The Architecture of Engagement

Follow along with author Jim Taggart as he researches his latest book, "The Architecture of Engagement," coming soon from Abacus Editions. Taggart will be posting a series of short, personal and sometimes provocative essays as he creates the first draft of the book. Please leave your feedback and comments!

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Of Time and Place: Bibliotheque de Charlesbourg, Quebec City

At first glance, the striking radial layout of Quebec City’s Trait-Carré district would appear to be inspired by the formalist principles of Renaissance town planning. The tapering lots converge on a central square, their virtual point of intersection being the towers of the Saint Charles-Borromée church. The symbolism is apparent, but the Jesuits who laid out one of North America’s first planned communities in the 1660s also had practical considerations in mind.  At the time, survival was a cooperative endeavour and the needs of the community, including its defense, were better served  by physical proximity to one another. Hence the central square of the Trait-Carré was the civic and religious precinct, its buildings interspersed with pastures for common grazing and encircled by houses built close together at the narrow ends of the tapering lots.  Many historic buildings from the 17th to the early 20th century survive, including the Seigneurial Mill (1740), the church of Saint Charles-Borromee (1833) the nearby ancien collège des Frères Maristes (1904) and about 40 domestic buildings of various sizes and types. Together, the urban design and architecture of the Trait Carré make it a fascinating example of cultural geography that attracts visitors and scholars from around the world.  The ancien collège des Frères Maristes was converted into the Bibliotheque de Charlesbourg in 1985 when the library had outgrown its original premises. Twenty years on, with a changing role and increasing membership, the library again needed to expand and modernize. The challenge of designing a new 3,250m2 addition was awarded to the emerging firm of Croft Pelletier architectes. The library expansion was seen as an integral part of an overall revitalization plan for the Trait-Carré.

In the words of Eric Pelletier, “The site plan re-establishes the visual links between the library and the roads surrounding the property, reinforcing the public character of the open spaces and of the library itself. The L-shaped organization of the site also reinforces the physical, spiritual and symbolic centrality of the church and its monumental character, leaving the library, park and public square to facilitate the creation of this precinct as a truly democratic space.”  In addition it was recognized that the historic urban form and subdivision around the Trait-Carré were an integral part of the site’s heritage, and should inform the design response. Sited to create a paved courtyard between it and the old library, the new building is entered on the second level at the internal corner of the L-shaped plan. The larger arm of the L contains the main book stacks, and the smaller arm administrative components. Additional book stacks are located on a mezzanine overlooking the main space, with a study and reference areas located at the basement level below. Sloping up from south to north, a green roof covers the main library while the smaller wing rises above the grass-covered roof plane.

The landscape elements of the new library reflect the radial land pattern, while the building itself follows the orthogonal layout typical of buildings in the Institutional Square. These two patterns are interconnected and superimposed on the green roof of the library – the element in which building and landscape come together.

The green roof and the adjacent landscaping recall the agricultural past of Charlesbourg Village and the common pasture lands that once occupied the centre of the square. The landscape envelopes the library and covers it with a field of wild grasses, thus contributing to the greening of a large portion of the southeast quadrant.

The natural topography of the site enabled the addition to maintain a low profile, reducing its impact on the surroundings and keeping the church as the urban focus. Hence, the library and its associated public spaces become a transition between the more monumental institutional centre and the surrounding residential neighbourhood.

The expansive green roof was designed to be an accessible public park for reading, relaxing and picnicking, encouraging appropriation by the public and giving the library a multi-functional character. this theme of public appropriation was echoed in the masterplan for the Trait Carréwith the redesign of the square to the south of the Church. The plan is modelled on the Piazza de Campo in rome and other European squares, which are made available for public use and community events during the day, and vehicle parking at night.

Since its inauguration in 2006, the new building has become an important destination for intellectual stimulation and cultural exchange. Its success stems from its integrated response to program in both objective and subjective aspects. Acting as a fulcrum between cultural heritage and the contemporary community, the library has invigorated the centre of the Trait Carré with its rare combination of integrity and creativity. 

Client: Ville de Quebec  Architect: Croft Pelletier architectes  Photos: Chantal Gagnon, Ville de Québec, Benoît Lafrance  1) The green roof recalls the agricultural heritage of the Trait Carré, and contributes welcome public green space to the southeast quadrant. 2) The site plan incorporates both the rectilinear geometry of the central square and the radial geometry of the surrounding residential area. Drawing: Courtesy SABMag  3) The spires of Saint Charles-Borromee Church are seen reflected in the skylights of the new library. 4) The reading room is bright with natural light, and enriched by a material palette that includes rusticated stone contrasted with glazed curtain wall.

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Integrating Culture, Nature and Community: Evergreen Brick Works

Geoff Cape’s epiphany came after years in real estate development where his central concern was to maximize return on investment, the inevitable consequence of which was more buildings, more parking lots and the relegation of nature to the distant margins of the site. For Cape, this was a microcosm of what was happening to cities. He cites the example of Los Angeles, a city that grew by 300% in area, but only 45% in population over the same time period - and St. Louis for which the statistics are even more skewed. In 1991, with rapid urbanization bringing a heightened sense of urgency, Cape founded Evergreen, a national charity dedicated to the greening of cities. His idea was ‘to bring nature and communities together for the benefit of both.” (WATCH: Geoff Cape at TED-X Thunder Bay) The mechanism that evergreen chose was that of revitalizing school playgrounds across Canada, tearing up asphalt and concrete and replacing them with community gardens. More than 5000 schools have benefited from Evergreen’s interventions, and many have reported a decrease in hierarchical and aggressive forms of play, and a commensurate increase in more creative and collaborative engagement. (Note: These results are entirely consistent with the research of Richard Louv - see previous posts.) The opportunity to scale up came when Evergreen took over stewardship of a former brick works site partially in the flood plain of Toronto’s Don River Valley. The site had been expropriated by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority to save it from residential development, and the reclamation and rehabilitation of the site neatly fit Evergreen’s mandate. Now the 16-hectare Weston Family Quarry Garden, a remnant of the original brick quarry, includes wetlands, wild flower meadows and four kilometres of trails. 

At the heart of the larger site, but not under Evergreen’s purview, was an eclectic collection of 16 industrial buildings, the earliest dating back to the 19th century when the quarry provided bricks for notable Toronto buildings such as Osgoode Hall, Massy Hall and the Ontario Legislature. Following a successful response to an RFP from the City of Toronto, Evergreen leased the 4.9 hectare "industrial pad" with a view to transforming these buildings into Canada’s first large scale community environmental centre.  This was a chance for Evergreen to demonstrate Cape’s idea of nature as a generator of urban design, and create a facility that represented the integration of "culture, nature and community." Evergreen’s philosophy is one of collaboration, a systems approach that mediates between people and place,and recognizes that environmental issues are part of interdependent, complex social and economic systems. Accordingly, the project was structured as a joint venture between Du toit Allsopp Hillier (who created the masterplan), Diamond Schmitt Architects (who designed the one new building known as the Centre for Green Cities, and now headquarters for Evergreen) and other prominent Toronto firms.  For Evergreen, the heterogeneous nature of the existing structures called for a multiplicity of approaches. According to Megan Torza, partner in charge of the project for DTAH, “the strategy was to continue the site’s architectural evolution with a combination of discrete interventions, including elevating new structures above old, attaching new spaces as appendages, inserting new linings into old shells, and establishing a network of bridges connecting the buildings that allow the landscape to penetrate the site, while upholding its original integrity.”

The definition of "integrity" became an issue of public debate when the City of Toronto invoked a 2005 bylaw, issuing Evergreen with an order to remove the graffiti that adorned the walls of the abandoned buildings. This graffiti had been acquired over the 20 years or so that the site had been derelict, and used by local youth for clandestine all-night parties. Presciently the Evergreen design team had protected the graffiti with a covenant in the lease agreement, enabling them to successfully challenge the directive and so preserve this aspect of the site’s folklore. Torza believes there is an argument to be made for the value of these unselfconscious traces of history, just as there is for the often informally arranged vernacular buildings of industrial sites. She feels that the materiality and spatial quality embodied in these structures  often seem forced if recreated in an intentional way. Accordingly, she prefers not to impose her will in the creation of new buildings, but rather breathe new life into old ones. At Evergreen, the "light touch, loose fit" approach has seen such buildings transformed into a garden centre, cafeteria, farmers market and other community uses.

