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Governor General’s awards 2010 raIC Gold Medal
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05/10 canadian architect 9
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13 news ThepartnershipofProvencherRoy&
AssociésarchitectesandRemKoolhaas-ledOMAwinsinternationalcompetitionfortheexpansionoftheMuséenationaldesbeaux-artsduQuébec;Saucier+PerrotteandHughesCondonMarlerArchitectsdesignnewUBCFacultyofPharmaceuticalScience.
65 calendar OtherSpaceOdysseys:GregLynn,Michael
Maltzan,AlessandroPoliattheCanadianCentreforArchitecture;ArchitectureenversattheGrandeBibliothèqueinMontreal.
66 Backpage RufinaWuandStefanCanhamintroduce
HongKong’shiddenrooftopcommunities.
19 2010 governor general’s awards
this year’s winning projeCts exhibit a nuanCed sensitivity to site, landCape and the publiC realm.
54 2010 raic gold Medal highly influential arChiteCt, urban designer and eduCator george baird is
seleCted as the reCipient of the 2010 raiC gold medal.
cover sCandinave les bains vieux-montréal by sauCier + perrotte arChi-teCtes in montreal. photograph by marC Cramer.
stef
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The NaTioNal Review of DesigN aND PRacTice/The JouRNal of RecoRD of The Raic
may 2010, v.55 n.05
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10 canadian architect 05/10
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Ian
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Ian ChodIkoff [email protected]
above sInCe Its beGInnInGs In the 1950s, the InforMaL settLeMent of neza has Matured Into an effICIent and eMPathIC CoMMunIty.
viewpoint
In April, I attended the 3rd International Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction, a three-day conference held at the Universidad Iberoameri-cana in Mexico City. Comprised of academics and professionals from the fields of architecture, engi-neering, urban planning, business and politics, over 270 participants from 39 countries gathered to discuss new approaches to building sustainable communities. The Holcim Foundation for Sus-tainable Construction—a Swiss-based organization seeking to raise awareness of the roles that archi-tecture, engineering and construction can play in contributing to a healthier planet—sponsored the conference. The Foundation is supported by Holcim Ltd., one of the world’s largest suppliers of cement, aggregates and ready-mixed concrete.
A highlight of the forum was a series of work-shops examining the relationships of architec-ture, infrastructure, social networks and stake-holders in the city. For the workshop that focused on stakeholders—those citizens who play an im-portant everyday role in the city but who are often excluded from important decision-making pro-cesses—arrangements were made to visit the informal city of Nezahualcóyotl or “Neza,” and a cultural centre in Iztapalapa, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Mexico City. The richness of social capital, community participation and self-governance in these two areas was extraordinary. These case studies can teach us how we can learn to work together to resolve some of the ongoing challenges facing the sustainability of our cities.
Founded in the 1950s without any city services and expanded through illegal land sales, Neza is the largest unplanned community in Mexico. Today, it has a population of nearly 1.5 million in-habitants. This fully matured city contains a level of social interaction and complexity that tradi-tionally planned communities can only dream of achieving. With a wide variety of businesses and services—including at least one branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia—one quickly appreciates Neza as a well-maintained and socially inclusive environment where the idea of community is both preserved and nurtured.
In Fábrica de Artes y Oficios de Oriente (FARO), a cultural centre in Iztapalapa where more than 80 percent of its nearly 2 million in-habitants live in extreme poverty, a strong pres-ence of mutual respect and community identity is felt everywhere. FARO contains a vocational school, library, theatre, exhibition space and cafeteria within a long graffiti-covered ship-like structure. Meeting the needs of many Mexicans marginalized from society, the centre strikes close to the heart, reminding us of the importance of engendering not only a sense of place but em-pathy towards others living in impoverished conditions. This is what Jeremy Rif kin might consider to be a good example of an “empathic civilization.”
In his keynote address at the conference, Rif-kin, author of The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, spoke of his belief that the only way the human race can survive in a sustainable and globalized economy is if we develop more empathy toward others. His “empathic civilization” can be seen as the oppo-site of a Utopia, a place where there is neither fear nor desire. In an empathic world, we are able to feel and understand the vulnerabilities of those around us, working co-operatively to achieve greater balance among humans.
Through greed and the desire for progress, it is quite possible that we’ve moved away from the empathic understanding of each other’s needs, resulting in our inability to collectively make pos-itive decisions affecting the future health of our planet. But there is hope. Humanity is still rooted in social environments where we continue to learn from and identify with each other. Over the course of our 175,000-year existence, we have de-veloped constructs such as religious affiliations and national identities to help us build empathic civilizations. If there is one thing that we can dis-cover from places like Neza or Iztapalapa, it is this: nurturing empathy and directing it toward our neighbours will increase the likelihood of humanity’s survival.
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05/10 canadian architect 13
news
aBOVe the winning competition entry for the expansion of the musée national des beaux-arts du Québec is a lively and dramatic addition to Quebec city’s grande allée.
luxi
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rem Koolhaas’s Oma and provencher roy & associés win international competition for musée national des beaux-arts du Québec expansion.The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec has announced that the winner of the inter-national architecture competition for its new pavilion is OMA (Office for Metropolitain Archi-tecture), based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in partnership with the Quebec team Provencher Roy & Associés architectes. The jury’s unani-mous selection of OMA’s design brought to a close a hotly contested international competition that drew interest from more than 100 firms from around the world. The designers had met the requirements related to nature, art and the city, skillfully taking into account the natural setting of the park, the building’s opening onto its environment and the urban character of Grande Allée. The proposed pavilion demon-strates concern for sustainable development and clear respect for the adjacent buildings while making a strong statement in terms of its typolo-gy. In December 2007, the governments of Can-ada and Quebec announced a joint contribution of $67.4 million for this project. The federal contribution, capped at 50% of admissible costs to a maximum of $33.7 million, is provided through the Building Canada Fund, Major Pro-jects Component. This funding is conditional upon the signing of a contribution agreement with the Government of Quebec, which will pro-vide $33.7 million from the Québec Infra-structures Plan through the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine. Financing for the project is to be completed by a $90-million private fundraising campaign conducted by the Fondation du Musée.www.mnba.qc.ca
prOjects
saucier + perrotte and hughes condon marler architects design new UBc Faculty of pharmaceutical science.Saucier + Perrotte and Hughes Condon Marler Architects have begun designing the new build-ing for the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science/CDRD for the University of British Columbia. The project site is located at the intersection of Westbrook Mall and Agronomy Road, a 20,240-square-metre parcel of land that is lo-cated at an important entry point to the campus. Resource Planning Group Inc. was earlier in-volved with the development of the project’s functional program, which enabled the architec-tural team to arrive at a design that would reflect
the Pharmaceutical Science Department’s world-class researchers, faculty, and the Uni-versity’s status as an internationally recognized institution in scientific endeavours. With this in mind, the building is designed to act as a gateway to the southeast edge of the campus, engaging the community with a ground floor that will be open, transparent and inviting—one that will showcase the public functions of the Faculty. The $90-million project will also house the Uni-versity’s Centre for Drug Research and Develop-ment in a state-of-the-art facility.
Kuwabara payne mcKenna Blumberg architects unveil design for minnesota’s Orchestra hall.Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects unveiled schematic designs for the renovation and expansion of Orchestra Hall, home of the Minnesota Orchestra in downtown Min nea polis. The $40-million project to revitalize Orchestra Hall focuses on a reinvention of its public lobby spaces and creates a dramatic exterior that better connects the Hall to the city outside. “In renovat-ing Orchestra Hall, we made it a priority to pre-serve the iconic elements of the original 1974 design, while also re-envisioning aspects of the building to better fit the current city and con-text,” says architect Bruce Kuwabara, who serves as design partner on the project. The renovation doubles Orchestra Hall’s available lobby space, simplifies lobby circulation, adds two exterior terraces and creates a new multi-purpose “City Room” on the lobby’s west side that can flexibly
accommodate a range of catered receptions, din-ners and performances—and opens directly to a generous open-air terrace in warm months. “The expanded lobby will be one broad, inter-connected space, and it will feel more inclusive,” says architect Marianne Mc Kenna, who serves as partner in charge. London-based Sound Space Design will oversee acoustics during the renova-tion, making appropriate onstage adjustments and ensuring that the auditorium’s current excel-lent acoustics are maintained through the reno-vation. The new Orchestra Hall is expected to open in 2013.
awards
sanaa named the 2010 pritzker archi tecture prize Laureates.Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the architectural firm SANAA, have been chosen as the 2010 Laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In announcing the jury’s choice, Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, elaborated, “Japanese architects have been chosen three times in the 30-year history of the Pritzker Architecture Prize—the first was the late Kenzo Tange in 1987, then in 1993, Fumihiko Maki was selected, and in 1995, Tadao Ando was the honouree.” The purpose of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is to honour annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a com-bination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the
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05/10 canadian architect 15
built environment through the art of architec-ture. While most of their work is in Japan, Sejima and Nishizawa have designed projects in Ger-many, England, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the United States.www.pritzkerprize.com
raymond moriyama announced as recipient of the 2010 sakura award.Raymond Moriyama, who cofounded the firm Moriyama Teshima Architects in 1958, is a hero to many Canadians. His stories of being interned during the Second World War because of his Jap-anese heritage and his rise to become one of Canada’s most respected architects continue to inspire. Moriyama has applied his extraordinary vision and understanding to numerous projects including the original Japanese Canadian Cultur-al Centre, Ontario Science Centre, Science North, Scarborough Civic Centre, Toronto Reference Li-brary, Bata Shoe Museum, National Museum of Saudi Arabia, Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, and the new Canadian War Museum in Ottawa that recently received the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture. Such landmark projects consis-tently earn praise for their intimate relationship to land, nature, and community. Moriyama has received honourary degrees from 10 universities, along with the Order of Canada and the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan), and was recently pro-moted to a Companion of the Order of Canada in recognition of “...inspiring a new generation of young architects through a significant body of work deemed to be a major contribution to Cana-dian architecture, and having lasting influence on the theory and/or the practice of architec-ture.” Born in Vancouver and educated in Van-couver, Tokyo, Slocan Valley (Bayfarm) in BC, Ryerson Senior Public School, and Westdale Collegiate in Hamilton, he received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto in 1954 and Master of Architecture degree in Civic and Town Planning from McGill University in 1957. In the spring of 2001, he was elected unan-imously the Chancellor of Brock University, the first architect in Canada to receive such an honour. www.jccclegacycampaign.ishare.ca/sakura/ honouree.htm 2010 heritage toronto awards call for nominations.Heritage Toronto invites the public to nominate significant 2009 projects they think should be celebrated. This year, nominations will be ac-cepted in the following categories: William Greer Architectural Conservation and Craftsmanship—for excellence in the restoration or adaptive reuse of a building 40 years old or older. Projects of all sizes will be considered, from façade restoration to a commercial building; Book—for a non-
fiction book about Toronto’s archaeological, built, cultural and/or natural heritage and his-tory, published in 2009; Media—for a production about Toronto’s archaeological, built, cultural or natural heritage and history; and Community Heritage Award—a cash prize awarded to one volunteer-based organization in each of the four Community Council areas for a significant activi-ty that promotes or protects heritage. The dead-line for nominations is June 1, 2010. www.heritagetoronto.org
GOOd desiGn awards.The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architec-ture and Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd. present the Museum’s annual GOOD DESIGN Awards Program for the most innovative and cutting-edge industrial, product, and graphic de-signs produced around the world. In the Product Design category, anything produced and/or designed from January 2008 to the present is eligible. All submitted products must have been produced by a manufacturer or scheduled for production. In the graphic design category, any graphic produced and/or designed from January 2008 to the present is eligible. All submitted graphics must have been produced by a client or scheduled for production. In this year’s edition, selected products and graphics for GOOD DE-SIGN are announced to the inter national press in December 2010. The fee is $300 US per entry. All entries must be postmarked no later than 5:00pm CST on July 1, 2010. www.chi-athenaeum.org/gdesign/sub00.htm
KmBr honoured with third Bc wood design award.Crawford Bay Elementary Secondary School, de-signed by KMBR Architects Planners Inc., was recognized with a WoodWORKS! BC Wood De-sign Award. It is the third such award in four years for KMBR. The school won in the category of Institutional Wood Design with a value of less than $10 million. The awards are given out annu-ally by the Canadian Wood Council, whose Wood-WORKS! initiative promotes the use of wood in non-residential construction. KMBR’s latest award-winning project saw the replacement of a 200-student elementary/secondary school, origi-nally built in the late 1940s, in the small rural town on the east shore of Kootenay Lake in southeastern British Columbia. The design of the new school relies heavily on the use of locally produced wood products, resulting in several in-valuable outcomes, such as the shipping of mate-rials from afar, thereby reducing the new school’s environmental footprint. The use of wood was also an intentional, socially responsible move in that it created local employment for both the lumber industry and local carpenters, thus great-ly stimulating the local economy.
