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issue 16 fall 2006
call for articles: On Site 17, Spring 2007.
contributors Eduardo Aquino
Steven Chodoriwsky Clinton Cuddington Joey Giamo Ron Goodfellow Margaret Graham Ron Kato Laura Knap Florian Maurer Stephen Pope Chad Russill Karen Shanski Elizabeth Shotton Lois Weinthal Stephanie White Antonio Zedda
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on| site issue 16 fall 2006
contents
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Kobayashi + Zedda. Northern Journal. Whitehorse Yukon
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Stephen Pope. Taking the temperature of green building practice today
antonio zedda and jack kobayashi
clinton cuddington
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Ron Kato. Larry McFarland Architects’ Gulf Island Natural Park Reserve Operations Cen- tre, Sidney BC Steve Chodoriwsky and Laura Knap. Grand House Student Co-op., Cambridge Ontario
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steve chodoriwsky
Margaret Graham. Superkül home/office. Toronto Ontario
lois weinthal
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Clinton Cuddington. 1908 Wolfe Street, Vancouver BC
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Elizabeth Shotton. Doherty House by Tomas de Paor, County Derry, Northern Ireland Ron Goodfellow and Chad Russill. Goodfellow Architects’ Blackfoot Crossing Interpretive Centre, Siksika Nation, Alberta
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Florian Maurer. Kindergarten Feldgatterweg. Lana/BZ Italy
superkül
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Lois Weinthal. Flyspace — interdisciplinary fashions at work MOCA Los Angeles. Skin + Bones. Parallel practices in fashion and architecture Eduardo Aquino and Karen Shanski. spmb_projects’ Table of Contents, Winnipeg Manitoba Joey Giamo. Breaking ground in Vancouver BC
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joey giamo
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ron kato
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Stephanie White . Arte Povera
stephen pope
stephanie white
florian maurer
spmb_projects
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Canada Council Prix de Rome press release —
Kobayashi + Zedda partners Jack Kobayashi and Antonio Zedda will visit the circumpolar regions of the north including Iceland, Greenland, Russia, Norway and Finland; areas of the world that share common features like the boreal forest, extreme sun paths, harsh climates and Aboriginal cultures. They believe that northern architects use innovative yet basic technologies to produce ambitious and original site-specific buildings. They will travel to each country twice, in order to compare winter and summer conditions. The firm has recently become recognized throughout Canada and the circumpolar region as a leader in First Nations and sustainable architecture. They represented Canada at the International Green Building Challenge (Mayo Replacement School) and received a Lieu- tenant Governor of British Columbia Medal in Architecture (Teslin Tlingit Heritage Centre). Their web site is www.kza.yk.ca.
prix du nord | Kobayashi + Zedda Whitehorse, Yukon
onsite : your practice in the Yukon is so locally rooted, something that many architects would worry might keep them from being in the ‘world’, however, you are increasingly known in Canada and across the circumpolar region. What is your obligation to your local community? Kobayashi + Zedda : we have been busy building up our base. We now have 6 full time staff in the office and have started a construction company to build our own buildings in the community. We want to broaden the spectrum of an architect’s role in the community. I love the fact that we have two salaried journeymen carpenters on staff and one apprentice along with a bunch of architectural interns. It would be great to do an On Site issue on why we should build as well as design. I have learned so much about the street: legal (dealing with solicitors and litigators and understanding the difference), financial (scraping together $2 million in financing by putting everything you own on the line) and just the reality of building. We are becoming better architects because of it and I think most people here really appreciate the hands on effort to change the built environment...albeit one building at a time.
facing: some recent projects—
Journal entry, September 01, 2006 Jack and I have spent the last few hours trying to figure out how we might both find the time to leave Whitehorse, two operating companies,14 employees in need of guidance and way too much work to complete. We have come to the realization that in order to be considered as a potential recipient of the Prix de Rome, a firm needs to complete a substantial body of work. By the time a firm has (completed enough built work), they are in the midst of their busy careers...with little free time to travel around the world, and in this case, twice! top: Latitude 60 Live/Work Lofts. Three storey mixed-use development. Completed in 2003. Four two-storey lofts over ground floor commercial space (dentist’s office). below: New Cambodia. Three storey mixed-use development. Completed in 2005. 11 residential units (1 to 3 bedrooms) and 3 ground floor commercial units (offices, yoga studio, massage therapist).
We are still trying to figure out what it all means to practice architecture.
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on| site issue 16 fall 2006
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onsite: so Stephen, what is new in green building these days?