I share Torza’s view that the adaptive-reuse of older buildings is inherently sustainable, not simply because it conserves embodied energy, but because it  also preserves and enhances valuable social, ecological and cultural resources. For this reason, the carefully considered site rehabilitation strategies implemented at the Evergreen Brick Works offer an important, integrated model for urban evolution that is readily transferable to other cities. Client: Evergreen  Architects: Du Toit Allsopp Hillier / Diamond Schmitt Architects Inc.  Photos: Tom Arban  1) Centre for Green Cities seen from the community cycling space  2) The Young Welcome Centre is the venue for the regular winter farmers market 3) The Centre for Green Cities rises from the remnants of the old brick making shed 4) View from Weston Family Quarry Garden

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Genius Loci: Fogo Island Inn and Artists Studios

Over the years, I have come across a number of small communities that have used architecture to revive their flagging fortunes. However most, like Nelson in the interior of British Columbia, or Napier on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, did so by uncovering the hidden glories of a forgotten past, rather than by building anything new.

In Nelson the frontier architecture of Baker Street, long concealed under successive layers of "improvements," helped transform a failing resource dependent economy into one based on tourism, arts and crafts. Two decades on, the ‘little city that could’ continues to thrive. Napier’s story is a variation on the theme. After a devastating earthquake in 1931, the city’s commercial centre was rebuilt in the Art Deco style. As Art Deco fell from favour, so Napier’s buildings were re-clad to suit the tastes of the time. Lost for two generations, the unique heritage value of the city’s civic architecture was rediscovered in the 1990s. Now Napier’s economy has broadened to include cultural tourism, with the focus being an increasingly popular Art Deco Festival held each February.  Since the mid-1990s and the completion of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao, eye-catching architecture has emerged as a powerful tool in the revitalization of large cultural institutions in major cities. However, this phenomenon is much rarer in small communities. The most celebrated example is to be found on Fogo Island in Newfoundland where, precipitated by the collapse of the cod fishery, the permanent population has declined from a peak of 6000 in the 1960s, to around 2500 today. This exodus threatens the survival of the centuries-old community and its culture. 

The Fogo Island Inn and Artists Studios are the architectural manifestations of a cultural renaissance project conceived and financed by the Shorefast Foundation. Shorefast in turn is the creation of Zita Cobb, born and raised on Fogo but who made her considerable fortune as a CFO for petroleum start up companies in the Alberta oil patch.  Returning to a Fogo Island much changed from her childhood, Cobb’s vision was to somehow arrest the decline. She sought to create another sustainable leg for the island economy, one that would draw on the 400 years of ingenuity, determination and resilience embedded in the DNA of every islander.  Shorefast’s various endeavours, which include the Inn, the artists studios and an annual boat race, seek to revive elements of local culture in boat-building and seamanship; art, craft and hospitality - but to do so in a contemporary way.  Cultural continuity is important to Cobb, who observes: “Forgetting is a kind of extinction. But we know we can’t be a museum. We have to be relevant in the world. We must participate in it in an unmediated way.”  The remarkable Inn and studios Cobb commissioned for Fogo Island are the creations of Newfoundland-born, Norwegian-based architect Todd Saunders. The studios in particular have attracted international attention. The intention is that there will be six of them in all, each associated with one of Fogo’s existing coastal communities. To date, four of the six have been completed, each a simple yet sculptural object, positioned with meticulous care in the landscape. Seemingly suspended between the rocky shoreline and the pounding surf of the North Atlantic, they are named for the most prominent aspect of their composition: Long Studio, Squish Studio, Tower Studio and Bridge Studio. 

The studios are managed by Fogo Island Arts, an offshoot of the Shorefast Foundation that operates an artists-in-residence program through which international artists come to the island for three or four months at a time. Each studio has a work area, sleeping area, kitchenette and a bathroom with composting toilet. Built on stilts in the traditional Fogo fashion, and generating their own power from solar panels, the studios are designed to have minimal impact on the environment. 

Saunders tried to avoid any romantic connection to the traditional architecture of Fogo, instead drawing his inspiration from Newfoundland artists and musicians whose work is unmistakably contemporary, yet equally clearly connected to its roots. His use of simple forms, wood plank siding, and bold monochrome colours give the buildings a sense of familiarity, contributing to, rather than clashing with, the genius loci. For its part, the Inn includes wherever possible things that are made in Fogo. As Zita Cobb puts it, “Things that are created now and of this time. Made from materials from Fogo, using techniques that are of the place. We must carry on the inherited knowledge and create a new economy out of our hearts and souls. "Our sense of our own value comes from the point of intersection between the local and the universal. Shorefast came out of my own beliefs in both social democracy and the market economy. The question is not one of either/or but of both/and. How do we achieve business ends in social minded ways? How do we create community assets that help communities find more resilience?”

Cobb’s question is a universal one, applying equally to rural and urban communities. As artists and other visitors begin to arrive on Fogo from all corners of the globe, it appears that her experiment is destined for success. Though the question is universal, the answers to it will by necessity be diverse, as each community draws inspiration from its own history, and builds a more resilient future inspired by its own unique cultural, intellectual and material assets.  Client: Shorefast Foundation  Architect: Saunders Architecture  Photos © Bent René Synnevåg 1) Tower Studio 2) Long Studio 3) Squish Studio 4) Bridge Studio

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Bridging the Affordability Gap: 60 Richmond East

My first presentation of ‘The Architecture of Engagement’ at the CaGBC Summit in June 2010 coincided with the announcement by Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver’s ‘Greenest City 2020’ initiative. At the time, the one issue noticeable by its absence was that of housing affordability. My contention was (and still is) that for a city (or more reasonably, a metropolitan area) to call itself sustainable, it must have appropriate housing options available and accessible to all socio-economic groups within its boundaries.  This is an issue too complex to resolve here, but it is clear that Metro Vancouver’s limited land base (and consequent high land prices) are only part of the equation. The region also has the lowest average family income of any major city in Canada, dragged down by a disproportionate number of low paying jobs and the shortage of land zoned for the kind of enterprises that might support higher paid ones. An integrated approach is clearly required, and the City might do well to look at examples from other parts of the country - notably Toronto, where the situation is only slightly better for low income earners.

A recently completed project in Downtown Toronto provides an admirable example of how the needs of commerce and community can be addressed simultaneously. 60 Richmond East is located just off Yonge and Queen and provides cooperative housing for workers in the hospitality industry. It also houses Hawthorne Food and Drink - a training restaurant at street level, whose employees learn their craft in the Hospitality Workers Training Centre (HWTC) located on the second floor.  HWTC is an incorporated, independent non-profit organization established in 2004. Modeled after the highly successful Culinary Training Academy of Las Vegas (CTA, n.d.), the mandate of the HWTC is to develop and provide training collaboratively with employers and workers to support employment, skill development and advancement for employed and unemployed workers in Toronto’s hospitality industry. Based on feedback from employers, and best practices from the CTA, HWTC identified the opportunity to build a social enterprise training facility for new entrants and incumbent workers. The 45 seat restaurant was built with investment from the City of Toronto and the Equal Opportunity Training Fund, and opened in December 2012. Training for new entrants at Hawthorne is delivered through paid contract positions to provide individuals who have experienced barriers to employment with competitive skills and recent work experience. Upon completion of the contract position, new entrant participants are referred to employer partners in the industry. 

When I visited the restaurant I was served by a new immigrant from Cuba, who spent the time between shifts at English classes and other courses at the training centre. Her shift manager had arrived two years previously from Jamaica and had clearly begun to work his way up the hospitality industry ladder. I also took the opportunity to speak with Danielle Olsen, Director of the HWTC who informed me her trainees cover a broad spectrum, not only new immigrants, but also locals enduring chronic unemployment or facing challenges returning to the workforce after personal setbacks. Indeed, Hawthorne has recruited training employees from the Fred Victor Centre and other organizations servicing marginalized unemployed workers. Hawthorne is also presently developing additional workshops for incumbent workers to up-skill and diversify their experience based on feedback from chefs and industry partners. 

Many HWTC trainees live in the building which provides a high quality environment for workers who could not easily afford other accommodation in Downtown Toronto where most sector jobs are located. The suites are arranged in a single-loaded configuration around a central atrium that extends through the entire building. The atrium admits light, facilitates natural ventilation and promotes casual social encounters between residents. 

