6 beauty

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layout board for the Turner Gallery at Margate

Snoehetta + Spence Associates

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On Site review issue 6 2001 publisher Field Notes Press editor Stephanie White contributors Aumer Assaff Marc Bertrand Jim Dodson Brian Dyson Ward Eagen Murray Gallant Patrick Harrop Orianne Johnson Andrew King Myron Nebozuk Tonkao Panin John Peterson Darrel Ronald Angela Silver David Spearing Tom Strickland Christina Symons David Tsai Jennifer Uegama Andrew Vernooy Antonio Zedda design & production Black Dog Running Syntax Media Services printer Makeda Press, Calgary

T his issue, started last fall, looks in various ways at architectures of humanity and at buildings involved in political change. Although this might seem a bit contradictory, it is a response to how the world has changed recently in its descent into more war, more hatred, more disaster and tragedy. Can architecture reinforce what is positive in the human spirit? This is our question. There are images of great beauty here, and provoctive ideas about what buildings do in this unstable world of ours.

Stephanie White, editor

from Architecture for Humanity’s newsletter—

W e have recently been concentrating on building our subscription list and have been rewarded by subscriptions from architects and designers, landscape architects and engineers from places as diverse as Penticton BC and Yellowknife; Québec and Toronto. This is most gratifying and we thank you all. If anyone you know would like to subscribe, drop a line to <editor@onsitereview.ca> and we will send on a subscription package. Rates are in the masthead, left. In Canada only add gst, for the United States these rates are in USdollars. The discrepancy in the exchange rate covers the exorbitant postage to anywhere outside Canada. I am pleased to announce that in the spring we will be launching a new competition. Much like our last venture it will also be an open international competition dealing with a global humanitarian disaster. An advisory board and jury is currently being formed and the design criteria almost complete. To receive this newsletter contact Cameron Sinclair at <csinclair@architectureforhumanity.org> or www.architectureforhumanity.org A rchitecture for Humanity is a volunteer not for profit organization set up to promote architecture and design to seek solutions to social and humanitarian issues. Its first venture, The Transitional Housing Competition , dealt with housing returning refugees in Kosovo after the end of the Balkan conflict in 1999. An exhibition of the 10 finalists and 30 selected designs traveled to London, Paris, New York and Venice. Two full-size prototypes have been built and two more are currently in development. This competition and its exhibition helped in part to raise almost $100,000. These funds were used in housing and feeding Kosovar refugees in the spring of 2000 and to build educational and medical facilities in over 5 countries including Bosnia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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Stormy weather ahead.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

real places: brittania beach, b c Jennifer Uegama

I n 1904, mining began in Brittania Beach forming the core of a community for the next seventy years. Today, the 20-storey high concentrator mill that separated profitable ore from raw mountain rock, sits silently along one edge of a valley that still houses two hundred residents. This monumental structure has always been more than the physical focus of the community. It was the town’s economy, it dictated the town’s schedule, it was the town’s iconic and symbolic centre. The town and the mine are inextricably linked.

The concentrator mill steps down to a small, motley collection of build- ings from a shared era, severed from the ocean by highway and railway. Buildings at sea level are mainly deserted. The creek that gave the community its name has forced the resilient residents back up the valley walls by regularly overflowing its banks with destructive potential. The mine left behind another, less visible legacy — a contradiction between the beauty of the site and the poison that is seeping from deep within the mountain in the form of acid mine drainage.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

This is an extract from Jennifer Uegama’s M.Arch thesis from Dalhousie University, entitled Mining Meaning:The Reinhabitation of the Concentrator Mill at Brittania Beach . 2001. Jennifer Uegama is currently working in Halifax. The busy road and rail that separate the community from the sea link Vancouver to the resrt municipality of Whistler. Tens of thousands of people race past Brittania Beach each year, but only a few are engaged enough by the ruin on the mountain to stop and visit the museum that sustains Britannia’s history. 

letters Hrdancy and other such places — O rianne J ohnson . Making a difference at gunpoint — D ave S pearing in Zamboanga, Philippines. real places A umer A ssaf finds a modernist space in Edmonton. J ennifer U egama visits Brittania Beach. projects K obayashi + Z edda ’s Mayo School, Mayo,Yukon. J ohn P eterson visits the Sharon Temple in Gwillumbury, Ontario. T om S trickland discovers how material restrictions at Jackson Triggs changed a project for the better The Turner Centre at Margate: new project from S nøhetta and S pence A ssociates .

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14 4

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work in progress Blood Pen by D avid T sai

observers and thinkers P atrick H arrop and A ndrew V ernooy look at morphologies, structural and digital. T onkao P anin looks at the surfaces of some beautiful and recent buildings by Herzog and de Meuron. W ard E agen finds cyberplaces in our daily rituals. M yron N ebozuk assesses the US Embassy in Ottawa. S tephanie W hite thinks about Architectura’s struggles. A ndrew K ing considers beauty lost and found.

