Architecture Portfolio 2023: Shawn Duke

ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

This Portfolio showcases selected works produced by Shawn Duke in his years of professional practice and architectural studies

About

Growing up in an environment surrounded by design, both in fashion and architecture, my passion for the latter started at a young age. My father, being an interior designer, would take me to construction sites and I would always enjoy watching as these spaces transformed over time. As soon as I returned home from the sites, I would immediately get out my pencil and a piece of paper and begin to sketch out what I thought could be an alternative for whatever design element I had seen that day. In addition to my father, having a few other close relatives in the field opened up a pathway for me to choose architecture as a career.

Table of Contents

About Table of Contents

Curriculum Vitae

Professional Experience

Allen Lands Development Project

CEPEO Schools

North Grenville Pool House

Access Storage Properties Developement

Centre Block Rehabilitation Project

Carleton Immersive Media Studio

Academic Work

Float City (Masters Thesis)

Les Ateliere FAB de Vanier

Raw-Ten

SHAWN DUKE

Architect, OAA, MRAIC

(613)-608-9099

shawnduke00@yahoo.com

Experience

Architect, OAA, MRAIC

Architecture 49 Inc.

Ottawa, ON

Tasked with a variety of roles on multiple jobs, ranging from the design and production of construction documentation for portions of larger projects, to the management of entire smaller projects, from conception through to contract administration.

Intern Architect

Architecture 49 Inc.

Ottawa, ON

July 2018 - April 2023

Worked on the Centre Block Rehabilitation Project, as well as a variety of others. Primarily focused on designing and detailing of new buildings, and renovations/ additions. Assisted with construction documentation and saw projects from start to finish.

Architectural Research Assistant

Carleton Immersive Media Studio

Ottawa, ON

Utilized various BIM techniques and software, such as Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Recap and AutoCAD to model multiple aspects of given projects from point cloud and photogrammetry data.

Skills

Curriculum Vitae

(613)-608-9099

shawnduke00@yahoo.com

Education

Master of Architecture

Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario

Entrance Scholarship

RAIC Student Honour Roll

Bachelor of Architectural Studies

Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario

Design Major

Entrance Scholarship

Dean’s Honour List

Achievements

2016

2012

Lagos City of Water competition (Finalist)

RAIC Honour Roll Certificate

CISC Excellence Award in Steel Design (Nominated)

Azrieli Mini Thesis Award

‘Building 22’ Publication

ARCHITECT Magazine Studio Prize Award & Publication

Cover Image for ARCHITECT Magazine

September 2016 issue

Stantec Architecture Prize for Excellence (Nominated)

‘Building 22’ Publication

Teron Scholarship Award (Nominated)

Deans Honour List

Academic Scholarship

Rhinoceros, V-Ray, Enscape, Lumion, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Recap, AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, SketchUp, Microsoft Office.

Adept in reading, creating and interpreting plans, sections and elevations of technical drawings. Skilled at creating highly detailed digital and physical architectural models ranging in size from wall sections to full buildings.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Allen Lands Development Project 01

The Allen Lands Development project (ALDP) in Toronto was a P3 competition tailored to design a government building for several security and defence tenants.

The design required a sensitive response to the government’s need of a secure facility while maintaining a receptive building for the users and the public which enhances the urban fabric of the area. At the entrance, physical security elements are subtly integrated into welcoming landscape elements that acts as a barrier and draws the tenants and the public into public plaza without the restraints of traditional secure facilities.

Tasked with leading the design of the façade, a variety of explorations were undertaken, including the use of geometric and mathematical relationships, to develop a parametric approach to a secure, yet aestheticaly appealing building.

The façade design is inspired by nature and the Canadian “Group of Seven”. The apertures of the windows increase and decrease to create a fluid movement simulating wind rustling the leaves on the trees and water ripples as a canoe passes through. The selection of a pre-cast panel façade responds to the security needs of the tenants, however, the subtle changes to the pre-cast block and the windows sizes creates a dynamic office space. The dynamism of the façade achieved was able to question traditional thinking of around monotonous repetitive buildings typical of many institutional facilities.

Given the sensitive nature of the project, descriptions and visualizations have been kept vague.

increase and decrease to create a fluid movement simulating

“The apertures of the windows

wind rustling the leaves on the trees and water ripples as a canoe passes through.”

“Physical security elements are subtly integrated into welcoming landscape elements that acts as a barrier and draws the tenants and the public into public plaza...”