An exterior terrace at the sixth floor includes a community garden, were the residents grow herbs and salad greens for the restaurant, which in turn provides compost for the garden.  The carefully considered building program for 60 Richmond East, and the activities of HWTC combine to facilitate social and community interactions that enrich the project's urban context rather than simply respond to it. At the macro level, the building serves a resident population  whose work is critical to the ongoing commercial and cultural life of the city, and who might otherwise face long and difficult late night commutes to more affordable neighbourhoods in the outlying suburbs. Architect: Teeple Architects  Client: Toronto Community Housing Corporation  Photos: Shai Gil (except where noted) 1) The nine storey facade of 60 Richmond East is articulated by recesses and projections 2) Interior of typical suite 

3) Hawthorne Restaurant (Source) 4) Building section showing central atrium and sixth floor terrace garden Credit: Teeple Architects/SABMag

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From Silos to Synergies: The Mount Pleasant Centre

Not long after it opened, I had the opportunity to tour Vancouver’s new Mount Pleasant Centre with project architect David Dove of Perkins+Will Canada. With its red brick facade and angular form, the building is a fine example of contextual Modernism inserted into Vancouver’s historic uptown neighbourhood. While this may be cause for celebration when compared to more mediocre interventions elsewhere, it is the innovative combination of public programs within the building that is of particular interest here.  The Mount Pleasant Centre sets a precedent, being the first truly multi-service urban community centre in Vancouver. The integrated program came about through a combination of good luck and good judgement that represents an encouraging move away from the traditional siloed thinking of municipal governance to a more synergetic model. Reviewing its options for the replacement of an aging community centre on the south edge of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, the Vancouver Park Board began to look for a more central location. The triangular site that became available at 1 Kingsway was ideal, being located at the heart of the historic Uptown District, and at the intersection of several transit routes. However the medium density zoning meant that it had the potential for a much larger building than the Parks Board itself could use.  So began a search for partners that brought in the Vancouver Public Library, and the Corporate Services and Social Planning departments of the City of Vancouver as well as an independent retailer.

Together the program components add up to 13,000 sq.m, of which about 8,000 sq.m are rental apartments, with the remainder including the community centre, a branch library, childcare centre and an independently operated coffee shop.

Architecturally the building is divided into two masses separated by a central lobby facing Kingsway. The vertical mass to the north contains the library on the ground floor and eight storeys of apartments above, while the horizontal three-storey block to the south contains the remainder of the program. The residential component of the complex has its own entrance to the north, while the community facilities share an entrance on Kingsway. In this low- to middle-income neighbourhood, the architects had hoped to provide the residents with a generous community living room in the form of a central atrium accessible from both east and west sides of the site. Program and budget proved inadequate for this grander civic purpose, and the project had to settle for what is still a bright and welcoming, though rather more modest communal lobby.

With hindsight this is particularly unfortunate, as the popularity of the facility has greatly exceeded the City’s expectations. Open less than a year, the building is operating at capacity with the exception of the parking garage which, despite being designed to the minimum permissible standard, is rarely more than half full.  The main entrance on Kingsway gives access to all the community facilities. To the left is the library which is constrained in plan by the intrusion of the residential circulation core, yet still manages to be an attractive place to linger. The study carrels on the west-facing street side benefit from ample natural light and fill up minutes after the library opens each morning. To the right is the community centre, which wraps around the gymnasium on two levels, with large windows allowing both views and generous amounts of glare-free borrowed light into the activity space.

The building also harvests rainwater, diverting it to a tank for re-use in irrigating the green roofs, including that adjacent to the childcare centre on the third level. Given the very urban nature of the site, the preservation of mature trees, and the careful massing of the building to block street noise, makes the childcare play area a remarkably tranquil place. Sites as prominent as this one are rare in Vancouver, and the Mount Pleasant Centre responds to the urban opportunity with a strong form, a simple material palette and clean detailing. The red brick acknowledges the historic Lee Building, which dominates the nearby intersection of Main and Broadway, while the residential tower meets the apex of the site with an unapologetic crystalline point. 

Beyond its urban qualities and environmental virtues, the success of the building is measured by its popularity. Given the fact that the Mount Pleasant Centre already occupies the site of a former car dealership, the idea that the building program may soon have to expand into the underused parking garage, seems particularly appropriate. Building location has proven yet again to be the foundation of success and contributes as much to the overall sustainability equation as the performance of the building systems.

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All Photos by Martin Tessler 

1) The Mount Pleasant Centre from Kingsway. The residential tower is to the left and the three-storey community centre to the right.

2) The ground floor plan shows the integration of program elements: the lobby of the residential tower, the library, the community centre and the independently operated cafe.  3) The lobby - bright and welcoming, but but with hindsight smaller than it might have been.  4) Located on the roof of the community centre, the daycare play area is sheltered from street noise by the building.

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A Means to an End

“The role of the architect is to breathe life into the dead products of the machine.” - Walter Gropius Early Modern architects shared the conviction that industrial production, with its virtues of economy and efficiency, could be harnessed to better the living conditions of ordinary people. Thus in their vision of a new and more democratic world, they saw technology as a means to a greater social end. However, in the decades that followed World War II, Modernism lost much of its sense of social purpose, as those same virtues of economy and efficiency were subverted into cheapness and monotony, in the pursuit of narrow commercial goals.  In the 1960s amid the growing disillusionment that gave birth to Post-Modernism, Moshe Safdie made a last courageous attempt to redirect technology toward that sense of social purpose. His vision for Habitat ’67 was that it would make the amenities of suburbia - including daylight, fresh air, views and private outdoor space - available to city dwellers at an affordable price. That vision proved to be a mirage, impossible to realize at a reasonable cost given the materials and production methods of the time.  Fast-forward almost half a century, and we are beginning to see a resurgence of interest in prefabrication as a means to realizing the artistic and social ambitions of architects. This time around, most of the attention is being given to prefabricaition in wood. In the unlikely context of Winnipeg (unlikely only as a hotbed of innovation in wood construction), 5468796 Architects have taken up where Moshe Safdie and his Habitat project left off. 

Bloc_10 is a multi-family housing project that strives to re-imagine and re-invent the market-driven condominium. Situated on the site of a former gas station in Winnipeg’s RiverHeights neighborhood, the developer wanted a modestly priced building designed and constructed within 12 months. The resulting three-story, 10-unit condominium project was modeled after the "white-box" concept, in which each buyer purchases an unfinished unit with basic plumbing, heating and electrical systems. Buyers can decide which rooms they would like distributed on each level and they can personalize their finishes to their own taste and budget.  All of the units (sized between 900 and 1300 sq.ft.) rise over three levels and most have two balconies. As the apartments ascend, they cross from one side of the building to the other, resulting in 10 unique, interlocking layouts that feel like a hybrid between a condominium and a house. This arrangement provides views to the north and the south, and eight of the 10 apartments have views in three directions. 

To take advantage of the maximum allowable mass for the development, cantilevered projections expand rooms, create balconies and provide support for the wooden, vertical-slat privacy screen that wraps the building’s exterior. The screen serves multiple purposes. It provides each homeowner with privacy and shade and yet at the same time offers glimpses of neighbours, so encouraging a sense of community. The building is constructed entirely of prefabricated light wood frame floor, wall and roof panels - and in this case, the technology serves the design ambitions of the project. Although the choice to prefabricate was the culmination of variety of factors that did include cost, speed of erection and quality control, there was more to it than that.  As Colin Neufeld of 5468796 Architects observes “During the design process we also realized that the project would benefit greatly from prefabrication. Being very complex and compartmentalized, with many double walls and floors it would have been very difficult to achieve using traditional site based stick framing methods. Conversely the same design fits explicitly with how prefabrication works.”

Although not immediately visible through the veil of cedar slats, the geometry of Bloc_10 is extremely complex, with long spans, double height spaces and significant cantilevers in three directions. Similar conditions in a previous project had required scaffolding and a considerable amount of work having to be done overhead. This situation made the control of cost and schedule difficult.  With Bloc_10, all the components were shop prefabricated by Holz Construction in climate controlled conditions, before being labelled and shipped to site. When lifted into place off the truck, double walls, insulated exterior cantilevers and other elements of the building that would have been difficult to build in the field were already complete and protected from the weather.   Neufeld ads, “Prefabrication also meant that workers did not have to be on ladders or scaffolding, both of which would increase the safety risks. Prefabrication renders the entire building safe from the moment workers step onto the site.” In addition to providing a Habitat-like living environment, the developer and the architect were both committed to giving purchasers real choice in the way their units are organized internally. To this end, servicing takes the form of vertical risers that are stubbed out at every floor. the architects then developed various layout options to demonstrate to potential purchasers that it was indeed possible to locate a bathroom or kitchen pretty much anywhere they wanted. 

