branch Library in Edmonton by Hughes Condon Marler Architects and DUB Architects Ltd. in joint venture, and Northgate Transit Centre in Edmonton by Group2 Architecture Interior Design Ltd. In the Interior Design category, Manitoba Start in Winnipeg by 5468796 Architecture Inc. received an Award of Merit. In the Landscape Architecture category, The Landscape of Memory: Poppy Plaza in Calgary by the Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative Inc. received an Award of Excellence, while an Award of Merit was given to Folly Forest in Winnipeg by Straub Thurmayr CSLA Landschaftsarchitekten and Urban Designers. In the Small Projects category, an Award of Excellence recognized the Assiniboine Park Washrooms in Winnipeg by Peter Sampson Architecture Studio Inc., while Fiskoist in Gimli by Lianne Veness Architect scooped an Award of Merit. http://prairiedesignawards.com/2014/2014.html

Gilles Saucier and André Perrotte win 2014 OAQ Medal of Merit.

The Ordre des architectes du Québec (OAQ ) recently awarded the 2014 Medal of Merit to

canadian architect 07/14

news

canadian architect 07/14

news André Perrotte and Gilles Saucier, principals of Montreal-based Saucier + Perrotte Architectes. This medal, the highest distinction of the OAQ , honours annually one or more members who, throughout their careers, have distinguished themselves by their commitment to the profession and the values it defends. According to Nathalie Dion, OAQ President: “Your application pleased the board for several reasons. Locally, your practice has provided Quebec society with many public buildings of high quality, and abroad, your ambitious projects have contributed to our architectural influence around the world. We also want to acknowledge your contribution to the training of future architects as well as the complicity that binds you for over 25 years. On behalf of the directors and on my own behalf, I wish to congratulate you on this well-deserved recognition.”

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Competitions IIDEX Woodshop 2014 Call for Submissions.

The City of Toronto, IIDEX Canada, and ideacious.com have teamed up to launch IIDEX Woodshop: 15 Innovative Wood Prototypes that utilize Toronto’s untapped ash wood resource. Globalization and climate change have brought pests like the Emerald Ash Borer to North America where they are destroying forests. In Toronto alone, the Borer will bring down 200,000+ ash trees in the next five years. IIDEX Woodshop aims to reduce the number of ash trees headed for the landfill by creating innovative market-ready commercial and consumer prototypes. Designs must be made primarily of ash (75% minimum) and 25% other native woods. Finished pieces must be no larger than a 6’x6’x6’ with preference being given to products no larger than 3’x3’x3’. Designers will be responsible for producing their own pieces, whether they build it or hire someone else to. There are no restrictions as to what can be submitted: furniture, lighting, siding, home and garden accessories, flooring and more for both residential and commercial applications. Jurors include: John Helwig, VP Design Strategy and Research, Teknion; Jason Dressler, Partner, Brothers Dressler; Gareth Brennena, Founder and CEO, Eventscape; Crawford Noble, Industrial Designer, Yabu Pushelberg; Peter Flemming, Furniture Studio Head and Faculty, Bachelor of Craft and Design, Sheridan College; Tory Healy, Editor, Designlines magazine; and Joshua Brasse, Founder and CEO, ideacious. com. The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2014. www.formstack.com/forms/iidex-iidexwoodshop2014callforsubmissions

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What’s New Save Dominion Modern!

Due to the overwhelming response to Dominion Modern’s (DOMO) recent news about its closure, organizers are reconsidering. Many people have offered their support, donations, expertise and ideas to keep this organization afloat. Dominion Modern is a unique museum dedicated to the promotion and preservation of modern Canadian design and architecture. Current debt load and declining financial support has made it virtually impossible for DOMO to continue its work, as did the failure in establishing a permanent home for the museum. The provision of such a home would enable DOMO to continue its work—especially cataloguing their collections of Canadian design and architecture (oral histories, photographic, graphic and industrial design collection). As a charitable non-profit organization, Dominion Modern has carried on for 12 years with no salaried employees, no government funding, with only the efforts of committed volunteers who believed in telling our stories. It is only with your help that they can continue to reveal the stories not yet told. Please make a generous donation to help save DOMO; all donors will receive a charitable tax receipt. www.dominionmodern.ca and www.facebook.com/pages/Dominion-Modern/ 146075508303

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Building WateRloo Region—The largest architecture festival in Canada. A myriad of events across Cambridge, Kitchener, and Waterloo, in collaboration with a stellar group of public galleries, museums, arts and educational institutions, provincial associations, and private partners. From first settlements through the industrial age, to post-World War II modernism, to innovative contemporary design. Chief Curators Rick Haldenby, Professor, University of Waterloo School of Architecture Esther E. Shipman, Curator of Architecture and Design, IDEA EXCHANGE

Good Neighbour An office building for a teachers’ union complements its eclectic urban setting and innovates with new environmental sustainability strategies.

Jesse Colin Jackson

canadian architect 07/14

ABOVE The ETFO headquarters occupies a corner site in Toronto’s St. James Town, near bustling Bloor Street and adjacent to a mix of Victorian homes, eight-storey apartment buildings and residential towers. KPMB Architects broke down the mass both horizontally and vertically, while integrating high-quality façade and landscaping materials to make a positive impact on the neighbourhood. Opposite top A translucent canopy and Vermont-quarried dolomite slab pavers welcome employees and visitors to the building.