Stephen Pope: It’s a frustrating time for the new in the green building world. The shortsightedness of closing programs like Energuide for Houses (probably the most widely used ‘made in Canada’ energy efficiency program) and the fact that Environmental Builidng News now has a Then and Now column looking back over 10 years that clearly shows the miserably small amount of progress that has been made as green goes mainstream, are both signals that the deeper messages about good design and ‘taking only what you need’ are still too obscure for most. In 2002 the David Suzuki Foundation published their ‘Kyoto and Beyond’ paper by Ralph Torrie & Associates. It claimed that all the technologies required to meet the target were available. The paper referenced a federal government research program in which I was involved — the C-2000 Program for Advance Commercial Buildings. The claim is true, and groups like the Mountain Equipment Co-op now regularly build high performance facilities on market- based budgets. The grim reality is that the architectural and engineering professions are either so technology blind (architects) or commodity focused (engineers) that very little real design ever gets done. The evolution of the architectural press from professional journals to popular journals to the shelterporn that is so widespread on the news stands and TV hasn’t yet produced a more intelligent design audience, just more churn for the fashion industry. The general public does not seem to be any more enabled to demand a new or better product than it ever has been.
The difference in design process between how things are done now, and how they could be done properly is very slight. But the attitudes are very, very different. Trade in starchitects, and the frustrated (and undeserved) sense of entitlement that exists in many Canadian architects suggests that the majority of architects are not going to get onto the positive side of the ledger for a long while yet. I have to admit that I have ended up reading more and more business books as it becomes clearer that the way to move the sustainable design agenda forward is to be clearer about how people organize themselves to procure buildings. In the complementary sense, we as architects also need to be clearer about how we organize ourselves to deliver buildings. I am currently involved with a high performance project that is being developed in a manner that looks very similar to the kinds of offices I worked in as an intern architect in the late 1980s. Following the money that generates decisions about buildings has to start at a much higher level than the client budget presented to the prime consultant. The interpretation of the asset value of a building by a pension fund has a greater influence on how design is implemented than even the calculations of organizational effectiveness undertaken by an owner/occupier/operator. We have to have life-cycle information about buildings down cold, and be able to explain same to the proverbial six-year old. Green designers need to get closer to the business value discussions. Happily, this is not just a benefit for green designers — it is desired for all designers. Having a business relationship with a client is where architects can really deliver value and reduce liability.
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The old RAIC Document 6 fee breakdown of 25% design, 50% construction documents, 5% bidding and award, and 20% site review and management, needs to be totally reconfigured. I have heard of an AIA proposal that proposes an adjustment of the fee distribution to recognise a front loaded design process. It is necessary to gut the value of construction documents and add the proportion of the fee to the design and design development stages. ‘Design’ then, needs to be expanded to explicitly identify a whole range of predesign features that clients often don’t realize they need. Participation in budget setting is one obvious point. Many initial budgets are set on too little information, and working out the real one during design can delay the project significantly, in addition to souring a relationship between the owner and the designers. Even a very engaged client often has knowledge gaps that put parts of the information flow that represents a project out of sequence. The issue of sequence is huge! It is also explicitly recognised in integrated, or green, design processes. Recognising information gaps or sequence issues is a huge opportunity for architects to deliver better value to clients and move up the time line in the decision chain.
Getting Green a temperature check
Stephen Pope
In addition to reviewing the kinds of mid-1990s discussions of how one establishes an architectural practice that can concentrate on full value, we need to look also at what parts of practice are commodities, and then deliver those commodities in a smarter way. Some are afraid of India and China in this regard but I am much less concerned, as there is always a significantly local kind of knowledge that needs to be brought to bear if the whole project flow is going to be efficient. I am suggesting that there needs to be a renewed effort to automate much of what is done for production of the construction documents. Improved 3D design tools (when are we going to figure out that AutoDesk bought REVIT for a good reason and dump the old stuff!) including the use of rapid prototyping tools need to be brought forward. Better information management and linked information flows between all aspects of design must be present if the designer is going to have good project control. An example of information flows can be simply recording design areas on spread sheets. A list of building assemblies and their components is a feature of budgeting and cost control, energy performance analysis, embodied effects calculations, maintenance scheduling, and construction materials procurement. Designers (architects and engineers included) currently do not do a good job of extracting the most value from the information produced in the process of design. Timely information handling at the design stage makes a lot of detailed building performance analysis much less time consuming. Better information management makes green design much more obvious, not to mention easier.
onsite: very nice Stephen. thank you.