Delivering on its promise of "white box" living, Bloc_10 provides tangible evidence that the cookie cutter condominiums that have dominated the market for decades are the product of a narrow and shortsighted approach to design. Within the tight economic parameters that govern this building type, technology can be a liberator. Using prefabrication in a creative way, it is possible to sculpt  more interesting and more flexible spaces, and to give those spaces more daylight, fresh air and a stronger connection to the surrounding community.  ***

Photos:

1) Bloc_10 Exterior. Photo: James Brittain Photography - Courtesy 5468796 Architects

2) Bloc_10 Exterior Detail. Photo: James Brittain photography - Courtesy 5468796 Architects  3) Bloc_10 Balcony. Photo: James Brittain Photography - Courtesy 5468796 Architects  4) Bloc_10 Interior Sequence. Photo: Courtesy 5468796 Architects

5) Drawing: Bloc_10 Unit Arrangements. Courtesy 5468796 Architects

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A Question of Balance

This project epitomizes the "Architecture of Engagement" as it strives to balance the aesthetic, technical and cultural aspects of its program. Located just north of the city walls, on a pier in the Bassin Louise, Pavillon Espace 400e was conceived as the focal point for Quebec City’s 400th anniversary celebrations which took place in 2008. The project transformed a 1950s cement factory [which had most recently served as an interpretive centre] into a venue for live performance, exhibitions, workshops and other events. The original cast-in-place concrete building was one of a handful of industrial structures that still line the shore of the St. Lawrence as it metamorphoses slowly from a working waterfront to a recreational destination. To accommodate the required program, the existing structure needed to be doubled in size to about 4,300m2. This was accomplished by adding a second free standing cast-in-place concrete building a short distance from the first, and wrapping the entire composition in glass curtain wall. The glass envelope cleverly addresses both architectural and environmental objectives, unifying the disparate elements and optimizing energy performance. The glazed surfaces create an ambiguous interplay of transparency and reflection that heightens the experience of the building and its activities – it is hard to determine whether the multiple images one sees on the glazed surfaces are beyond the glass or reflected in it. This ambiguity is heightened by the detailing of openings, and the continuation of the curtain wall above the eave line to form balustrades for the roof terraces. Rather than reading as a crystalline cube, the building’s edges and extremities seem instead to be indeterminate. Environmentally, this design strategy allowed for the retention and reuse of the existing concrete structure and aluminum clad building envelope, saving it from demolition. At the same time, the glass curtain wall converts the concrete structure into an energy efficient double-envelope system. The result is – both literally and figuratively - a multi-layered building that respects and enriches its historic context, and that connects past, present and future. Programmatically, a key objective was to create continuity between the building and the public spaces that surround it. The addition was raised by half a storey relative to the existing building, creating a high and welcoming space on the ground floor that opens onto the adjacent plazas. Short flights of steps within the glazed atrium give visitors an overview of activities within the public spaces. Punched openings, balconies and roof terraces offer views to the ramparts of the old town.

Passive heating and cooling The massing and organization of the building are designed to maximize passive heating and cooling: the four-storey atrium induces natural ventilation through the chimney effect; solar shading and overhangs control sun penetration; and the exposed concrete structure and a concrete trombe wall provide the thermal mass necessary to regulate temperature variations and minimize the possibility of overheating in summer.

Radiant piping in the ground floor slab removes excess heat from the building during the summer months. This thermal energy is transferred to an underground water tank which acts like a capacitor, storing the energy until the heating season begins. The heat can then be returned via the pipes to the ground floor slab where it will provide pre-heating for the building and reduce its dependence on external heat sources. The main heating system uses heat pumps connected to a geothermal field.

Double envelope Of the passive design strategies, the double envelope construction is perhaps the most interesting. This system exploits the thermal properties of air to enhance the energy performance of the building. Though rarely used in Canada [one previous example being Busby Perkins+Will’s William Farrell Building in Vancouver], double envelope construction has proven cost effective in colder climates, particularly for retrofitting existing buildings. In this application, the use of glazed curtain wall for the outer skin also created a continuous envelope to control vapour infiltration, The glazed curtain wall is supported off the concrete sub-structure on vertical steel trusses, and the overall depth of the assembly is 600mm. During cold weather, vents at the top of the wall are kept closed and the air trapped between the glass and concrete surfaces is heated by solar radiation. The air acts as an insulator, reducing thermal conduction losses through the glass. Warmed air can also be redirected to other parts of the building. In summer, the vents at the top of the curtain wall are opened, allowing warm air to escape, and promoting cooling of the building by natural displacement ventilation. This combination of passive systems, combined with sophisticated controls, result in energy savings of more than 50% relative to the model building under MNECB. With its harmonious resolution of architectural, environmental and social ambitions, Pavillon Espace 400e exemplifies the new Canadian architecture in which sustainability informs artistic expression, and the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts. ARCHITECTS: Dan S Hanganu Architectes + Côté Leahy Cardas, Architecte

***

Photos: 1) The glass curtain wall that envelopes the building unifies the architectural expression, at the same time creating a dynamic play of transparency and selection. Photo courtesy SABMag 2) The interplay of transparency and reflection alters the perception of space within the building. Photo courtesy SABMag  3) Strategically placed apertures in the concrete structure frame both interior and exterior views, connecting different areas within the building to one another and to the historic context. Photo courtesy SABMag

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Collaborative Care

"We shape our buildings, and thereafter they shape us.” - Winston Churchill 

Rarely do we see that assertion so clearly played out as in the new George Brown College Waterfront Health Sciences Campus in Toronto, by Stantec Architecture / Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, Architects in Joint Venture. Opened in September 2012, the philosophical basis for the "shaping" of this seven-storey, 47,000m2 integrated vertical campus can be traced directly back to the findings of the 2002 Romanow Commission. Entitled "Building on Values: The Future of Healthcare in Canada," the Commission’s report included among its recommendations that, to improve both the efficiency of service, and the quality of outcomes, the delivery of healthcare services should move to a team-based, patient-centred approach. With respect to healthcare education, Romanow wrote, “If healthcare providers are expected to work together and share expertise in a team environment, it makes sense that their education and training should prepare them for this type of working arrangement.”

The result of this directive is that the healthcare system in Ontario has begun to move from a fragmented system of disparate medical functions to an integrated delivery model of care.  Recognizing that changing the way health providers are educated and trained is key to achieving this systemic change, George Brown College required that the design of the new campus manifest the concept of Inter-Professional Education [IPE]. Gaining momentum in many service sectors, IPE refers to the approach where students from two or more professions, learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration, and so improve both service and outcomes. Accordingly the program for the new facility consolidates George Brown’s schools of Dental Health, Health and Wellness, and Health Services Management, which were previously dispersed across three of the College’s Toronto campuses. The new Waterfront Campus can accommodate 3,500 students and 500 faculty involved in a variety of in-house, community and outreach programs.

The program organization informs the architectural expression of the building. The composition is anchored on the west side by a multi-storey rectangular volume containing classrooms, practice laboratories and academic offices. To the east, a three-storey, highly transparent glass podium has retail, food services, clinics, student amenity space and an auditorium. A two-storey Learning Commons cantilevers above the podium at the south-east corner, its roof a landscaped terrace with views of Lake Ontario. On the north-east corner, the trapezoidal profiles of two lecture theatres break free of the facade to float above the podium. Entering the building, one is immediately struck by the scale and variety of the facility’s public spaces which occupy almost 40% of the program area. The lobby takes the form of a multi-storey atrium, its many activities and events engaging onlookers from the floors above. The lobby  also connects to the cafeteria, both spilling out when desired to the waterfront walkway.

Throughout the building, the public spaces are designed to promote informal interaction and collaboration, most notably the "learning landscapes" which take the form of broad flights of stepped seating,and the narrow gallery on the second floor with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Ontario.  Academic spaces encourage the same kind of collaboration. The traditional library has been replaced with a "Learning Commons" that comprises a variety of spaces. These range from individual silent study areas  to small meeting rooms with A/V monitors, which allow groups of students to work collaboratively. Lecture theatres are designed with two rows of seats on each tier, enabling those in the first row to turn round and work with those behind; and the "regular" classrooms have no defined orientation, with smart boards on each wall and easily reconfigurable seating.

The campus also houses a number of state-of-the-art "living laboratories," including a Simulation Practice Centre, and Wellness, Applied Research and Visionary Education [WAVE] - a group of clinics where students are able to develop new models of care and practice skills learned in the classroom. These include a fully fitted apartment in which students can practice homecare skills - including cooking healthy meals under the supervision of the Nutrition department; and a fully equipped hospital ward complete with remotely activated patient simulators, capable of responding to practicing students at the bedside. The design prioritizes the essential principles of sustainability, including maximum exposure to fresh air, natural light, and views; access to public transit and alternative modes of transportation; and a commitment to building for the long term. Among other initiatives, the project provides over 300 bicycle stalls, a 30% reduction in water usage, and 40% energy savings from ASHRAE 90.1. Vegetated roofs and a rain water storage cistern help control the rate of stormwater discharge. There is even a custom ceramic frit pattern on the glazing of the podium which is designed to discourage migratory birds from flying into it. Facilitated in no small part by the architecture of the building, programs at the new George Brown waterfront campus prepare graduates for a new and integrated form of healthcare practice, where all professions work effectively and efficiently together. Beyond the now familiar quantitative aspects of sustainable design, this project promises to foster a more collaborative and sustainable approach to healthcare that will benefit generations of Canadians to come. 