Maris Mezulis

Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario KPMB Architects Text David Steiner Photos Tom Arban, Jesse Colin Jackson and Maris Mezulis Project

Architects

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) is a union that represents 76,000 elementary school teachers. In 2007, they decided to create a new headquarters to consolidate existing leases and provide sufficient room to host events. They wanted a building that expressed their organization’s values of social responsibility, environmental leadership, and a long-term commitment to Ontario students and families. Toronto has numerous examples of headquarters attempting to express the values of a corporation through architecture, some more successfully than others. Banks do it best: their gilded towers make clear the focus is growing wealth. The city’s three major newspapers are perhaps the weakest: their buildings are unremarkable, saying little about the importance of what occurs inside. Many unions are headquartered in Toronto, and of the few that have their own buildings, ETFO is designed with the simplest and clearest of intentions. It is a good neighbour in an eclectic neighbourhood and sets a LEED Platinum standard for energy efficiency in commercial buildings. ETFO’s design is a lesson in first principles: plentiful south light, access to the outdoors on all levels, a skylit atrium entry, operable windows in office spaces, natural materials throughout the interior, and landscaping integrated with the overall plan. That said, a design that appears obvious once built often belies a complicated process. The neighbourhood, led by municipal councillor Kyle Rae, was initially against replacing an abandoned two-storey brick building on the corner site with a commercial building. They feared a banal glass box filled with leased space, accompanied by increased car traffic. Instead, they wanted townhomes or a small condominium, but could not find a developer interested in working to the site parameters. KPMB Architects convinced Rae and his constituents by proposing a commercial building unlike the norm—a headquarters that would have no shadow impact on the adjacent housing and would complement the scale of the neighbourhood. But what’s the scale of a neighbourhood that is anything but homogeneous? In the immediate vicinity, eight-storey 1970s apartments sit alongside Victorian-era single-family homes. One street to the west is the head office of Rogers Communications, a behemoth clad in seafoam-green metal and grey granite. It’s possibly the weirdest structure in downtown Toronto: a Postmodern mash-up of space-age columns and faux residential façades, capped by a turret. To address the local diversity of forms, KPMB broke the 11,000square-metre building into smaller residential-sized blocks, aiming for

canadian architect 07/14

Maris Mezulis

7 6 4 3

1 atrium 2 boardroom 3 offices 4 support 5 open workspace 6 terraces 7 green roof

Jesse Colin Jackson

canadian architect 07/14

3 6 ABOVE, Top to Bottom A boardroom with downtown views overlooks the central atrium; each office floor is interwoven with green roofs and accessible balconies. Opposite, Top to bottom The generously sized atrium is an integral part of the building’s low-energy air circulation system; a view of ETFO’s front façade.

Fourth floor

7 2

Ground floor and Site Plan 1 atrium/reception 2 multipurpose event/

meeting room

3 training room

Ground floor

4 front porch 5 staff lounge 6 support 7 parkade entry

20 m

10΄

what project architect Kael Opie describes as “texture and articulation.” The design team created texture by braiding a unitized curtain wall (custom-manufactured in Quebec) with terracotta-coloured fibre cement panels, vertical aluminum fins, and automated exterior Venetian blinds for shading. The north face is steeply raked, preventing shadows from being cast on the adjacent buildings. One of the most thoughtful gestures in the project is a recessed piece of the west façade that gives space around a 100-year-old black walnut tree. The designers created a courtyard under the tree’s canopy, and allow three floors of offices to peer directly into its branches. From a pedestrian’s vantage point, the building is characterized primarily by the landscaping at grade and the soffit of the southern overhang, dressed in ipe wood. Mature European beech trees, planted in long rows, mark off the edge of exterior open spaces. Eschewing sod (which has no business being around any building), landscape architects NAK Design Group surrounded the building with ivy, Saskatoon berry shrubs, burning bush plants and hydrangea flowers. The plantings will soon fill in and become a dense mat of foliage, presenting a leafy screen between the building and the street. What the neighbours see from their balconies are either green roofs or white-ballasted roofs, the former capturing water for irrigation and the latter for toilets. All mechanical equipment is housed inside the building enclosure, leaving the rooftops free of visual clutter. The result is a sky-facing façade as handsome as the ones facing the streets. Enter the building and you are greeted by the well-known KPMB

Tom Arban

canadian architect 07/14

Energy Model—Summer

Energy Model—Winter

signature style: superior detailing, open spaces that breeze easily into one another, and a generally calm palette of fine natural materials. The atrium stair, with its frosty white glass guardrails, is a spectacular piece of sculpture. Even the stainless steel glass fasteners have been painted white (a laborious process) to reduce visual interruptions. Ascending through the atrium—with offices on two sides, a view of the city to the south and a wall of ash wood slats to the north—is exhilarating. Look down and you see a field of Vermont dolomite stone tiles. Look up and you see the sky. Why take an elevator when this is the alternative? Or touch a button and the glass wall panels of a ground-floor meeting room march along a track and disappear through a closet door, thanks to a system by German manufacturer Dorma. The division between meeting room and lobby evaporates, making one enormous gathering space. Behind all the surfaces—hidden above the ceiling, under the floor and beneath the building—is the “green” engineering, which incorporates highly unconventional systems for a commercial office. Architects who work on commercial projects are familiar with developers’ reluctance to invest heavily in energy efficiency. But union offices are a unique architectural species where the client is occupying the building, and their longevity is fairly certain. As such, the client can justify higher capital costs since reduced energy and a more comfortable environment will, in the course of the building’s life, pay for themselves many times over. Energy consumption in a conventional building is driven primarily by the heating, cooling and distribution of air. ETFO uses radiant panels as the primary means of providing thermal comfort. This is far more efficient than forced air, as it requires less energy to temper water and pump it around a building than to temper and blow air throughout the same area. Perforated aluminum ceiling panels conceal capillary-like polypropenol plastic mats that circulate hot or cold water. In a virtuoso display of integrated design, KPMB worked with manufacturer Nelson Industrial to create the pattern and detailing of the ceiling panels. A majority of ceilings incorporate acoustics, heating and cooling, the return air plenum, all emergency devices, lighting and speakers. Fresh air is provided by displacement ventilation through a raised floor. It uses less energy than a forced-air system and reduces occupants’ perception of stale air quality. In Winnipeg, KPMB incorporated similar high-efficiency mechanical engineering in Manitoba Hydro Place (see CA, January 2010). Kael Opie refers to both buildings as “climate-responsive designs,” where the building design is calibrated to the specifics of the local climate. For example, Manitoba Hydro’s radiant heating pipes were cast into the underside of the exposed concrete structure, using the concrete’s high thermal mass to store energy for heating and cooling. By contrast,