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2010 governor general’s medal winners
solid Performance
As with previous winners of Governor General’s Medals in Architecture, the 2010 award recipi-ents are being recognized and celebrated by their peers for design excellence. This awards program continues a tradition that was initiated by the Massey Medals in 1950 and remains an impor-tant barometer of change identifying the evolu-tion of Canadian architecture with respect to regional, cultural and material characteristics expressed in contemporary buildings. The jury for this year’s Governor General’s Medals in Architecture comprises a group of internationally renowned professionals and esteemed Canadian architects from the Prairies, Ontario, and Que-bec, including Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta, Nader Tehrani, Georges Adamczyk, Jane Pendergast and Betsy Williamson.
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), together with the RAIC College of Fel-lows, is responsible for the organization and administration of the competition, while the Canada Council for the Arts is responsible for se-lecting and administering the peer assessment jury. Awarded every two years, up to 12 winners can be selected for each Governor General’s Medals in Architecture awards cycle. Readers will note that many of the award-winning projects have long ago been published in Canadian Architect magazine. This is because the eligibility requirements for submission allow such a gener-ous period of time for project completion—from January 1, 2001 to November 1, 2007.
Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta is currently the Dean of the School of Architecture at the Univer-
sidad Anáhuac in Mexico City. In 2008, he was honoured as Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur by the French Republic and recognized as an Honorary Fellow by the Ameri-can Institute of Architects and the Royal Archi-tectural Institute of Canada. More than 80 prizes recognize the work of Gómez-Pimienta, who is known for a contemporary architectural vocabu-lary that references traditional Mexican culture.
Nader Tehrani is a Principal of the Boston-based architecture firm of Office dA. He is also a Professor of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His area of research is focused on innovations in building systems, ma-terial applications, and digital fabrication. Office dA has received numerous awards and the work of the firm has been exhibited widely at such venues as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Venice Biennale, and the Institute of Con-temporary Art in Boston.
Georges Adamczyk is a Full Professor at the School of Architecture at the Université de Mon-tréal, where he served as its director from 1999 to 2007. He is a consultant for public interest projects and is the author of a number of articles, papers, publications and exhibitions about archi-tecture and design in Canada. Adamczyk is cur-rently collaborating on the first major disciplin-ary study of architectural competitions in Canada since 1940 at the Laboratoire d’étude de l’archi-tecture potentielle (LEAP), a research organiza-tion that is centred at the Université de Montréal.
Jane Pendergast has devoted her career to vari-ous forms of practice including a stint as Univer-sity Architect at the University of Calgary. Her real passion lies in working on cultural, not-for-profit, higher education and community projects, and she has recently opened the firm Pendergast Nyhoff Collaborative Architecture Inc. (PNCA) in downtown Calgary with architect Kevin Nyhoff.
Betsy Williamson is a Principal of WILLIAM-SON WILLIAMSON INC., a Toronto-based archi-tecture firm. She serves on the Waterfront To-ronto Design Review Panel and the Art Advisory Board of the Toronto Sculpture Garden. In addi-tion to her creative practice, Betsy maintains an active teaching career at the University of Toron-to. In 2008, WILLIAMSONWILLIAMSON INC., was the recipient of the Ronald J. Thom Award for Early Design Achievement from the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2006, the studio was honoured with the Young Architects Award from the Architectural League of New York.
the winners of this year’s governor general’s medals showcase their exPertise in the creation of highly evocative architecture.
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telUs centre for Performance and learning
architect KuwAbArA PAyne mcKennA blumberg ArchiTecTs location ToronTo, onTArio
The new TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning is the final phase in the master plan to build a new home for Canada’s premier music and arts educator, the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM). KPMB, under the direction of Marianne McKenna, has been working with the RCM to realize the vision set forth in the 1991 award-winning master plan.
The overall project involved the progressive
aBove The undulATing ribbon-liKe ceiling of Koerner hAll enhAnces The AcousTics.
restoration of McMaster Hall and the construc-tion of a new TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning to create a unique hybrid of a teaching and rehearsal facility and destination concert venue with three major performance venues. The space between the historic and new buildings is enclosed to create a skylit pedestrian court linking the Bloor Street entrance to the Concert Hall and Lobby. The glass-and-steel structure of
the new addition provides a dynamic counter-point to the polychromatic façades of the heritage buildings.
Urbanistically, the project occupies an impor-tant site in midtown Toronto at the threshold of the University of Toronto’s downtown campus, and integrates Philosopher’s Walk, a landscape pedestrian route that runs north and south link-ing Bloor Street to Hoskin Avenue. The design was strategically conceived to define a new cul-tural precinct for the city in concert with the transformation of the adjacent ROM and the ex-pansion of the Gardiner Museum around the cor-ner on Queen’s Park.
Although the new additions are substantive in scale and size, the siting, massing and articula-tion is deferential to the 19th-century heritage buildings on Bloor Street which have housed the RCM since 1962. The emphasis on transparency and contemporary building systems create a dy-namic counterpoint to the polychromatic mason-ry walls when encountered from Philosopher’s Walk. KPMB was also involved in the restoration of the exterior heritage fabric and the 240-seat Ettore Mazzoleni Hall.
A key mandate was to maximize the capacity and flexibility for integrating new technology and adapting to changes and growth in programs. The new additions include 43 new teaching and prac-tice studios, the renovation of Ihnatowycz Hall (1898) and a new 150-seat Conservatory Hall, a rehearsal space designed to accommodate a range of functions. In scale and proportion it replicates the acoustic quality and stage size of the main Koerner Concert Hall to prepare students for live performance.
In addition to Mazzoleni Hall and Conservatory Hall, the project incorporates the 1,135-seat Michael and Sonja Koerner Concert Hall—the performance heart of the project that provides a premiere acoustical environment. Its undulating wood “veil” integrated with the canopy above the stage define an iconic image for the RCM.
Overall, the TELUS Centre emphasizes the pri-macy of acoustics to directly support the RCM’s educational mission to nurture a creative society.
georges adamczyk: Les liens entre le bâti-ment historique et le nouvel édifice sont très bien composés. La restauration de l’ancien édi-fice d’allure victorienne est en fait très bien mise en valeur par le choix d’une construction rigou-reuse et transparente pour la nouvelle adition. La présence du conservatoire sur le campus de
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client royAl conserVATory of musicarchitect team mAriAnne mcKennA (PArTner), roberT sims (AssociATe in chArge), dAVe smyThe (ProJecT ArchiTecT), meiKA mccunn (ProJecT ArchiTecT), cArolyn lee, frAnces lAgo, John mesTiTo, gAry yen, dAn benson, KrisTA clArK, bill colAco, george friedmAn, eriK Jensen, dAVid Jesson, robin rAmchArAn, riTA KiriAKis, leXi KolT-wAgner, scoTT Pomeroy, mArK simPson, deb-orAh wAng, chris wegner, norm li, clAre rAdford, nicK limacoUstician sound sPAce design wiTh AercousTics engineer-ing lTdtheatre consUltant Anne minors PerformAnce consulTAnTsstrUctUral hAlcrow yollesmechanical merber corPorATion consulTing engineerselectrical crossey engineeringlandscaPe JAneT rosenberg & AssociATesinteriors KPmb ArchiTecTscontractor Pcl consTrucTors cAnAdAcosting currAn mccAbe rAVindrAn rossaUdiovisUal engineering hArmonics architectUral lighting mArTin conboy lighTing designheritage goldsmiTh borgAl & comPAny limiTed ArchiTecTsarea 190,000 fT2 BUdget $110 mcomPletion sePTember 2009
1 Koerner hAll2 librAry3 lobby4 ViP room5 sTudio6 PhilosoPher’s wAlK7 bAcK of house8 clAssroom9 mechAnicAl
l’uni versité est très inspirante et la façon dont il accompagne le “chemin des philosophes,” est re-marquable.
Jane Pendergast: When you consider all the architectural, landscape and urban forces at work on this site it is remarkable how deftly the archi-tects have managed the forms, the places within, the experience of moving through this assembly of buildings, the dialogue between old and new materials, and the presentation of the project on so many fronts.
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clocKwise from toP right The mulTi-leVel lobby sPAce is formAl yeT inTimATe; The AudiTor-ium of Koerner hAll; new AddiTions mAKe for A hArmonious conTrAsT To The originAl 1881 romAnesque building; The Telus cenTre AnimATes ToronTo’s busy bloor sTreeT wiTh iTs dignified Pres-ence.
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22 canadian architect 05/10
governor general’s medal winner
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corkin galleryarchitect shim-sutcliffe architects location toronto, ontario
The Corkin Gallery provides a public venue for the display of one of the best collections of fine art photography in Canada. It is located in what was originally a spirit storage room in the Gooder ham and Worts Distillery, now in downtown Toronto’s Distillery District. The project celebrates the scale of the building’s vast industrial space while creating a series of modern gallery rooms in this new cultural district in the city. The legibility of the existing spaces—the walls, ceilings and architectural elements—and their relationship to the new insertions was fundamental to the design proposition.
Early excavations below the existing floor level revealed parallel rows of evenly spaced sixfoothigh brick walls that divided the space into narrow threefootwide corridors. Formerly, large storage tanks sat on these turnofthecentury masonry walls and the spaces between were used to run connecting service pipes. The project exposes this pattern of low walls, using them as a datum within and above into which new spaces are inserted. A new central gallery space was created, bracketed by the rhythm of the historic brick tank walls, and existing heavy timber columns were preserved, with new cruciform steel bases replacing the existing rubble stone foundations. This created stable connection points to the new concrete floor slab, and created a dialogue between new and existing structural elements.
Set five steps below the gallery entrance hall and street level, a vast 24foothigh space is created. The exhibit surfaces are held away from massive masonry walls and the woodframed ceiling plane. The main gallery’s hanging walls extend up 18 feet towards the existing ceiling, floating below the gently sloping ceiling to allow the original size and form of the existing space to still be read.
Beyond the main gallery, a steel bridge connects two mezzanine galleries and appears to float several inches above the historic masonry walls. Further enhancing this ethereal quality of the space, sliding translucent glass planes hang from the ceiling, both concealing and revealing the gallery’s library and study space from the public.
Below this upper level space, a smaller gallery is defined by brick walls on three sides to display smaller, more intimately scaled photographs. Two flights of wood stairs aligned with archways
aBove original timber columns rest on new cruciform bases, replacing olD rubble stone founDations in this high-ceilingeD space.
in the brick support walls lead to the upper galleries. By moving through and up either flight of inserted stairs, the visitor can experience the upper galleries and overlook the main gallery below.
Along with its spatial complexity, the material richness of the gallery sets it apart from the stereo typical pristine whitewalled gallery. The original 2½”thick planks of Douglas fir and cedar flooring were retained and recycled throughout the space, sanded and large holes filled with a clear resin in order to maintain the quality and texture of the distillery floor. Handrails made of glass and stainless steel connect sensitively to their centuryold substrates, and provide a layer of humanscaled elements in a dramatically volumetric space.
Bernardo gómez-Pimienta: The contemporary insertion is careful and clever, creating a spatial complexity that the original building lacked—while maintaining all the old structural elements. The dialogue between old and new is respectful and makes a better building than the simple sum of the elements used.
nader tehrani: An intelligent adaptation of the distillery infrastructure, repurposing the building to effective ends. The project shows that it is not enough to preserve the “history” of the building with a passive voice, but instead requires a strategic intervention, drawing out its latent qualities and giving it renewed meaning.