***

Photos 1) George Brown Waterfront Campus - viewed from the east. Photo: Tom Arban Photography

2) The lobby/atrium is the social heart of the building with ground level activities visible from above. Photo: Maris Mazullis 

3) "The learning landscapes" foster informal collaboration between students and faculty, or students of different disciplines. Photo: Maris Mazulis 

4) Nursing students interact with high fidelity infant mannequin in the Simulation Practice Centre. Photo: Richard Johnson 

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Getting it Together, Part II

The Ottawa campus of Algonquin College presents a bleak prospect on a dull December afternoon. The bulk of the campus lies to the east of Woodroffe Avenue, a broad and busy arterial road that slices through the district of Nepean. Begun in the 1960s when the Ontario college system was in its infancy, the layout of the campus is archetypally suburban. The site map shows a cluster of buildings buffered from Woodroffe Avenue by a zone of green. Today, however, a layer of week old snow unifies the landscaped areas and parking lots into a dull and continuous monotone.  Our objective is the Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence (ACCE), where I do see flashes of green in the vertical exterior sunshades. Variations on the college’s official colours, the fins glow against the grey background like the luminous hands of my childhood alarm clock. Symbolically perhaps, the ACCE is the first college building to be erected west of Woodroffe. Given a clean slate, so to speak, architects Diamond Schmitt and joint venture partners Edward J. Cuhasi and Associates have made the most of it, both programmatically and architecturally. The building represents the successful transformation of a new collaborative model of education into built form - with the building itself an important part of the learning experience.  The 18,200m2 facility is designed to address Ontario’s looming shortage of skilled tradespeople and to train the next generation in sustainable building practices. Previously, Algonquin’s various construction trade programs were dispersed across the campus and there was no formal interaction between them, nor between the trade students in general and their counterparts in the related architectural and engineering technology programs. Recognizing the increasingly integrated nature of building design and construction, ACCE brings all these students together under one roof.  As a result, the new building is home to over 2,500 full-time and 5,000 part-time students, and uses an integrated learning approach to deliver 24 programs of study covering a wide range of disciplines. These include: architecture, design, engineering technology, building trades, building science, and construction industry research.

The building is essentially rectangular in plan with its long east elevation parallel to Woodroffe Avenue and its main, ground level entrance at the south end. Within this rectangle, the traditional teaching and workshop spaces are organized into two distinct programmatic elements; an Academic Tower arrange around a five-storey skylit atrium to the south, and a two-storey Construction Wing with workshops on either side of a central corridor to the north. Between them at the second level, a linear east-west concourse serves as the Main "street" of the building, connecting via a pedestrian bridge over Woodroffe Avenue to the rest of the campus. 

Open to the concourse, the cafeteria is the social heart of the building. Doors in the fully glazed north wall give access to terraced outdoor seating and the building’s extensive green roof.  The Construction Wing contains a variety of workshop types, some double height for large scale construction projects, some with direct access to outdoor assembly space, and most designed to accommodate a variety of interconnected skilled trades. All have windows to the public corridors, enabling other building users to view the activities taking place within. 

The Academic Tower includes classrooms, flexible meeting rooms, design and research labs, presentation spaces and faculty offices. As with the teaching spaces, the offices are also multidisciplinary, facilitating interaction between instructors from the different trade and design related programs. Individual offices are located facing the atrium, and receive borrowed light, while the shared spaces have exterior operable windows. The focus of the atrium is a five-storey high bio-filter living wall that is connected to the building mechanical system and acts as a natural "scrubber," removing carbon dioxide from the air and replenishing it with oxygen. The living wall is one of many didactic elements in the building. Elsewhere, other building systems are exposed as instructive vignettes: mechanical ductwork and electrical conduit; a sample of the high performance wall system; a portion of the foundation made visible through a glass panel in the floor. There are also real time digital displays recording various aspects of building performance whose data can also be used for instructional purposes.  These specific learning opportunities aside, the majority of the public space in the ACCE is designed to promote informal collaboration. A cascade of seating terraces connects the second level concourse and the ground level entry lobby. A retractable screen enables this area to be converted to an informal presentation space in a matter of seconds. Floating overhead like flying saucers, two suspended seating areas can accommodate informal gatherings of up to 40 students. When not snow-covered, the exterior seating terraces, green roof and exterior courtyards also offer opportunities for informal collaborative learning. Together with the living wall, the planted spaces form part of a continuous "vegetated ribbon" connecting indoor and outdoor environments. 

While the ACCE is by no means the only higher education facility in the country to translate the new culture of collaboration into built form, the fact that it accommodates a school of construction makes the example it sets particularly poignant. The notion that achieving durable, high performance buildings is a collective responsibility, is both a powerful and transformative one. What the ACCE also demonstrates is that buildings designed and constructed in this way can inspire their occupants as much as their creators. This should surely be a central aspiration for everything we design. 

Photos (all sourced from here) 1) Terraced seating looking toward the entrance lobby  2)  Plan Drawings of ACCE

3) Public corridors in the Construction Wing have views into the workshops to either side

4) The atrium is dominated by the five-storey biofilter living wall 

5) Building system components are revealed as part of the learning experience 

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[abacuseditions]

Getting it Together: Part I

As an architectural student in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, I had a subscription to the Architects’ Journal, a weekly publication with a hands-on approach that complemented the more cerebral musings of the monthly Architectural Review. Each week, the "AJ" featured a case study of a recent building, complete with an Element Cost Analysis from the quantity surveyor and some key construction details (often a complete wall section) that showed how the building had been put together.  None of this seemed remarkable to me until I arrived in Canada in 1981, to discover that no such publication existed in North America. Here, architects held their cost information and construction details close to their chests, believing that this gave them some kind of competitive edge. I spent my first few months in the country working on cheap, multi-family residential development projects—a real eye opener for a freshly minted graduate. Early in my employment, I inadvertently demonstrated my skill at designing parking layouts, not realizing that in some jurisdictions the number of residential units permitted on a given site was directly proportional to the number of parking spaces the building could be made to cover. The gleam this unexpected aptitude brought to my employer’s eye was alarming, and I sensed an all too certain future dedicated to honing this particular competitive edge. I immediately began looking for other opportunities that would draw more deeply on my seven years of architectural education, and took a position with Transpo ’86. 

After much thumb twiddling, political manoeuvring and brinksmanship, Transpo ’86 morphed into Expo ’86, the crown corporation that organized and delivered the world’s fair that thrust Vancouver onto the international stage. As the only construction game in town for the five years leading up to the opening, it is remembered by most people as an economic and entertainment success story. More sinisterly, however, it was also the mechanism through which the Bennett government sought to break the "monopoly" of BC’s construction trade unions. 

Having moved on to a position as an owner’s representative coordinating a number of Expo projects, I became anecdotally aware of how some non-union contractors padded their profits at the expense of their workforce and the quality of their work. Having secured a contract, they immediately turned to the subcontractors upon whose prices their successful bid had been based and, using the leverage of guaranteed work, insisted on lower prices still. Needless to say, this resulted in a "de-skilling" of these projects, with unskilled labour being drafted to take on work in any trade for which a "ticket" was not required. It is not possible to make a causal link between practices such as this, and the leaky condo crisis that broke in Vancouver a decade later, but I think it is fair to assume that it exacerbated the problem.  So, why the historical anecdotes? As I mentioned in a previous post on the UniverCity Childcare Centre, one great benefit of the sustainability movement in architecture has been the emerging willingness of architects to share information with one another on the successes and failures of their projects so that everyone can learn from them. I also believe (despite lingering protests from some quarters) that the design/build process which is now more common particularly in public projects has the potential to replace the competitive (even adversarial) relationship that previously existed between consultants and contractors with a more collaborative one. Add to this the growing popularity of the integrated design process (IDP) and perhaps we have a formula for better designed buildings, with more reliable performance and greater durability.  Cranking up the performance of buildings of course, places a much greater emphasis on the need for quality workmanship and a level of understanding among tradespeople of basic building physics. The old design paradigm of an architect first developing a conceptual design, then engaging a structural engineer to establish how it can be made to stand up, then asking mechanical and electrical engineers to route ductwork and thread conduit through the resulting 3-dimensional jigsaw puzzle no longer cuts it. More and more, these areas of expertise overlap, and the systems within a building perform multiple functions: Size and placement of windows is no longer exclusively an architectural concern, as optimizing daylight and solar heat gain can impact the required size of electrical and mechanical systems; likewise the choice of primary and secondary structural systems can provide thermal mass that mitigates internal temperature fluctuations reducing heating and cooling loads. Extending the logic, would it not be better if the education of the various construction trades was integrated, perhaps even with that of the technologists detailing the buildings? The question of course is rhetorical, the collective knowledge of the many is superior to that of any individual, and this is a philosophy that is thankfully gaining momentum in our education system. 

