Table of contents for July - August 2017 in AZURE

IN TORONTO, where generic condos are sprouting like weeds, offering a unique and desirable lifestyle to attract urbanites requires ingenuity. One such mixed-use development may be on to something. The Plant, a 10-storey building near trendy Queen Street West, replaces the standard party room and pool amenities with an industrial kitchen for hosting ambitious dinner parties. The communal kitchen, along with an adjacent 150-square-metre terrace, was conceived around the idea of micro-agriculture, which refers to farming on five acres or less. (Much less, in this case.) The idea isn’t new, but weaving vegetable growing and restaurant-grade cooking facilities right into a development plan is something that hasn’t been seen before. The overarching goal, says developer Alex Speigel, is for owners to participate in urban agriculture by taking a “terrace-to-table” approach.…

NINA-MARIE LISTER As founding principal of Toronto studio Plandform, landscape architect Nina- Marie Lister promotes the fusion of ecology with urbanism, planning and design. She is a professor and graduate program director at the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University, where she founded and directs the Ecological Design Lab. MICHAEL VANDERBYL Since launching Vanderbyl Design almost 45 years ago, the San Francisco designer has had a hand in virtually every discipline, from graphic design to interiors, fashion and furniture. Teknion, Esprit and IBM are just some of his clients. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum and SFMOMA. ALESSANDRO MUNGE Founding principal of Studio Munge in Toronto, Alessandro Munge is among Canada’s top interior designers of luxury retail spaces, restaurants…

AUDAIN ART MUSEUM Whistler, Canada Firm Patkau Architects, Vancouver, Canada Team John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, David Shone and Michael Thorpe with Mike Green, Marc Holland, Cam Koroluk, Dimitri Koubatis, Tom Schroeder, Luke Stern, Peter Suter and David Zeibin THE ALPINE RESORT town of Whistler, British Columbia, has a gingerbread-village-come-to-life vibe, even when summer turns downhill skiers into mountain bikers. Modern is not a word that would be used to describe the town’s architecture. That changed last year with the opening of the Audain Art Museum, designed by Vancouver firm Patkau Architects: a two-storey L-shaped building that weaves through a forested site just off the main pedestrian strip. Built as a venue for a vast collection of West-Coast art owned by developer and philanthropist Michael Audain, the museum is home to…

PEOPLE’S CANOPY Various Locations Firm People’s Architecture Office, Beijing, China Team Zang Feng, James Shen and He Zhe with Jiang Hao, Xu Xi and Charlotte Yu PUBLIC SPACES are hard to get right. Lots of cities provide them, but seldom do they become the magnetic gathering places they were intended to be. Enter the People’s Canopy, an expandable stretch of cloth on wheels. Accommodating up to 10 cyclists, the device rolls through streets to a desired location and unfurls to create an instant marketplace, event tent or sun shelter for just hanging out. At 10 metres wide, and unfolding to a length of 12 metres, its red parasol consists of little more than PVC fabric and a crank set. Turning the traditional canopy into a participatory affair, the People’s Canopy…

PHOTOGRAPHER’S LOFT New York, U.S. Firm Desai Chia Architecture, New York, U.S. Team Katherine Chia and Arjun Desai DESAI CHIA ARCHITECTURE has a gift for artful minimalism and an obsession with exacting detail. This 465-square-metre loft, in one of New York’s coveted castiron industrial buildings, is a powerful case in point. With a tightly controlled material palette, principals Katherine Chia and Arjun Desai have created a drop-dead gorgeous hybrid of art gallery and home. Thirty-centimetre-wide oak planks provide reassuring warmth underfoot, and then – positioned vertically – serve as wall panelling and cabinetry above. Fused resin panels form seamless bathroom walls, niches, sinks, vanities and shower rooms. Wooden shelves and a blackened-steel kitchen island are so stripped-back they read almost as art objects in themselves, and serve as visual extensions…

HANGOUT COLLECTION Studio EOOS, Vienna, Austria Manufacturer Keilhauer, Toronto, Canada PLUS WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE COLLABORATION AND FLEXIBILITY have been buzzwords in office design for as long as there have been millennials insisting that collectivity and sharing are the future of work. But what has remained somewhat elusive is how to make these group work environments comfortable and attractive, while also allowing employees to actually get their jobs done. This difficult balance is achieved by Keilhauer’s Hangout Collection, a six-piece system that includes sofas, ottomans, stools, tables, chairs and modular benching that extends indefinitely; the intention is to have it wind its way through an open space like an endless park bench, offering up various ways to work solo or together. It is a bit tricky pinpointing what makes Hangout…