CEPEO Schools 02

In January 2021, A49 was awarded the mandate for the schematic design of a new “adaptable” school design for the CEPEO- French public school board of Eastern Ontario, along with the design and delivery of two new schools to be constructed in two locations, one in Kanata-Stittsville neighbourhood, and another in Barrhaven South, Ottawa.

The pilot project for the “adaptable” school was to create a design that could be modified to accommodate 375, 475, or 675 pupil places depending on an area’s needs, and be flexible enough to be oriented to a variety of sites. Programming for the 2 new K-6 schools includes a separately operated daycare centre and two stories of classroom spaces. A centrally located gymnasium, multi-purpose room, and library are intended for student use and also community access during off-school hours.

The site design for both schools integrates outdoor teaching areas, playful natural elements, and the incorporation of an arboretum with a variety of plantings that encourage learning about biodiversity. Exterior cladding of modulated brick patterns is subtly playful with a wraparound front entrance intended to embrace the corner lots and welcome the community into its central programs. The metal panel inserts clad the gymnasium, animating the playground it faces, and offering an opportunity for changes to the colour palette that offers another means to define each unique site.

Both projects began construction concurrently in mid-September of 2022 with occupancy slated for 2024.

Wall Section at Canopy Entrance showing Brick Modulation Detail

North Grenville Pool House 03

Riverside park in Kemptville, Ontario is home to a variety of recreational activities, including baseball diamonds, tennis’s courts and much more. The park also housed an outdoor pool with a small single storey change room facility. This building was competed in the late 70’s, and was sufficient enough to serve the pool, but when the Municipality of North Grenville put out an RFP for the addition of a splash pad and outdoor hockey rink, the need for a redesigned change room facility was evident.

The new building is designed as an addition to the existing facility. Some elements of the old building were kept, including the exterior walls and pump room, while the existing roof was demolished. The new change room is separated from the old building by a breezeway, and with a single gable roof over both structures unifying both old and new, the facility will serve the North Grenville community for years to come.

The original building has been reconfigured to primarily be occupied by staff serving the pool and other park functions, while the new building houses the main changerooms. Materiality for the facility was determined by taking the surrounding context into consideration, with red brick on most of the new building and charcoal fibre cement boards on its remainder, and on the entire existing building.

Given the size and scope of the job, I was tasked with managing the project, from conception through to delivery, including its design, construction documentation, and contract administration. The building and its surroundings are slated for an August 2023 completion.

1. Existing building

3. New building inserted

2. Existing roof demolition

4. New gable roof and cladding

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Floor Plan Legend

1. Exterior rink chiller pad

2. Splash pad mechanical room

3. Mechanical/ Electrical room

4. Change areas

5. Showers

6. Washrooms

7. Janitors closet

8. Universal washroom 9. Family changerooms 10. Office 11. Staff washroom

12. Staff changeroom 13. Staff room 14. Storage room

15. Existing pool pump room 16. Chemical storage room

“Access Storage” Internal Design Competition 04

With Anastasia Kowalchuk & Zabdi Falcon

Access storage is the largest storage company in Canada. With a new Ottawa location under development, the company wanted to use the opportunity to refresh their brand. The brief for this competition was to develop a design that promoted the company’s branding ideas without being overwhelming to customers and future users.

The building facade was designed to show a programmatic differentiation through materiality. The northern half of the building would house the less public spaces. The facade was to be simple but have one outstanding design idea, which is the red “A” that is shown. This “A” would be represented as a semi-transparent screen, constructed as a doubleskin assembly consisting of glazing and perforated metal, sandwiched between cast-in-place concrete walls.

The southern half of the building housing the self storage units was designed to express the programmatic functions by allowing more visibility, using a similar double-skin assembly to the red “A”. The main entry/office will be located on the South West corner of the building. To differentiate between it and the self storage units, the surrounding glazing was offset to align with the perforated metal screens above and beside, and left uncovered to create an open and welcoming corner.

The primary design intention of this competition was to create a “kit of parts”, using this building as an architectural template for Access Storage’s future projects.

Centre Block Rehabilitation Project 05

CENTRUS, a joint venture between WSP (Architecture49 inc.) and HOK, is leading the design of the expansion, conservation and rehabilitation of the main facility of the Canadian Parliamentary precinct (Centre Block) in Ottawa.