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lower level 0 20’
leFt sliDing glass panels separate the office anD library from the stair leaDing Down to the lower level. Bottom, leFt to
right original masonry supports were once requireD for heavy machinery, as illustrateD in the historic photograph; original brick archways once sup-porteD vats of spirits above.
client Jane corkinarchitect team brigitte shim anD howarD sutcliffe (principals), Denise haraDem (proJect architect)structural blackwell bowick partnership ltD.mechanical toews engineering inc.electrical Dynamic Designs anD engineering inc.heritage era architects inc.architectural lighting suzanne powaDiuk Design inc.Building code leber rubes inc.metal FaBricators tremonte manufacturing inc.Builders eisner murray (vic furgiuele)area 6,000 ft2 Budget withhelDcomPletion november 2004
uPPer level
1 entry gallery2 original scale set
into floor3 main gallery4 small work gallery
11 office12 mechanical lift for artwork13 library14 private viewing gallery
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New INterIor walls
exIstINg brIck support walls
15 storage racks for art16 upper galleries17 stair up through historic
archeD passage
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24 canadian architect 05/10
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aBove A view of the rAvine house, the surrounding deck, And reflecting pool.
ravine guest housearchitect shim-sutcliffe Architects location toronto, ontArio
This guesthouse is located on the wooded grounds of a private residence abutting a Toronto ravine. The wood-and-glass pavilion sits within a three-acre property, surrounded by a lush land-scape of mature red pines and black locust trees. It is conceived of as a glowing lantern in the for-est, typologically related to greenhouses and tra-ditional garden outbuildings.
Intended as a quiet retreat, the program for the
project has both indoor and outdoor elements. The indoor program includes a bedroom, a sit-ting room, a bathroom, and a kitchen which can also be used for catering large events. The out-door program includes a large wooden deck, re-flecting pool, covered dining area, and a long concrete countertop for the storage of firewood and garden equipment.
A deliberate ambiguity is created between in-terior and exterior, as elements are interwoven to create a series of interlocking spaces. A large central indoor-outdoor fireplace reinforces this
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ambiguity; it has a sliding fireglass window be-tween the two fireboxes permitting a separation between inside and out, while affording views through one to the other.
Facing west, large wood-and-glass doors un-fold, allowing the building’s main living and sleeping space to open fully to the outdoors. A view toward the reflecting pool and terraces is framed by the remaining south wall and fire-place. The ipé wood flooring used for the interior extends seamlessly beyond the doors to form the terrace, further extending the modest interior into the landscape, and again blurring the dis-tinction between inside and out.
The structural steel and Douglas fir roof fram-ing is fully exposed and expressed. A hanging structural frame enables the Profilit cast-glass clerestory to be completely continuous overhead. The openness of the pavilion’s walls, the mini-malism of the structure’s framing, and the glow-ing quality of the milky glass above allow the ceil-ing plane to appear to float. To create shade and shelter for the outdoor dining area, the simple rectangular prism of roof and glass hovers above the hearth and the terrace.
The journey to the Ravine Guesthouse is by foot down a winding gravel path. A slatted wood-en bridge forms the threshold to the pavilion, leading across the L-shaped reflecting pool to the generous wood terrace. The pool is planted with water lilies and bullrushes, creating a rich water landscape surrounded by the verdant and dis-tinctive Toronto ravine landscape.
georges adamczyk: Ce lieux de retraite, à quelques minutes du centre ville, dans un ravin de Toronto, havre naturel précieusement con-servé, est une construction très sophistiquée qui se joue hardiment des lois de la pesanteur et tend à effacer la limite entre l’intérieur et l’extérieur, là oú les beaux arbres et la réflexion d’un bassin d’eau renforce l’engagement contemplatif de ce projet. Les matériaux s’ajustent à un récit archi-tectonique tendu et précis, d’une grande clarté, démontrant que la simplicité est le fruit d’une recherche patiente et sensible de la vérité des choses. C’est en quelque sorte l’exemple parfait d’un manifeste pour la beauté architecturale.
Bernardo gómez-Pimienta: The Ravine Guest House is an extremely sophisticated volume blending interior and exterior space. The use of a reduced material palette is enhanced by the clari-ty of the structural solution making the clerestory appear to float above the seemingly continuous space.
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client dr. murrAy frum And nAncy lockhArt architect team Brigitte shim And howArd sutcliffe (principAls), min wAng, mArk grAhAmstructural BlAckwell Bowick pArtnership ltd.Builder tony Azevedoarea 500 ft2 Budget withheld comPletion 2004
1 reflecting pool2 terrAce3 covered outdoor AreA4 indoor/outdoor fireplAce5 living/sleeping
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toP, leFt to right structurAl glAss chAnnels form the upper clerestory of the guest house; A view of the indoor/outdoor fireplAce with lArge douglAs fir doors opening to the heAvily wooded sur-roundings. aBove custom-designed chAirs And lAmps By the Architects Adorn the interior of this guest house.
6 BAthroom7 kitchen8 roof gArden9 concrete counter
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28 canadian architect 05/10
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craven road studio
architect Shim-Sutcliffe ArchitectS location toronto, ontArio
The client required a detached, freestanding stu-dio which could serve a variety of uses including exhibition and display, research and study space, archival storage, and library shelving. Located on a tightly defined urban lot, it sits immediately adjacent to an earlier award-winning house constructed 10 years ago for the same client and serves as an adjunct space to the principal residence.
An urban court with a grove of river birches was created between the existing principal build-ing and the new studio. A new single-car garage and three-foot-wide walkway created for the ad-jacent neighbour forms the south side of the courtyard. The result is an urban ensemble of buildings flanking an outdoor open space that all buildings benefit from. One enters the site through this urban court and from there, enters either the principal residence or the studio building.
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1 crAven roAd houSe (1993)2 urBAn courtyArd3 crAven roAd Studio4 neiGhBour’S SinGle-cAr GArAGe
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client roBert hillarchitect team BriGitte Shim And howArd Sutcliffe (principAlS), michAel Goorevichstructural BlAckwell Bowick pArtnerShip ltd.Builder derek nicholSon inc.area 500 ft2 Budget withheldcomPletion 2006
The client stipulated that the space be lit with diffuse, indirect natural light in order to provide adequate daylighting, yet avoid potential UV damage to books and collections of archival ma-terial. The clear-span space is entirely column-free, and supports a sustainable green roof which is planted with native grasses. The uninterrupted plane of the ceiling floats nearly 12 feet above the floor, and slopes upward at the edge on all four sides to meet the junction of the perimeter sky-light. An innovative system of narrow light cof-fers surrounds the entire perimeter of the studio, varying in both rhythm and depth depending on their orientation. The incoming light washes across the face of the wood fins, providing a warmth and glow in the internal space.
The project’s external façade responds explic-itly to the principal residence. An exterior clad-ding of stained marine plywood was installed with the grain running horizontally, relating it to the wood panel walls of the existing house. The upper walls are faced with untreated cedar slats, which will allow them to weather naturally, echo-ing the same motif used in the adjacent garage and the new cedar fence surrounding the proper-ty. Together, they create a layered ensemble of buildings that use exterior wood in different ways.
Finally, on a macro level, the project responds to the often limiting lot conditions of the city of Toronto, which is generally divided into long and narrow Victorian lots. The project’s ability to re-imagine and recontextualize the allocation of property within the city is subtly transgressive: it offers the possibility of a new urban typology. The project participates in the densification of the urban core while at the same time creating a tranquil and contemplative private space.
Jane Pendergast: This project captured our at-tention at both the detail level and at the urban scale. The inside perimeter walls are washed with light thanks to a brilliant sectional detail which also sets off the floating ceiling and disguises the fact that the walls are often housing deep storage
oPPosite toP view of the Studio interior lookinG weSt throuGh A Grove of river Birch treeS. oPPosite Bottom the principAl houSe, new Studio, And neiGhBourinG GArAGe define An urBAn court on thiS compAct Site. toP north wAll of the Studio with itS Book diS-plAy, Bulletin BoArd And wooden liGht cofferS. aBove two viewS of the Studio—At niGht And then durinG the dAy.
cabinets. The studio site completely rethinks the realm of the tight inner city block off the lane—creating a sanctuary of inside and outside spaces.
Betsy williamson: In a modest project like the Craven Road Studio, it can be too easy to give away tectonic rigour to the banalities of typical con-struction. Here, however, the architects have ensured that every surface and detail becomes a conceptual proposition. The particularly inventive
juncture of wall and roof creates coffers that sculpt the changing conditions of light to create a sub-lime daylighting condition, and tests a proposition that could be applicable to larger-scale work.
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Prefab cottage for two families
architect Kohn Shnier ArchiTecTS location muSKoKA, onTArio
The project brief was for a year-round cottage to be shared by two related families. The site is a wooded lakefront property with a pronounced ridge running roughly parallel to the shoreline, separating the approach to the site from views of the water. In order to reduce site impact and increase ef-ficiency of construction time and materials, a prefab structure was pro-posed.
Seven separate units were built at an indoor facility operated by Royal Homes, some 325 kilometres from the site. The design of the cottage ac-cepts and exploits some of the inherent limitations of this process to re-spond to the site and program. The cottage is built to the 4.875-metre width limit allowed on local highways, resulting in a long, thin form. Program de-mands were met and the heavily treed site vastly preserved by stacking the units on top of one another. This narrow cross-section creates an intimate scale, an unavoidable immediacy to the outdoors, and an opportunity for natural cross ventilation on hot summer days. The length, some 38.4 me-tres, generates considerable distance within the house, offering remoteness and privacy when desired. This makes the cottage both small and big at the same time.
The cottage is embedded into the lake side of the ridge obliquely, such that there is a point on each of the three floor levels with access to grade. Shared facilities are at the highest level, affording the best views. This level
is entered from the top of the ridge. Sleeping areas are in the middle level, and workshop, play and utility uses are in the lowest level. Facing the lake, the east elevation of the cottage consists entirely of sliding glass doors and provides every room with views of the water and access to the forest or bal-conies.
Materials were selected to be long-lasting and maintenance-free. They fall into two categories: reflective surfaces—glazing and mirror; and those with a muted colouration—unfinished cedar, zinc cladding, and galvanized steel. The objective is to visually push the structure into the background.
Construction of the units, totalling about 375 square metres in area, took 25 days in the builder’s facility. Transit and placement of the units was ac-complished in about 48 hours. The use of factory construction allowed for minimal disruption on the site (and to neighbours) during peak seasons as the units arrived at the site in early fall. A summer of sawing and hammer-ing was replaced by the concentrated and exciting event of delivery and placement. Site work—the foundations, lower level, cladding, balconies and the construction of one bay containing a two-storey-high glazed section—required normal construction durations.
above, left to right The compleTed prefAbricATed reTreAT in A heAvily wooded SiTe; The elongATed covered wAlKwAy/TerrAce pro-videS Ample ShelTer from The elemenTS while providing The illuSion of greATer widTh. bottom The Se quencing of conSTruc-Tion—from wArehouSe To Shipping And inSTAllATion.
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Kohn Shnier ArchiTecTS
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clocKwise from toP left floor-To-ceiling glASS wAllS permiT un -obSTrucTed viewS To nATure; pre-formed Aluminum pAnelS Are A coST-effecTive And low-mAinTenAnce exTerior clAdding Solu-Tion; The long inTerior SpAce provideS A greAT opporTuniTy for enTerTAining gueSTS.
client wiThheldarchitect team mArTin Kohn, brigiTTe luzAr, John Shnier, bArborA voKAc, liSA wAddellstructural Kieffer engineeringPrefab contractor royAl homeS
on-site contractor JudgeS conTrAcTingarea 450 m2 budget wiThheldcomPletion Summer 2007
1 enTry porch 2 veSTibule 3 hAll 4 KiTchen 5 dining 6 living 7 mid-level enTry/SiTTing
room 8 mechAnicAl/STorAge 9 Shower/SAunA10 recreATion roomS/
lower level enTry
Jane Pendergast: This project addressed the challenge of a remote site by using transportable prefabricated units—an exercise that has been studied by many architects over the last few years. In many ways, the Prefab Cottage characterizes our time as the pressures of time, labour costs, and issues of controlling our ecological footprint come into play. I like the linear assem-bly and simple stacking of the units that has brought about an elegantly simple set of hillside living spaces and quiet views through the trees.
betsy williamson: It takes a careful and methodical approach to building to take the raw material of the prefab house and elevate it to the level of re-finement we see in this project. While the module doesn’t dissolve into the overall composition, we see it accommodate a range of spatial possibilities and site conditions, becoming much more than the sum of its parts.
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uPPer level
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lower level0 20’
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34 canadian architect 05/10
governor general’s medal winnerLa
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PhotograPher’s studio over a Boat house
architect gh3 location stoney Lake, ontario
This project is a reimagination of the archetypal glass house in a landscape. As a continuation of this architectural ambition, the central conceit of the glass house is reconceived through a contemporary lens of sustainability, program, site and amenity. The compelling qualities of simple open spaces, interior and exterior unity, and material clarity are transformed to enhance the environmental and programmatic performance of the building, creating an architecture of both iconic resonance and innovative context-driven design.