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Stephen Pope is an architect licensed in Ontario and a researcher on high performance building tech- nologies and design process at the Sustainable Buildings and Commu- nities group of the CANMET Energy Technology Centre, part of Natural Resources Canada.
A change in production methods and an embrace of the reality that construction documents are commodities needs to be supported by changes to our business arrangements and contracts.
http://www.sbc.nrcan.gc.ca
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How it’s done Operations Centre
Gulf Islands National Park Reserve Sidney BC Larry McFarland Architects
Ron Kato
With this project Parks Canada demonstrates its leadership role as the environmental steward of Canada’s national heritage and wilderness sites, leading to a LEED ® Canada New Construction Platinum rating by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC). This is the first building to be given a Platinum rating in Canada, and the first Canadian government facility to follow through with Public Works and Government Services Canada’s commitment to LEED ® Gold or higher for its new buildings. There is now a built project in Canada which demonstrates how to drastically reduce the consumption of energy and water, how to provide an exceptional indoor environment, how to build using a significant amount of local and recycled materials and how to interact intimately with the site itself. This project does not incorporate any emerging or prototypical technologies, rather it uses only off-the-shelf products, proven technology and local design and construction resources.
An important factor which we believe has contributed to the success of this project is the relationship between the design team and Parks Canada. Our normal design process encourages active participation by our clients and consultants in visioning and planning workshops. Three distinct project-specific visions were developed for the Operations Centre: Environment : to minimise the environmental footprint of the building, an issue particularly relevant for sensitive ecosystems such as those found on the islands in this national park, and to create a project demonstrating Parks Canada’s leadership in environmental stewardship. Functionality : to re-invent Parks Canada’s way of working to function in a more integrated manner. It saw a work place which would foster communication and where interdisciplinary teams would be able to freely interact. Architecture : to design a building evocative of the Gulf Islands, with green systems and the natural resources found on site (water from rain, energy from the sun and heat from the ocean) fully integrated within the architectural expression of the building. Program, site and project vision, the dedication of Parks Canada staff to uphold their environmental stewardship mandate, and the design team’s enthusiasm and collective experience, have all come together in a manner surpassing the team’s expectations.
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on a quiet September 22 2006, on a wharf in Sidney BC, with the federal Minister of Natural Resources and the president of the Canada Green Building Council present, the new Operations Centre for the Gulf Islands National Park was opened. The Gulf Islands National Park Reserve was established in 2003 to pro- tect the ecological integrity of a representative portion of the Strait of Georgia Lowlands natural region. It is the first new national park re- serve of the twenty-first century and includes 35 square kilometres of land and intertidal area, spread over 15 islands, numerous islets and reefs and approximately 26 square kilometres of marine areas. The Gulf Islands lie under the rainshadow of the mountains of Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula — a beautiful climate of warm, dry summers and mild winters that rarely see snow. The site is a land base close to the islands. The waterfront lot in the nearby town of Sidney on Vancouver Island is narrow, with an exist- ing house and garden kept to preserve the neighbourhood streetscape. The lowest level, which supports marine operations, is oriented to the waterfront. The upper two floors accommodate adminstration and re- source management personnel in a mix of offices and open plan areas. The main floor has a small interpretive area in the front lobby and a large boardroom for public functions and meetings. The building’s slightly inclined roof echoes the rock ledges of Gulf Islands shorelines. Exposed structure in the atrium visually connects
the floors; tilted glulam posts and beams link the atrium to its sloping roofs. Mass concrete shear walls resist the considerable seismic loads in this area, glulam columns and beams support combined axial and bending loads, and minimal steel members support axial tensile/com- pressive loads. The open floors are planned around a central atrium lit by north-fac- ing clerestory windows, and the depth of the building allows all work spaces to be next to windows. Each façade responds to its orientation, with sunshades on the south and east to protect the interior from glare and direct sun; strip-windows on the north provide indirect light and expansive views over the water towards the islands. In keeping with the sustainable objectives of the project, interior fin- ishes are minimal — concrete floors are left exposed (except within workstations and offices) as are the exposed steel deck, concrete slab ceilings and the Douglas Fir glulams. The exterior wall assembly, engi- neered to minimize air leakage and heat losses, has been detailed with materials able to resist the marine environment. The natural resources available at the site — the ocean, sunlight and the abundant rainfall have all been incorporated into the building and the building systems. Although water, sanitary, storm, natural gas and electricity are available at the lot line, sustainable design features have resulted in a significant reduction in the level of dependence on these municipal services and utilities.
