News   Apr 03, 2020
 7.2K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
 7.4K     0 
News   Apr 02, 2020
 2.5K     0 

General Architecture & Design Discussion

Daveography

Administrator
Staff member
Member Bio
Joined
Sep 22, 2015
Messages
10,218
Reaction score
23,059
Location
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The list of designs for new municipal buildings in Edmonton is starting to read like a who’s who of Canadian architecture.

Names like Patkau of Vancouver, Teeple Architects of Toronto and Hughes Condon Marler are getting the attention of students of architecture. Each of these firms, and more, are starting to build up a portfolio of work here.

Carol Belanger, an architect working for the City of Edmonton, oversees these projects and helped rewrite the city’s procurement process to allow architects bidding on municipal projects to be given an edge based on awards and peer recognition within the field.

Full Story (Edmonton Journal)
 
Related Story:

Still on the drawing board: More Edmonton facilities designed with style
A push by the City of Edmonton to hire architects to design more stylish public buildings is seeing results.

Architect Carol Belanger, who works for the city and has been instrumental in the process to hire more top-ranked architects for projects, has even created a driving tour that shows off examples of municipal facilities that are both attractive and functional.

There are more in the works. Here is a look at a few cool municipal projects still on the drawing board.

NW Police Station:

police_low-rez-e1454090024108.jpg


Calder Library:

the-proposed-calder-library-by-architects-atalier-tag-and-ma.jpeg


Capilano Library:

uploaded-by-elise-stolte-email-estolteedmontonjournal11.jpeg


All photos source: Edmonton Journal / City of Edmonton. See Full Story for additional renderings (Edmonton Journal)
 

Attachments

  • police_low-rez-e1454090024108.jpg
    police_low-rez-e1454090024108.jpg
    632.8 KB · Views: 1,094
  • the-proposed-calder-library-by-architects-atalier-tag-and-ma.jpeg
    the-proposed-calder-library-by-architects-atalier-tag-and-ma.jpeg
    117.6 KB · Views: 1,015
  • uploaded-by-elise-stolte-email-estolteedmontonjournal11.jpeg
    uploaded-by-elise-stolte-email-estolteedmontonjournal11.jpeg
    137.7 KB · Views: 1,028
Edmonton city council’s approval of a developer’s plan to build a massive residential tower in Oliver last week is just the latest chapter in an ongoing discussion about how they city’s buildings are designed.

Regency Developments’ plan to build the 45-storey Emerald Tower received approval from the majority of city councillors but didn’t get the vote of Mayor Don Iveson and some other well-known faces at city hall.

“I think we have a long way to go to get much more sophisticated architecture,” Coun. Scott McKeen recently said about the state of Edmonton’s building designs. McKeen was one of four lawmakers at city hall to vote against approving the Oliver tower.

Full Story (Global Edmonton)
 
August 17, 2016

Creative lighting can highlight Edmonton's beautiful and unique heritage buildings, especially during the winter months. A new pilot project, driven by the City’s WinterCity Office and Heritage Unit, will match funding for creative lighting installations on heritage buildings, up to $50,000.

The pilot project will focus primarily on designated structures that are particularly significant or are located in prominent locations with maximum exposure to the public. The project has a total of $250,000 to disburse. A maximum of three large projects will be approved, requiring the full $50,000 support, with the remainder supporting smaller projects.

Applications are now available online and funding will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

For more information:
edmonton.ca/pilotlightingproject

Media contact:
Isla Tanaka
WinterCity Planner
Community Inclusion and Investment
780-442-5012

http://www.mailoutinteractive.com/Industry/View.aspx?id=831112&q=1071864060&qz=6f4299
 
On Sept. 1, 600 giddy kids will get their first glimpse at St. John XXIII Elementary and Junior High school in Windermere.

One of five gleaming new Edmonton buildings welcoming students this fall, the Catholic school is the only one in the city offering a new French immersion program this year.

“We can do anything here,” principal Michael Kovacs said Wednesday while excitedly waving reporters around the building.

Full Story (Edmonton Journal)
 
It’s no slam dunk that a new office tower will make our downtown any better. For years, they made things worse.