PULLED PLASTER PANELS Studio Young Projects, New York, U.S. Designers Jon Cielo, Jon Fogler and Bryan Young with Mariam Alshamali, Samantha Eby, Marie Hortemo, Nayoung Kim, Meredith Kole, Noah Marciniak, Nat Oppenheimer, Susanna Pho, John Ryan and Ray Wang PLUS WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE FEW ARCHITECTS THESE DAYS have much use for the art of traditional plasterwork, which is typically used to create such features as crown moulding. In that void, Brooklyn architect Bryan Young sensed opportunity. Traditionally, plaster moulding is created by pulling a wooden knife along a straight edge to give wet plaster its desired form. But what would happen if you changed the profile and disposed of the straight edge? To investigate, Young designed a knife whose profile is a mix of scooped and sawtooth, then developed…

ON THE WEST SIDE of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, a multi-purpose arts hub in Prague’s trendy Holešovice district, a bullet-shaped colossus peeks out above the rooftop of the all-white volume. Made from wood and steel, the zeppelin-inspired addition, called Gulliver, appears to have drifted down from the sky onto the roof, where it is now permanently suspended above a central courtyard. DOX is a former machine-making factory, and it was the building’s minimalist architecture that first stirred the imagination of founder and director Leoš Valka, who hatched the idea of adding a “parasitic” structure that would contrast with the austere concrete-and-glass aesthetic. His vision was brought to life by Hut Architektury, a local firm led by Martin Rajniš (who is known for his woodstack structures) and David Kubik.…

Projects and concepts for rethinking the hardest-working room in the house IN A RURAL community near Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, where inland Europe descends toward the Mediterranean, there’s a 16thcentury church with a steep, slender spire, and a gabled barn clad in dark wood. Situated between these structures, Chimney House nods to each. But in a clever bit of visual reduction, it takes only its silhouette from the familiar form of a pitchedroof house. Architects Aljoša Dekleva and Tina Gregori? of local firm Dekleva Gregori? have taken the notion of the traditional chimney, present in the silhouette, and stretched it the length of the building, using the exaggerated size to accommodate a bank of skylights that draws natural light into the interior. Meanwhile, the entirety of the facade, including the roof,…

FAHOUSE Eastern Townships, Canada Firm Jean Verville Architecte, Montreal, Canada Team Jean Verville IF MR. TUMNUS FROM NARNIA were a modernist, he’d live in Fahouse. Located in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, the three-storey family dwelling reconciles midcentury elegance with storybook whimsy. The latter is the calling card of Montreal architect Jean Verville, who has a tendency to spice things up with touches of weirdness that unburden his projects of the seriousness that sometimes sucks the life out of good design. His minimalism is flawless, but it is also full of life. Fahouse (the “Fa” is short for “family”) draws on the familiar A-frame typology, but with two exaggerated gables – one small, one large – nestled together like two conifers in a dense forest. To heighten the theatrical effect, Fahouse is…

GEMMA OBSERVATORY Central New Hampshire, U.S. Firm Anmahian Winton Architects, Cambridge, U.S. Team Alex Anmahian, Anika Gramsey, Mazen Sakr, Travis Williams and Nick Winton LIKE A SECLUDED CASTLE, Gemma Observatory stands tall among the mountains of central New Hampshire, its zinc cladding a kind of armour against severe weather, and its remote location ideal for ensuring visitors get what they come for: a pitch-black sky for observing stars. Anmahian Winton Architects specializes in these kinds of unusual forms, which resemble follies at first glance, but are actually based on maximizing performance. Gemma hardly resembles an observatory. While it’s more like a Daliesque fortress with a rotating turret, it nonetheless adheres to the rigorous demands of contemporary astronomy. The 111-square-metre building is situated in a “dark zone” where artificial light sources…