The program envisions the building as north-facing window: a photogra-pher’s live/work studio that is continuously bathed in diffuse and undimin-ished natural light. The transparent façade—a continuous curtain wall glazed in Cradle to Cradle-certified Starphire glass—becomes the essential ele-ment in a photographic apparatus to produce images unobtainable in a con-ventional studio. The availability and fidelity of north-facing light in the double-height space provides the photographer with unparalleled natural illumination, while the clarity of the glazing transforms the site and sur-rounding vistas into a sublime, everchanging backdrop.
The compact glass form sits at the water’s edge on a granite plinth whose matte black façade dematerializes to suspend the building, lantern-like, on the site. The granite’s thermal mass exploits the abundant solar input, eliminating the need for active systems on winter days, while the lakefront ground Floor 0 5m
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aBove an immacuLateLy designed steeL-and-gLass voLume stoicaLLy asserts itseLf Within its rocky Landscape.
1 Birch stand2 granite forecourt3 entry4 service5 kitchen6 studio7 firepLace8 sLiding doors
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toP By day, this transparent voLume seemingLy disappears into its suBLime Lakefront environment. middle the minimaLLy ap point ed interior is further enhanced By a dark poLished fLoor. aBove the seamLess transition BetWeen the surface of the fLoor and the Lake is enhanced By the home’s fLoor-to-ceiLing gLass WaLLs.
client Larry WiLLiams and sharie kennedyarchitect team pat hanson, diana gerrard, raymond choW, simon routh, gretar gudmundsson, pauL cohoon, Liza stiff, vivian chin, WaLter Bettio, deni papettistructural BLackWeLL BoWick partnership Limitedmechanical Lam and associates Limitedlighting and it aLain couturelandscaPe gh3construction manager scott simpsonarea 170 m2 Budget $2.2 mcomPletion 2008
site allows the use of a deep-water exchange to heat and cool the building year-round through radiant slabs and recessed perimeter louvres at the floor and ceiling. Sliding panes in the glass skin—three metres wide at the ground floor, and 1.5 metres wide on the mezzanine floor—allow the façade to become completely porous for natural ventilation, while an individually automated blind system, white roof, and deciduous hedgerow guard against excessive solar gain. The continuous blind system additionally serves as a second aesthetic skin, transforming the interior into an enclosed intimate space, and the exterior into a gently reflective mirror of the surroundings.
Entry into the site is facilitated through a minimalist landscape that de-ploys endogenous materials while leaving the greatest portion of the site in its evocative, glacier-scoured state. A simple granite plinth serves as a threshold for the south-facing entrance, where solid program functions and vertical circulation are arranged in a narrow, efficient volume. From the outset, the goal was to accommodate the clients’ program within a small footprint; consequently, domestic functions are integrated into a furniture-like mezzanine assembly suspended above the main space, where bedroom, bathroom and closet are coextensive, and sliding fritted glass allows the whole to be concealed from the rest of the space. Throughout the upper and lower levels, interior partitions are clad with seamless white lacquered pan-els whose reflective qualities diffuse light into every part of the interior and create complex layered views through the space.
Bernardo gómez-Pimienta: The conceptual clarity of the re interpretation of the glass house in an open landscape is pushed to the limits of construction technique. Slab and trusses dissolve to become invisible and hidden behind the mullions. The landscape becomes the background for this exercise in contained energy.
nader tehrani: Taking on the classical Canadian weekend boathouse, this project refuses the stone and wood that 99% of its neighbours thrive on. Transforming the modern glass house, the project instead takes the ephem-eral qualities of mist, snow and water, and uses a palette of white to under-line qualities of the surrounding landscape.
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1 Birch stand 2 granite forecourt 3 entry 4 service 5 kitchen 6 studio 7 Bedroom suite 8 Boat storage 9 mechanicaL room10 geothermaL Loop
36 canadian architect 05/10
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aBove An expressively detAiled concrete column supports the exhibition wing thAt pro-jects out into the forest. right the exposed timber structure of the visitor centre is com-plemented by nAturAl stone found on the rocky site, enhAncing the displAy of ArtifActs And interpretive elements. oPPosite A view of the building’s eAst elevAtion illustrAtes the trAnspArency of the mAin exhibit hAll, with the teAching terrAce in the foreground.
French river visitor centrearchitect bAird sAmpson neuert Architects location AlbAn, ontArio
The French River marks the transition to the Ca-nadian Shield, a landscape of granite scraped bare by the passage of glaciers. In its descent from its headwaters, the River transforms from a fractured granite gorge into a vast delta of sculpt-ed granite islands and outcrops. Designated as Canada’s first Heritage Waterway, the River served as a trade route between First Peoples, and for Europeans, was the primary route for in-land exploration of the continent and as the Voyageurs’ Highway. It has been a primary source of uniquely Canadian mythology, inspiring native pictographs and European depictions of heroic river journeys, and contemporary work from the Group of Seven.
The project establishes an architecture of the
River, defining and invoking its physical qualities and cultural legacy through an integrated ap-proach to architecture, landscape and exhibit en-vironments. Flowing across an archetypal land-scape of rock and water, the visitor experience is organized along a continuously inclined topogra-phy of found and constructed elements that es-tablish an interpretive and spatial armature for the project, which interprets the River’s descent from its headwaters at Lake Nippissing to its delta at Georgian Bay.
Sited upon an outcrop of exposed granite, the building has been organized into a series of ter-races that respond to its sloped topography, pro-viding a barrier-free path that connects the ele-vated parking area with an existing lower-level picnic zone. The terraces provide connections between interior and exterior program areas, and are sized and configured to accommodate multi-
tasking of the facility for wide-ranging user groups, and to promote extended seasonal use. The entry terrace has been located southward to maximize solar aspect, and its flanking walls pro-vide shelter from westerly winds. The events ter-race is located on the sheltered easterly side of the building and is provided with a deep over-hang for inclement weather. The teaching terrace serves as an outdoor amphitheatre for school group presentations. The vast soffit of the exhibi-tion hall provides an outdoor sheltered space for hikers using the adjoining trail system.
georges adamczyk: Les trois terrasses: en-trée, éducation et événement, articulent l’inser-tion très franche du projet dans le profil rocheux qui surplombe le paysage, mémoire des décou-vreurs et inspiration des artistes du groupe des sept. Ce projet est vigoureux. Il refuse le pitto-resque et noue ensemble la nature, l’esprit sau-vage du lieu et les éléments d’une construction surprenante et très inspirante, laquelle finit par se confondre avec le paysage d’origine.
nader tehrani: The language and spatial distri-bution of this project is anything but neutral. The project finds a material palette that engages the Canadian mythology with respect to its land—the topography, the forest, and the vernacular craft associated with its built history, but transforms that narrative with a difficult negotiation between abstraction and figuration. At the end, the project situates itself into nature with deliberate self-consciousness, but sidesteps the clichés and land mines that await that yearning.
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site Plan
1 lAndscAped islAnd/”duff” stockpile 2 ArrivAl court/pArking 3 lAndscAped islAnd/eco flow biofilter 4 lAndscAped islAnd/sewAge settling tAnks 5 lAndscAped islAnd/fire wAter holding tAnk 6 lAndscAped islAnd/existing rock outcrop 7 hiking terrAce 8 entrAnce terrAce axonometric
9 teAching terrAce10 lower terrAce11 existing pArk trAil circuit12 existing picnic AreA13 culturAl pine bArrens14 stone outcrop/outlook15 existing trAil to recollet fAlls
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client government of ontArio, ministry of nAturAl resourcesarchitect team jon neuert, bArry sAmpson, geoffrey thÜn, gregory reuter, mAuro cArreÑo, jennifer Anderson, seth Atkins, jose uribe, nene stout, mArk mArtin, dieter jAnssenstructural blAckwell bowick pArtnershipmechanical the mitchell pArtnership
electrical mulvey And bAnAni internAtionAllandscaPe hArrington And hoyle ltd.interiors bAird sAmpson neuert Architectscontractor konA builders limitedexhiBit design bAird sAmpson neuert Architects with philip beesley Architect
interPretive Planning Apropos plAnningarea 7,850 ft2 Budget $3.5 m building And sitework; $1 m exhibitscomPletion june 2006
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40 canadian architect 05/10
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toP clients who enter the hydrojet bath experience the dissolution of the floor plane, and the gently sloping wood ceiling above enhances the sensation. leFt the drum-shaped steam bath is sheathed in tiny textured mosaic tiles.
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scandinave les Bains vieux-montréalarchitect saucier + perrotte architectes location montreal, Quebec
Located in the heart of historic Old Montreal and facing the vibrant piers of the Old Port, Scandi-nave Les Bains Vieux-Montréal is an urban spa whose purpose is to provide a thermal therapy experience that engages each of the body’s senses. The building, rebuilt half a century ago after extensive fire damage, has housed ware-house functions until recently when it was ac-quired by the new owners.
The formal parti of the project is derived from the contact between hot and cold—and more spe-cifically, the naturally occurring phenomena as-sociated with these conditions. The design dis-tills the idea of cool glacial forms and the warmth of volcanic rocks. White angular masses of glacial topography coupled with volcanic geology be-speak the duality that is central to the thermal therapeutic experience proposed by the spa. This duality is articulated through the form of the spaces and the selection of materials.
Upon exiting the dressing room, the visitor is immersed in a unique environment where walls, floors and ceiling are slightly angled according to a notion of interior topography through which visitors may wander. These angles, though subtle, give bathers a perceptual difference from their everyday environs; the awareness of the corpor-eal relationship with their surroundings is heightened, thus grounding each visitor for that moment in time. Just as in a natural landscape, slight undulations in the ground plane create gentle slopes; depressions in the floor level gen-erate basins of water for bathing. At particular moments, volumes emerge from the ground to sculpt interior zones for the sauna and steam bath. Uniting the main space is a wood ceiling that echoes the movements of the floor: walls of white marble mosaic appear to melt at the point of contact with the warm-toned wood on the ceil-ing, resulting in accentuated architectural re-veals. Heated cantilevered benches made of black slate offer visitors a warm place to pause in be-tween hot and cold bathing cycles. Rounding out the holistic journey is a relaxation room where bathers can relax in rocking chairs or beanbag lounge chairs.
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1 hydrojet bath 2 cold basin 3 cold shower 4 steam bath 5 sauna 6 juice bar
recePtion Plan
client gestion rivière du diablearchitect team gilles saucier, andré perrotte, jean-philippe beauchamp, anna bendix, trevor davies, yves de fontenaystructural stavibelmechanical/electrical leroux, beaudoin, hurens & associéscontractor société desjardins-larouchearea 1,000 m2 Budget withheld comPletion 2009
Opalescent glass has been added to admit nat-ural light through the building’s existing open-ings while providing a sense of privacy for the visitors. The light that permeates the bath area glows, adding to the purity of the space and the feeling of tranquility for bathers, all while keep-ing contact with city life. Along rue de la Com-mune, a thin cascading layer of water flows on glass surfaces, filtering views so that from the ex-terior, passersby can see only shadowed silhou-ettes of the figures within the hot bath.
georges adamczyk: La présence luminescente et mystérieuse de ce programme inséré dans les murs d’un édifice du Vieux Montréal, le long de la rue de la Commune, face au port et aux brumes du grand large auxquelles où on rève imman-quablement, tient ses promesses lorsque l’on pénètre dans ce lieu dédié aux soins du corps. L’architecture intérieure et la subtilité des rap-ports visuels et tactiles proposent aux usagers une expérience sensorielle rare et précieuse, hors du temps.
nader tehrani: Of the submitted projects, this one displays an incredible restraint accompanied by a meticulous technical control, such that any evidence of detailing is silenced. Within a banal context, right next to the sidewalk, the project “transports” and distances its audience to an-other place.
toP the cold shower area on the way to the hydrojet bath. aBove artificial and natural daylight illuminate water drop-lets in suspension to heighten the sen-sorial experience for those luxuriating in the circular steam bath.
7 relaxation area 8 dressing room 9 reception10 office space11 massage room12 employees’ room
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Private residence and guest house
architect Saucier + Perrotte architecteS location Mont-treMblant, Quebec
This single-family residence and guesthouse is located near the ski hills of Mont-Tremblant in the Laurentian Mountain range about an hour’s drive north of Montreal. Overlooking a verdant mountain landscape and located on the edge of a traditional log house development, the house is uncompro-mising in its contemporary architectural expression, both reflecting mod-ern ity and local building traditions. The house’s three main volumes, dedicated to the three activities of its occupants—eating, sleeping and living—slide on one another along an east-west axis. Pierced obliquely by an interior stair, the superimposed volumes are aligned with the entrance-level pool. A translucent screened outdoor living room, typical of the re-gion, projects into the woods at the point where the main volumes overlap, and emphasizes the sliding geometry of the project.