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Water: Rainwater, collected off the roofs in a 30,000 litre underground stor- age tank, is used for dual flush toilets and marina wash water needs in the marine operations area. Surplus rainwater passes through a sedi- ment trap and hydrocarbon separator before being discharged into the ocean. There is no connection to the municipal storm water system and it is expected that over 108,000 litres of rainwater will be harvested and used annually. By using rainwater to flush toilets, the volume of mu- nicipally treated potable water used for the conveyance of sanitary waste has been reduced by 98%. The capacity of the rainwater storage tank is expected to be sufficient except for a few weeks of the year in July. What potable water is used within the new facility will be reduced by over 60% through the use of low flow water-conserving faucets and showers. New planting is drought resistant and will not require irrigation once established. Heat: The building does not have a natural gas connection: all heating and hot water needs are supplied by an ocean based geothermal system. Pumped in sea water passes through a heat exchanger. A series of heat pumps coupled with a system of plastic pipes embedded in the con- crete floors is used to provide radiant heat, cooling and hot water. This system is the main reason why the operations centre is considered the most energy efficient project in the country. The building envelope and cladding system are specifically designed to save energy by minimising thermal bridging and controlling air leakage. All occupied rooms are equipped with multiple controls designed to allow occupants to have a high level of control over their indoor environment, including indi- vidual lighting controls, controls for both temperature and fresh air, and operable windows. Air: The open plan layout and the atrium encourage natural ventilation. All offices and workstations are located beside openable windows; moto- rised ventilation louvres at roof level and at each floor open automati- cally when the building system senses that the outdoor air temperature and conditions are appropriate. Carbon dioxide sensors are linked to the ventilation system. When an increased level of CO 2 is detected in a room, the building control system provides fresh air to the affected room. Light: Sunlight is converted directly to electricity by photovoltaic panels in- stalled on the roof, providing 20% of the building’s total energy needs. The system is connected directly to BC Hydro so that ‘net metering’ is possible. Lighting fixtures use energy efficient direct/indirect fluorescent lights; when next to windows they have photo-sensors to adjust artificial light levels automatically and occupancy sensors to turn off lights when rooms are empty. Exterior sunshades, installed over south and east facing windows, are designed to limit the amount of direct sunshine which can penetrate the window and to help prevent the building interior from overheating. At the same time, the building has been planned so that all workstations and offices have operable windows and an abundance of natural light. Exterior lights shine downwards preventing light trespass across property lines.
top level
middle
lowest level
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Construction process: The contractor’s Waste Management plan minimised waste from con- struction materials. The disposal of all waste material generated has been tracked throughout the construction process — approximately 85% of waste has been diverted from landfill. Strict erosion and sedimentation control measures were followed throughout the construction process. Prevention of damage to the ex- isting shoreline and marine habitat was an absolute priority for Parks Canada. During construction, storm water was prevented from running offsite into the ocean. Silt-laden water resulting from construction ac- tivity was contained against the shore by a marine silt fence, a floating boom with a weighted curtain below to catch the silt. A minor amount of contaminated material was discovered on the site and removed in accordance with federal standards and procedures. During construction, an Indoor Air Quality Management Plan was de- veloped to give guidelines to the contractor on acceptable construction procedures such as ensuring that ventilation system components were kept clean and materials were protected from the weather. After construction was completed, the building was flushed out to help remove contaminants in the air. Materials and Resources: There has been an emphatic use of local and regional materials, including concrete floors and walls, glulam columns and beams, wood framing for all walls and partitions, Western Red Cedar siding and Douglas fir decking. Another criterion in the selection of products to be used was their re- cycled content: the percentage of recycled material exceeds 30% of total material costs. Materials used with recycled content include fly ash, which replaces some of the cement in the concrete, steel (varies from 25-95%), thermal insulation (9-40%), millwork panel products (80%), carpet tile (35%), aluminum frames (60%) and gypsum wall board (17%). Interior finishes and materials, including furniture, were chosen based on low VOC emission levels, durability and cost. The facility manager has developed a policy which allows only the use of green housekeeping products and procedures. Emissions: The energy consumption for the new building is expected to be 75% less than a Model National Energy Code Reference building. A com- puter simulation of the building systems’ energy use was used in the design process. This level of performance will result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 32.3 tonnes annually.
