the north face during the installation of the roof membrane
the west façade during construction
Technique Frost-protected foundations, a proven tech- nology commonly used in northern Scandi- navia, were used here for two reasons. With the rapid movement of groundwater in this region this type of foundation avoids trapping ground water against foundation walls which causes hydrostatic pressure and ultimately water penetration into the basement cavity. Avoiding water infiltration and the inevitable mould reduces the risk of what one local health official identified as the major cause of respiratory problems in the majority of children growing up in the community. Secondly, the slab-on-grade uses less mate- rial than the methods currently employed for foundation construction in this community. The cost of construction in northern commu- nities is between 1.7 and 2.25 times greater than the cost of construction in Montreal. Re- search is underway examining the feasibility of using fabric formwork to further eliminate waste and the need for expensive plywood formwork. The wall and roof components were assem- bled in Victoriaville and shipped to the site, ensuring the reduction of waste, tight quality control and the use of a local workforce that assembles the parts on site. For the first building, members from the wall manufac- turer were on hand to teach the methods of
assembly. In winter conditions, an added benefit to prefabricated walls and roof is that a fully insulated shell may be assembled in a matter of days. Basements, useless spaces for northern site conditions, have been eliminated. The hope is that these principles will be applied to other housing types within the community. On a broad scale, the current layout of houses is a simplistic importation of patterns from southern communities. By borrowing the logic of old traditions for site planning, morphology, materials and technique, a new breed of housing might develop. The confines of the climate in this region will help enforce an architecture that is sustainable for the long term, and in ac- cordance with the very noble civilisation that it shelters. c
Elders Duplex Prototype Client: Cree Nation of Chisasibi Louie Kanatawat, Director of Housing Architect: box architectures Isabelle Champagne, Peter Hargraves, Roger
Shepherd, Patricia Sarrazin-Sullivan Engineers: Conseil Groupe Stavibel Contractors: CheeBee Construction Fermco Industries Inc. (Prefabrication) Soil Consultant: Monterval Inc.
Peter Hargraves graduated with a Master of Architecture from the University of Oregon in 2000. He began working with box architectures one year after moving to Montreal in 2001. The ‘Northern Department’ of box architectures led by Isa- belle Champagne is focused on research and development of sustainable, site sensitive archi- tectural responses to the social needs of the northern com- munities. The architecture is a result of direct dialogue with the people who know the site best, in this case the people of the Cree Nation of Chisasibi.
study model of prototype for alternate orientation using the same plan
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on |site 13
housing | houses | house
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