The residence is placed within a fold in the landscape, creating an inti-mate exterior space framed by the north façade of the house and a three-metre-high rock outcrop. Inserting the building into the forest resists the temptation to vie for a more conventional open setting and allows for sever-al practical advantages in terms of exposure to the public realm, the sun and the wind.
Situated along the same horizontal plane as the entrance volume of the main house, the guesthouse is envisaged as a prism—formally analogous to the building blocks of the house—having slid westward, detaching from the main mass. Erosion, a process that naturally occurs in mountainous re-gions, seems to have caused the volumes to glide laterally, each out of sync with the other, yet altogether forming a practical and harmonious composition.
A deceptively simple manipulation of building blocks, the residence seeks out the infinite information from elements belonging to the site: its topography, rock formations, trees, and ground cover. The building sur-
faces respond to the specificity of the wooded site, where the verticality of the trees and tones of grey, brown, and green predominate. The north façade reflects this dense context through irregularly spaced, rough-cut wood strips. While providing a unique façade pattern, the positioning of these strips permits several partially hidden slit window openings. The south façade, which screens the sun to varying degrees, is completely open to forest panorama. The lateral wood slats on this face of the building form a continuous band of wall, soffit and roof deck. Roughness and a preference for the natural, in both the interior and exterior finishes, acknowledge the craft of local building trades and create an unexpected element of nature within an overall precise geometric form.
Openness is essential to appreciate the vastness of the surroundings. Luminous interior sub-volumes, translucent or opaque white, maintain the volumetric clarity of the project, even as they at times show traces of under-lying wood grain. “Rooms” find themselves somewhere between flowing and compartmentalized, offering the occupants multipurpose or interpre-tive spaces. The formal movement of building elements is activated by the literal movement of people in space: whether approaching by car, descend-ing the oblique stair, swinging the large sliding doors, or swimming lengths across the pool.
Bernardo gómez-Pimienta: The architectural clarity of the plan and sections are enriched by the views of the landscape. It looks deceptively simple but has a complexity that starts with a deep understanding of construction.
Betsy williamson: Here, the architects take the rustic vernacular to a level of abstraction that goes beyond composition and reimagines the possibility of a contemporary house in the landscape. The perversity of the screened-in porch as prop for the shifting volume above brings lightness and com-plex ity to this dynamic and beautifully detailed project.
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1 MaSter bedrooM 2 MaSter enSuite 3 bedrooM 4 Main entry 5 Pool 6 Screened-in Porch
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client withheldarchitect team GilleS Saucier (lead deSiGn architect), andré Perrotte, anna bendix, GuillauMe SaSSe ville, éric Majer, laurence lebeux, trevor davieS, vedanta balbahadurstructural Saïa deSlaurierS Kadanoff et aSSociéSlandscaPe Saucier + Perrotte architecteSinteriors Saucier + Perrotte architecteSarea 350 M2 (Main houSe); 125 M2 (GueSt houSe)Budget withheldcomPletion 2008
oPPosite toP the Screened-in Porch ProjectS out froM the draMatic South façade. aBove the Screened Porch cantileverS over the Site, caPturinG draMatic viewS. leFt view of the Main reSidence froM the Pool decK. Bottom leFt the north façade of the Main reSidence.
7 Kitchen 8 dininG area 9 livinG area10 GueSt area11 GueSt bedrooM12 recreation area
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Docket #: BAS10-6132Client: BASF CanadaAgency: Soleil Communication
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CirCle reply Card 30
46 canadian architect 05/10
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1 main entry2 bookstore3 24/7 library
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architects Patkau/Croft-Pelletier/menkès shooner Dagenais assoCiateD arChiteCts location montreal, QuebeC
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The Grande Bibliothèque consolidates a number of collections in Quebec, creating a resource library for the province as well as a central public library for the city of Montreal. The library is located in the city’s Quartier Latin, between Boulevard de Maisonneuve and rue Ontario, diagonally opposite the green space of Place Dupuis. Below grade, the site connects to a major intersection in the Montreal metro system. The building is 400,000 square feet in size, and contains four major programmatic components: a general library, a children’s library, the collection Québécoise (a historic archive collection), and an assortment of spaces outside of the library control zone including an exhibition space, an auditorium, a conference centre and meeting rooms, catering facilities, bookstores, a public lobby, and café.
The street and subterranean metro system are separate but equally important public spaces. The project presented an opportunity to knit these spaces together. However, security issues associated with libraries tend to dictate a single point of access, which would have a deadening effect on the surrounding public spaces. To avoid this, city and metro pedestrian routes are connected at the street and metro levels, and the building has multiple public entrances to intersect with the capillaries of the city. Library spaces that do not require library control are located directly along pedestrian routes to connect the spaces of the library with the city. As part of a larger strategy of
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urban revitalization, avenue Savoie, a narrow lane on the west side of the building, is lined with bouquinistes and display vitrines. A sunken court provides daylight to belowgrade spaces, and interconnects the street and metro levels at a significant scale. The public space of the city and the public space of the library are collapsed together to activate and support each other, to energize and enrich the idea of a new cultural space in Montreal.
The two major library collections are located above the expanded ground of the street and metro levels. These collections are each housed within largescale wooden containers, and are characterized by their relationship to the associated reading spaces. In the general library, the collections are centrally located, with the reading
spaces at the perimeter, with access to view and daylight. In the collection Québécoise, the reading spaces are centrally located, in a toplit grand room, with the collections at the perimeter.
Connecting the woodclad collections to the expanded ground below is a promenade that rises from the primary library control point to the entrance of the collection Québécoise, then turns to circumnavigate the general library upward through a series of reading rooms. Diverse views of the city unfold as the promenade ascends. Complementing the promenade is a central system of elevators and stairs that provides simple and efficient access to the general library.
Enclosing the collections, the promenade, and the lower levels is a glass and copper envelope that represents the whole library. At times diaph
oPPosite, leFt to right ComPriseD of fritteD glass louvres in front of the Curtain wall anD slatteD maPle sCreens behinD, the entranCe elevation sPeaks to the arChiteCts’ un Com-Promising ConCern for user Comfort anD a strong CiviC PresenCe; the main en -tranCe to the library at street level overlooks an oPen-air sunken CourtyarD. aBove the Central stair helPs orient visitors while aCCentuating the Central atrium’s vertiCality.
client bibliothèQue et arChives nationales Du QuébeCarchitect team Patkau arChiteCts—laura arPiainen, greg boothroyD, stePhan Chevalier, miChael Cunningham, miChael elkan, samantha hayes, John Patkau, PatriCia Patkau, Peter suter, Craig simms, niCk sully. Croft Pelletier arChiteCtes—marie-Chantal Croft, eriC Pelletier, Jean Chretien, benoit ruellanD, miChel thomPson, olivier grenier, CeDeanne simarD, remi hov-ington Jr. menkès shooner Dagenais arChiteCtes—yves Dagen-ais, gaetan roy, stePhan Chevalier, yvon laChanCe, luC DouCet, DominiQue Dumais, Catherine belanger, guillaume Delorimier, luC montPetit, mana hemami, anDrea maCelwee, alex Parmentier, Christine giguere, alain bouDrias, harvens Piou.consulting architect gilles guité arChiteCtearchitectural suPPort JoDoin lamarre Pratte et assoCiés arChiteCtesstructural regrouPement niColet ChartranD knoll limitée/les Consultants géniPlus inC.mechanical/electrical regrouPement bouthillette Parizeau & assoCiés inC./grouPe hba exPerts-Conseils inC.lighting consultant nbbJacoustic consultant legault DaviDsontheatre consultant sCenoPluselevator consultant kJa inC.Building enveloPe consultant PatenauDe Consultants inC.code consultant teChnorm inC.landscaPe sCheme ConsultantsBuilder hervé Pomerleau inC.area 33,000 m2 Budget $100 m inCluDing furniture anD eQuiPmentcomPletion aPril 2005
anous and veillike, this envelope enticingly reveals the library to the city.
Bernardo gómez-Pimienta: A very simple structural grid gets transformed using two methods: elimination of structural elements and sections of slabs, creating rich carved spaces, like the vertical circulation, the reading rooms, and the insertion of programmatic pieces creating a tension between open and closed spaces. A prom e nade architecturally takes visitors through woodclad collections, unveiling city views and making the library an architectural icon in the city.
Betsy williamson: The architects have deftly controlled a complex and dense program to create a civic landmark as well as a unique pedestrian urbanity that has been teased out through the manipulation of the ground plane. Nearly as important as the collections themselves, these paths that permeate the project from the subway and surrounding neighbourhood grow to encompass café and reading rooms that bring urban life up through the building behind the veil of the wood screens and slatted façade.
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toP A studied contrAst between wood And steel. aBove the screened-in courtyArd pro-vides A bit of peAce And quiet from the surrounding industriAl lAndscApe.
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saint-germain sewers and aqueductsarchitect Acdf* Architecture (AllAire courchesne dupuis frAppier_Architecture_urbAnisme_intérieur)location sAint-hubert, quebec
client st-germAin égouts et Aqueducsarchitect team mAxime-Alexis frAppier, benoît dupuis, sylvAin AllAire, guy courchesne, JoAn renAud, gAbriel villeneuve, robert dequoy, mAthieu st-hilAire, denis dupuis, luis mAriA AriAs duque, mArc-olivier dion, denis lAvigne, sophie leborgnestructural métAux-spec inc.mechanical l&p lAvAllée inc./Aéro-mécAnique turcotte inc./gicleurs Acme inc.electrical groupe sermAx inc./dimension pluslandscaPe Acdf* Architecture + entreprise michAudville inc.interiors Acdf* Architecturecontractor construction tigre inc.area 50,000 ft2 totAl (10,000 ft2 AdministrAtion)Budget $5.5 m comPletion June 2008
The client—St-Germain Égouts et Aqueducs—is an expert in the manufacture of sanitary pipes and guttering since 1953. As a family business passed down through generations, the company intends to grow, requiring increased productivity and quality of service, and the construction of a new head office in St-Hubert.
For this business deeply rooted in the Saint-Hubert region, siting was obvious: the new head-quarters is located in an industrial quadrant between Highway 116 to the north and the railway to the south, next to fallow farmland and adjacent to a residential zone. The proximity to the high-way facilitates the handling of products and in-creases visibility to the public at large.
The plan enables the company to manage four key areas: administration, internal warehousing, external storage and manufacturing. Visually, the building appears to flow through the canal, a pre-cious wooden box floating in a water basin. The wood volume illustrates a dual intention: firstly, the path of the product through the sequence of production, from factory to administration, then passing through the warehouse zones; and sec-ondly, it is the reflection of the people who work there. The roasted-wood cladding represents the warm, close-knit nature of the family business in contrast to the austere rigidity of its concrete product.
Visibility is one of the fundamental issues of the project; one of the primary objectives was that the building should showcase the expertise of the company. Thus, a showroom, adjacent to the reception area, houses a permanent installa-tion detailing the company’s history and its range of products. To demystify the process of produc-tion, there are windows offering glimpses of the different phases of production, made possible by the slips and openings within the “canal.”
A canopied recess in the façade demarcates entry into the building, located at the far end of a concrete footbridge “floating” above the basin.
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bois graminésboisé anthropique
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From this bridge, one is able to appreciate the glistening, rippling water in the basin via the lus-trous reflective metal panels and the glass wall of the warehouse.
In the reception area, visitors can enjoy the ex-hibition space displaying the company’s top products. From here, views to the interior court-yard and surrounding landscape are provided as is access to offices and conference rooms.
The challenge of the warehouse space was its transparency and openness relative to the main entrance. The window permits visibility of the production line and the finished product prior to entry into the administration area, enabling nat-ural light to flow through the building as well as offering views of the landscape.
georges adamczyk: Ce projet casse la “boîte,” cette figure trop connue du gros entrepôt à la périphérie des villes. Les architectes ont su ren-dre lisible les activités de l’usine et de l’entrepôt. Le carré de bois flottant de la partie administra-tive transforme radicalement la présence de ce type d’industrie, en lui conférant une présence inattendue par un ajustement rigoureux des vol-umes et le choix judicieux des matériaux.