All of this is offered as a conceptual framework for my next post which will be an account of my recent visit to the Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence in Ottawa, where some of this philosophy is being put into practice.  *** Photos: 1) Reality check - parking layout as the driver of design 2) Expo '86 - a Coming of Age party for Vancouver   3) Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence, Ottawa - Diamond + Schmitt Architects in joint venture with Edward J. Cuhasi and Associates. 

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Mitigation or Adaptation?

All the evidence suggests that the predictable climate that has supported human life on this planet for 10,000 years has entered a period of dangerous instability. In the 20 years since climate change became a global priority, policies and protocols focused on mitigation have taken us precisely nowhere. Global emissions have continued to rise and uncertainty has become the new normal.

While we must redouble our efforts toward long term mitigation, we must also recognize that in the short term, things will get worse before they get better. It is time to look seriously at the challenges of adaptation; how we can develop resilience in the face of ever more frequent and powerful storm events. This is not just a question of rebuilding and strengthening our existing infrastructure, but of rethinking it altogether.  Following the flash floods in southern Alberta earlier this year, David Suzuki wrote: “While calls are mounting for the need to rebuild and strengthen infrastructure such as dikes, storm-water management systems and stream-channel diversion projects, we've overlooked one of our best tools for fighting climate change: nature. Wetlands, forests, flood plains and other natural systems absorb and store water and reduce the risk of floods, usually more efficiently and cost-effectively than built infrastructure.”  The Canadian prairies is one of the most significant wetland areas in North America and southern Alberta is home to thousands of those prairie wetlands. However, it is estimated that 90% of the pre-settlement wetlands in the Calgary area have been lost to development. 

With other wetland areas under threat, the City of Calgary needs a long-term strategy of wetland preservation, restoration and construction. Designed to stabilize water flows in the south eastern part of the city, the 156-hectare Shepard Wetland is the largest constructed wetland in Canada. At its heart is the 1950m2 Ralph Klein Environmental Education Centre which, as its name suggests, is designed to spread the word about the importance of the city's wetland infrastructure. Designed by Simpson Roberts Architecture of Calgary, the building was completed in 2011.

For Chris Roberts, this was a unique commission in which both the building and its surrounding landscape context had to be designed completely from scratch. In the absence of conventional physical and contextual constraints, the design team could focus on how best to illustrate the larger principles of building within an ecological framework. “Our first thought was to site the building like a cabin at the lake, but we soon came to the realization that the most important design consideration was to heighten the relationship between the people using the building and the surrounding wetland.” “We thought: What if you could walk on top of the building, look out to the mountains and see the glaciers where our water comes from; or underneath the building where you could lean out and touch the water for the last time before it is returned to the Bow River?”

In response to these questions, the 1,932m2, two-storey building is designed as an artificial island, supported on piles within the wetland and connected to the shore by two bridges. Visitors can descend on ramps to floating platforms beneath the building, touch the water and look out to the lake through the reeds; or they can ascend through the many program areas to the roof terrace where, far to the west, they can see the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. With the water cycle so clearly laid out before them, it is easier to comprehend its finite and fragile nature. 

The experience of the building itself reinforces the many educational programs and interactive displays offered within it. The materials - predominantly wood and fieldstone - are locally sourced and speak to the importance of envioronmental stewardship; while the many visible building systems illustrate energy and (most particularly) water conservation strategies. 

On the face of it, this all looks like a good news story: the draining of wetlands that has happened over time under pressure from urban and agricultural development, now being redressed by the construction of artificial wetlands. 

Indeed, the Alberta government recently unveiled a new wetland protection policy for developed areas of the province based on the principle of net-zero loss. The goal of the new policy is to “conserve, restore, protect, and manage Alberta’s wetland to sustain the benefits they provide to the environment, society, and economy. ” However the apparent virtues of this policy have been the subject of considerable debate, with critics suggesting that the criteria for determining the value of a particular wetland are too subjective, and that the high cost of establishing value through scientific analysis will favour corporate pro-development interests, and place an unfair burden on citizen groups opposed to development.     So, is this new policy a carefully drafted pretext for business as usual, that is to say more "mitigation," or the basis upon which to build a new strategy of "adaptation?" The standard answer is that only time will tell - but of course, no one really knows how much of that diminishing commodity we have left.   You can read the discussion about Alberta's new wetland policy here:  http://ablawg.ca/2013/09/17/the-new-alberta-wetland-policy-white-area-wetlands-just-a-pawn-in-the-game/ 1) Aerial view of the Shepard Wetland  2) Ralph Klein Environmental Education Centre 3) From the EEC roof terrace, visitors can see the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains in the distance. 4) The interior of the EEC features glulam timbers and gabion walls.

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Community Building: Roots on Whyte

Continuing the Jane Jacobs theme of my recent posts, another important contributor to the life of great cities is the diversity of their constituent districts or neighbourhoods. Jacobs contends (rightly in my case) that people will happily travel across town if there is something unique to experience, but will not travel at all to places that have nothing different to offer. Therefore, each district should have a primary use, or preferably two or more that will act as a draw for visitors from other parts of town - or even in some cases, from out of town. This constituency, which by definition includes a proportion of people whose time is their own, helps to spread street activity throughout the day and provides an additional source of revenue to service and retail businesses.   Unfortunately, many of the market forces at work in our cities make it difficult for communities to develop their own identity: malls consolidate retail shops into characterless boxes, surrounded by parking; modern multiplexes have destroyed the viability of neighbourhood movie theatres and other entertainments; and supermarkets are simply the most visible manifestation of an international agribusiness model that has overwhelmed local systems of food production and distribution. The global franchising of so many retail enterprises means that the suburban shopping experience is much the same whether you travel to Calgary, Canberra or Cape Town. Recreating the street, with its critical components of authenticity and activity, is not something we can rely on most developers to do for us.  There are exceptions of course, like the Jawl Investment Corporation’s Atrium project in Victoria BC. (See my previous post, entitled "Victoria’s Secret.") In this case, the retailers were energetic local start-ups hand picked for the project but, because they are few in number and the remainder of the building is speculative office space, they do not have the critical mass to draw a non-local crowd.  The conventional wisdom seems to be that to attract visitors from another part of town, small retailers must position themselves close to a large "magnet" store. this leads almost inevitably to a mall or other development  anchored by a major international retail chain. But it need not be so, as a newly opened retail and commercial building in Edmonton demonstrates. 

Since its inception in 1997, Roots on Whyte has grown into an Edmonton institution. Beginning as an herbal supplement store, then expanding to include health foods, organic produce and a restaurant, the Roots on Whyte community now numbers 19 businesses that embrace various organic food offerings, a full range of health and wellness professionals, yoga and pilates studios, a conference centre and a drop in daycare.   These diverse organizations have formed a business community and, by clearly articulating their shared concern for human health and the health of the planet, they have created a whole that is considerably greater than the sum of its parts. Not surprising then, that the group’s new premises at the corner of 102 Avenue and Whyte in the city’s historic Strathcona district, has become a magnet for other Edmontonians.  While the Roots on Whyte community has grown incrementally over more than a decade, this bottom up approach to development has been formalized by at least one forward thinking company. Walas Concepts is based in the Netherlands, but has recently begun a project in Chilliwack BC. Simply put, its approach is to conduct an inventory of community assets: physical, social, economic and entrepreneurial, and from these authentic and homegrown assets, weave together a mixed use development that will bring maximum benefit to the community. The results in the Netherlands have shown themselves to be resilient and enduring, surviving that country’s deep retail recession of the last decade. They have done so of course, because they represent the broadest definition of "investment," that encompasses not simply financial involvement, but also the emotional commitment of the community.  An additional advantage of the bottom up approach is that it becomes possible to embed community values into commercial developments. The Roots on Whyte community wanted a building that would reflect its own environmental concerns, so took the unusual step of building it in wood. The environmental advantages of wood construction are becoming more widely understood and accepted: carbon sequestration; low embodied energy; renewable and recyclable - as well as the physical and psychological health benefits accruing to building users. The building follows the tried and proven "brick and beam" construction method commonly used for commercial buildings in the late19th and early 20th Centuries, of which many examples still remain in the historic parts of most Canadian cities. 