ETFO’s aluminum ceiling panels have a low thermal mass, more suited to Toronto’s long, humid summers. Operable windows can create spikes in indoor relative humidity, so in order to avoid condensation, the ceiling panels are designed to quickly change temperature. Eighty-five geothermal wells, drilled to 150 metres below the underground parking, deposit the radiant system’s energy into the ground, achieving a 71% reduction in heating and cooling compared to conventional mechanical systems. Geothermal wells generally require very large drill rigs, constraining their location to outdoor fields, beneath exterior parking, or underneath new buildings before construction begins. To accommodate the urban location as well as a tight schedule, the engineers needed an innovative solution. The team found a compact electric drill rig system in the Alberta oil and gas industry that could bore holes in the below-grade parking level after the building structure was erected. It is a Canadian ”first”—providing a precedent that can be used on fast-tracked projects and to retrofit older buildings with geothermal energy. ETFO is one of those rare buildings that succeeds on multiple levels: the engineering systems, occupied spaces, finishes, landscape and urban gestures elide without effort. The technical bits, like operable windows that automatically lock when the humidity reaches a preset threshold, are as important to the overall architectural idea as the grand atrium. The architects calculate that the investments in energy efficiency will pay off in a dozen years or so. Measured by the benefit the building currently delivers to its occupants and to the neighbourhood, ETFO has already broken even. David Steiner is a freelance writer living in Toronto. He writes about architecture and design for a number of national publications.

Ivey League Ideals Hariri Pontarini Architects builds on its reputation for creating sophisticated business-oriented spaces. Project Richard Ivey Building, Ivey Business School, Western University, London, Ontario Architect Hariri Pontarini Architects Text Adele Weder Photos Nikolas Koenig unless otherwise noted

The erstwhile concept of a business school is a fusty, dark-panelled gentlemen’s club tinged with cigar fumes. In recent years, architects have been reinventing the image. On the West Coast, Acton Ostry Associates overhauled the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia (see CA, November 2010); in Toronto, KPMB Architects took on the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business (see CA, November 2012) and Hariri Pontarini Architects (HPA) revamped York University’s Schulich School of Business (see CA, March 2005). And at Western University in London, Ontario, Hariri Pontarini has now designed another benchmark with the Richard Ivey School of Business. Each project infuses a stark steel-and-glass corporate palette with distinctively warm notes and a sense of architectural humanism. This approach manifests throughout the work of KPMB, the professional alma mater of HPA principals Siamak Hariri and David Pontarini. Hariri and Pontarini extended the style further when they struck out on their own with fellow KPMB associate Michael Taylor. Though

ABOVE The main entry is topped by a cantilevered glass box containing meeting rooms, and is framed by a sunken auditorium to the left and a formal dining room to the right.

Taylor has since departed, the firm continues to expand its portfolio with formally distinguished work, from the Niagara Falls-evocative Ontario pavilion at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games to the ambitious Bahá’i Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile. The Ivey School of Business’s more direct antecedents are HPA’s related projects in Toronto: the Schulich School of Business and the downtown headquarters for McKinsey & Company (see CA, February 2001). These are buildings for a subject field that is famously unsentimental, but they are laid out with keen attention to humane features, including generous daylighting and visual richness. McKinsey’s offices require extreme discretion—its staffers draft white papers for high-level government and corporate clients. But instead of officiously bland Pentagon-style interiors, HPA made emphatic use of brick, stone and wood, imbuing the courtyard building with an almost domestic ambiance. And although the users’ influential texts and reports are created with the highest levels of security and privacy, the architecture suggests light and transparency. So it is with HPA’s transformation of Ivey, but it has been a daunting feat to match the school’s architecture to its reputation. Established in 1922 and renowned internationally, Ivey is Western’s flagship school. The new three-storey, 274,000-square-foot project is sited on an expansive green lot in the centre of campus. The former business school

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building was rather dark, and its auxiliary buildings were scattered around campus—a significant drawback in a field for which compelling visual branding and pragmatic efficiencies are especially important. The end users of business schools are, ipso facto, business-minded individuals: entrepreneurial students and staff who, by and large, have selected a profession that promises high remuneration with a correspondingly high-calibre environment. Students pay tuitions north of $25,000 a year at this public university; faculty are lured away from privatesector positions. This is the kind of building where not only productivity and material comfort—but also the semiotics of success—comprise an unspoken heart of the design brief. Ivey’s design scheme is a contemporary take on the Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) academic cloister: three storeys of glass, wood, steel and stone wrapped around a landscaped courtyard. The exterior façade is defined by a push-and-pull of volumes and voids. The jogged walls of the interior courtyard façade suggest a quieter expression of this same gesture. On the ground floor, the rhythm continues through alternating opaque and transparent bands, with concrete bays anchoring strips of wood window glazing. The variegated articulation breaks up the severity of the wall face and also generates strategic moments of privacy. The overall massing—an emphatic Cubist sculpture—suggests motion, dynamism and multifaceted viewpoints. As with McKinsey, a voyeur strolling around the perimeter enjoys the illusion of transparency—it seems as though you can see right through the building—but in reality, the reflective and tinted properties of the glazing lend visual discretion to the activities inside.

