Mount Royal University’s Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts is a welcoming and dynamic environment for both music performance and education. In use by the Mount Royal Conservatory, established in Calgary in 1910, the facility was designed to provide music education for the entire university and community at large, including students from age 3 to adulthood, and also to express connection to place and the direct correlation between the learning and performance of music. The design expresses the unique geography and history of Calgary, located at the heart of Alberta, where the western prairies meet the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The area’s iconic imagery includes the lone barn on the vast open prairie landscape; the teepees of the region’s aboriginal inhabitants the Scarce and the Stony peoples; and the Alberta rose, which blooms wild and is the province’s official floral emblem. These elements inspired and informed the design process, beginning with the structure and form-making to the deliberate lighting, colors and finish material selections.
La Héronnière’s conceptual approach proposes an interpretation of the notion of recycling.
We offer a reflection on the importance of maintaining a theoretical issue in our practice, which seems undermined by the public’s sole interest today in the technical dimension: “sustainable development”.
The Woodsy Park pavilion in Toronto, Ontario features artwork by Studio Kimiis called “Droplet”. The work consists of wall coverings on the pavilion, an extending canopy, a snow wall and seating. Steven Beites, principal of Studio Kimiis, declares in his artist’s statement that the work will “form a varied yet uniform waterscape across the pavilion. It pays tribute to the area’s most distinguishing feature: the ravine system, and the community activities in and around the pavilion. The work highlights the important connection with the site’s history and its natural setting, and its role in shaping both the physical and social fabrics of the region.” The pavilion was designed in collaboration with DTAH and Spring Valley Corp of Ancaster, Ontario to create a series of ultra high-performance concrete panels across the exterior. The panels were created by using a proprietary ultra-high performance concrete mixture and titanium dioxide to achieve the brilliant white finish.
Between the road and the river, the St-Ignace house allows you to enjoy the landscapes around it by creating distinct experiences with unique scenes that border it. Quietly revealing the St. Lawrence River, it allows you to contemplate nature while inhabiting it. Its openings create visual breakthroughs that magnify its environment and place architecture at the service of the landscape.
Strategic location
Located between two industrial hubs, St-Ignace island acts as a natural stopover for locals. Steeped in island traditions, its residents enjoy taking advantage of the proximity of the river in their daily life. It is along a road bordered by farmland and the St. Lawrence River that we find the St-Ignace house. Rippling along the banks, the road sometimes gives way to narrow strips of land nestled between land and sea. It is in one of these breaches that the project is set up, in continuity with the linear landscape that surrounds it. The residence offers a place of respite between two constant movements, one terrestrial and the other maritime.
Montreal’s first “smart vertical community,” this thoroughly modern, mixed-use megaproject features a luxury hotel, condo and rental units, offices, restaurants, boutiques and large public spaces linked to a major park. In harmony with its pluralistic context, it offers varying degrees of permeability with its surroundings, creating spatial moments based on elevation and building depth.
On a pedestrian scale, Humaniti will frame a new public plaza and Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, whose iconic art centers a new urban room. On a district scale, there is powerful dialogue with the complex’s four distinct neighborhoods: Old Montreal, Downtown, the International Quarter and Quartier des spectacles. On a metropolitan scale, upper levels define a wider urban room framed by Humaniti, Mount Royal and the St. Lawrence River.
A concept house that celebrates and holistically engages the five human senses was on display from January 16 – 19, 2020 as this year’s feature exhibit at IDS Toronto by VFA Architecture + Design in creative collaboration with Hummingbird Hill Homes + Construction and Victoria Taylor Landscape Architect.
Drawing from ideas inherently examined within VFA’s existing repertoire of work, the exhibit entitled Reset Home, borrows from the most essential qualities of each project to bring together all the ideals of home design for an elevated user experience.
Right from the exploratory and development phase of the project, the first source of inspiration was the St. Lawrence River, the majesty and quiet strength that emanates from it. Then, considering the geographical location and the maritime history attached to the site, the latter a major contributing factor to the development of the city itself, the decision to anchor the project in both its physical environment and its history was taken without question. Hence, the layout of the installations is inspired by the footprint of the old harbour wharves that once formed the banks at the shorefront, creating volumes alternating between full and empty. This architectural ensemble is then deposited on a site fractioned into levels descending towards the river, recalling the historical layers that form the memory of the place.
Twosome House is a two-storey, 540-square-metre Etobicoke home designed for a family of five. Following in the tradition of Louis I. Kahn, floor plans are defined by precise regulating lines. Two axes divide the property into distinct zones, with rooms plotted according to their program. This organization of “public/private” & “servant/served” spaces establishes a clear sense of order throughout the home.
Set in the Coast Mountains of western Canada, Whistler Ski House is a family retreat built to withstand the harsh mountain environment. Elevated ten feet above grade, the main level provides a sense of occupying the tree canopy while also floating above snowdrifts and flood prone lake shore.
Due to the nature of the deep soft soil on the lake shore and the home’s location in a high seismic risk zone, the house is supported on a continuous 2-foot thick raft slab on densified soil, created by a series of vibro-densified rock columns that extend 60 to 68 feet deep into the ground. The raft slab “floats” on the densified soil which allows the house to remain stationary during a seismic event that would cause un-densified soil to slide into the lake.
This new 1200 square foot cabin was built across the yard from an existing stacked log cabin. A courtyard was created in the open clearing between the two cabins, with a new minimal wood shed acting as third “wall”. All roof slopes on the new shed and cabin match the slope of the existing cabin. All new finishes are intentionally rough. The new cabin is stuccoed with the same deep texture as the existing cabin, to disguise their May – September romance. Hornby-Island-curves and hand-hewn finishes make the new cabin comfortable and low-key, adding an instant patina to this family compound designed for year-round island living.
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