The winners of the 20th edition of the Inter-university Charrette on Architecture, Urbanism, Design, and Landscape Architecture were announced on November 18th.
The competition, which took place from 12 to 15 November 2015, was organised by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), in collaboration with McGill University and Université de Montréal, along with the participation of Concordia University, Université Laval, Carleton University, Ryerson University and University of Toronto. The Charrette was open to students and recent graduates in architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, environmental design, urban design, industrial design and graphic design.
Entitled Archipelago, the 2015 edition invited students from these various design disciplines to explore the future possibilities for Île Sainte-Hélène and Île Notre-Dame. This project looked back 50 years at the spirit of Expo 67 and the legacy of the islands, and at the same time looked ahead 50 years to explore possible futures for the archipelago. The principal challenge posed by the Charrette was to recognise and energise the heritage of the archipelago, its potential, and its significance.
In formulating the challenge, Professor Sinisha Brdar from the École de design UQÀM explained that “the archipelago is the ideal setting for thinking imaginatively. It is both a geographical situation that describes an underexploited reality of Montreal’s islands, and a productive metaphor for a distributed network of distinct urban nuclei. This metaphor describes a constellation of associated, yet radically different autonomous worlds, conditions and objects. The archipelago offers an imaginative model of urban interpretation, as explored by O.M. Ungers and Koolhaas. This model is echoed in a biological metaphor of different organs within a single body. The notion of relational dynamics between living things – the very essence of ecology and urbanity – casts the archipelago as the ideal setting for exploring ecological and urban models.”
In this context, nearly 250 students, grouped into 64 teams, presented competing visions to the jury.
The First Prize is awarded to Team # 06, represented by Gillian Walczak, Kamila Lukus, Jeniffer Milburn and Carolyn Gillespie from Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, with the project entitled ReGenesis.
The jury was composed of Randy Cohen, architect at Atelier Big City, Christina Contandriopoulos, Professor at UQÀM, Michel Langevin, landscape architect at NIP paysage, Alessandra Ponte, Professor at Université de Montréal, and Monique Savoie, Chair and Artistic Director of the Société des arts technologiques (SAT). All of the projects in competition are viewable on the Charrette’s website: www.cca.qc.ca/charrette/2015.