Ivey’s mode of teaching is based around seminars discussing case studies, rather than conventional lectures. Case-based education relies heavily on active conversations, both formal and spontaneous. The design ramifications are significant. Classrooms are sized for small groups, with horseshoe-shaped tiered seating that surrounds the instructor or case leader. The sense of a theatre-in-the-round is further emphasized by the ceiling’s curving bulkhead that follows the line of the seating below. The refined wood-accented finishes provide a suitable ambiance for a conversation-based approach to learning, which is at the heart of the case-study method. In the same vein, the students and faculty walk on floors of Algonquin limestone, past bulkheads and columns of smooth-as-silk concrete. They grasp dark wood handrails and ledges; they gaze over and up at soaring curtain-wall glazing with walnut mullions (signifier of the promised trappings of wealth) and glulam beams (signifier of campus coffee-shop hipsterdom). They glimpse courtyard foliage and limestone cladding through expansive windows. These gestures help break down the conscious role of “student” and reposition each inhabitant more generously as “high-end thinker.” Outside of the classrooms, the overwide hallways and piazza-like main foyer effectively serve as spontaneous breakout areas for informal exchanges; the light-filled beautifully articulated surroundings actively encourage this kind of post-class interchange. Inside, the defining gesture is a double-level wood-and-concrete balustrade that frames the cavernously wide foyer and then bends like a ribbon to connect the entire construct to the stairway and sections

James Brittain Opposite Inspired by the academic cloisters at Oxford, Cambridge and Massey Colleges, the business school surrounds a landscaped courtyard. Study rooms, lounges and overwide hallways encircle the courtyard, producing pleasant spaces for students to meet and engage in informal conversations. Above, clockwise from top A view of the main lobby, which opens up to the courtyard in fair-weather months; faculty offices are faced with translucent walls that offer shadowy glimpses of activity inside; a ground-floor breakout space provides a sunlit spot for group study.

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Longitudinal Section Longitudinal Section

3 9

3 3

1 Ivey Hall 2 50-seat classrooms 3 breakout rooms 4 administrative wing 5 library 6 faculty wing 7 jewel box meeting room 8 faculty lounge 9 green roof

5 3

Second Floor 0

20m

11 9

4 8 8 10

9 9

1 entry 2 reception 3 Ivey Hall 4 courtyard garden 5 student lounge 6 auditorium 7 dining hall 8 breakout rooms 9 80-seat classroom 10 library 11 MBA lounge 12 50-seat classroom

Ground floor 0

20m

20M

James Brittain ABOVE, clockwise from top left The high-end material palatte includes fine-grained concrete walls topped by walnut balustrades; smooth-cut Algonquin limestone tiles clad the main lobby floor and feature stair; the same stone is used as exterior facing, but in rougher cuts that bring out its warm tones and mottled textures.

beyond. The dominant finishes are walnut and ultra-fine concrete— materials whose refined surfaces bespeak the culture of the school while injecting a sense of warmth and flair. Walnut is featured throughout the project, snaking across the library and up the stairs all the way to the support-staff and faculty quarters. The only questionable decision is the extension of the walnut all the way into the floor of the library’s spiral staircase: this is a soft wood that dents easily; even after just a few months of active use, it was already beginning to look roughed up. Sometimes, a material leitmotif can be taken a bit too far. Embedded rather discreetly on the second floor is the faculty wing, consisting of double-loaded office corridors. Ingeniously, translucent walls let students and other prospective visitors know when the resident professor is in his or her office; but the professors, if they so choose, can shift away from the shadowy zone of visibility. It’s a deft configuration for allowing optional solitude. Less convincing is the relegation of support staff to the central corridor’s dark and windowless confines. There are reportedly no staff complaints yet, according to Hariri, but it’s hard to see that long-term work in dim conditions can be healthy for work or spirit. It’s also hard to imagine that job-conscious support staffers would risk managerial hostility by complaining about the lack of daylight. The students, at any rate, seem to enjoy architecturally optimum conditions. Their classrooms are designed as tightly as the cabins of a ship, but with the bonus of generous daylighting. Their breakout areas are open spaces in the building’s large and opulently finished corridors. For an added jolt of fresh air and greenery, the tree-studded courtyard is just steps away. The building was designed and constructed to LEED Gold

standards. It is set back considerably in its large and flat expanse of green lawn, a siting that initially seems counter-ecological, but the positioning reflects the university’s future intentions to expand in situ. While they wait for the possibility of that commission, Hariri Ponta rini is garnering more academic projects. Their University of Toronto Faculty of Law transformation is now under construction, its sweeping curvilinear geometries set to further embody the firm’s contemporary humanistic ethos. Meanwhile, faculty and students have much to enjoy. Former Ivey School dean Carol Stephenson, who spearheaded the project, wanted the new building to reflect the “quiet confidence” of the School’s personality. It does, she asserts: “When I walk into this building, I feel that there’s a soul here.” Adele Weder is an architectural curator and critic based in British Columbia.

