A BurningStack of Wood

Performance Centre

Lebreton Flats | Ottawa, Canada

Lebreton Flats has great historical value tied with fire. Fire can teach about destruction like the 1900s lumber mill burning but it’s also an element that brings people together. First nations would use fire for warmth, and to tell stories. Fire is not only destruction it is life. A community centre succeeds in its function when it brings people together like a fire.

Fire holds a verticality. It burns upwards and is hottest at its peak. To represent this, I created a tall structure with a celebrated top level. The structure can be a beacon for the community to discover. As a fire takes fuel from below it and uses its energy upward, people would enter beneath, fueling the building with life.

In plan, the building is split between the performance spaces and the public spaces with a ‘social street’. The theatre is surrounded by thick concrete walls so that when passing through the walls people get a sense of stepping into an enclosed, quiet, important space. The stacked boxes consist of rentable rooms for practicing parts of a performance. Each box is oriented towards a landmark pertinent to the story of Ottawa. At the top level is a permanent art gallery. The art from the gallery juxtaposed with glassed panoramic views of Ottawa removes the boundaries of art and life. The superimposed boxes is inspired by lumber stacked to dry in the lumber mill. It is a metaphor to remind people that a community is made from the coming together of many pieces.

I believe a performance center is missing in this area of the city and could be beneficial to the surrounding residents. The function creates a contrast with the adjacent library. A quiet building and a loud one. Like a dancing flame, my vision for this community centre is for people to have a place to be able to express themselves freely and burn brightly.