42 44 47 48

over the transom Miss Sixty in New York City, F abriq

news from the schools D arrel R onald marches with the best of them in Montreal competitions Winnipeg: East Exchange and Red River International Ideas Competition. Deadline for submissions May 29, 2002. back page bridges Well, not a bridge, but an arch, at File Hills, in 1908 — ceremonial, ephemeral, contradictory.

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letter from the Tynska Kavarna

Orianne Johnson

T his letter describes a little about my experiences the last few months in a few former eastern bloc countries. As I board the plane to come back to Canada, the memories are varied, from learning to cook bramborak —potato pancakes— from a retired musician of the Czech Philharmonic and discussions on the EU with my English language students in Prague, to sharing Chilean fruit cake on Christmas Eve in Budapest with people from around the world. All make up this world for me. My fear is that in Canada I will not be able to find places like the Tynska Kavarna, a coffeehouse. Through winding cob- blestone streets to a heavy wood door, pushing the iron ring handle reveals a dimly lit interior where the smoke is thick. It was comforting that the hum of voices held no meaning for me; I was an observer. My interest, as a North American and a design student, has been to observe the physical effects of communist rule that still exist in the cities I visited. They seem almost nonexistent when wander- ing through Prague’s Old Town Square with the flocks of tourists. In this beautifully restored historic centre, sculptures speak of an older history — the religious struggles of the 15th century. At the same time they are linked to a nationalist struggle of the 20th century. From the east edge of Old Town Square, the wide, straight avenue Parizska provides a view across the river to Letna Plain, where from 1952 the huge statue of Stalin stood, joining the castle in dominating the Prague skyline. Blown up in 1961, a giant metronome now sits on the plinth.

me that they were the work of David Cerny, a Czech artist who is best known for painting pink a green tank that stood in Smichov as a memorial to Soviet soldiers. His is a physical commentary on the former system, joining many incredible Czech writers whose work speaks of life within the former system and which was not published in their country legally until after 1989. My students also spoke to me about some of the negative aspects of city planning that remain as a result of communist power. The most prominent in the city centre is a four lane highway that connects several outer districts to the centre. This roadway runs right along a major axis of the historical city, cutting off the National Museum and the State Opera House from the boulevards that these build- ings head. Groups of people dressed in eve- ningwear making their way through the parking lot, just past the McDonalds (one of several that have popped up around the city), past the dumpsters and into the subway under the highway. They emerge from underground almost literally on the opera house steps just in time for the opening act of La Boheme or Tosca.

Another prominent building remaining from the communist era is a television tower, approximately 216m in height, in Zizkov, a poorer, slightly less picturesque part of the city. This building also dominates the Prague skyline from the opposite side of the river, and is visible from almost everywhere in Prague. It is not until one reaches Zizkov or the neighboring Vinohrady district that the large sculptures of faceless babies that crawl up and down the sides of the tower become visible. It was one of my English language students who informed

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In Bratislava, Slovakia, a raised highway also runs right through the historic district; the heavy traffic roars almost over the doorstep of a large cathedral.This highway connects the downtown commercial core with the villages of concrete housing blocks across the river, where the majority of the population lives. These housing blocks are the most obvious remaining physical presence of former com- munist rule. Approximately ten stories, the apartments sometimes edge a small square of dead grass, the ‘green space’ for the buildings’ residents.

One of the strangest housing blocks that I visited was in Budapest. Setting out in search of Roman ruins that still exist in Obuda, one of the city’s oldest districts, the first we came across were located right inside the metro sta- tion. One could just make out the ruins of Roman baths under the dim fluorescent lighting and through the scratched plexiglas wall that separated the site from the station entrance walkway. Small stone reliefs were mounted on the metro walls, as if it was an art gallery, and covered in graffiti like much of the city of Budapest. Outside, we made our way to another Roman ruin that was reported to exist nearby. We found these remains of the ancient city located right in the middle of a cluster of housing blocks. In fact the ruins were over- grown and seemed to now be the park space for the inhabitants of the apartments. A man was walking his dog over the uneven stones. It struck me as a completely different attitude toward history, or to the preservation of his- tory. I am used to seeing such things fenced off from the outside world, and paying an entrance fee to enter. Here they exist in some peoples’ backyard, or in the metro station they use every day.

This area of east central Europe has a long his- tory of religious and political struggles, and of people who made incredible sacrifices for their country. I asked one of my English students what the biggest difference is in everyday life since the fall of communism. He said that it is in the clothes that people are wearing and in the buildings that are now built. He said the people of the older generation still find value only in the function of things. The new genera- tion is concerned with aesthetic value, and so it is a completely different way of thinking from before. He asked what I would tell friends in Canada about the Czech Republic, and I talked about the amazing history of the place. He replied that everyone who visits speaks of the history, and nothing of the present. And from my conversations I have found that the Czech people I met carry with them a strong under- standing of their history, yet they are constantly looking toward the future, toward the possibili- ties and to what they hope their country will become. 

Orianne Johnson, a recent graduate of B.E.D.S. in Architecture, Dalhousie University, is presently working for Oberto Oberti Architecture and Urban Design, Vancouver, B.C.