Client Western University | Architect Team Siamak Hariri, Michael Boxer, Doron Meinhard, Siva Thirumvampalam, Jeff Strauss, Howard Wong, Patrick Cox, John Cook, Michael Attard, Dominique Cheng, Michael Conway, Gustavo Corredor, Jimmy Farrington, Joanne Heinen, Andrew Jones, Caroline Kim, Sam Laffin, Rico Law, Norberto Rodriguez, George Simionopoulos, Marco Travaglini, Eric Tse, Rolando Valentin | Structural Halcrow Yolles Partnership Inc | Mechanical/Electrical Smith + Andersen | Landscape Janet Rosenberg & Studio | Interiors Hariri Pontarini Architects | Contractor EllisDon | Costing A.W. Hooker Associates | Acoustical AECOM | Code David Hine Engineering | Site servicing Development Engineering | Sustainability Enermodal Engineering | Elevator KJA Consultants Inc. | Water Feature Dan Euser Water architecture Inc (DEW) | AV Engineering Harmonics | Area 24,455 M2 | Budget $100 M | Completion September 2013

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Site Map 1 bus dropoff 2 Discovery Walk 3 Glacier Skywalk

Steel Skywalker A structurally daring walkway cantilevers visitors over and above a valley in the Canadian Rockies.

Glacier Skywalk, Jasper National Park, Alberta PCL Construction Management with Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd. and Sturgess Architecture Text Alexandra McIntosh Photos Robert Lemermeyer unless otherwise noted Project

Designers

The Icefields Parkway, a scenic two-lane highway connecting Lake Louise and Jasper, runs parallel to the North American continental divide and draws over 1.5 million visitors a year. Formidable in its successive vistas of mountain peaks, rushing rivers and hairpin turns, the winding route has no shortage of attractions. The Glacier Skywalk aims to improve upon such natural perfection.

A striking glass-floored observation deck cantilevered over the Sunwapta Valley, the Skywalk is a $21-million project commissioned by Brewster Travel Canada and designed by Read Jones Christoffersen Consulting Engineers (RJC) and Sturgess Architecture. The Skywalk, opened this May, occupies the site of the previous Tangle Ridge Viewpoint. It also achieves the odd distinction of providing the only lookout in the Rockies where visitors feel compelled to look at their feet. To mitigate traffic congestion at the apex of a steep hill, the Glacier Skywalk is only accessible by a Brewster-run bus from the Columbia Icefield Glacier Discovery Centre, a few kilometres down the highway. Once at the site, visitors pass through a faceted canopy structure that serves as a kiosk, its angled planes of Corten steel undercut with warm wood cladding. Beyond, a thin band of pathway cut into the hillside conveys visitors to and from the glass-floored observation deck. Gabion walls and steel plates delineate the dual pathway, which gently rises and falls following the contours of the terrain. Six interpretive stations, executed in the same weathering steel, punctuate the 300-metre route. The stations feature didactic panels that address the glaciology, biology, plant life and hydrology of the area as well as the technology behind the Skywalk. The first of these is a sharply jutting steel viewpoint—a scaled-down iteration of the cantilevered structure to come—that introduces visitors to the Sunwapta Valley.

Brewster Travel Canada Above

The Skywalk’s glass-floored walkway is visually counterbalanced by massive Corten steel arms that connect to the rock face. An ingenious cable suspension system runs below and beside the cantilevered arc, maintaining eye-level views free from obstructions.

Opposite

Other interpretive stations, however, lack cohesion: the folded steel canopy of the Ecology node is muddied by two-dimensional cutouts of wildlife, while the Phytology station seems an afterthought, consisting of little more than a steel planter box dwarfed by its surroundings. In terms of its overall architectural gesture, the Discovery Trail successfully creates a dramatic approach that conceals the highway. As architect Jeremy Sturgess explains, the route “aims to heighten the experience, to create a sense of progression and tension as you walk along the mountainside, exposing you to the wonder of the thing, and winding down along the return.” The pathway culminates in the Skywalk proper: a parabolic arc dramatically suspended over the valley. Two massive steel arms, connected by a bridge, thrust out from the cliff face. The faceted planes of steel echo the sheer angles and serrated peaks of the mountains beyond. At the tip of the arc, the raw steel is replaced by a glass-floored walkway, suspending visitors over a sharply pitched slope of scree that descends to the valley floor 280 metres below. At the tip of the arc, visitors are held an impressive 35 metres away from the cliff face. The cantilevers are constructed as immense box girders, anchored by steel rods drilled 16 metres into the rock face and put into tension. The

30-metre structural glass walkway is supported by cables that sweep in beneath and alongside the inner curve of the path. The cable system gives an intentional and slightly unnerving bounce to the structure. Though tempered by four half-ton dampers, the movement is still keenly felt during peak visitor periods. According to Simon Brown, principal in charge of the project for RJC, the cable suspension system is unique in that it supports the structure on one side only. “The parabolic shape is exactly what was required to enable and counterbalance this,” he explains. This structural strategy allows the balustrade to be made of glass and requires no cables above eye level, resulting in completely unobstructed views. The structure was conceived and designed by RJC, while Sturgess Architecture “twisted it with RJC’s blessing,” says Sturgess. He explains that his firm “folded the Corten parts and manipulated structural materials to create an architectural expression that would be a sensitive extension to the mountainside.” The Corten steel used throughout has oxidized to a deep-brown rust colour and will continue to darken over the next five to 10 years, altering alongside the landscape. The gabion baskets were hand-layered with rocks excavated from the site during construction. Only recently ex-