Jane Pendergast: This project gives me hope on two fronts. Its straightforward contemporary architecture draws attention to traditionally un-der-celebrated infrastructure elements, and the project creates an elegant suburban campus of what might otherwise be a banal roadside setting.
right the utilitAriAn Aspects of wAre-housing sewer pipes Are elevAted to A new level, thAnks to the wAter reten-tion bAsin in the foreground.
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governor general’s medal winner
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Promenade samuel-de-chamPlainurBan designers Daoust Lestage Inc., WILLIaMs asseLIn ackaouI anD optIon aMénageMent, In consortIuM location Quebec cIty, Quebec
Honouring Quebec City’s 400th anniversary and drawing on the unique history and genius loci of the site, the Promenade Samuel-de-Champlain unites two icons of Quebec City’s identity—the river and the cliff—creating a coherent, active landscape façade for this capital city.
The Promenade reclaims neglected industrial and infrastructural fringe, transforming it into a public, leisure-oriented natural environment and reactivating the city’s access to the St. Law-rence River and shoreline. The project delicately weaves together diverse experiences and atmos-pheres, navigating from the boundless visual expanse of the river to the tactile, sensory experi-ence of human scale.
The Quai des Cageux marks the western ent rance of the project. The use of wood as the singular, signature material of the Pavilion and the Observation Tower references the harbour vernacular and the lumber pilings that character-ized Quebec’s ports for decades. Reviving the im-agery of a river pier, its structures and activities, the Quai des Cageux honours Quebec City’s past while creating a contemporary local landmark and light beacon on the horizon. The name—Quai des Cageux—refers to the fearlessness of restless lumberjacks who once danced on an endless sea of floating wood logs.
The Cageux Pavilion is wrapped in wood inside and out. The building houses a multi-functional space with carefully choreographed covered out-door spaces, all directly overlooking the river. Seamlessly extending out onto the belvedere’s public deck, the Pavilion’s 250 square metres are able to accommodate a variety of exhibits and events related to the Promenade Samuel-de-Champlain.
The Observation Tower sits at the southern edge of the Quai des Cageux’s belvedere and brings visitors 25 metres above the river. The tower, with its steel structure and latticed timber flanks, creates a panoramic window onto the river, the bridges and the new linear park.
As an essential gesture, the Promenade Samuel-
de-Champlain requalifies a highway into a land-scaped, permeable urban boulevard. The sinuous 2.5-kilometre pedestrian and bicycle path acts as the project’s connecting spine. Immersed in an all-encompassing green tide are four thematic gardens: Quai des Brumes, Quai des Flots, Quai des Hommes, and Quai des Vents. Each of these singular landscape follies captures and magnifies the material and poetic qualities of the local coastal environment.
The gardens celebrate the mist, the sensory pleasures of the water, the memory of the dock-
lands’ archetypes and the power of the wind. The sublime atmospheres and textures are created by the interconnections of a variety of materials, and the use of stone boulders, timber assemblies and Corten steel thresholds, with native plants and trees, all complemented by vapour, shade, glowing lights and reflections on the water.
The urban furniture, specifically designed for this project, maintains the robust simplicity of maritime harbour heritage, paramount to this site’s genius loci. The linear rhythm of benches
toP right the ILLuMInateD fountaIns at QuaI Des fLots. right a range of neW LIghtIng anD seatIng Is IntegrateD Into the serIes of QuaIs; the WooDen rafts anD Ice fLoe-InspIreD pavIng pattern brIng an InforMeD anD WhIMsIcaL nar-ratIve to thIs LanDscape.
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aBove the proMenaDe saMueL-De-chaMpLaIn terMInates at the fourth DestInatIon poInt—the QuaI Des cageux. Bottom left a MeDItatIve vertIcaL eLeMent WIth vIeWs out to the st. LaWrence rIver DefInes QuaI Des cageux.
and lights is complemented by freely placed furniture, dotting the landscape like rafts in a sea of greenery.
The underlying achievement of the Promenade Samuel-de-Champlain is its contribution to the restoration of this unique, rich and diverse coastal ecosystem and the renewed accessibility to the St. Lawrence River and its banks.
Jane Pendergast: This project animates the St. Lawrence River edge with a lively array of outdoor places. I like the beautifully restrained composi-
tions of pure elements that are strung along the pathway system.
Betsy williamson: There is no imposition of the project on the pedestrian. The built moments are not only finely crafted but are quietly bal-anced between historical allusion and contempo-rary culture.
quai des Brumes quai des flots quai des hommes quai des vents
client coMMIssIon De La capItaLe natIonaLe Du Québec (serge fILIon, DIane sIMarD)design team réaL Lestage, renée Daoust, caroLIne beauLIeu, LucIe bIbeau, MartIn aDaM, MarIa benech, anDré naDeau, sIMon Magnan, racheL phILIppe-auguste, catherIne st-MarseILLe, hubert peLLetIer, neLson couture, JacQues MIchauDengineering genIvar anD snc-LavaLIncontractor poMerLeaulighting écLaIrage pubLIcarea 2.5 kM In LengthBudget $50 McomPletion June 2008
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GeOrGe Baird’s PrOvOcative WisdOmGeOrGe Baird is the 2010 reciPient Of the rOyal architectural institute Of canada’s GOld medal. havinG enjOyed a lOnG and rich career, Baird’s cOlleaGues, mentOr and fOrmer students reflect On his intellectual and PrOfessiOnal leadershiP.
Barry sampsonPartner, Baird Sampson Neuert ArchitectsGeorge Baird returned to Toronto from England in the late fall of 1967, having collaborated with Charles Jencks on the internationally celebrated book, Meaning in Architecture. Recruited by es-teemed architect John Andrews—then Chairman of the Department of Architecture at the Univer-sity of Toronto, George joined his colleague Peter Prangnell in the process of transforming the cur-riculum. When he was introduced to the faculty, he cut quite a figure in his slim jeans, leather jacket over a T-shirt, long woolen scarf and a Mick Jagger haircut. He was returning to the city of his birth after a heady period of graduate study and involvement in the vigorous London archi-tectural scene, which included learning with the architectural historian and theorist Joseph Ryk-wert, who served as his advisor. The time spent in London had diverted his attention to theoretical musings on semiology and architecture that led to Meaning in Architecture as well as other critical writings. At such an early age he had already de-veloped the reputation as a rising intellectual.
The Toronto he returned to was a city that was being rapidly transformed by comprehensive re-development projects based on older Modernist principles. The process was actively encouraged by the instruments of city planning at the time—the official plan and zoning bylaws—and promoted by city politicians from the Establishment, along with a development industry that was not dis-posed to public scrutiny. George was part of a new generation of thinkers with attitudes and ideas that were open to the reappraisal of what had be-come the predominant manifestation of Modern-ism in Toronto—the redevelopment of whole blocks using tower-in-the-park or plaza typolo-gies based on single-use zoning. A number of professional friends such as Jerome Markson who had been his mentor, and colleagues from his studies in architecture at the University of Toron-to had ambitions to promote a new kind of Mod-ern architecture based on different architectural and community-based sensibilities inspired by Scandinavian models and The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Some of his colleagues worked in firms associated with the
ongoing transformations of the city while others were involved in the growing Municipal Reform movement—individuals like James Lorimer and John Sewell, who sought his engagement and that of his students to criticize the big projects as part of a process of building community resistance and an alternative idea of city form and community-based design.
By 1972, when he established his firm George Baird Architect, he had already completed the renovation of his own house, and a very creative renovation of a small Victorian cottage for James Lorimer. Both were Modern in character, but highly responsive in sensibility to the underlying historical features of the host house. This ability to achieve a nuanced relationship between new and old—what I call a discourse through temporal space with previous generations—was indicative of a subtlety that George would bring to his con-tributions to the creation of an urban design scene in Toronto and Canada more generally, not to mention his role in broadcasting its accom-plishments abroad.
Four graduating students from the University of Toronto—Joost Bakker, Bruce Kuwabara, John van
Nostrand and myself—joined George in his new practice with the intention of doing competitions and whatever architectural projects might come next. More often than not, they were cryptically referred to as “back porch projects.” Most notable amongst these was a back and front porch com-mission for the much-loved film editor Don Haig, which was published in Progressive Architecture. What also came as a result of George’s writing and public engagement with issues of urban form were seminal urban design projects for Toronto, on building downtown, and Built-Form Analysis. Co-authored with Steven McLaughlin and Roger du Toit in 1974, onbuildingdowntown: Design Guide-lines for the Core Area created a policy document never before seen in Toronto. It announced a new era concerned with urban design and included well-articulated issues on environmental design and insightful approaches to mapping.
In 1975, a young planner by the name of Ron Soskolne was in charge of revamping planning controls for the downtown core. Soskolne com-missioned George Baird Architect to undertake a “Working Paper on the Implications for Built Form of Land-Use Policies Relating to Housing,
aBOve GeorGe BAird eNjoys A momeNt with wife elizABeth, A CANAdiAN CuliNAry iCoN.
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Mixed Uses, and Recreation Space in the Inner Core Area.” This document brought the research capacity of the firm to the forefront, along with George’s ability to bridge between theoretical issues and observations relating to a developer’s response to zoning controls. It included analysis of form relating to a diverse range of existing pre-cedents, as well as scenario-planning of potential development sites. It also yielded insights into the unintended consequences of various zoning re-gimes and planning practices. Most perplexing, it highlighted the finding that dramatic changes in building typology, from low-rise to high-rise, can be linked to zoning thresholds, thus calling into question the practice of planners brokering what appeared to be minor changes in density that were actually leading to completely different urban forms rather than expected outcomes.
These landmark studies led to other innovative assignments. In 1976, the firm was asked to ad-vise on the planning of the St. Lawrence neigh-bourhood, which was being reconsidered by a group within the City and supported by external consultants. The approach being taken was rational and focused on maximizing street-related built form and density. George’s firm observed that this resulted in an island-like approach to the block planning of the neighbourhood and risked unintended social consequences of a discontinu-ous urban fabric exhibited by the notorious Re-gent Park. A schematic map produced by the firm proposed an alternative street and block frame-work that would extend the north-south streets from the original ten blocks of the Town of York into the new development. For the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, we also proposed that the 19th-century vision of the Esplanade as a linear park be recovered and serve as an east-west open-space armature for the new neighbourhood. These rec-ommendations were adopted as the basis of a new planning approach that resulted in what has come to be celebrated as one of Toronto’s great tri-umphs in urban redevelopment.
George’s success in Toronto led to further urban design consulting across the country. As his notoriety grew, he was invited to be a professional advisor for design competitions, including the internationally published Mississauga Civic Cen-tre, as well as other urban redevelopments. He also involved himself with the organization of major international exhibitions that focused attention on the Canadian scene. Their titles, OKanada and Toronto: Le Nouveau Nouveau Monde, were provocative to a European audience and cleverly allusive of the Canadian character he was so proud of throughout his career.
Having made a significant contribution to a culturally vigorous world image of Toronto and Canada, George was enticed to join a new intel-
lectual scene centred at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. During the time he taught there, he commuted back and forth to Toronto to remain active with his firm. Over the years, many of those that began their careers with George’s firm have gone on develop their own distinguished firms. Bruce Kuwabara joined Tom Payne—who also worked at George Baird Archi-tect—to form Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects in 1987. Joost Bakker decamped to the West Coast where he joined Norm Hotson at Nor-man Hotson Architects in 1973 (the firm eventu-ally became known as Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden Architects and has since merged with Cohos Evamy). John van Nostrand formed his own firm in 1978, which he merged with Peter Clewes and others to form architectsAlliance in 1999. He subsequently left in 2008 to take over planningAlliance and found regionalArchitects. I left the firm for brief periods to do research work in Ontario and Paris, but returned to become a partner with George to form Baird Sampson Architects. It was later renamed Baird Sampson Neuert Architects in 1996, when a former student of mine, Jon Neuert, became a partner.
Happily, the Baird Sampson Neuert Architects collaborative partnership has itself established a distinguished record of award-winning work in-cluding three Governor General’s Medals, an AIA Honour Award, the RAIC Architectural Firm Award in 2007, and many urban design awards. Don McKay, who worked with the firm in the early years, has become a distinguished designer and teacher of architecture at the University of Water-loo. Brigitte Shim, who worked with the firm in its middle period, has formed an internationally renowned partnership with her husband Howard Sutcliffe. Martin Kohn, who also was with the firm for a period of time in the ’80s, has partnered with John Shnier to form the high-profile design firm of Kohn Shnier Architects.
