OCT
Facteur D is Montreal’s latest celebration of architecture, urban planning and design. The recent inaugural event saw 500 people participate. From the 47 finalists seven projects were awarded first prize in their respective categories. Some of the winners have been featured in this blog before.
OCT
With an enthusiastic owner, keen to commission a healthy house that would help her to reduce her ecological footprint, things previously out of reach become possible. This is the first house in Quebec aiming for a Platinum LEED Certificate, but to get there, the design team have not had to sacrifice the quality of the spaces they have created.
OCT
The idea of stone being a permanent building material is a notion that has existed as long as man has built. In this house from 2008 Kariouk Associates have used industrial concrete block as a masonry veneer. The impression is almost that of a rusticated “stone box”, and suggests a firm foundation for the family. A rock of stability in a world of impermanence.
SEP
The school of Image Arts, part of Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada has had a face lift, or perhaps that should be a new face, to create the Ryerson Image Centre.
SEP
In parts of Canada and Scandinavia it seems that almost everybody has a second home in the forest or beside a lake. The beginnings of such houses can often be traced to a fishing hut, a hunting lodge, or a log cabin that provided primitive shelter for hunters and foragers in their quest to find food. As foraging trips became a drive to the supermarket, cabins were used more in a recreational capacity. A place for city dwellers to reacquaint themselves with the land. As general living standards improved, so did the facilities in the cabin. Central heating, showers, double glazing and a fitted kitchen were all added to the cabins, often in a lumpen and haphazard way.
La Luge by YH2 is a progression of this trend. As architecture, it is an elegant and sophisticated rendering of a forest dwelling, but what makes it so exciting and desirable is that it caries the spirit of the log cabin, and with it a chance to be close to nature whilst enjoying the sumptuousness of a city penthouse apartment. Read more