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Owner Project Manager Prime Consultant, Architect and LEED Consultant
Parks Canada Public Works and Government Services Canada Larry McFarland Architects Ltd: Larry McFarland, Ron Kato (Project Architect), Carrie Gratland, Susanne Hunter, Penny Martyn, Dean Shwedyk CWMM Consulting Engineers Stantec Consulting Inc./Willie Perez Engineer of Record Robert Freundlich & Associates Ltd. EnerSys Analytics Inc Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg 1st Team Engineering Ltd. James Bush & Associates Ltd. BC Buildings Corporation Public Works & Government Services Canada Contaminated Sites Environmental Services Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd Ledcor Special Projects
Structural Engineer Mechanical Engineer Electrical Engineer Energy Engineer Landscape Architect Civil Engineer Cost Consultant Commissioning Agent Environmental Adviser
Building Science Professional General Contractor
Ron Kato MAIBC LEED ® AP is a senior associate with Larry McFarland Architects Ltd. and is the project architect for the Operations Centre. He has a passion for sustainable design and is the firm’s practice leader for sustainability.
www.mcfarlandarchitects.com
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“The Grand House Student Co-operative is an incorporated, non-profit housing co-op, with the goal of demonstrating sensitive, aesthetic and environmental design, promoting innovative living and exploring both traditional and alternative construction methods.”
building home Grand House Student Co-op Cambridge Ontario Laura Knap and Steven Chodoriwsky
i n 2004 the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo moved from the main Waterloo campus to vastly improved facilities on the banks of the Grand River. It sits in the middle of Cambridge, Ontario’s historic downtown, which was in desperate need of positive development. The school’s move has been both exciting and awkward, as students, faculty and local citizens come to terms with being neighbours. In these critical early years of relocation, Grand House forms a timely, unique and productive incision in the town. In May 2004, four months before the architecture school’s re- opening, incoming graduate student Chantal Cornu arrived in Cambridge looking for a place to live. A little early perhaps, but hers was not to be the typical, tedious search for temporary student accommodation. Armed with maps, phone numbers and
a streak of blind ambition, she assumed the role of ambitious prospector. Her vision: to find land, and then to build a place in the Cambridge community for students to call home. Two years later, with a strong cast of student members, the support of citizens, and generous grants and donations in tow, the Grand House Student Co-operative is now a visible local organisation on the brink of making a building. From Cornu’s energetic first strides, a dedicated core of individuals have shared her goal to create quality, affordable student housing, driven by what it means to build responsibly.
From a diverse set of issues including community integration, environment, patterns of student life and economics, a set of clues
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Model photos of the Grand House’s preliminary design, depicting terrain and orientation, site constraints, and massing concepts
groups of the local Cambridge community and the transplanted architectural community. If not for the convergence of these groups, Grand House would scarcely be possible. The timing could not be better: given the newness of the relationship between town and school, it is a friendship still saturated with idealism, possibility and wishes: that the city might develop as an adequate and friendly resource for the school community; that students might not just be seen as silent placeholders with pocketbooks, but as active, participating citizens Cambridge; that a school of architecture can indeed be a catalyst for grassroots urban renewal. The sheer existence of the Grand House presents the case that such wishes are not simply idealistic abstraction.
has emerged. As a not-for-profit co-operative, the Grand House group is aligned with a long history of collaborative decision- making, mutual responsibility, and community involvement. It looked for feasible alternative energy systems and materials that are salvaged, renewable, durable and locally produced. Project design and execution is a process of skill-sharing, reaching out to local professionals and trades specialising in ecological construction methods. Not only can students gain practical building experience, but so too can community members offer time and expertise. A broad-reaching fundraising campaign was undertaken and the promotion of public awareness and involvement was placed at the fore.