In this regard, George’s legacy of ideas is not only embedded in his projects, but also in the people with whom he inspired a desire to utilize design research to move beneath the surface of everyday practice, and most particularly, to be wary of formulaic responses when reconsidering the design of the city. While George Baird was al-ways too gracious to make unnecessary trouble, he was never averse to engaging in a battle of ideas.
joseph rykwertPaul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania School of DesignI became aware of George Baird as the quiet, re-served person at the back of the lecture room at the Architectural Association in London, folding a copy of The Stage he was reading in order to listen to the lecture. This was years ago, and even then
tOP puBlished iN juNe 1974, onbuilding-downtown remAiNs AN importANt urBAN desiGN doCumeNt for ArChiteCts ANd plANNers. aBOve As Advisors to A 1975 BloCk study for the CreAtioN of toroNto’s st. lAwreNCe NeiGhBour-hood, GeorGe BAird’s firm proposed AN exteNsioN of the North-south streets from the oriGiNAl 10 BloCks of the towN of york iNto the sCheme.
The Stage did not cater to architectural students’ in terests, but instead provided an insider view of what was happening in the British theatre and cin-ema world, particularly exciting in the early ’60s.
I was intrigued that anyone in my audience would have such enthusiasms—and as we became friends, I realized that his interests were as much socio-political as literary; we were both fascinated by the developments of linguistic theory through the following decades, not so much for the struc-tural models it offered, but as a way of looking at communications and at human polity. This became central to the contribution George has
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made to architectural thinking. Very few of his contemporaries were as acutely aware of how critical this issue was to all building and to the very nature of urban dwelling.
Such concern spilled inevitably into teaching. What has made him one of the great teachers of his generation is not just the coherence of his own position but his humility, the enviable gift of making pupils feel that their ideas, however un-developed, are valuable—such that he is able to nurture into maturity the callow and the raw pre-sented to him. George is not only a thinker and a teacher, but very much a doer, and his ability to translate conviction into urban plans and projects gives body and substance to his ideas and beliefs.
Bruce KuwabaraFounding Partner, Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blum-berg ArchitectsWhen I first met George Baird as an architecture student at the University of Toronto, he asked us to consider architecture within the context of the history of ideas and culture. The essay “Langue and Parole” contained in his book Meaning in Architecture opened up discourse on architecture as a system of signification which was subject to rules and individual interpretations of a common language to produce difference and expression.
After graduating, I worked with George and my classmates—John van Nostrand, Barry Sampson and Joost Bakker—on a design competition spon-sored by Casabella magazine that expanded on John’s thesis entitled “Getting to Know Eglinton,” which concerned the reinhabition of the highway and hydro infrastructure in Etobicoke. When George decided to open his practice, he invited us to work with him in his studio at 35 Britain Street, a cultural vortex of a building that included the publishing companies House of Anansi Press and James Lorimer & Company.
His teaching and writing gave my generation a way of thinking about architecture as a gesture within a social and cultural context. He illuminat-
ed to us the deep structure of Toronto, and his early focus on the formation and construction of the public realm as one of the urgent projects of architecture and urbanism had an indelible im-pact on the way we look at the world.
For decades, George has been the singular ar chi tect in Canada who has balanced theory and practice, and the intellectual that international architects and theorists talk about as a figure who has impacted their thinking. The brilliance of George Baird lies in his ability to articulate and make clear and evident what many of us might intuit on a good day. His ability to be “provoca-tive, if balanced” as he was once described, reflects an in tellect that is at once worldly, yet distinctly Cana dian.
Having left Toronto to teach at Harvard Uni-versity for 10 years, he was the unanimous choice to succeed Dean Larry Richards to become the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto in 2004. It was there that he sustained a level of academic excellence and collegiality within the faculty that expanded and elevated design education. In 2008, he was able to consummate the largest gift to any design school in Canada—$14 million from John and Myrna Daniels.
aBOve, left tO riGht vArious puBliCAtioNs ANd exhiBitioNs iN whiCh GeorGe BAird wAs iNvolved iNClude: Meaning in architec-ture (1968); alvar aalto (1969); vacant lottery (1978); the iNAuGurAl issue of trace, A short-lived But iNflueNtiAl ArChi-teCture mAGAziNe (1980-81); the CAtA-loGue for the oKanada exhiBitioN iN BerliN (1982); toronto: le nouveau nou-veau Monde (1987); Queues, rendezvous, riots (1995); the space of appearance (1995).
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joost BakkerPrincipal, Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden ArchitectsFor over 43 years, I have witnessed the unfolding of George Baird’s remarkable life trajectory, one that is carefully balanced between generosity of vision and strategic drive.
In his 1995 book The Space of Appearance, George postulated that “...it is possible to see how 1968...constitutes a sort of pivot point in the whole 20th-century evolution of ideas about human affairs.” It was also the moment George chose to return to Canada, coinciding propitiously with major revolutions about to hit the University of Toronto.
As fresh new students in 1967, we encountered vestiges of old Modernism embodied in severe men in lab coats insisting that grey paper shapes be composed on 8” x 10” white card. Subsequently de-bating aesthetic nuances of 40-card composi tions was a perplexing introduction to architecture.
Barely into that first term, the “winds of change” roared into the school, spearheaded by John Andrews and Peter Prangnell. Bowled over and hardly able to catch our breath, we sensed an-other presence in the studio—shaggy-haired in jeans, boots and a brown leather jacket—formu-lating incomprehensible terms like “...phenom-
enology...epistemological crisis...animal laborans...” From this first encounter with George, we all quickly embraced his drive for broader platforms beyond the academic, but it was the establishment of George’s fledgling prac-tice where we more directly encountered his rest-less intellect, drive and strategic design sense.
George’s interest in wider cultural frameworks manifested itself at the school with more activist minds like Jim Lorimer and John Sewell. His keen urban/political interest eventually bloomed with projects like onbuildingdowntown. Cross-Canada work soon followed. Most significant for me, as a longtime Vancouver resident, was George’s 1982 Greening Downtown study. This, along with Roger DuToit’s Downtown South Study—planted the seeds for the urban phenomenon now smugly branded internationally as Vancouverism. George’s remarkably quick urban pattern-reading and political intuition coined notions like “double cross” and “green courts”—morphologies still resonant in this city.
A stealthier platform that quietly emerged was George’s support of his partner Elizabeth’s re-markable talent. Unsuspectingly, what began as late-night dinners after work rapidly transformed into the celebration of Elizabeth’s inventive
culinary skill. George remains a champion of her ascendancy into Canadian food lore.
The early ’80s also saw the launch of TRACE magazine, “founded to serve a national and inter-national forum for the discussion and presenta-tion of architecture,” signalling George’s foray beyond national boundaries. His evolving stra-tegic vision ultimately allowed him to step onto the larger international academic stage.
john van nostrandFounding Principal, planningAlliance and regional-ArchitectsGeorge Baird is the son of a dairyman from the “left bank” of Toronto’s Don River, and a student of Joseph Rykwert. He has simultaneously prac-ticed and taught, and has masterfully managed to balance both. Nobody has a better understanding of what bridges meant to Toronto, or what
OPPOsite BOttOm, left tO riGht the evolutioN of BAird sAmpsoN Neuert ArChiteCts’ NuANCed ApproACh to puBliC spACe CAN Be seeN iN three of their projeCts—triNity squAre pArk CompetitioN iN toroNto (uNBuilt,1983); two imAGes of Cloud GArdeNs pArk iN toroNto (1994); ANd old post offiCe plAzA iN st. louis (2008).
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Hannah Arendt meant to architecture. He was the first teacher to suggest that we might take a closer look at Toronto—and at the same time read from Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York. I remember helping George prepare for a lecture about Yonge Street. We drove to every major intersection—from Yonge and Queens Quay up to Yonge and Davis Drive—taking slides from the centre of each intersection. George showed them all during his talk.
In 1972, George purchased 35 Britain Street with Jim Lorimer and opened George Baird Architect—which he began under pressure from Bruce Kuwabara, Don McKay and myself. We were joined shortly thereafter by Joost Bakker and Barry Sampson. One of our earliest projects involved the preparation of something called “design guidelines” for Toronto’s downtown. We split a day into three eight-hour sessions that were spent walking set routes prescribed by our colleagues to draw and otherwise document what we saw. George drew the all-night shift—which he happily accepted. The following day, we pinned up our drawings and these formed the basis for onbuildingdowntown.
George is a brilliant theoretician with a won-derful sense of place. He has influenced an entire generation of architects—in Canada and the US. I am honoured to have been part of that generation.
donald mcKayAssociate Professor, University of Waterloo School of ArchitectureOver a recent Christmas dinner, I asked George what he had been reading. His answer was (more or less) “nothing, entirely.” The truth has always seemed to me to be more about “everything.” We need architects who know everything, and remain confident that they know “nothing, entirely.” That is what George has taught us: as much as archi-tects might want it to be all about architecture, it is really all about everything. “Everything” gives George context, and the meaning of what we do is inevitably in that context. And, it is in George’s nature to know everything.
At some moment in 1974 or ’75, Barry Sampson and I made slides for George as a bit of last-minute help to complete a lecture. We cropped the images with care and presented a gorgeous set of slides. George was disappointed. We had cropped out the “bookness” of the images, and their immediate context.
These days, I think I understand: no context provides no understanding. George is right.
john sewellMayor, City of Toronto (1978-80)George Baird is known for his wondrous analytical and critical interpretation of architecture, but what first brought him to my attention was his impressive practical approach to built form. In
1973, the new Toronto City Council was struggling with how to approach its downtown. Members of City Council like myself were angry with the large number of tall buildings that were dominating the downtown, and we were pushing to reduce allow-able densities. Ours was a particularly innocent approach, attacking height and size as the evil to be confronted. But our city staff, then an innova-tive bunch, retained George to give his advice.
He produced a report titled onbuildingdown-town which, to put it mildly, opened my eyes to the new world of possibilities. He put his finger on things that not many of us on City Council realized were problems—the open plazas around the big buildings; the many bland banking halls that deadened the street; the wide setbacks that killed the idea of public space; the importance of selecting sidewalk materials to ensure they clearly communicate public space that all are entitled to occupy; the need for identifiable public furniture. To me, these were revolutionary ideas and far more sophisticated than our simple approaches. They helped shape City Council’s new plans for the city in the 1970s. George had opened the eyes of the Reform Council to a more intelligent ap-proach to setting rules which would build a good city. I only wish that City Councils in the last three decades had asked for his practical advice. It would have served the city well.
The other example was about community de-sign. As a City Councillor, I was heavily involved in the creation of the St. Lawrence community to the south and east of the downtown around the historic St. Lawrence Market. It was a derelict and forgotten area occupied by scrap yards, auto wreckers, open-air storage for coal yards, and de-caying railways sidings. I helped lead the fight for the City to acquire these lands and build a new mixed-use area. But we needed something to pull the plan together, which was hampered by unused railroad tracks at its very heart.
City staff called on George. His idea was abso-lutely brilliant: use the railway land as a long nar-row green space of walkways, parks and school-yards. Treat it as the spine of the new community. And that is what it has become in the last three decades. Treating the railways lands as green space totally flummoxed the railway companies and they quickly agreed to sell the land to the city. The space took shape with a long tree-lined walk-way along one edge and it seems busy day and night, giving a sense of public safety to the whole of St. Lawrence. The rest of the land is used for public purposes—wading pools, dog runs, areas to read and chat, and schoolyard playgrounds. George had done it again.
robert Glover Partner, Bousfields Inc., Director of Urban Design, City of Toronto (1998-2001)When I was an architecture student at the Univer-
sity of Toronto in the early 1970s, Toronto’s plan-ning and development thinking was being chal-lenged. The rules, processes and decisions that had provided the basis for the city’s postwar de-velopment were being reconsidered. George Baird was the conduit for bringing much of this debate, and a number of leading thinkers and politicians at the time—including a very young John Sewell—were invited to speak at the school. As architec-ture students, we followed the debate closely, which was often reflected in our student work. Following the election of a Reform Council in 1973, Mayor Crombie and his allies, aided by the ideas of Jane Jacobs, were challenging the way we thought about the city—politically, physically, and through its infrastructure and character.
I first got to know George personally when, in 1972, he taught us the new third-year core studio entitled “Settlement.” Conceived by George, the studio was focused on teaching architecture stu-dents ideas that are now commonly thought of as being in the realm of urban design. Importantly, George’s understanding and teaching of urban design went beyond a singular focus on architec-tural patterns or replicating context, but made references to the political, social, planning and technological forces that extended beyond the static certainty of a master planner’s mindset.