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making a difference at gunpoint David Spearing S ix weeks in the Philippines: “Where is your companion?” demanded the woman on a busy street in Zamboanga, the capital city of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. She was asking my wife Dianne what she was doing on the street by herself. “When they kidnap you, no one will know,” she said. “You must not go on the street by yourself”. We eventually moved from our first residence-office, a ward in a hospital, to an abandoned house in a walled compound owned by the client and where I worked with a few Zamboanga- trained young architects. For security, we had an armed guard 24 hours a day and an unfriendly Rotweiller. Also patrolling the grounds by day and night were 2 wild deer and a hairy, black wild boar. The boar was the most vicious and therefore the king of the compound. With this security, we were able to work with a peace of mind necessary to focus our tasks. The assignment was to develop a masterplan for 15 hectares of rolling jungle and savannah for a family- owned agricultural college named ZEAC (Zamboanga Arturo Eustaquio College). This included the development of a 100-acre farm, identifying slopes, stability and development potential. Recommendations were made for other proj- ects, including washrooms, locker rooms, handicapped requirements, seismic bracing, draining, runoff, water management and design. For five weeks we walked nearly every inch of the land accompanied by body guards trained in martial arts. The beautiful sloping property was in a suburb of Zamboanga called Pasonanca. We and our relatively influential clients dressed casually (jeans and worn t-shirts) to remain inconspicuous. We left and returned to our office-house by various routes. We seldom travelled without bodyguards. It is strange and almost unbelievable for an ordinary Canadian to think of bodyguards. For influential Filipinos, however, bodyguards are a way of life. We went for afternoon tea with Delfin Castro, owner of the property adjacent to ZAEC’s 15 hectares. He is also the former Supreme Commander of the Southern Command of the Philippine forces who is reputed to have determined the course of history: during the famous people’s revolt in Manilla, he refused to take his troops to then President Ferdinand Marcos’ aid. He and his wife Corey were gracious hosts. They sent two cars to pick us up. The first was driven by a machine gun toting, trained driver. The second car followed, never more than one metre behind, with four more body guards with machine guns. At all times, even while having tea in the idyllic bamboo and thatch pavilion and while inspecting the property, the five bodyguards and others in this small security force were strategically stationed, always at the ready, fingers by the trigger. Castro was the President-Elect of the Rotary Club that co- sponsored our assignment. While I was giving my presentation to the Zamboanga Rotary Club, six armed guards surrounded the hotel meeting room, The cause for me is world understanding- from which I believe flows peace.

machine guns in leather covers. We were later told that the Canadian CEO of a major company in Zamboanga had been kidnapped while leaving a Zamboanga Rotary Club meeting. The one architectural assignment turned into five more assignments during our six week stay. Added were the redesign of exits and circu- lation patterns in a 14,000 seat stadium which was half way through construction; the redesign of another staduim for retraining MNLF guerrillas; revisions to designs of two low cost housing projects, of 120 units, one under construction and one on the drawing board; and the review of a new property purchased by my client in the mountains outside of Zamboanga. As well, I was flown to Cagayan d’Oro, in Mindinao to discuss and assess a preliminary and conceptual eco-tourism resort development of 2,500 hectares. A piggyback assignment in a suburb called Cabatangan, was where former Muslim guerillas under Nur Misuari and the Muslim National Liberation Front (MNLF) were being trained to be peace officers. Recently, 80 hostages were taken in Pasonanca and moved to Cabatangan before they were released. The exchange rate is usually one foreign hostage for about 100 local hostages. We went in October of 1997. In March of that same year an architect from Vancouver, Lawrence G.Woolcox, was murdered on a beach on a small island near prime coral reefs. He had spoken out against the members of the military who had had no hesitation in fishing thousand year old coral reefs by blowing them up with explosives. For this he was murdered. Larry had started a plan for underwater ecological reserves in the southern Philippines and as a dedicated architect, was making a difference in that corner of the world. In June of the same year, Jun Trinidad, a CESO volunteer from Richmond, who we had intended to turn to for local knowledge died mysteriously in bed in Zamboanga. He was staying in the hospital bed and room we were initially given The Canadian Embassy, when asked about these incidents, provided us with almost no information. The Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that staff didn’t feel there was a problem. Why is there all this security? Why is there the militancy? We have come to believe that part of the reason is that for 55 years the Philippine government has pursued a plan to populate Mindanao, the Sulu Archapelago and the Southern Islands with a Catholic population thereby displacing the indigenous Muslim population. The Muslim population is desperately fighting for world attention and fighting to preserve their land and their way of life. While we can’t condone actions of terror, our eyes have been opened a little. We now question most media coverage and can put into perspective our pre- departure briefing and our own cultural adjustment.

David Spearing is an architect in Nanaimo, B.C. He is the author of Living on Mountain Slopes and has volunteered with CESO since 1994, taking him twice to Russia and once each to Poland, Peru, Guyana and the Philippines.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

The bottom lines in CESO assignments are: 1 Cultural exchange (both ways), appreciation and understanding. In other words, making friends for Canada. 2 Helping clients understand and define their “problems”. This is truly 90% of the solution. 3 Working at a high level of ability to meet client’s high expectations. 4 Tremendous shared appreciation for a successful outcome for the assignment.

top: site notes bottom: Zamboanga Stadium in construction.

