ArchShowcase Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. Camp Arowhon Headquarters in Toronto, Canada by PLANT ArchitectJuly 31st, 2011 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: PLANT Architect Camp Arowhon is a family-run summer camp in Algonquin Park now run by its third generation director. The owners purchased a 250 m2 two-story storefront building on Eglinton Avenue West to create a visual presence in the community, facilitate administration, and create a place which fosters a post-camp alumni community. The owners’ goal was to present a building that felt like “a piece of Algonquin Park in the city” evoking the character of camp, while wanting to avoid the typical camp imagery overused by spas and clothing retailers. The character was established instead through the use and detailing of materials: using harvested raw and rough hewn wood from the park, and detailing it with a more polished, but simple elegance found in camp buildings.
The new storefront stands out from its neighbours with a stencil-cut boomtown front of rough hewn cedar incorporating the sky, a cedar trunk bundle, a deep window portal reconstructing the camp’s woods, water and sky on the sill, head, and jambs with a public bench in the recess. The interior is seen through the filter of the camp landscape, foregrounding the origin of the wood materials that now compose the building. Three discrete elements link the camp community with a “constructed nature” in three guises: as concept (storefront with camp picture frame), as artefact (memory forest which connects levels) and in the flesh (roof garden – a private garden space replete with trees and grasses, creating, if not Algonquin, a patch of nature in the city.) Contact PLANT Architect
Category: Camp |