Built over a century ago after the original Parliament building was destroyed by fire, Centre Block houses Canada’s Senate, House of Commons, and Library of Parliament. It also is home to the Memorial Chamber that commemorates Canadian citizens who gave their lives in military service. It is one of the country’s most important heritage sites and leading tourist destinations.

The plan is to modernize the physical setting, security and support infrastructure while honoring Centre Block’s heritage as the epicenter of Canadian democracy. The design is reorganizing and renovating the entire building, its 302-foot-tall Peace Tower and the adjacent grounds.

This includes construction of a new underground Parliament Welcome Centre and several ancilliary projects including storage facilities for heritage asssets and a temporary materials handling facility.

For the first few years of my career, I played a primary role on the project design team, assiting lead designers and senior architects with various tasks including, but not limited to, visualization, project management, and consultant liaising. As the project has evolved, I began leading teams through various efforts and smaller projects within the larger scope. Given the sensitive nature of the project, descriptions and visualizations have been kept vague.

Carleton Immersive Media Studio 06

Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) is a Carleton University research centre dedicated to the advanced study of innovative, hybrid forms of reality capture, representation and fabrication that can both reveal the invisible measures of architecture and animate the visible world of construction.

In collaboration with Heritage Conservation Services (HCS) and the Parliamentary Precinct Branch (PPB) of Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), CIMS is working on the documentation for, and the creation of Building Information Models (BIM) of the Parliamentary Precinct Buildings in Autodesk Revit.

The Models are constructed with metric data captured from terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetry. This highly detailed information allows for an accurate recreation of the buildings, down to the nearest millimeter. These models can then be adopted by the prime consultants (architects and engineers) as the basis for design studies, project management, and integrated project delivery. The models are built in teams that involve multiple students from various academic backgrounds, including architecture and engineering.

All images were produced using a combination of BIM and point cloud data from Autodesk Revit, and edited in Adobe Photoshop.

ACADEMIC WORK

Float City

Makoko: (re)development of an aquatic home

Modernism’s endeavors to improve the living standards of slum dwellers in developing countries in the last decades, while well-intentioned, have resulted in few success stories. In many cases these good intentions have been compromised from the start due to the approach taken whereby residents are “temporarily” relocated without their consent and thus subsequently forced to try to create a new life that is challenging and difficult to adapt to.

Makoko, an informal settlement located in a lagoon off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, is recognized as the world’s largest floating slum. Over the years, this shantytown has grown into what is now seen by government officials as an obstruction of “proper” development and a visual nuisance; not coincidentally, the waterfront site is being labeled as prime real estate by developers. There have been efforts facilitated by the government to evacuate the slum that are ending with disastrous results for residents of the slum.

The proposal pursued in the research and design for Float City hopes to serve as a precedent for a form of affordable housing with a more community-oriented approach.

Using D.I.Y (do-it-yourself) principles as its foundation, in conjunction with a combination of high-tech and low-tech infrastructure and architecture, this proposal hopes to create templates for the slum dwellers to follow to help in the revitalization of their own homes and community.

The residential design chosen to be explored is one that focuses on individually stacking a few units, rather than grouping a large number in vertical clusters. The template is a five storey frame, constructed from dimensional lumber, with individual storeys having a specific role to play to service those that live or work in the stack. Each storey is around three metres high, giving maximum ceiling height for infrastructure while still providing a comfortable environment for living.

The urban infrastructural implementations stage includes the design and strategic placement of ten meter to fifteen-meter-high bamboo space frames throughout Makoko’s six villages. The surrounding water generally ranges between one and five meters deep and implementing infrastructure below the buildings would prove to be difficult, therefore overhead infrastructure would be a fitting solution.

Les Ateliers FAB de Vanier

Les ateliers FAB de Vanier is a 3000 m2 workshop in which the artist community in Vanier would be welcome to work and reside in. It will be home to various craft disciplines especially those which require the physical manipulation of materials to create a product. The building will be home to wood and metal shops, robot arm stone cutters, advanced digital fabrication labs and many more programs. in addition to the workshops, classrooms will be provided for lessons on the various crafts.

The design of the building is based off the public perception of art. People only see art as a beautiful finished product and never fully understand the time and energy that goes into producing those pieces. The consumption of art privileges the produced artifact over the process of production. The proposed project attempts to bridge the gap between object and process.