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guides, bodyguards and transport, Zamboanga, Phillipines

other questions here:

OS: Aren’t there local architects?

DS: Yes, there are local architects, however on Mindanao there are few or no experienced firms. The Philippines, like most countries served by CESO, are interested in new ideas and perhaps more importantly, new processes or strategies for collectively developing new ideas. There are many highly skilled and flamboyant Philippine architects in the large cities of Cebu and Manilla. The way I personally develop and nurture my projects or assignments is to introduce the client to architecture and planning, demonstrate the benefits of the profession, then work with the client and local counterpart architects to build momentum, consensus and under- standing in the project. We help the clients to set a couse and put the clients in the hands of appropriate trained professionals when they are needed. When I leave after six weeks, I measure the sucerss of the assignment by how well the client-consultant team has coalesced, how strong the collective vision is, and how much momentum or commitment is built toward achieving that vision. I measure success by how non-essential I am to the ongoing process. At this point, the newly constituted local team takes over. I do not leave the process until I am redundant and they take ownership.

In many countries in which we work, for example Russia, they totally lack a middle class — a proven formula for disaster, abuse and revolu- tion, anarch and death. We and CESO work with people who can best multipy or expand our efforts.

OS: Rotary/CESO?

DS: Rotary International contributes financial assistance when a part - nership can be established between the volunteer expert’s home club and a host club in the receiving city. As a result the volunteer work in magnified through friendshp, understanding and exchanges. The work I have seen done in these countries by Rotary International and the local Rotary Clubs would bring tears to your eyes. While I was in Zamboanga an international team of 20 doctors held a one week clinic on an exhaustive schedule providing free operations to people who could not afford them.

OS: Why is CESO in countries that have rich people who could help their own people?

DS: This is a whole new article. Suffice it to say that there are very few very rich, almost no middle class and millions of poor. Some of the rich have not been the nicest folks, e.g.‘New Russians’. CESO has been successful in changing that.

OS: Does ‘influential’clients mean ‘affluent’?

DS: The goals of CESO, Canadian Foreign Policy and CIDA are many, highly motivated and honourable. It is my understanding that Canada believes that if we can help make each country a better country, then poco a poco we will have a better world.

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about the Canadian Executive Service Organisation John Gibson F ounded in 1967, CESO is a not-for-profit enterprise working with developing nations, new free-market economies and Aboriginal com- munities in Canada. Over the past 34 years, CESO volunteers have completed approximately 40,000 assignments in more than 50 coun- tries, including Canada, helping client businesses grow, local economies improve and government agencies develop -- all to improve the stan- dard and quality of life. CESO has two divisions, International Services and Aboriginal Services, with a shared roster of approximately 3,600 volunteer advisors — altruistic people with practical experience in a variety of professional and industrial activities.Those who go overseas find themselves in many different situations from working with indigenous people in Nicaragua to sharing agricultural techniques in Thailand. Their roles are diverse, their skills many. Working without pay, they draw on their education and lifetime of experience to empower people through problem-solving, skills transfer and the sharing of practical information and ideas. CESO is supported by its principal funders, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), as well as about 300 corporations and foundations and scores of individual Canadians. This year CESO will work on more than 1,400 assignments, about half of them overseas.

For additional information about CESO, please visit the web site at www.ceso-saco.com.

CESO in the Philippines

CESO’s work in the Philippines is carried out under the auspices of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which manages a bilateral assistance program involving signed agreements between the governments of Canada and the Philippines. CESO has four bilateral projects: Bolivia, Guyana, Pakistan and the Philippines. In each country, CIDA defines the goals of the project and CESO executes them. Canada’s bilateral assistance program in the Philippines began in 1986. Initially seen as a way to support the democratic process in the Phil- ippines and to advocate peaceful change and equitable development, the program has accelerated over the past decade to focus on eco- nomic growth. CIDA has identified two main priorities to help support equitable and sustainable development in the Philippines: promoting responsible governance to help public-sector departments and agen- cies design and deliver progressive economic and social policies; and building Philippine private-sector capabilities by helping to create an environment where the private sector is encouraged to develop, and by sharing Canadian technology and skills. 

above: Zamboanga site. below : the small island, near the coral reefs, where Larry Woolcox was killed.

John Gibson is the CESO Director of Communications in Ottawa.