We built more than a dozen office towers in the 1970s, but our downtown went from mediocre to terrible from 1960 to 1990. The skyscrapers were partly to blame. Most of them made our downtown sidewalks even more empty and less hospitable.

For one thing, folks stuck to the tower pedways rather than brave the sidewalks. For another, at their base, our skyscrapers are generally walled off from the sidewalk. They present massive sheets of tinted glass running from sky to ground, shutting out human contact between the indoors and the outdoors, and creating hellish wind tunnels on our coldest, breeziest days.

So how do our new towers, the 28-storey Enbridge Centre and the 29-storey Edmonton Tower, stack up?

Full Story (Edmonton Journal)
 
Designers pitch mood lighting as next downtown evolution
Sorry, Candy Cane Lane enthusiasts — Edmonton’s new creative winter lighting strategy is aimed at a subtler, gentler lighting scheme.

Expect lights that are less showy and more welcoming, less bright and more warm.

It’s about being “a better neighbour,” said Janet Riopel, president of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, whose historic bank building on Jasper Avenue and 100 Street will be the first project under Edmonton’s creative lighting pilot project.

It will get spotlights up the columns of the front facade with light just reaching the seventh floor, and diffuse light spilling down over the signs to pool on the sidewalk.

“It will create that warm, welcome, inviting space,” she said.

credit-kasian-architecturecutline-the-edmonton-chamber-of1.jpeg


http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/designers-pitch-mood-lighting-as-next-downtown-evolution
 
It’s easy to feel lonely and crowded at the same time in the type of towers going up across Edmonton’s most-populated neighbourhoods.

Meeting a neighbour in a cramped elevator is uncomfortable, socially awkward and, once inside a condo unit, only pigeons walk by the window.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, says a group of researchers who studied neuroscience, sociology, environmental psychology, architecture and public health to create a new set of design guidelines for high-density living.

“It’s up to us to build cities that bring us together or push us apart,” said Paty Rios, who led the design effort for the Vancouver-based consulting firm Happy City. The guidelines were released in June and are already starting to influence Edmonton planners.

natural-light-and-comfort-jpg2.jpg

Building design can reduce social isolation by creating frequent, natural interaction between a small group of residents. According to Happy City researchers, shared activities in a common courtyard, such as gardens, bike repair and a dog run can facilitate this. MARIANNE AMODIO ARCHITECTURE / TOMO SPACES

Rios’ Toolkit is a set of rules that let people evaluate new designs for buildings and shared public spaces — involving everything from good sound insulation, to the way entrances are designed and neighbours interact.

“We want to bring people together, but not all the people together … It’s about creating clusters, sub-clusters,” said Rios, describing ways to make casual interaction comfortable and frequent.

“When we feel our personal space isn’t being invaded, we can communicate in a much more positive way,” said Rios, describing the brief hello that gradually becomes a “How is your daughter?” that evolves into a meaningful relationship.

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...r-approach-to-high-density-living-in-edmonton
 
See the city like a 'nerd': Design Week wants you to think about how Edmonton is built

story-311208-366014-image-rendered.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg

OMAR MOSLEH / METRO
Members of the DIALOG architecture, design and engineering firm show off their City Blocks project, part of Edmonton Design Week.


A group of city planners, designers and engineers is working to change how the average person thinks about Edmonton, one city block at a time.

As part of Edmonton Design Week, design firm DIALOG is opening its doors to welcome the public to check out two installations: City Blocks, an interactive project that depicts the city through a series of 16” cubes, and Making of the Museum, a case study showing how different disciplines such as design and architecture come together to form buildings.

“I think the entire thrust behind the project was getting members of the public to think about the city the way we do,” said Michael Zabinski, an intern architect at DIALOG.

“We’re kind of nerds — we look at streets, sidewalks and trees so much differently … We always see what’s wrong with it and how it can be better,” he added.

The hope is to transfer that method of thinking to everyday citizens to encourage them to engage with the city and get involved with how it’s shaped. Attendees can pull the cubes apart and rearrange the city as they see fit.