At the ground floor level, the brick facades are embellished with stone details and large wood framed windows complete the palette of natural materials. Inside, the post and beam frame is revealed in the common lobby and in some of the retail spaces. The traditional materials lend an air of permanence to the building, and the curved corner treatment is just enough to command a presence on the main street. Based on my own brief and completely unscientific survey of building users, Roots on Whyte has a diverse and devoted clientele and, while it is early days yet in this new location, the project may well have spin off benefits for other local retailers and for the community at large.

Photos:

1) General view of new Roots on Whyte Community Building 2) Facade detail, Roots on Whyte 3) View of reclaimed wood staircase, Roots on Whyte

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Ebb and Flow, Part II: Revitalizing Gastown's Flagging Fortunes

As an object lesson in urban revitalization at the neighbourhood scale, Acton Ostry Architects’ rehabilitation of five buildings (Alhambra, Garage, Cordage, Grand and Terminus) in Vancouver’s Gastown is hard to beat. 

Collected around Gaoler’s Mews and backing onto Blood Alley, the five buildings, ranging from modest hotels built after the fire of 1886, to a former parking garage from the 1970s, define some of the most unique, intimate and historically significant urban spaces in the city.  According to Mark Ostry, bringing the buildings together under common ownership provided the critical mass necessary to make a significant contribution to the revitalization of the neighbourhood.  The project combines rehabilitation with redevelopment that doubles the density of the site, providing a blend of retail and office commercial spaces, as well as residential condominiums and live-work studios. Such a combination adds not only to the overall population density of the neighbourhood but, by balancing the level of street activity throughout the day, promotes the economic and social synergies essential to a successful community. 

Heritage preservation is the paramount concern in Gastown, and the prime directive from Larry Beasley (then Director of Planning) was that the new portions of the development should not be visible from Water Street. This directive, along with the maximum height limit of 75 feet, essentially defined the zoning envelope and with it the maximum buildable area.   Working with five contiguous properties afforded the architects a degree of flexibility, both in optimizing where the additional density might best be placed, and also enabling compromises to be negotiated with the City that might not have been possible had only a single building been involved. One example was being granted permission to demolish all but the facade of the Grand Hotel. Here, the structure had been a grid of interior load-bearing walls forming windowless rooms that could not reasonably have been adapted for any habitable use. The loss of these elements of the historic fabric was compensated for in part by reclaiming the bricks and reusing them elsewhere, and by more meticulous restoration of other areas where circumstances were more favourable.   Even with only the facade remaining, the rebuilding of the Grand (and the Terminus Hotel next door, which had been gutted by fire a decade previously) required great ingenuity, and a client like Robert Fung, who was open to non-standard solutions. The existing window openings dictated the floor levels and the width of the new residential units which ended up only 9-feet wide and with the proportions of a railroad car.

With existing windows at one end only, the apartments have been arranged with living spaces closest to the windows; open floor plans, including bathrooms organized in a linear configuration along one side wall; and bedrooms pushed to the rear of the suite. The tall windows do enable daylight to penetrate deep into the suite, and recessed lighting is carefully designed to supplement ambient light levels.  For the new portions of the development, Acton Ostry looked to Europe, where heritage buildings are often complemented by unmistakeably contemporary aditions. For Mark Ostry, the layering that results from this approach enriches the urban narrative: “Revitalizing historic buildings contributes to our sense of where we came from, and adding contemporary design points to where we are going.” The contrast between the weathered brickwork of the Alhambra, and the seamless glass elevator and bridge that connects it to the other buildings simply reinforces this point. 

In anticipation of where Gastown may be going, the development places retail frontage on Blood Alley, a cobblestoned mews that currently acts as a place of refuge and outdoor living room for some of the neighbourhood’s most vulnerable residents. Ostry hopes that the increase in private investment may accelerate the implementation of the City’s plan to build housing for all of the area’s homeless population.  With its ‘fine grained diversity’, this thoughtful rehabilitation project meets many of Jane Jacobs’ criteria for a viable urban neighbourhood. In this case, the renovated heritage buildings  have attracted new high end retail tenants, so don’t themselves offer the low rents critical to the incubation of new enterprises. However, the ripple effects of this project can be seen and felt in the surrounding area, as long established small businesses see a resurgence of activity, and enthusiastic young entrepreneurs rejuvenate Gastown’s tired but dignified old buildings one suite at a time.  

Photos:

1) While not completely invisible from Water Street, the new portions of the development are discretely set back from the property line.  2) Bathroom area in an apartment unit in the Terminus  Hotel 3) Living area with bay window in Terminus Hotel  4) Alhambra Glass Bridge  Photos: Courtesy Acton Ostry Architects

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Ebb and Flow, Part I: Gastown Reinvented

The area of Vancouver now known as Gastown was first settled in the 1860s, and quickly prospered as the site of Hastings Mill and as a centre of trade and commerce on Burrard Inlet. Burned to the ground in the Great Fire of 1886, it was completely rebuilt and remained the city’s commercial core until the early 1900s, when retail businesses began to establish themselves along West Hastings Street, a couple of blocks to the south.  Prominent among these new enterprises was Woodward’s, a locally owned family business  whose second department store began construction in 1903, and expanded in several phases over the ensuing decades. A pioneer of one-stop shopping and with a food floor that for a time was North America’s largest supermarket, its success drew many other businesses to the area. Over this period, Gastown’s warehouses took on an important supporting role as purveyors of wholesale goods, and locations for small scale industry and manufacturing.  Gastown’s problems began in the 1930s, and accelerated after the Second World War as neighbourhood residents began to migrate to the suburbs and industrial employment in the city centre started to decline. As service jobs increased and the working population moved to the new Uptown area along Granville Street, retail businesses followed. By the 1960s, Gastown was moribund and, along with neighbouring Chinatown and Strathcona, slated for demolition to make way for a freeway. All three areas were saved from the wrecker’s ball by community protest, and Gastown was declared a Heritage District by the province in 1971.  These protests (like many others across North America) were, I would hazard, inspired by the words and actions  of the celebrated writer and  urban activist Jane Jacobs. In her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, first published in 1961, Jacobs had argued persuasively for an new approach to planning that favoured intimate neighbourhoods and smallness of scale.  Jacobs’ close observations of city life in New York and elsewhere, also gave her a clear idea of the common attributes of vibrant and successful urban neighbourhoods; attributes that included: 

More than one (and preferabley more than two) primary uses

Short blocks and within them what she called  ‘close grained’ diversity

A variety in the age of buildings, including older ones requiring lower economic yields 

A sufficient density and diversity of people to generate activity throughout the day

While it was blessed with a substantial stock of older buildings, and an irregular street grid that created the desirable short blocks, Gastown lacked the density and diversity necessary to promote economic and social  vitality. In fact it has taken 40 years for Gastown to evolve into the kind of neighbourhood Jacobs would have appreciated. 

For the majority of those 40 years, Gastown was populated mostly by tourists during the day and by the homeless at night. Its main thoroughfare Water Street, was a narrow ribbon of souvenir shops and nondescript restaurants that petered out into boarded-up storefronts by the mid block of every side street. Although Chinatown lies just a few blocks to the south and east, the small resident population and the lack of commercial activity made the gulf too wide to bridge. The area hit bottom with the closing of Woodward’s in 1993, and stayed there for a decade. Over this time, first private development interests and then the Province of British Columbia tried unsuccessfully to find a redevelopment formula that would work. 

Again, community protests prompted a change in direction, as squatters occupied the Woodward’s building demanding more social housing for the nearby Downtown Eastside. In 2005, the City purchased the vacant building from the Province and initiated a two-stage competition for the redevelopment  of the site. The winning scheme, designed by Henriquez Partners, includes about 1 million square feet of market and social housing, office and retail space, a public atrium, the National Film Board of Canada, and the new Simon Fraser University School of Contemporary Arts.  I have always admired the lyrical quality of Henriquez Partners’ work, and it is fitting that the redevelopment of Woodward's includes elements of restoration and reinterpretation of the historic context. The original timber post and beam structure from 1903 has been preserved, albeit dwarfed by two new towers, one of which reaches to 42 storeys. The development has arguably tipped the balance in terms of density in the area, as well as adding a new primary arts-based use. 