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blood pen David Tsai

Integrity. The blood pen is meant to be used in contracts where one’s integrity is of the highest importance. The process of withdrawing and writing in one’s blood signifies one’s intent and commitment to an agreement and reflects on the pain, difficulty and sacrifice one must inevitably face in fullfilling one’s word. Responsibility. The ideal use of the blood pen is for a peace treaty, or in instances when a country’s leader has made decisions and statements directly resulting in blood shed. Signing a peace treaty with the blood pen, the signature signifies both the end of the conflict and that this is the final blood that is shed. Identity. Blood contains your genetic code. It contains you. Your signature then not only represents you, it is you.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

David Tsai is a second year graduate student in 3d Design at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He previously studied architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

O ften modern architecture in prairie cities is overlooked. Little attention is given to modest projects that ultimately reflect movements in architecture that are of more than a regional interest. Suspended somewhere between an airport, a shopping mall, and a medium density community you will find the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). Ultimately the campus is a repetitious and utilitarian one of 2 story double loaded corridors that are endlessly connected to shelter students from the harsh winter. Although, what appears to be a mundane campus, is elevated at its ends. The bar buildings that go on and on are book ended with magnificent glasshouses of circulation, inspired by the intellect of the modern movement. When one drives by these structures we are reminded of a Mon- drian painting — rational, minimal, and proportioned. The grid of glass and opaque panels creates views that dodge ones imagination. The sole function of the structure is to provide circulation sophisti- catedly shrouded in notions of technology, motion, and the modern age. Inspired by the experiment of mobility, mass production, and transparency we find great success and joy when engaged with this building.  real places: edmonton Aumer Assaf

Aumer Assaf is an architect, in collaboration with Sid Assaf, in The Office of City Inter - viewed, an integrated planning, industrial design and architecture firm in Edmonton.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

northern energy Kobayashi + Zedda

Mayo Replacement School. It was selected as one of Team Canada’s three representative projects at the Green Building Challenge to be held at the World Sustainable Buildings Conference (Oslo, September 2002). So the building will be undergoing an operational analysis to determine how green it actually in preparation for Oslo. It will be conducted by NRCAN and other green building experts from across the country.

M ayo School is a kindergarten to grade 12 school, community hall, gymnasium and satellite campus of Yukon College located in Mayo,Yukon. This 3300 m 2 wood frame school serves a small isolated community of 500 residents and is located 550 km. north of Whitehorse. Home to the Naícho Nyak Dun First Nation, the Mayo Replacement School is designed to meet the needs of the entire community as well as students. As the largest structure in town it will serve many additional roles including a centre for community and first nation ceremonies, public library, disaster relief centre and recreation centre. It replaces an aging assemblage of trailers, which were installed over 25 years ago to provide temporary accommodations after a disastrous fire. Members of the community fought for over a decade for a new school and participated in the design at every stage.

site

The new school replaces a dilapidated, ad hoc arrangement of trailers and was designed around the existing school which continued operat- ing during construction. Several factors dictated the location of the new school. Discontinuous permafrost favoured a location close to the existing school and by using open areas around the old school, adjacent woodlots were spared from clearing and grubbing operations. The centre of gravity in the new school, the assembly area, is aligned with the centreline of Mayo’s main street.

building form and orientation

The school’s orientation on the site maximizes the penetration of diffused daylight while minimizing solar gain. The building lies east west, perpendicular to southern daylight, facing the community. The view down Centre Street to the viewing platform of the Stewart River is aligned with the location of the main entry and assembly space. Elementary and secondary classrooms are in separate wings on either side of the main entrance which includes administration and the assembly area. The elementary wing is close to the playground to the west; the secondary school wing is near the gym and community campus with which there is a functional overlap. Classrooms and administration use the southern side of the building, gym and industrial arts shop on the north, their bulk moderated by lower massing in the front.

above: outside the assembly area under a great porch roof. right: inside the assembly area, under construction.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

A generous amount of natural light to all classrooms is achieved through the use of high clerestory windows to the north of corridor and south of service spine. All classrooms receive southern diffused light from two directions, no matter where they are located. Natural light in teaching spaces is critical in this part of the world where winter sun is so scarce.

energy conservation

This project has been certified as a C2000 building through the Office of Energy Efficiency, Natural Resources Canada. The building also successfully achieved the goals and requirements of CBIP (Can Build- ers Incentive Program). This is the first school and only the second building north of 60 ever to achieve this benchmark. This means it must achieve energy savings of 45% in comparison to a computer simulated benchmark building of similar size and configura - tion. When the Mayo School was modelled using DOE 2. E software it found energy consumption savings of 47.3% and energy cost savings of 48.5%. The core of the C2000 programme is its integrated design process in which architect and engineering consultants develop the design together from first concepts on so that all technical, functional and economic factors which impact the buildings performance will be considered before the design has progressed too far. GF Shymko & Associates, energy engineers, were retained by the Yukon Government and facilitated the integrated design process. Energy conservation features include photocell sensors that switch off lights when natural light levels are sufficient, use of on site groundwa - ter for ‘free’ cooling, heat recovery and motion sensors on ventilation systems and decentralised HVAC system to more efficiently serve vari - ous school zones. There are digital control systems for temperature and lighting setback operations.

materials

The school is wood frame to allow the small frame-oriented labour force in the Yukon the chance of building the project without importing labour from the south. Materials were chosen for their Yukon content: locally manufactured vinyl windows, local wood species —engineered wood products (truss joists, oriented strand board, glue laminated units, pre-engineered wood trusses and LSL slabs) are used extensively throughout the school to make efficient use of a natural resource. Interior material finishes underwent a preliminary screening process to identify acceptable products with low embodied energy and low voc’s. These include linoleum flooring, birch ply millwork, panelling, trims, locally milled pine slat finishes, low voc latex paint.

above. from left: exterior of a classroom wing, classroom interior, link between wings. right: gymnasium roof structure.