This is the most critical initiative of the project — forging some of the first student-initiated links between the seemingly disparate
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1: View uphill from Ainslie Street 2 & 3: Hillside views towards Ainslie Street, the Grand River, and downtown Cambridge 4: View along Roseview Ave and downhill Underlay: Cross-section of the Grand House site
Laura Knap is a Master’s student at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. While not gazing at the river which flows past the school, her nose is buried in books about landscapes and inbetweens. Zero Energy Healthy Housing com- petition. A multi-disciplinary design charette, early this fall, will aid in the selection of six winners who will receive grants of $50,000 to $100,000 toward project construction. Steven Chodoriwsky is a recent graduate from the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, a current intern at Levitt Goodman Architects in Toronto, and an upcoming Monbukagakusho scholarship recipient for research studies in Japan. The Grand House has been short-listed as one of 20 finalists for the CMHC Net
This student residence co-operative thus leads the first generation of bona fide architectural work directly attributable to the school’s arrival. The persistent architectural challenge is the site itself. Irregularly shaped, steeply sloped, and overrun by brush, debris and disuse, the site is nonetheless eligible for incentives because of its downtown core location. Once an impossibly steep road allowance, the site used to have a staircase connecting the residential neighbourhood at the top of the hill with the downtown that spilled below. Much to the neighbours’ relief and delight the public path up and down the site is in the plans. The property is a wholly original, perfect fit for the Grand House; it is an opportunity for innovative construction and a new idea for the downtown. The personality of the design arises out of the unique condition of its context: three large, conjoined structures with a series of platforms, terraces and a necessary tangle of staircases and ramps. The new residence will hover over the slope with a beautiful view of Cambridge’s river valley and downtown, the School of Architecture. c
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super kül Margaret Graham h ome / office is our new live- work base camp. Divided almost equally between home and office space, the project is in the first instance a purely pragmatic response to the problem of accommodating our differing but entwined live-work schedules. First a couple, then business partners, home / office is conceptually our version of a latter-day cottage industry – in which the sum of our individual efforts on both the home and the studio fronts is greater than that of its parts.
before
after
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interior stair
In the second instance the project is about working within zoning regulations and urban densification. Because of the size of the studio, it wasn’t allowed in a residentially zoned area; the place best suited to our combined programme was a main street. Only landform- impeded to the south (by Lake Ontario) Toronto has always been able to easily spread out to the east, north and west. As a result, the height and density of many of these main streets - most of them a mix of residential and commercial uses – has changed little over the years. However, recently some have been newly punctuated by new, mostly high-rise, condominium buildings. The city’s new official plan sees these mixed use areas as a weapon in the fight against costly sprawl.
Long under-developed, the plan envisions main streets as the areas that will ‘absorb most of the anticipated increase in retail, office and service employment...in the coming decades, as well as much of the new housing.’ Not able to find a building at the right price that would accommodate the programme, we decided to build out our own, gutting, adding on to and rebuilding a two-storey building on a main street west of downtown. Part of a low-rent strip of mixed
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left: backyard below: exterior materials
residential and commercial use buildings, it is adjacent to a rail corridor and lies on three public transit routes. It is a case-study site in a case-study neighborhood for pro-active city planning. The infill of areas like ours better knits them with adjacent neighborhoods, and builds a more coherent public realm based on multivalent use. In the third instance, the project more formally moves the studio beyond architecture into the realm of development and construction; we designed it, and arranged its financing and construction. It tests an idea of programme and density that has increasing currency but is without many contemporary purpose- built models. It is the kind of development that bridges a least a couple of urban gaps: low- to high-rise, work to home. If trends towards the decentralisation of the workplace continue, so will the number of workers living and working at home continue to rise. The city is seeing clearly in encouraging this kind of development. It is a building type that we will build again. g
Andre D’Elia and Meg Graham head up super kül inc. architect, which Andre established in 2002. Projects currently in the office in - clude a school, several houses and a master plan. Meg, who joined the studio in 2005, also teaches in the M.Arch program at the Univer-
sity of Toronto. www.superkul.ca
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t here are things in life that sometimes approach you from behind and hit with such a force that you are brought to a place clearly unanticipated. During a six-year tour with Bing Thom Architects, a large Vancouver firm, I moved from an untested intern to a project architect on award win- ning projects. The trajectory of my career seemed to be clearly marked. The extra work necessary to design a modern house for my family in the off-hours seemed both manageable and a necessary development of my design sensibilities. The project quickly pulled me into a complicated eight-month process that fought for the place of modernism in a historic neighbourhood. The plan : the purchase of a dilapidated post-1940 house of no significant heritage on an overgrown site would provide a blank slate on which to build a house that could improve the neighbourhood. While continuing with the firm and using the consultants I had learned to work with on large institutional projects, I moved with a naïve confi- dence — I could easily bring this project to fruition. I met with City of Vancouver planners to discuss the project and was quickly faced with an ominous number of warnings culminating with the suggestion that I sell the property and find an area of the city where this type of design would be better suited and meet less resistance. I was ill-prepared in my architectural training to address such a thought. I possess a bullish nature and, undeterred by the warnings, I went to the neighbourhood advisory panel clutching my drawings, model and skilled consulting team expecting to make short work in convincing the panel of the merits of the project. The first meeting adjourned with a number of the panel members feeling that this design had no place in Shaughnessy. Although the city’s primary concern was that I meet the official development plan requirements, in principle they would be unable to allow me to continue with the project without majority consensus of the committee.