For a century and a half, the story of Gastown has had the emotional ebb and flow of a melodrama, and the Woodward’s redevelopment places a new figure of heroic proportions at centre stage. While that in itself is a significant contribution to the wellbeing of the neighbourhood, perhaps more important is the opportunity it gives to the supporting actors to enrich the urban narrative with their unique character. 

More about that in my next post.

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Video: Gregory Henriquez on the Woodward's Redevelopment project. 

Photos:

1) Woodward's building 1907. (Source) 

2) The Woodward's Squat. (Source) 

3) Woodward's Redevelopment by Henriquez Partners (Source)

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UniverCity Childcare Centre: Part III

Below is another guest post from Albert Lam, who responded to my two posts about the UniverCity Childcare Centre (Part 1 and Part 2). 

Without a doubt HCMA's UniverCity Childcare Centre demonstrates a holistic and human approach to the environment and community. Most excitingly, you identified that the project's physical relationship and expression speak of the need for the "balance of forces" to truly form positive & mutual connections, or "synergies", between the individual and the "greater world" (again from my thoughts on a symbiotic community of "systems of systems.") In my opinion what HCMA is demonstrating, Reggio Emilia is describing and the "Architecture of Engagement" is exploring, is re-connecting people to this "greater world": the human individual as a part of the ecosystem, as a part of our society, even as a part of our economic apparatus. Reggio Emilia's engagement of children into the larger world is indeed completely applicable to adults, in building projects and beyond. My favorite quote in your article: The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support “complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing them.” Regardless of our opinions about Living Building Challenge, or any other design guideline, UniverCity Childcare has achieved a inspirational success. I strongly believe you are right about how important is was for HCMA to take a risk and challenged the traditional & accepted "mechanics" of doing business. By demonstrating the possibilities of breaking free from self-induced limitations, Professionals like yourself and HCMA are creating "environments" for children and adults alike to "...create meaning and make sense of [our] world..." (brackets my own words) beyond our own individual interests.

Have thoughts of your own about what you've read on the blog? Email me at architext[at]telus[dot]net or leave your thoughts in the comments section of each post.

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More Food for Thought

A former student of mine, Albert Lam, recently started a discussion after reading about Lufa Farms and their rooftop greenhouses, and I thought it worth sharing here. My goal with The Architecture of Engagement is to create a dialogue that will shape the course of the project and further illuminate the way forward, and I'm delighted to hear back from my readers. Below is Albert's response to the post "Food for Thought." Though less about buildings, I recently went on a tour with my Office at the "Sole Food Street Farms" site at False Creek, with the Chief Operating Agrarian Seann J. Dory as our guide (you are likely familiar with Sole Foods already). The placement of their farms in vacant lots is well known, but Dory had informed us that they have been developing a system of movable "pods" for crops that would be like a "traveling circus", utilizing opportunities or changes in the city for local food production, and could presumably include roof tops. However, what struck me about Dory's tour and Hage's experience from your article is that they both had to have the cooperation of individuals, organizations and of course, mother nature. More importantly, I see the benefits and opportunities as shared as well, with the city and buildings acting as a link for this "system of systems", a term I used on my own project which went on to win the CaGBC award.  I have always been fascinated by the concept of the "living, breathing city", and when I explored the idea in my graduation project, I began to think of the city and architecture as nothing more then a part of a greater community or network, going so far as relating human constructs (such as societal class divisions, the economy and meta-geopolitics) to physical and natural consequences. In essence, the human "system" is not exclusive to the environmental system. Ken Wilber's "Integral Theory", which you described in a earlier post is especially fascinating. I interpret the 4 quadrants as variables that directly impact each other, and believe identifying the integrated opportunities, key relationships and mutual obstacles and benefits as the key to true social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Have thoughts of your own about what you've read on the blog? Email me at architext[at]telus[dot]net or leave your thoughts in the comments section of each post.

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UniverCity Childcare Centre, Part II

  Click here for part one of this post.

Economy and efficiency have been central to our quest for a sustainable architecture, and all to often this has led to buildings that have a high degree of intellectual rigour, but are sadly lacking in spiritual richness. A human-centred architecture stimulates multiple senses simultaneously: it can be functional without being plain and austere; simple without sacrificing texture and nuance. For my money, Hughes Condon Marler’s UniverCity Childcare Centre achieves this fine balance. The project is notable not only for its modesty and restraint, but also for the warm and inviting character of its interior spaces. The building occupies a sloping site, and its L-shaped plan allows for grade access to the main entry on the low side, and from the playground to the upper floor on the high side. Internally, the central mezzanine, which covers the core kitchen and washroom areas, acts as a kind of armature around which a variety of single and double height spaces are arranged. The contrasting character of these spaces, accentuated by the careful use of natural light, encourages a broad range of activities from individual study to group performances, and gives the centre a dynamic almost playful quality. 

Architect Karen Marler points to the pre-school children as having been influential in many of the design decisions made on the project:  “We had a children’s workshop with the 3- to 5-year-olds, the things that came out of that workshop were… I want to climb high, I want to play with water, I like the wind, can we have a fire breathing dragon tunnel?”  Although I didn’t notice a fire-breathing dragon tunnel on our tour, it looked to me as if most of the children's’ other wishes had been granted. 

What distinguishes HCMA’s design approach from that of most other contemporary architects is its conceptual shift from the traditional departure points of form or function, to a more organic and humanist approach by which inhabitation of the building and its surroundings mediates between these often opposing forces. While function implies an empirical definition of purpose, and form a pre-occupation with sculptural abstraction, inhabitation connotes an understanding that buildings should embrace the richness and diversity of the human experience. 

This approach to design resonates emphatically with the Reggio Emilia philosophy of early childhood education embraced by the centre. Named for the Italian city in which it was first developed, this community based philosophy has an international reputation, and a growing number of followers in North America and elsewhere.  I first encountered it while directing the Architectural Institute of BC’s "Architects in Schools" program in the early 1990s, and was instantly impressed.  The philosophy, which emphasizes the value of the environment and the community in fostering the physical, social and emotional development of young children, emerged in the villages around Reggio Emilia in the immediate post World War II period. Initially the brainchild of educator Loris Malaguzzi, it quickly gained the support of parents and others eager to accelerate the rehabilitation of their communities following the physical and psychological ravages wrought by the war.  What struck me was that the four tenets of the Reggio Emilia approach do indeed seem to constitute a foundation for the re-creation of communities that are socially cohesive and environmentally aware. They need not (and indeed, should not) be reserved solely for the education of young children:

Children must have some control over the direction of their learning 

Children must be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, seeing and hearing 

Children must be able to explore their relationships with other children, and with material objects in the world 

Children must have endless ways to express themselves

The transformative potential of this approach to education, and of the UniverCity Childcare Centre project were recognized by its inclusion in the WE Vancouver exhibition held at the Vancouver Art Gallery. 

These principles are also used to inform the design of physical space in Reggio Emilia schools and in my view, could legitimately and beneficially be applied equally to the design of other building types.  “Major aims in the planning of new spaces and the remodeling of old ones include the integration of each classroom with the rest of the school, and the school with the surrounding community. The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support "complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing them."” (1) Our visit was after hours and the pre-schoolers had left for the day, but one could still imagine the rich possibilities offered by both the interior and exterior play spaces.

Exploring the empty building, I had much the same response as I do when looking at a well crafted musical instrument. While there is an aesthetic pleasure to be found in the form, proportions and materiality of the object, there is an even greater satisfaction to be found in knowing that it is capable of making inspiring music. 

Some of this quality is captured in Martin Tessler’s engaging images which show children involved in self-directed learning and creative play. Play structures such as the wicker wigwams, were designed by artists from the local community, and those who contributed to the design of the building continue to conduct workshops on the process with successive generations of preschoolers.  As a final note, Hughes Condon Marler are to be commended for including people in most of the photographs when they document their buildings. It is a growing and most welcome trend that is gradually moving us from the perception of "building as object" to one of "building as human environment."  (1) Cadwell, L. (1997). "Bringing Reggio Emilia home: An innovative approach to early childhood education." Teachers College Press, New York. (With thanks to Wikipedia)

Photos:

1) The outdoor play area includes places to "be up high," and "play with water" as well as many other experiences the preschool clients asked for. Photo: Martin Tessler 

2) The structure features solid nail-laminated Mountain Pine Beetle roof and wall panels. The warm colour and subtle variations in tone and texture are highlighted by the ever changing quality of the natural light. Photo: Martin Tessler

3) Placed at the centre of its UniverCity neighbourhood, the childcare centre engages the community both physically and visually. Photo: Martin Tessler 

4) The play structures were designed by artists from the community and constructed using locally harvested wood. Photo: Martin Tessler 

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