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some questions

How is it possible to introduce playfulness and expressive com- munity gestures in a budget tight school building? By realizing and understanding limited opportunities to make architec- ture. Every project in our office, whether it be a bathroom renovation for a government office building or new correctional facility provides an opportunity for a focused effort that goes beyond simple problem solving. The Mayo Replacement School is a building of simple forms, materials and construction detailing. However, in key areas: the assem- bly area, gymnasium, specific classrooms and main entry/exits, arose an opportunity to explore ideas of community significance, visibility, entry, materiality, education and whimsy. We conserve and are efficient in many areas of the school building to spend what is saved in other key areas. Simple pre-engineered wood trusses throughout the school facilitate an expressive learning tree structure of logs in the main assembly area; a concealed and inexpensive roof structure throughout the classroom areas facilitates an exposed and interesting custom wood/steel truss in the gymnasium. It is a balancing act of sorts. 

Is this a green building? I would argue that it is not as green as it could be. It is a great sustainable leap when compared to existing facilities throughout the Yukon, however, we have a long way to go. We would have liked to introduce grey and black water recycling, explored the possibilities of including a living green roof, introduced solar hot water, solar wall and photovoltaic components, reduced or eliminated on site parking and reviewed extensively wood fram- ing methods and details toward future dismantling and recycling of the school building. However, the short life span of elected officials and the bureaucracy surrounding the funding of public projects means little or no consideration of building life cycle costs. Thus capital budgets are limited and so too are options for implementation of green measures with a longer than aver- age payback period. Does it bring us closer to a sustainable architecture, society and way of living? I struggle with this everyday I sit at my desk. We are but part of a bigger web of decisions, motives and actions. However, as architects and more importantly as individuals we are obli- gated to scrutinize our own decisions and actions. I may have accepted after a lengthy discussion with government officials to expand the already large school parking area by cutting down an additional 4m x 40m wide strip of mature boreal forest, but at least there was an understanding that something valuable was being lost in return. I walk and ride my bike rather than drive a car. We should lead by example whenever possible even if it means a little inconvenience and, at times, heated debate. Why is it so difficult to convince government and private clients to implement simple yet significant ‘green features’ in buildings? Cost (up front as opposed to long term), short term goals and returns, continued availability of cheap carbon based energy, the status quo factor.

Kobayashi + Zedda practice in Whitehorse,Yukon. They recently returned from a research trip to Scandinavia to see how other places build north of 60.

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sharon temple John Peterson

The material investment of the architectural image has been devalued for the sake of expediency and performance.This dislocation of material meaning is an understandable concomitant of a media society that accepts readily devalued imagery of all types. Here, the metaphysical implications of material and detail investment are reduced to gestures which imply, but do not denote; they express ideas which represent architecture’s customary functions — the registration of built form with its physical and cultural context-but they are phenomenally weak.

D. Andrew Vernooy,‘Crisis of Figuration in Contemporary Architecture’ in The Final Decade: Architectural Issues for the 1990s and Beyond, vol.7. New York: Rizzoli, 1992, pp 94-96.

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S quare in plan and painted white with green trim, the Temple of Peace is a unique frame construction building comprising three tiers from a sixty by sixty foot base to a twelve by twelve foot lantern. Each tier has tall multi-panel windows on all four sides with a small pinnacle at each corner of the roof. Every element of the Temple was intended to symbolize some aspect of the sect’s religious beliefs: the three tiers represent the Trinity; a door on each of the four sides allowed people to enter on an equal footing from all directions; equal numbers of windows on each side allowed the light of the gospel to shine on the assembly with equal strength; the four pillars supporting the lantern were inscribed with the words denoting the cardinal virtues: faith, hope, love and charity; twelve pinnacle lanterns and twelve interior pillars represent the apostles. A central space is approached from four aisles, an aisle from each doorway, holds the altar. The continuous arcade of twelve turned columns support the second tier.