Plan 2 : I needed to build a process to convey the importance of this project.
I focussed on the design guidelines for the neighbourhood. While it was clear in my mind that I had addressed the issues in inventive ways, dis- tilling the spirit of the intentions and recombining them with a contemporary voice, it was equally clear that many on the committee viewed the guidelines as a roadmap for appropriate styles. Others, including a majority of the AIBC architects and all of the city planners present, remained in support and in waiting. I needed clarification on the original drive behind the guidelines to reach a consensus. The author of the original guideline document was not only still alive but also receiving visitors. Many Sunday mornings were spent in the living room of the gentle Abraham Rogatnick discussing what those intentions were and how they could be manifest in a project. Rogatnick, a UBC professor emeritus, had studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard. He all but gave up on Shaughnessy when he learned that his guidelines had been used to lock in a single style for the neighbourhood, however he wrote a letter of support and guidance that reminded the panel that prin- ciples define a neighbourhood not a style 1 . 1908 Wolfe, Vancouver BC Clinton Cuddington a house in resistant circumstances Armed with this, I successfully manoeuvered through the panel promising to use the existing materials of the neighbourhood in a contemporary way — it was the goal of the project to enhance the character and diversity of the area though a commitment to quality and uniqueness in design, honest use of materials, preservation of the landscape principles and exploration of green building principles on single-family homes. This process could not have been better constructed for the shift from large scale architectural work to the world of residential development. Although I had the cautious support of the city planning department, it was the initial roadblocks that forced me to cast aside the combative, ad- versarial constructs of my formal training and to involve others. From a place foreign to my professional experience I have entered this forum not as a slick architect looking to push through an idea but as a open voice asserting the importance of marking this moment in the history of a place. This shift was also directed by the building climate in Vancouver. With such a labour shortage the realm of residential design has been impacted in the most negative way. As contractors navigate to the bigger projects there is little left for the general contractor to pick from and still maintain competitive pricing and availability. At the first sight of a fight the sub is quick to vanish. The success of this project is largely due to family back- ing, my newly learned, interactive disposition as an architect and the luck of finding an extraordinary contractor who finds the current ‘take it or leave it’ attitude of some subs deplorable. The contractor runs against this current and has pushed to create a well executed project for the love of good modern architecture. This has proven to be a vital ingredient to surviving this process on a tight budget. I have now left the large firm to oversee construction as a sole proprietor architect. This was not the way I had originally planned it but it is turn- ing out well. c 1 “Y ou [the advisory panel] should not have any qualms about introducing a rectilinear “modernist” design in the context of Shaughnessy. In my experience with the history of Shaughnessy, a variety of “styles” (I prefer the word designs) has always been characteristic of the area. The acceptable designs are harmonious, well-studied ones which add to the variety and richness of Shaughnessy”.
Clinton Cuddington has a Bachelor of Environ- mental Studies (Manitoba 1992) and an MArch (UBC 1997). He has worked for Bing Thom Archi- tects, Busby Perkins + Will and now has a solo practice. csc@telus.net
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An Equivocal Presence the Doherty House by Tomas de Paor Elizabeth Shotton
l ittered in the tens of thousands across the Irish landscape, seemingly abandoned at random in farmers’ fields, are overgrown partially built figures of widely varying dimension known as faerie forts, or raths as the Irish would have it, ubiquitous and in obvious states of neglect. Now understood as defensive fortifications dating from 400-1000 AD, this very ordinary construction acquired an affiliation with the faeries, referred to in Irish during the medieval period as the Tuatha dé Danaan , the people of the other world; an affiliation so enduring that it survives in contemporary Irish culture and compelling enough to ensure the continued presence of these artifacts. For though a handful of these structures have been excavated, rebuilt and preserved to be re- presented to the public and most tellingly the tourist population, the vast majority remain irrevocably entangled in the fabric of the common landscape pushing aside field boundaries, cultivation patterns and even road systems with their defiant presence [fig 1].