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Viewpoints and interpretive stations punctuate the 300-metre-long route leading to the Skywalk; these include a dramatic Corten steel arch and cantilevered lookout. Opposite A wood-clad seating area offers spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. ABOVE, left to right

glass guardrail panel

painted 300w steel shoe size for code guard load

glass floor panel

Vista Isometric

Structural Glass Section

posed to the elements, they too will weather and deepen in colour like the surrounding landscape. Floating, thrill-chasing structures seem to be cropping up recently over mountain escarpments and river gorges from Austria and Italy to British Columbia’s Capilano River. In Norway, the government has funded a series of architect-designed lookouts to boost tourism along scenic highways. (It’s a pity that the Glacier Skywalk could not also be free to access, although perhaps a sign of the increased pressure faced by Parks Canada to entice tourists and approve commercial amenities following budget cuts.) Among parallel structures, the Glacier Skywalk has its clearest antecedent in the glass-floored Grand Canyon Skywalk (2007). The Albertan structure, however, is more refined than the clunky horseshoe-shaped promenade in Arizona, where visitors are obliged to remove their shoes and prohibited from taking photographs. At the Glacier Skywalk, the almost instantaneous response by visitors is to photograph themselves sitting or lying down on the glass floor. While some visitors may be more attracted to the Skywalk itself rather than the view, the combination of infrastructure and landscape provides a thrilling experience. The Skywalk is an aesthetic and structural feat, both otherworldly and at home in the Canadian Rockies. It is resolutely a response to the landscape, its powerful gesture and raw materials executed in a language abstracted from its surroundings.

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Alexandra McIntosh writes on architecture, design and visual arts. She is based in Calgary, Alberta. Client Brewster Travel Canada | Design Team PCL Construction Management (DesignBuild Team Leader)—Scott Updegrave, Keith Bowers. Read Jones Christoffersen (Prime Consultant)—Simon Brown, Geoff Kallweit, Mark Ritchie. Sturgess Architecture (Architect)—Jeremy Sturgess, Jan Kroman, David Tyl, Bob Horvath. | Structural Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd. | Electrical SMP Engineering | Traffic Urban Systems LTD. | B:9.25” Dynamic Wind Modelling Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. | Environmental Golder Associates | Geotechnical Thurber Engineering | Contractor PCL Construction T:9” Management | Area 5,500 ft 2 | Budget $21 M | Completion May 2014

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The Case for Specialization

Omicron has cultivated specializations in several building types, including community facilities such as the Gleneagles Public Safety Building in the District of West Vancouver.

ABOVE

TEXT

Mark Busse

Specialization offers Advantages ranging from more efficient project execution to better employee retention, argues Mark Busse. Long heralded as heroes of innovation, architects and architectural firms are typically afraid to tackle a challenge that may well be the secret to their success—specialization. I know what you’re thinking. The idea of specialization has been bandied about for years. Many predicted the industry would break into two primary types of firms: big multidisciplinary generalists with sheer mass, momentum and horsepower; and smaller more nimble boutique firms specializing in particular market or building types. Those in the middle would struggle as the industry evolved. Some will argue this prediction has come true in many ways. Even those mid-sized general practice firms that have remained busy and successful may not yet realize the limitations and challenges that lie ahead if they don’t find a strategic advantage. As the industry continues to change, specialization may be the answer for firms of all types and sizes. On an individual level, fear of specialization is almost visceral. Will we miss out on qualified employee applicants? Will we dry up crea tively? Will we go out of business? Over the past decade, my consultancy has gathered feedback from architectural leaders across Canada, giving us insight into challenges facing the industry. We’ve learned that increased competition and what many describe as the commodification of architecture is an insidious worry. We’ve seen how difficult ex pansion is. We’ve seen firms struggle to attract talent. Plenty of industries have taken a leap into a new world of branding, business development,

positioning and marketing. But the architecture field seems paralyzed by fear of new approaches, including specialization. As leaders in architecture firms look to the future towards growth and profit, how can they move past these fears and thrive? There are plenty of reasons to consider specialization, from more well-defined audiences to more engaged staff, to elevated reputations and even higher fees and profits. Let’s talk about money. Specialization can make project execution more efficient. Knowing what questions to ask, what pitfalls to watch out for, and drawing from plenty of experience allows firms to be smarter about managing time and money. Specializing means quickly parsing and prioritizing the issues and recognizing opportunities others would miss. Both potential clients and architectural teams realize cost savings on the business development side. Specialization typically means a firm can proactively market their services through content marketing, targeted advertising, and networking to a much more defined audience. Specialization reduces the need to chase endless RFPs where differentiation among proposals can be challenging. While RFPs aren’t going away in the public sector, firms with specializations can go into the process with added confidence because they are experts. In some cases, specialization can position a firm as the top choice for a project. With increasing numbers of engineers and builders offering design services, commodification of architecture is a serious problem, but

specialization addresses it head on. What you know has value, but only if you know something the other firm doesn’t. General-practice full-service firms face increasing competition and must compete on price, often attracting lower-quality clients who view them as replaceable vendors. “All design-focused architecture firms with strong offerings should be able to give design sophistication comparable to their peers,” says Bill Tucker, CEO of Omicron, a large firm that offers fully integrated design-build services. “But where the rubber hits the road with vertical specialization is the ability to offer expert guidance on inner mechanics, system integration and operations as buildings continue to get more complex.” It is difficult to design all building types well—particularly those that require in-depth research—and specialization gives you an elevated knowledge base, making your intelligence worth paying for. Discerning clients appreciate knowing their architect has an intricate understanding of their particular business and market. The time clients save not having to explain their operation and situational challenges is valuable to them. It also offers risk-averse customers peace of mind as they seek reduced uncertainty. “We are in an era where clients are increasingly looking for specific expertise,” says Darryl Condon, managing partner at HCMA. “There is a reluctance to try someone who hasn’t already demonstrated expertise with a building typology. For instance, even a privatesector commercial office park developer would be reluctant to hire a firm that hasn’t done a lot of that type of work. Part of that is due to comfort with ongoing relationships (a definite factor in the development of specialists) and partly it’s risk aversion.” He adds, “We often hear things from our clients like ‘I don’t want to be a guinea pig’ or ‘I want our architects to have already made past mistakes and know how to avoid them.’” While specialization is often a reference to building type, it can be understood in different ways in the AEC industry, including specialties by client type or location. “Some firms we’ve collaborated with place client type and delivery method as their focus, while others employ climate specialists for projects in northern, alpine or tropical climates,” says Bruce Haden, principal at DIALOG. Creatively, a solid awareness of the challenges a project presents gives firms the confidence and freedom to explore and innovate, putting forth superior work. So why is specialization so terrifying? There are certainly naysayers who offer valid concerns, but even the most powerful arguments seem fear-driven, often fuelled by irrationality.