Excerpt from the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Sharon Temple and The Study, Heritage Character Assessments, 1998. http://www.sharontemple.ca

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left: Jacob’s Ladder below: window candle right: column detail

T he vestigial content of architecture plays weak, in light of recent events, moving nearer to extinction every year. This statement may appear severe, but architecture and civic form cannot expect the world to accept its cultural significance if it begins its corporeal existence as a secondary thought within a fractured building process. To counterpoise this situation, we must look to buildings where the level of craft is matched by the their phenomenal content. These build- ings, as rich in meaning as imagery, are a rare breed. One such example exists north of Toronto in a small farming village formerly named the Village of Hope — a building as idiosyncratic as the community that constructed it. Located in the township of East Gwillumbury, Ontario, (formerly theVil- lage of Hope) the Sharon Temple was erected by a short-lived religious sect but stands as an enduring symbol of tectonic culture. Originally called the Temple of Peace, it was built between 1825 and 1832 by the Children of Peace, a breakaway sect of the Quakers led by an enigmatic preacher named David Willson. The building team, which was lead by Ebenezer Doan, a master builder, and his brother John, a master carpen-

ter, carried on the traditions of Quaker construction, with an expanded formal language based on the literal and metaphorical translation of the sect’s beliefs (for expample, the column as apostle). Often referred to as the Davidites, the Children of Peace owed most of their core beliefs and ritual differences to Willson, including musical accompaniment for religious gatherings and ornamentation inspired by the Bible’s Old Tes- tament, in particular Solomon’s Temple. This extreme shift in commu- nity focus from the reserved simplicity of the Quaker tradition to an active utopian pioneer vision typified the unique character of it mem - bership and its civic form. The Sharon Temple is a singular structure within the tumultuous politi- cal and religious history of nineteenth century North America, and study reveals a cursory insight into its community. Willson made the seldom-used meeting hall a focal point within the community through a careful manifestation of human ideals, religious ceremonial significance and formal reference to biblical history. Experiments in form and space, carried through earlier Quaker and Davidite buildings on site, culmi- nated in this building, which was auspiciously designed to collect alms

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

for the poor. From its egalitarian square plan, expressing Willson’s belief in ‘dealing on the square with all people’, to the interior columns denot- ing the sect’s founding beliefs, the Temple symbolically reinforced the ideals present in this small farming community. But after Willson’s death in 1866, the Temple held less significance for his followers, and within a relatively short period of time it fell into disuse and disrepair. Despite Willson’s best efforts to divorce his physical presence from the centre of their secular and religious life, his death left the sect with no direc- tion, and the Children of Peace joined the local Presbyterian congrega- tion in 1889. As the group’s leader,Willson created an active community that partici- pated enthusiastically in the politics of the day while encouraging a co- operative economy of sharing, a far cry from the burgeoning market economy prevalent in Upper Canada at the time. Without capitalist methods the sect prospered, becoming one of the wealthiest in the region. But its absorption into mainstream capitalism and community life following Willson’s death ended the relevant tectonic meaning the group’s civic structures had produced. And as is de rigueur for a dynamic society where the permanence of architectural constructs outlast their initial intent, the Temple is left as an artifact of a bygone era. In 1918, the Temple became one the earliest examples of non-military building conservation in Canada, when the York Pioneer and Historical Society bought it and turned it into a museum. The acquisition was timely, coming just after the destruction of the sect’s later meeting hall, which appeared as an ever more ornate and complex structure crafted over an eight year period following the construction of the Temple. K enneth Frampton states (in ‘The Owl of Minerva’, Studies in Tec- tonic Culture, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, p 386) ‘late capitalism displays an indifference toward tectonic culture at many different levels, from its disdain for the physical and historical continuity of civic form to its latent disregard for the wholesale entropy of the built environ- ment as it presently exists.’ The Children of Peace obviously did not share this indifference toward their civic form, and a document of their existence is present is the Temple’s architectural form — a tectonic cultural document revered by some and merely visited by others. It is this very endeavour, to instill human relevance via built form, which our architectural community strives toward. For the present-day architect, hindered in a concern toward a tectonic culture by the techno-econ- omy they operate within,Willson offers a glimpse of another mode of architectural practice, where the act of building represents more than the completion of a shelter and ersatz formal expression. The arti- fact’s main concern here is the manifestation of the human spirit in the specific manner in which the building was developed and realized. The Davidites, under the guidance of David Willson, seamlessly integrated craft, form and spirituality to constitute and articulate an experience of the community as a whole. It is this absolutely apparent exaltation of all

of the processes of building and human spirit, that prevents The Temple of Peace from becoming an architectural novelty, relegated to the his- torical closet. It will continue to be revered by architects and historians alike, not just as an artifact, but as an end in itself. 

John Peterson, born and rised in BC, received his MArch at Dalhousie (néeTUNS). He lives in Toronto and works for KPMB Architects.

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The need to uncover new zones of inhabita- tion within traditionally homogeneous compo- sitions is in part a response to new concepts in how we construe meaning in architectural form, brought about by the evolution of the computer industry. This architecture invests the boundary zone of the building with extra-tectonic logic beyond the simple building envelope. It reveals and exploits once-hidden layers of construction, as in the work of Herzog and de Mueron. The inhabitation of the wall section and the pre- sentation of the buildng boundary as a zone relies on the ability of the eye to be a critical

morphological and extra-tectonic logics Patrick Harrop and Andrew Vernooy I is to treat the building as a complete three dimensional skin: a physical and conceptual synthesis of virtually all building elements into the complex and subtle ecosystem of a living epidermis. instrument where meaning is contrived and inferred from the depth of a building’s skin rather than the morphological imprint of its surface.