Inspired by this approach to urban design, I ended up working for Toronto’s Planning Depart-ment in 1980, thereby combining the field of urban design with land-use planning. In those days, I often consulted with George on my profes-sional work, which included a diversity of projects such as the large-scale Harbourfront, Railway Lands and Ataratiri projects, along with various infill and redevelopment projects throughout the city centre. During the 1990s, George’s presence was limited by his teaching schedule at Harvard, but I think that his influence can still be seen in the King-Spadina, King-Parliament and Univer-sity of Toronto plans of this decade.
George’s presence and influence is so much a part of the design DNA of Toronto that we some-times take him for granted. His contribution to Toronto’s approach to urbanism is the result of a lot of hard work by an amusing, intelligent, thoughtful and highly principled architect and urban designer.
Peter roweRaymond Garber Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design; Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Design (1992-2004).I first came to know of George Baird as, I suspect, did many others, with the publication of Meaning in Architecture in 1969, which he co-edited with Charles Jencks. Almost 25 years later, I got to know George, as an esteemed colleague and friend when he agreed to join the faculty of the Graduate
05/10 canadian architect 59
aBOve A reCeNt portrAit of GeorGe BAird, tAkeN duriNG his teNure As deAN of the johN h. dANiels fACulty of ArChiteCture, lANdsCApe ANd desiGN.
School of Design at Harvard University. Not long after, in 1995, he graciously gave me a copy of his then-new book, The Shape of Appearance, in which he took up a similar question: “What is architec-ture’s place in the world?” In it, George both thoroughly and meticulously probed Postmodern expressions of a Modernist critique that began in the 1960s, more specifically around the political and socio-cultural turning point of 1968.
The point of this literal bookending is to sug-gest a very important, sustained, creative and pre-cise intellectual contribution on George’s part, about the relevance and, indeed, the fate of archi-tecture. It is a discussion George has been having with many others over the years, often with pro-found effect, including numerous and by now in-fluential former students. Moreover, it is a dis-course at the ends of which he appears to be advocating much the same sentiments, namely “advocating designing within user experience with neither arrogance nor indifference,” if I’m quoting correctly from the first book, and the “construction of a public sphere of appearance that is large and diverse enough to make places for us all,” from the second book.
Beyond this perhaps overly cryptic account, there is a generosity to George’s message. It is broad in the scope of its intended social and cul-tural engagement. It is not trendy, nor populist, but wisely reflective. It recognizes but ultimately eschews both the pessimism of many recent critical theoretical accounts, as well as other over-ly bright and sanguine positions. It challenges us and takes measures of architecture that require living up to. This, after all, is the point of stan-dards. It is also interpretatively open enough, leaving literal and metaphorical space to work with and to fruitfully consider architecture’s future.
Not surprisingly, the same or similar qualities have suffused George’s role as a leader in archi-tectural education. He played, for instance, a very significant role in guiding the course of architec-tural education at Harvard for more than a decade, officially as Program Director. During any num-ber of discussions he would often remind the rest of us on contentious points and the need to think further, rapidly running his hand across his chin and saying, “Well! Let’s not forget that...” followed by a pithy and pertinent set of predicates.
George thomas KapelosAssociate Professor, Ryerson University Department of Architectural Science From my perspective, what distinguishes George Baird is his ongoing and persistent interest in the local and regional condition, and his steadfast commitment to nurturing an architectural culture here at home.
I first encountered George’s enthusiasm for the local in 1976 when we were presenters at the an-
nual meeting of the Society for the Study of Archi-tecture in Canada (SSAC), a small but important organization passionate about Canadian architec-ture. Our meeting led to a series of collaborations which celebrated historical and contemporary Canadian architecture, locally and abroad.
George’s 1978 keynote address at “Conserving Ontario’s Main Streets” presented a case study of Brantford, Brockville and Napanee, focusing on the significant public spaces and the rich archi-tectural traditions found in these Ontario towns. Ironically, his message about the value of public spaces and historical Main Street architecture still resonates today as communities struggle to retain their identity in the face of declining downtown populations, large-scale retail incursions, ques-tions about reusing redundant historic buildings, and rapid suburbanization. In fostering a Cana-dian architectural culture, George addressed cur-rent practice, exposing contemporary Cana dian architecture to an international public. Two ex-hibitions—OKanada (Berlin, 1982) and Toronto: Le Nouveau Nouveau Monde (Paris, 1987)—cele-brated our nascent architectural culture, and con-textualized Canadian architectural production in the world at large. In working with George on these initiatives, I grew to appreciate his promo-tion of a local architectural culture, which recog-nized the value of our collective architectural past and simultaneously nurtured innovation and tal-ent necessary to ensure a vibrant architectural present and future.
George’s passion continues. Last spring, at the SSAC meeting held at Toronto’s Ryerson Univer-sity, he commented on Toronto’s infatuation with “starchitecture.” He lamented that recent projects undertaken by name architects from abroad had not enriched the local architectural scene, unlike projects of earlier decades. Finally, and with a typical positiveness, George suggested that To-ronto could well learn from Barcelona, where a strong, local architectural culture was fostered by editorial policy of the regional press. There, in the 1970s and ’80s, local architects were invited to discuss architectural projects and cultural activ-ities in the larger world, while international architects were invited to comment on the local Barcelona architectural scene. Such a move, George contended, supported and expanded dia-logue, and contributed to the evolution of an in-fluential architectural culture in that city.
In celebrating George Baird’s accomplish-ments, therefore, I am grateful that this voice for the local remains strong and unequivocal.
donald chongPrincipal, Donald Chong StudioIt is entirely plausible to suggest that I am a direct beneficiary of the evolving legacy of George Baird. He personifies what I believe might be the cor-ner stone of the quintessential practice in archi-
tecture: one which invites, fosters and expects dialogue at the intersection of practice, academia and the city. Perhaps it is fitting that my reflec-tions—that of an emerging practitioner whose age likely equals the years George has devoted to his profession and the city—may further illustrate how his ideas continue to resonate across borders and across decades.
Through George, I have enjoyed aligning and conflating cross-generational ideas of key figures in my formative years—among others, Jane Jacobs, Barton Myers, Bruce Kuwabara, Detlef Mertins and Brigitte Shim, in the works of Vacant Lottery, onbuildingdowntown, The Presence of Mies, and Site Unseen. My practice owes much of its own enrichment and ambitions to these oral trad-itions; cradled by my teachers, catalyzed by George in his trajectories, offerings and threads of discussion. My privileged vantage point of a well-steeped, real-time thesis unfolding before my eyes shows that George has quite simply blazed trails. Enough so, that my generation may feel it incumbent upon itself to give back to the next and carry these conversations forward.
One wonders, then, whether this is the real project for architecture in the everchanging city—one that recognizes mentorship as the one true, sustainable framework for urban equity, and a lasting balance for layered, critical thinking well beyond that of a single generation. George Baird’s ongoing narrative of teaching, writing and build-ing has coalesced into a career committed to the civic art of architecture. ca
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calendar
For more inFormation about these, and additional list-ings oF Canadian and inter-national events, please visitwww.canadianarchitect.com
Other Space Odysseys: Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Alessandro PoliApril 8-September 6, 2010 The Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal presents three approaches to the ideas of an adventurous journey that started 40 years ago after the 1969 moon landing. For architects Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan and Alessandro Poli, space has provided not only a rich context for experimentation, but also an extreme condition in which to test new ideas for life on earth. www.cca.qc.ca Architectural Dialogues: Moriyama & TeshimaMay 4-November 15, 2010 This exhi bition at the Archives of Ontario, located at York University in Toronto, explores the role that the process of dialogue has played in both the construction and experience of the structures/spaces designed by Mori yama & Teshima Architects.www.ontario.ca/archives
Architecture en vers May 18-October 31, 2010 This exhibition at the Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal consists of five architectural installations by groups of ar chitects and glass artists, including Pierre Thibault, Éric Pelletier ar chitectes, Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes, Suzanne Bergeron of Amiot Bergeron architectes, and the CMR collective.www.banq.qc.ca
doors Open torontoMay 29-30, 2010 This annual citywide celebration featuring free access to 150 architecturally, historically, culturally and socially significant buildings, is back for its 11th year. www.toronto.ca/doorsopen
design and health canada 2010: Global Perspectives, local identitiesJune 7-8, 2010 This international symposium takes place at the Isabel Bader Theatre, University of Toronto, and is dedicated to exploring global perspectives on enhancing health, wellbeing and quality of life within the local context of healthy
communities and infrastructure development in Canada. www.designandhealth.com
ingerid helsing almaas lectureJune 8, 2010 This lecture at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning will be delivered by Norwegian author Ingerid Helsing Almaas at 7:00pm.http://architectureandplanning.dal.ca/current_events/index.shtml Performance Matters—the next Generation of Buildings and communitiesJune 8-10, 2010 The third annual Canadian Green Building Council National Conference takes place at the Vancouver Convention Centre, with sessions and workshops on how to foster an energy conservation and efficiency culture. www.cagbc.org/cagbc/conference/ neocon World’s trade FairJune 14-16, 2010 Held in Chicago, the 42nd annual NeoCon World’s Trade Fair—the National Exposition of Con tract Furnishings, is North Ameri ca’s largest exhibition of contract furnishings for the design and management of the built environment.www.neocon.com
Sami rintala lectureJune 15, 2010 This lecture at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Archi tecture and Planning will be delivered at 7:00pm by Sami Rintala of Rintala Eggertsson Architects in Oslo, Norway.http://architectureandplanning.dal.ca/current_events/index.shtml
transforming & revitalizing downtown SummitJune 16-17, 2010 An interdisciplinary panel of experts will discuss issues such as creating vibrant cultural centres, the political dimension of planning, and lucrative development op por tunities at the Yorkland Hotel Toronto.www.revitalizingdowntowns.net
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BackPage
aBOVe when viewed from a distant rooftop, hundreds of illegal dwellings built atop existing apartment buildings have the cumulative effect of a rural village.
POrtraits frOm aBOVe
a recent study of hong Kong’s informal rooftop housing reveals an entire world built on top of existing buildings.
teXt rufina wu and stefan canham PhOtOs stefan canham
No publicly accessible maps or guidebooks offer the specific locations of Hong Kong’s rooftop communities. The best way to find them is to simply walk the city, with your head tilted upward. There is a broad range of self-built rooftop structures: in more affluent areas they are used as storage sheds; others are living-space extensions from the floor below. The roofs of tenement buildings constructed in the 1950s and 1960s are often trans-formed into low-cost housing catering to low-income groups and new im-migrants. Quite a few consist of intricate two- to three-storey-high struc-tures equipped with amenities like high-speed Internet connections and rooftop gardens, while others provide little more than basic shelter.
Self-built settlements on the roofs of high-rise buildings have been an integral part of Hong Kong’s history for over half a century. The rise of rooftop communities is closely linked to the migration history from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong. Large influxes of migrants arrived in the city with each of China’s tumultuous political movements in the 20th cen-tury. The resultant severe housing shortage fostered the emergence of a plethora of informal settlements, and the flat roofs of buildings became attractive sites for bricolages of self-built homes.
The majority of rooftop residents climb four to nine storeys to their homes. When seen from higher buildings across the street, the roofs re-semble small villages. A maze-like system of corridors and stairs provides
access to each unit. Building services, typically found on the exterior of the building envelope in subtropical climates, are easily extended upwards to serve rooftop units. The strata of various building materials offer clues to the evolution of a rooftop settlement. The metre-high parapets act as secure armatures for subsequent layers of construction, and the first layer of units provides the foundation for a second, and sometimes a third. Over time, the huts grow to be structurally dependent on each other. Remove one, and the rest may collapse.
Today, rooftop housing remains a vibrant phenomenon in the city’s older districts. For the underprivileged, rooftop housing continues to be an af-fordable housing choice where it is needed—in central urban areas, in the vicinity of employment opportunities, and in areas with well-established social networks. Officially, rooftop structures are classified as “unauthor-ized building works” and are subject to demolition at any time. In the course of the city’s rapid urban renewal, areas with older buildings and a large number of inhabited roofs generally receive a tabula rasa redevelop-ment approach—whole building blocks and traditional urban fabric are demolished to make way for new, more profitable developments. In the face of imminent urban renewal, the future of Hong Kong’s rooftop legacy remains precarious at best. ca
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