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PRACTICE

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Practice We’ve heard a myriad of arguments: Specialization will evaporate inspiration and hinder creativity and innovation; staff will get bored and leave; talented young architects won’t join for worry of limited career growth; building a firm on a specific speciality will be risky due to market volatility. This is fearmongering based on a lot of what ifs, maybes, and conjectures. Our observation has been that many young professionals pursue passion projects and will choose to work for firms that have specializations in sectors they care about, creating dedicated and committed employees. Lack of time, effort and money are often the roots of fear in specializing. This is understandable. Maintaining a specialization means constant learning, creating best practices, and being up to date on what makes a particular industry tick or building typology unique. But if being top of mind and benefiting from word of mouth referrals is what you seek, then specialization is worth the effort. There is an inherent fear of risk with change, and hard realities when it comes to choosing a specialty. Plucking something from the air works no better than hoping you end up where you want to be by pointing blindly at a map. So be smart about choosing a speciality and use real data in your approach. Take an honest, unbiased look at your past projects.

Detect trends in what you’re already delivering and what projects you feel most confident executing. Consider what types of projects are actually profitable and which are in growth sectors. If there is something you are passionate about that is not appearing on your list, build your portfolio strategically while continuing business as usual. Look for specializations that are not readily apparent or that may be untapped in the market. Many firms we’ve consulted for feel staking a claim on a particular specialty might result in losing out on other revenue opportunities. But specialization isn’t a word that negates exception. Even our clients who are thriving as specialty firms frequently take on new challenges and accept projects outside their specialty, but their reputation and marketing efforts are not based on these exceptions. And there’s no reason a firm can’t focus on multiple specialties as it grows. Like many established firms, Calgary’s S2 Architecture has a traditional full-service practice. But several of their principals are ex perienced specialists in areas like religious buildings and community safety structures—so they market to these sectors specifically. “I see specialization not as a method of achieving work in a project type to the exclusion of other building types. Rather, it’s an added focus on top of other focuses in a firm which offers

other services as well,” says Linus Murphy, S2 Architecture principal. This hybrid approach perhaps best addresses the greatest fear among firm owners: the bottom line. Architects struggle to fight the urge to take any and all projects that come their way, for fear of foregoing revenue. Smart firms layer in specialization, allowing them to seek opportunities in other markets. This ultimately helps flatten the peaks and dips in resources and cash flow, making their business more stable and sustainable. Regardless of how a firm chooses to define specialization, it is a smart strategic choice to focus marketing and communications activities toward key audiences. Ultimately, specialization means saying the most feared word of all: no. At some point, you need to commit to your path and forsake all, or at least most, others. It might not always be easy, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. Mark Busse is a founding partner of Vancouver-based strategy, brand and marketing consultancy Industrial Brand, which specializes in creating a distinctive market position for AEC professional services firms. He is a past chapter president of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, a design writer and an educator. You can follow him on Twitter at @MarkBusse.

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The largest architecture festival in Canada. A myriad of events across Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo.

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Starts July 4, 2014 and continues all summer.

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City Multi from Mitsubishi Designed specifically for the Canadian HVAC market, Mitsubishi Electric’s City Multi water-source system provides optimum occupant comfort while substantially minimizing installation and operating costs with its 2-pipe VRF technology, now available in 575 volts. Energy efficient, flexible design, compact, and quiet, City Multi water-source is an effective alternative to geothermal systems and is best fitted for high-rise applications. www.ExploreVRF.ca

The Entire City Project May 3-September 28, 2014

In this exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, architecture and urban design professor Mi chael Awad has photographed the entire physical infrastructure of Toronto, extensively mapping the built environment and studying how people navigate through and interact with the city. www.rom.on.ca

Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything May 31-September 1, 2014

Taking place at the Vancouver Art Gallery, this survey exhibition of Douglas Coupland’s work ad dresses the singularity of Cana dian culture, the power of language, as well as the presence of technology in everyday life. www.couplandexhibition.org

Open to the Public: Civic Space Now June 12-September 6, 2014

This exhibition at the Center for

Architecture in New York exam ines the indispensability of public space to both effective urban placemaking and lively social dis course, featuring monumental photography, models, street furni ture, and an interactive social media component. http://cfa.aiany.org

The Mound of Vendôme June 19-September 14, 2014

On view at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, this exhibition traces the provocative history of the column and mound in Paris’s Place Vendôme, while arguing for its historicization and reconstruction. www.cca.qc.ca

Lake Effect: Architects Respond to our Access to Water June 21-September 14, 2014

This exhibition at the Architec ture Gallery at Harbourfront in Toronto explores the issue of ac cess to Lake Ontario while con sidering the larger debate about all

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The Coltlite louver window, available exclusively from Bilco in North America, is a dual-purposed ventilator that provides buildings with both dayto-day and smoke control ventilation. Easily installed in the façade of a building, the high-performance ventilator is durable and complements any architectural design. For more information, visit www.bilco.comor call (519) 659-7331.