n the last half of the twentieth century con- struction courses in architecture schools emphasized a morphological approach to understanding form. Construction of a building was understood to be the result of a set of internal physical conditions, like struc- ture, that were read through the surface of the building envelope. Internal conditions were printed onto the envelope by modulating its surface. The articulation of the building envelope was understood as a complex set of interactions between structure, skin and nature. The archi- tect set these interactions and interdependent relationships into motion using rules essentially prescribed by industry. While this approach afforded formal complexity, form generation was limited to clear and self evident architec- tural gestures. It is with the entry of digital technology into architecture that we begin to see a shift in the way the envelope of the building relates to the structural frame. Consider the two models shown here: above is a student proj- ect from the 1970s, inspired by Aalvar Aalto’s Baker 1949 skating rink at MIT in Cambridge, Massachussetts. Shape is a consequence of its structural system. On the right is a recent sec- tional model of the Patkaus’ Newton Library from the 1990s. Its emphasis is on the highly articulated relationship between the envelope and the frame. In considering these two models, one could surmise that strategies of figuration have begun to move past the tectonics of morphology to issues of extra-tectonic logic associated with envelope configuration. Recently we have become preoccupied with the notion of building as a complete biological system in and of itself, as opposed to an inter- play of complex relationships that underpins a structural morphology. The growing trend

For architecture one could say that we are gradually moving away from a schematic understanding of the building which empha- sizes an elemental approach to design, towards an animated approach to exploring archi- tecture’s formal potential through a more sophisticated understanding of its boundary zone. Architecture grows into being instead of assembling itself from discrete but related relationships. Rather than oversimplifying the practice of making architecture into a free form formal exercise, the architectural persis- tence of vision is broadening the temporal and magnitudinal scale of our work. 

This re-consideration of the wall section as a zone rather than a surface, has generated an even more refined approach to the internal space and form of the building skin itself. In fact, each of the complex material layers of a building skin offers an architectural opportu- nity for elaboration and even inhabitation. Take for example the work by Cambridge archi- tects Kennedy and Violich where the intersti- tial space between plywood veneers has been cleverly exploited to integrate network wiring, lighting and ventilation.

Andrew Vernooy,AIA and Pat- rick Harrop who works with digital technology, are cur- rently teaching at the Univer- sity of Manitoba.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

The City of Winnipeg Planning, Property and Development Department, Planning and Land Use Division invites design teams to participate in a Single-Stage Open Ideas Competition.

Ideas Winnipeg 2002 competition includes three integrally related challenges within the single submission: a. Context and Analysis Plan An urban analysis that encompasses a minimum area including the edge condition of the Exchange District on the west side of the Red River, and the edge condition of St. Boniface on the east side of the Red River from the Provencher Bridge to May Street. The Context and Analysis Plan informs the Area Plan and Site Plan design. b. Area Plan An urban design masterplan encompassing a design area noted in the Context and Analysis Plan. The purpose of this masterplan is to produce a dynamic framework or vision of the eventual development of the entire area. c. Site Plan A building design for mixed use development and housing within the Area Plan. The designated site is bounded by Bertha Street on the west, a straight extension of John Hirsch Place on the south, Elgin Avenue to the north and Waterfront Drive and the Red River to the East. (Note that the designated site is split east-west by Waterfront Drive. The area to the east of Waterfront Drive is Stephen Juba Park.) The designated site includes the original location of the Historic William Ross House Brookbank , built in 1852 and moved from the site in 1948. For further information on the Ross House refer to Historic Context on the Web-page. The designated site is the minimum site for development. The site may be expanded at the competitor’s discretion. Eligibility The Ideas Competition is open to architects and multi-disciplinary teams that include at least one architect. The competition is open to all architects eligible to practice, as defined by the requirements in existence in their country. Both individual and collaborative entries by multi-disciplinary teams are permitted and encouraged, provided that at least one eligible architect is a member of the team. The application for registration may be made in the name of an individual or team. Individuals, including architects, may participate in more than one submission. In order to be eligible, registrants must include the following: a. A registration form indicating the name(s) of the individual entrant or team member, proof of eligibility of architect on team, address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address of both the registrant and the eligible architect. b. A registration fee by a cashiers cheque or money order in the amount of $ 100.00 (Canadian funds only), made payable to the order of the City of Winnipeg, Design Competition. The registration form and cheque must be enclosed in an envelope and sent to the Ideas Winnipeg 2002 address at: City Re-emerging 15 - 30 Fort Street Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3C 4X5 The envelope must also display the return address of the registrant. The registration period ends before 4:30 p.m. North American Standard Time (NAST) on May 1, 2002. Any registration received after this time and date will not be accepted and will be returned unopened to the address indicated on the envelope. Questions about the registration procedures should be addressed to the Competition Committee through the web-site: http://www.winnipeg-ideas- competition.org or via fax (204) 488-0216. East Exchange and Red River International Ideas Competition Ideas Winnipeg 2002 Attention: Professional Advisor The City of Winnipeg Planning Property and Development Department Planning and Land Use Division

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