“The design of our city is the result of a whole bunch of decisions that we as Edmontonians are making … you can make a choice about what kind of city you want to live in,” said Tai Ziola, a principal at DIALOG.

“Some are more technical, some are more artsy, but eventually all of those threads have to come together to make a beautiful design into reality.”

http://www.metronews.ca/news/edmont...you-to-think-about-how-edmonton-is-built.html
 
I found this piece in the Edmonton Journal -- https://edmontonjournal.com/news/lo...ildings-that-could-also-use-the-wrecking-ball -- and I am forced to comment. Keith Gerein opines on the demolition of the Baccarat and suggests that there are five other buildings in Edmonton that should face the wrecking ball. I am in 100% agreement on the casino building -- no need for additional viewpoints there (and I suspect that the majority of Edmontonians align with this thinking). The other five, however, puts Keith a long way off base and suggests that his discerning eye could use some focus.
#1. The Legislature Annex due to its historical use of curtainwall and its design idiom underscoring the "International Style" should not be demolished; rather it could be reappointed and partially redesigned to bring it in line with other buildings in its surround. Perhaps save the skin on the north and east sides and place an addition on the south and west faces that twins the floor area in a stepped facade bringing it in tune with the promenade. Definitely not the wrecking ball -- the building is substantial and well worth preservation.
#2 The Coliseum, too can be reconfigured and repurposed to another use. Take the concrete skin off the building and add to the floor area. This building is PERFECTLY positioned to act as a transportation hub for Edmonton. The CN Passenger station could be relocated here along with a Greyhound-plus bus station. The City already has a major bus node next door and the LRT is also on the doorstep. While Edmonton very wisely removed the Municipal airport, the new aircraft idiom that brings transportation drones and electric flying machines into the modern context, there is room here for the development of a very progressive air-passenger transportation hub. It is easy to vision how the Coliseum building -- expanded in scope -- could make this area a big WIN for Edmonton -- it would be one-of-a-kind in Canada (and likely the world).
#3 The Hub, unless it has changed in character over the years, was way ahead of its time, functionality-wise. Mixing living quarters with retail and hospitality in a university setting -- a near perfect concept. Doesn't really matter what the architecture says, this building HAS to stay. If you feel like knocking something down, Keith, MAN, I can think of one in Edmonton's CHEST of unheralded non-masterpieces that, ER, excuse me, has recently arrived on the scene and fills the bill perfectly(see if you can guess which building I'm thinking of).
#4 Chancery Hall could use a complete makeover, no doubt, but it doesn't need to be razed in order to do that. It kind of reminds me of the gov't area office building that Kennedy took on as a repurposing-to-residential project. This one could be a second cousin to that effort, located right downtown. Please no wrecking ball.
#5 And Gene Dub's new hotel in the quarters is an architectural masterpiece -- sure it was maybe a too-soon experiment at Boyle Street rejuvenation, but it is very site-sensitive and will one day soon come into its own.
Keith, I suggest maybe economics as a new pass-time for your critiques.
 
I have attached this TED Talks video -- Peter Calthorpe is a mentor of mine and from an Urban Design perspective has most things right and is the "father" of "New Urbanism" and "Transit Oriented Development". Well worth watching.
 
Elon Musk made a great comment about the expectations of society and underscored why Planning Departments should NOT be involved in the Design Game. When Henry Ford asked people what they would like to see in terms of transportation improvements, something like 96% of them said that they would like to see a breeding program that would develop stronger and faster horses. Almost no one was considering the automobile as a viable solution for mass transportation. Elon's point: if you leave decisions up to society, expectations for creative solutions will be very low. City Planning thinks that the best route to Planning and Design solutions is the engagement of the Public. They did it with Northlands and so many others and invariably come up with the most uninteresting, bland, hackneyed solutions imaginable. They should transfer the whole lot of them to the Accounting Department. Imagine that you have just graduated from university in a course related to design and that you have very creative ideas -- I doubt that you would then tell yourself that it would sure be nice to have an exciting job working for the City.
 
 

Back
Top