rights of access to coastal waters, lakes and waterways throughout Canada. www.harbourfrontcentre.com

Architecture to Scale June 26-September 14, 2014

This exhibition at the Art Insti tute of Chicago demonstrates the complex process and vast range of scales of architectural representa tion through the work of two groundbreaking architects in adja cent installations, Stanley Tiger man and Zago Architecture. www.artic.edu

SITUATE.DESIGN.BUILD July 14-August 15 2014

This new continuing education course at Toronto’s Humber Col lege positions the school as a for ward thinker in urban design, architecture and craft. Prototypes for community gardens, heritage gazebos, and laneway sites will act as the basis for potential commun ity urban design projects. www.humber.ca/lakeshorecampus/ lspacegallery/

Cairo: A Brief History of an Islamic Metropolis July 15, 2014

Taking place at 6:30pm at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toron to, this lecture by Aga Khan Pro fessor Nasser Rabbat will review Cairo’s history from the 10th cen tury to the present, surveying the city’s outstanding architecture and interpreting it in light of its urban, cultural and political setting. www.rom.on.ca

Table Talk July 16, 2014

A companion event to the current exhibition Tapas: Spanish Design for Food, this 6:00pm presentation at Toronto’s Design Exchange concerns the fusion of food and design, and features some of To ronto’s most celebrated chefs, de signers and restaurateurs. www.dx.org

For more information about these, and additional listings of Canadian and international events, please visit www.canadianarchitect.com

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Table Talk Text

Elsa Lam Jacqueline Young

A Table for 1,200 Diners in Winnipeg—along with smaller tables for 12 around the world—convene conversations about what drives design culture. Call it the world’s longest conversation about architecture—literally. On a warm May evening, 1,200 guests assembled around a 1,200foot-long table spanning Winnipeg’s Esplanade Riel pedestrian bridge to discuss architecture and urbanism. The event, hosted by local organizers StorefrontMB and 5468796 Architecture, doubled as the closing party for the RAIC’s annual Festival of Architecture and the finale to the offsite Winnipeg Architecture Fringe Festival. It also marked the culmination of a year-long research project launched by 5468796 that set the table for informal conversations about architecture in cities around the world. A simple question sparked the project: how do cities foster an architectural culture? To find out, the firm came up with the idea of assembling dinner parties of key architectural figures—tables for 12—in cities worldwide. In 2013, the project won the $50,000 Professional Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts, and 5468796 began booking plane tickets. Some countries on their list have enjoyed progressive political support of architecture. In the Netherlands, a national architecture policy implemented in the early 1990s included funding for young firms to design social housing. A similar policy-driven push is currently happening in Denmark, where architecture is treated

1,200 guests dressed in white met for an outdoor dinner in Winnipeg on May 31st; the seemingly endless dinner table spanned the Esplanade Riel, a pedestrian bridge designed by architect Étienne Gaboury and engineer Colin Stewart. Above, left to right

PHOTOS

as a valuable export commodity. In Sydney, Australia, government policy is also a driver of design—a shift initiated when former premier Bob Carr expressed dismay at the poor quality of new apartment buildings flanking his daily commute. Architectural excellence is now upheld through design quality codes, and design review boards include prominent practitioners such as Glenn Murcutt. To hold architects accountable, the comments that emerge go on public record. The dinner conversations brought some surprises. In hyper-urban Tokyo, the team was astonished to learn that the general public in Japan had little awareness of architecture as such. Rather, the careful detailing that characterizes many buildings can be traced to a broader culture of craftsmanship. “Architects don’t carry liability insurance—the contractors are responsible,” explains 5468796 principal Sasa Radulovic. Collaboration and respect characterize relationships between architects and builders. By contrast, in New York, everyone has an opinion on architecture. A highly critical environment, filled with high-achieving designers, savvy journalists, and hyper-educated residents push architects to work with rigour— often producing projects with a toned-down aesthetic that stand the test of time. “Architects often create their best work in New York,

because they need to exercise restraint,” says principal Johanna Hurme. In several of their European stops, 5468796 spoke to young architects struggling to redefine their role in the wake of the economic crisis. Events such as the Lisbon Architecture Triennale provide outlets for designers to explore experimental practices that cross over into art, exhibition and product design. Similarly, in Mexico City, young architects must be highly proactive in creating projects. “Work does not just happen, you have to make it,” says Radulovic. “You approach a developer, and put a project together.” It’s even common for landscape architects to do their own landscaping. If one lesson emerged from their travels, it’s that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side—but that makes it all the more realistic for Canadian architects to learn from how their counterparts in other countries have risen to the challenge of strengthening architecture’s value. Whether it’s through identifying political champions, evolving our relationships with builders, or finding new modes of practice, the team sees much potential for asserting architecture’s relevance in Canada. It’s a vision worth raising a glass to—or better yet, 1,200 glasses. Read the project blog, with descriptions of the dinners in each city, at tablefor12.ca/blog/.

The execuTive and sTaff of carpenTers LocaL 27 would like to offer congraulatations on this Canadian Architect profile of the ETFO Building.

WeLL done!

BIRD Construction, KPMB , FENIX ENERGY and Blackwell Eng..

CARPENTERS

&ALLIED WORKERS LOCAL 27

“Perspective view, courtesy of KPMB Architects”.

proud to host the carpenters national apprenticeship contest at roundhouse park on august 23, 2014 Join us august 23 - 8:00 am - 4:00 pm free admission 222 Rowntree Dairy Rd, Woodbrige, ON L4L 9T2 T: 905-652-4140 F: 905-652-4139 Email: organizing@thecarpentersunion.ca www.carpenterslocal27.ca www.natac.ca/nac

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