AWARDS
New RAIC Awards.
New awards programs for Contract Documentation and Innovation in Architecture were introduced at this year’s RAIC Festival of Architecture in Halifax. Awards of Excellence for Contract Documentation were granted to Taylor Hariri Pontarini Architects for the McKinsey & Company Offices, Toronto; to Saia et Barbarese, architectes for Le Pavillon Prsident-Kennedy l’Universit du Qubec Montral; to Roger Hughes + Partners, Architects for the Walnut Grove Aquatic Centre, Langley, B.C.; and to Architectura Planning Architecture Interiors, Inc. for the RCMP Northern B.C. Headquarters, Prince George, B.C.
Recipients of the Innovations in Architecture Awards were Aedifica for the Locoshop Angus, a reclamation of a brownfield industrial site in Montreal; Patkau Architects Inc. for La Petite Maison de Weekend, a compact sustainable weekend house; and A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Company for a blast-resistant wall at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem.
Canadian Architect wins award.
At the 47th annual Kenneth R. Wilson (KRW) Canadian Business Press Awards held in Toronto in early June, Canadian Architect was honoured with a Silver Award in the prestigious Best Issue category for the January 2000 issue, A Century of Canadian Architecture. The magazine also received two Top Five Awards, one for Best News Coverage (“Up Against the Wall” by Frances Bula, September 2000) and one for Best Photograph (“Conveyor to Silos on Lake Ontario, Blue Circle Cement, Bowmanville, Ontario, 1999” by Peter MacCallum, May 2000).
Rod Robbie receives honorary degree.
Roderick Robbie, a principal at the Toronto firm Robbie/Young + Wright Architects Inc., was awarded an honorary doctorate at the convocation ceremony for the College of Arts and Science, the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Computer Science of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in May. Following a two-year stint in Peter Dickinson’s Toronto office, Robbie’s body of work includes, with Ashworth Robbie Vaughan and Williams Architects and Town Planners, the Canadian Government Pavilion at Montreal’s Expo 67, and, with RAN International, SkyDome, Toronto’s retractable roof stadium. Robbie/Young + Wright is currently working with Alsop Architects of London on the Design Centre for the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.
PROJECTS
Midtown condominiums for Toronto.
Two towers proposed for the midtown Toronto intersection of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue will be, at 54 and 47 storeys, among the city’s tallest residential buildings. The towers, designed by Peter Ellis of the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (in association with Young + Wright Architects Inc. of Toronto), will sit atop a five-storey townhouse podium with retail at grade along Yonge Street. The architects maintain that the design, which is based on Chicago and New York skyscrapers from the 1920s and ’30s–notably the modernized Gothic buildings of Raymond Hood–will combine with the podium to mitigate the towers’ bulk by drawing the eye upward. The project faces a lengthy approval process, and its height and density–both of which exceed current bylaws–have met with opposition from local residents.
Circus school in Montreal.
Montreal firm LeMoyne, Lapointe, Magne architectes et urbanistes have won a Quebec-wide competition for the design of a new building for the cole national de Cirque. In addition to the winning firm, a short list consisting of six finalists included ABCP architecture et urbanisme; Affleck, de la Riva, architectes with Ttrault Parent Languedoc et associs; Les architectes Fortin Gilbert Julien Ouellet; Pierre Thibault and DMG architectes; and Provencher Roy et associs, architectes. The facility will be located in the Cit des Arts du Cirque in the quartier Saint-Michel, Old Montreal.
New campus for Centennial College.
Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, in association with Stone Kohn McQuire Vogt, both of Toronto, will design a new $58 million campus for Centennial College. To be located at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, the facility is expected to accommodate up to 3,400 students in health sciences, business, and engineering technology. The campus is scheduled to open in May, 2003.
IN BRIEF
Canadians explore U.K. potential.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) led 13 Canadian companies on a business mission to the United Kingdom to establish common interests in providing affordable housing. The design flexibility of Canadian frame houses allows British builders to adapt techniques for creating affordable units with speed to compete in the European housing market. With U.K. construction changing from site-based masonry housing to more efficient off-site manufactured products and components, Canadian businesses will have an opportunity to develop networks with British building professionals.
ADDENDUM
In our May 2001 issue, the credit for the illustration accompanying the Viewpoint was omitted. The detail drawing should bear the credit “CMHC Best Practice Guide: Wood-Frame Envelopes.”
In our June 2001 issue, credits for College Library, which received a Mention in the Theoretical Rendering category of the Art of CAD, should include Bryan Versteeg and Herb Wagner in addition to Chris Bullen.