The building is both a vessel for artistic production and an object of consumption. The clean slatted wood exterior cladding is a representation of the finished product, while the interior organization completely exposes all its building systems. With a scaffolding-like superstructure and modular programs in individual “floating boxes”, the building exposes the nature of the creative process and represent its chaotic beauty.

This studio was specifically targeted at addressing the idea of singular comprehensive design engaging the theme of “Workshops for the next century”through the development of a rigorous series of design drawings that synthesized design expertise and technical knowledge. Drawings were developed in a comprehensive drawing package with 30%, 60% and 90% completion before the final handover.

Ground Floor Plan

Raw - Ten

The Vanier Neighborhood in Ottawa has been widely recognized as a very community oriented area, but it still has a certain ”hard exterior”. When given a choice of four sites, the decision was made based on the site which played the role of a ”bridge” between this sense of community and a hard (even Ottawa-urban) exterior.

200 Baribeau street is currently occupied by a single storey Islamic school; the building in place for over half a century. Located at the heart of a small community in which gentrification has begun, this is the perfect site for a new mid to high class, multi-unit residential project.

The design of the project is based on the preservation and re-purposing of the existing school. Raw-Ten is a new hybrid housing project; the school remains an urban memory under an exquisite row of 10 town houses perched deliciously above.Who could resist living there?!

Raw-Ten is angled and textured to produce a hard urban environment distancing itself from soft developer architecture. Within the site is a dense housing development that extends Ottawa’s convention for housing models.

Mechanical system for large windows

Air Barrier (Tyvek Homewrap) & 1”x2” Strapping

11/2” Rigid Insulation & 1/2” OSB sheathing

2” x 6” Studs @ 24” O.C & 51/2 Fibreglass Batt Insulation

6 mil Polyethylene Vapour Barrier

Suspended ceiling detail

Street 1

Site located at 200 Baribeau Street

Townhouses 2 Ten townhouses cantilevered over existing building

Retail Anchor 3

Existing school building being re-purposed to a multi functional community auditorium

Apartment Block 4

Five story apartment building with 74 units and one floor of underground parking

The existing building on 200 Baribeau Street is being kept and re-purposed for the proposed hybrid housing project. It is a single story 0.65 acre concrete masonry unit structure which has a 50 year old foundation supporting it. So in order to build above, an exoskeleton structure had to be developed which would have the ability to support the weight of the ten townhouses and the pedestrian bridge connecting them with the apartment block. The exoskeleton structure is assembled using steel I-beams and acts as an arachnid sitting over and around the building, transferring loads to the earth without actually putting too much weight on the existing structure.

Gossiping Towers 04

With Tyson Moll

Vanier lacks a core, a sort of hub for the community. The commercial strip lacks a particular solidity that other urban centers in Ottawa possess, its buildings like masses of ice split from an arctic sheet.

The Gossiping Towers project is a prototypical gateway rooted in Vanier’s core, conceived to sprawl across the city of Ottawa and Hull via air transit. Expo architecture reigns within the urban hub, with speculative towers describing modern ideas in the urban context.

The hub’s many attractions include a revitalized Senator’s Arena, a commercial district, and the sustainable Hanging Gardens and Algae Bio-Reactor towers. The tallest of the projects, the Gateway Towers, boldly proclaims the grand project’s Constructivist ideals; the project is designed to demonstrate to developers the potential to use the tram-line’s existing pylon structures as frameworks for condominium development. Development is spurred by developer funding and the relationship between transit and density reaches a merry equilibrium.

The English and Francophone downtown cores are connected across the Ottawa River and subsequently our underdeveloped Vanier becomes the centre stage.

Air Tram Stations

Primary:

Hull Downtown - Quebecois metropolitan core Mackenzie King Station - bus & LRT transit hub, mall & market access

Vanier Prototype - project hub; expo class amenities, arena

Secondary:

Casino Lac-Lemy - likely funded by the casino Parc de la Gatineau – massive green space

Via Rail Station - transit hub for national train network St. Laurent Mall - bus transit hub & mall access

One of the main features of this project is a new air tram line. The core objective of the air tram network is to bridge the gap between the major downtown cores of Ottawa and Hull, providing a financially viable transit corridor with spectacular views across the water. Deeper connections are meant to provide efficient city-wide transit without vehicular traffic woes.

Architecture Portfolio

Shawn Duke 613-608-9099

shawnduke00@yahoo.com