By Canadian Architect On Dec 23, 2012
Canadian Architect announces the winners of the 2012 Awards of Excellence, given each year to architects and architectural graduates for buildings in the design stage. One of only two national award programs devoted exclusively to architecture, the Awards of Excellence have recognized significant building projects in Canada on an annual basis since 1968.
This year’s winners have been selected by a jury consisting of Donald Chong of Williamson Chong Architects in Toronto, Marie-Chantal Croft of Coarchitecture in Quebec City, and Bruce Haden of DIALOG in Vancouver.
Awards are given for architectural design excellence. Jurors considered response to the program, site, geographical and social context, and evaluated physical organization, structure, materials and environmental features.
Nine Awards of Excellence were given to the following firms:
* Atelier Big City, Fichten Soiferman et Associés, L’OEUF for the Centre Culturel de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal, Quebec
* BattersbyHowat Architects Inc. for the UBC Geological Field School in Oliver, British Columbia
* Dundee Kilmer Integrated Design Team: Joint Venture of architectsAlliance and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects in association with Daoust Lestage Inc. and MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects for the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan American Games Athletes’ Village | Canary District in Toronto, Ontario
* L’OEUF for the House in Four Fields in La Conception, Quebec
* The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative Inc. + el dorado inc (associated architectural firm) for the 1st Street SW Underpass Enhancement in Calgary, Alberta
* Kobayashi + Zedda Architects for the Children’s First Centre in Inuvik, Northwest Territories
* Paul Laurendeau, Francois R Beauchesne Architectes en Consortium for the Ampthithéâtre Trois-Rivières sur Saint-Laurent in Trois-Rivières, Quebec
* Zeidler Partnership Architects for the GO Roof, Union Station in Toronto, Ontario
* T B A | Thomas Balaban Architecte for the Spa Le St-Jude in Montreal, Quebec
Two Awards of Merit recognized the following teams:
* Lemay (LemayLab) for the Mount Stephen Club in Montreal, Quebec
* gh3 for the Real Time Control Building #3 in Edmonton, Alberta
This year, two students were selected as award winners for their respective graduating thesis projects.
* Danielle Berwick of the University of Toronto received an Award of Excellence for Theatrics of Psychiatry.
* Andrew Neuman of the University of British Columbia received an Award of Excellence for Human Space: Density for Community and the Socio-Ecological Neighbourhood.
Exclusive coverage will be granted to award winners in the December 2012 issue of Canadian Architect, and each winning architect and respective client will receive a framed certificate. Student winners will receive a framed certificate in addition to a cash award of $500.
Canadian Architect wishes to thank all firms and students who participated in this year’s awards. It is the enthusiastic involvement of everyone that makes each year a great success.
2012 Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence winners announced
Greening the Infrastructure at Benny Farm, Montreal, Canada
Authors: Daniel S. Pearl with Mark Poddubiuk and Bernard Olivier, L’OEUF, Montreal, Canada
This community-driven initiative is merited for exploring an innovative merger of urban, architectural, and landscape design that serves to foreground the benefits of cost-efficient, sustainable augmentation of infrastructural services.
Applauded is the active involvement of stakeholders – owners, tenants, and users – in the planning and execution of the neighborhood upgrade.
The inventive proposal for public and private financing of the overall venture serves to boost the communal economy while empowering residents with stronger managerial leverage over their residential conditions.
A premium is placed on environmental and social sensitivity across a variety of scales, from broad concerns for contextual compatibility of the interventions to the fine-grained detailing of individual structures on the site.
The knowledge gained from this integrative strategy is transferable to a large array of different conditions and circumstances.
The project could therefore function as a reference, if not a catalyst, for similar endeavors elsewhere.
Also commended is the ambitious vision put forward to cultivate public awareness as to the benefits of such energy saving measures, which simultaneously galvanizes interest concerning the advantages of collective action in rehabilitating the civic realm.
In this way, the project contributes a valuable model for responsible and imaginative joint investment, offering insight to a range of robust technologies as well as material processes that increase building performance beyond conventional standards.
Of equal significance is the strong ethical stance expressed in the commitment to long-term maintenance and monitoring of the neighborhood’s vitality.
http://www.holcimfoundation.org/media/journalists.html.
USD 220,000 total prizes were awarded to the best projects submitted in North America in the first Holcim Awards competition for sustainable construction projects. The competition, organised by the Swiss Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in collaboration with five of the world’s leading technical universities, aims to promote sustainable approaches to construction.
In his speech at the OECD Roundtable on Sustainable Development, the Chairman and member of the Advisory Board of the Foundation, Rt. Hon. Simon Upton
(France/New Zealand), said that although sustainability is a concept that many business people and politicians seem to be associated with, it often lacks content or coherence. “The Holcim Awards are important precisely because they challenge participants to think about sustainable solutions in all their dimensions, right from the foundations,” he said.
Contribution to sustainable development
The Holcim Awards ceremony for sustainable construction projects to be built in Canada and the United States took place at Rowes Wharf, an architectural and historical landmark also known as the Boston Gateway. Nearly 200 diplomats, architects, association leaders and business representatives attended the event. In his welcome address, the Chairman of Holcim Ltd and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Holcim Foundation, Rolf Soiron (Switzerland), emphasized that progress and sustainability are closely linked to the Holcim name: “Through the Holcim Foundation, we are significantly promoting the public’s understanding of sustainable construction, which extends beyond technical solutions,” he said.
The dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning and chair of the Holcim Awards jury for North America, Professor Adèle Naudé Santos (USA), emphasized the need to broaden the vision: “Sustainable construction is much more about process and behavior than about buildings. It must inspire urban planning in a special way,” she said.
The first prize of US$100,000 was awarded to a hybrid urban, architectural and landscape design that guides the sustainable construction and renovation of 187 housing units. The “environmentally conscious infrastructure of Benny Farm” in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, incorporates socio-economic processes and low-cost sustainable measures such as water treatment, geothermal heating and cooling systems, as well as waste management provisions.
The president of the regional jury, Professor Santos, said that the participation of Daniel S. Pearl of L’OEUF/Pearl Poddubiuk and Associates, Architects (Canada), showed an ambitious social vision to integrate stakeholders and go beyond the scale of individual interventions. The project was also commended for its financial viability and its contribution to neighbourhood planning, taking into account aesthetics. The project has an ambitious social vision to effectively integrate stakeholders and offers potential cost reductions in health care and public services.
http://www.holcimfoundation.org/media/journalists.html.