The interest of these forts is the capacity of ordinary artifacts to inspire such imaginative leaps of imagination through the process of association and, equally, the fluidity of connective tissue created between things past and things present. They are complex constructions indeed to achieve such feats, yet truly ordinary in both material and contextual terms. The contemporary interest in the ‘complexity of the ordinary’, a term coined by the Smithsons many years ago, is rife with contradictions as the ‘ordinary’ by its very nature is something we are deeply familiar with, part of a perceptual field firmly established, which enables us to overlook its particularity and poignancy. But these humble and neglected artifacts manage to achieve presence through a form of equivocation which demands resolution in our minds, leading to associations and speculations, no matter how seemingly fanciful. Thus to speak of the ‘ordinary’ or the everyday, is to embroil oneself in a discussion of the nature of perception and understanding. For what we, as designers, contend with is not simply the physical reality of a place but equally the contextual field of associations and memories which can be evoked. The complex web of associations contained within our mental landscape influences how the physical world is experienced and the varied meanings this experience will have for each of us. How then to reveal the complexity of the place, or the ‘ordinary’ and familiar, to imbue particularity into the not very particular? One means is to extend its imaginative context, which is the range of associations one intuitively experiences when engaging with the object. But to achieve this one must forgo the desire for clarity or intelligibility that work against the expansion of the imaginative context.
figure 1. a ringfort 1
These curious structures survive due to the mythology attached to them as equally as the mythology survives because of their resolute yet equivocal presence. Their equivocality seems key here as the tidied, re-presented versions of the ring fort, offered up comprehensively with fully developed and possibly more authoritative histories attached, have generally expunged any associations with the faerie myths. Only their less valued, less accessible kindred, neglected and overgrown, remain rooted in mythological association. The faerie myths are in truth a mutation of the much older Celtic lore of the dead, more properly associated with cairns, translated to the neglected and overgrown rath when their former use had fallen from common memory. It is a forgetfulness that enabled their presence to become sufficiently ambiguous to precipitate unlikely associations, to enable a more active imaginative engagement through conjecture. A process that likely saved both rath and historic religious beliefs from complete extinction and transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary.
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Of interest to this discussion is the Doherty House of County Derry, Northern Ireland [fig2] which sits uneasily in its situation, being neither a companion to the typical Irish suburban development surrounding it nor strictly authoritative regarding a definite past by which to justify it.
The question then becomes — what precisely is it that makes this project so visually troubling as to demand engagement and reconciliation? References could be drawn, and likely are present in one’s perceptual horizon if one happens to be native-born Irish, regarding the historic lineage of the work. Standing defiantly apart from its suburban neighbours, askew from the rigour of road systems and plot lines, choosing instead land-form as its guiding geometry, the Doherty House establishes its prior presence, its prior right to this landscape eliciting associations with the mid-sized Irish country houses of the 17th and 18th century. These historic constructions, established under the influence of the Palladian ideal villa as perfectly rendered object within a field, remain coherent within the now denser contemporary developments precisely because of their anomalous positioning. Yet the Doherty House in County Derry is only now being completed by de Paor Architects, the newest addition to a developing suburb. One might be tempted to accuse de Paor of direct reference, but the truth has more interest. The design consciously makes use of the landscape itself for views to and from the house, rather than the road system laid down before the development of any of the surrounding buildings. The introduction of these new houses prior to the completion of its design forced the geometry of the Doherty House to shift subtly in its siting to reconstitute a clear view of landscape rather than allow the compromise of this initial governing principle. And this is the first and most critical conclusion one can draw about this work. That despite its apparent reference of the traditional country house, it was not the adoption of form (as in Venturi’s work) that establishes the association but rather a similarity in the underlying principles which give rise to half-recalled memories.
figure 2. Doherty House
Like the photographic works of the artist William Doherty, for whom the house was built, where the ubiquitous is rendered visible through partial imagery or an unnatural over-saturation of colour or contrast, this place demands our attention in an effort to clarify this troubling uncertainty. Merleau Ponty describes attention as being part of the perceptual process, a focusing to achieve knowledge, or as he describes; to give rise to the knowledge-bringing event 2 . And thus it is that the ubiquitous and ordinary is rendered present to us, by virtue of the uncertainty of the equivocal which demands reconciliation with prior knowledge through an imaginative engagement. The critical interest in this work is in how such a state is achieved, not through overgrown neglect and forgetfulness as was the case of our faerie forts, but through conscious design on the part of the architect, Tomas de Paor. Earlier thoughts on the subject by Venturi would suggest that the overt, or even covert, use of symbols latent with prior associations in an unconventional manner would achieve such a condition. Yet the work that resulted on the heels of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture , most especially the post-modern work, was less equivocal than it was contradictory, more didactic or even ironic rather than the evasions of the Doherty House. It is the quality of evasiveness that makes this work stand apart from associations to either this outdated architectural theory or any other clear reference that could provide a stability of meaning.
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