QUZHOU LUMING PARK Quzhou City, China Firm Turenscape, Beijing, China Team Zhengmin Gao, Yujie Liu, Xiaojing Lu, Kening Pan and Kongjian Yu with Yuwei Gao, Congzhi Li, Sen Li, Defeng Lu, Ronghua Mei, Nan Meng, Weijing Ning, Yue Qin, Ya Sang, Xingda Wang, Su Zhao and Ziyu Zhao PLUS WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE IN A COUNTRY where development waits for no one, the government of Quzhou, a Chinese metropolis of 2.5 million and counting, put up its hand and said, “Stop.” Quzhou had already earned the status of National Eco-Model City for its efforts to curb rampant growth along Shiliang Creek. But the creek’s west bank was at the front lines of industrial creep and increasingly under threat. In response, Beijing landscape architects Turenscape developed a sustainable and seductive solution…

THE HUB PERFORMANCE AND EXHIBITION CENTER Shanghai, China Firm Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, Shanghai, China Team Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri with Ellen Chen, Xiaowen Chen, Lorna de Santos, Peter Eland, Cristina Felipe, Isabelle Lee, Brian Lo, Karen Lok, Christine Neri, Sophia Panova, Siwei Park, Litien Poeng, Yiran Wang, Dirk Weiblen, Haiou Xin, Zhao Yun, Mark Zhang, Yutian Zhang and Josef Zhou SQUINT, AND YOU WILL SEE a crag topped with a giant aerie, or a sinkhole overtaken by ancient tree roots. But here in Hongqiao, a booming western suburb of Shanghai, that would be impossible. The HUB Performance Exhibition Center is part of a mixed-use development incorporating an airport, a massive rail junction and 700,000 square metres of shopping. It is the cultural heart and the highlight of…

INFRA-STRUCTURE Designer Vincent Van Duysen, Antwerp, Belgium Manufacturer Flos, Brescia, Italy INFRA-STRUCTURE IS A GO-ANYWHERE, do-anything lighting system for delivering illumination precisely where it’s needed. What more could you want? General ambient lighting, focused down lighting, targeted spotlights – Infra- Structure does it all with a 24-volt tubular framework of extruded aluminum and magnetic fixtures that can be added, repositioned and removed in a snap. The brainchild of Vincent Van Duysen, Belgium’s reigning king of earthy minimalism, the system is inspired by Bauhaus architecture, and feels compellingly straightforward despite the technological wizardry involved. Gone are the fussy fasteners and distracting components prevalent in so many track lighting systems. In their place hangs a rectilinear network of pipes with a pleasingly industrial feel, sprouting clutterfree luminaires. Whereas many minimalists are focused…

SOHO DOORS Designer Giuseppe Bavuso, Seregno, Italy Manufacturer Rimadesio, Giussano, Italy PLUS WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE IN THE WORLD OF ROOM DIVIDERS, Rimadesio has cornered the market. These walls carve up space with such refinement they are almost invisible – though certainly not unnoticeable. Soho is one of the Italian manufacturer’s most delicate-looking dividers yet – a metal-and-glass take on shoji – with window-like frames surrounding panes of super-thin glass. The dividers appear as light as the air surrounding them, and they look like they could easily break with the wrong kind of tug. But drill down into the components and engineering, and another picture emerges. Soho’s panels silently glide along a singular telescopic rail, forgoing a bottom track that could get stuck or mar the floor of an otherwise…

EXTRACTION Venice, Italy Firm OPSYS, Toronto, Canada Team Pierre Bélanger with Christopher Alton, Catherine Crowston, Tiffany Dang, Genevieve Ennis, Kevin Hume, Zannah Matson, Colin Ripley, Geoff Thün and Kathy Velikov “The fact that people would be on their knees looking through this beautiful little gold eye port to see the show is amazing. When design is powerful, this is what it can do.” – Michael Vanderbyl FOR THE LAST WHILE, the Canada Pavilion in Venice’s Giardini di Castello has been closed for renovations – a fact that has left curators with the prospect of designing exhibits without a space to house them. In 2016, landscape urbanist Pierre Bélanger seized this dilemma as an opportunity to place his installation not only outside, but underground as well. Visitors who came across a…

This past April, as the green of spring transformed much of Canada, a bright red zigzag appeared in the snowy tundra outside Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, one of the country’s northernmost towns. Mimicking the patterns of Inuvialuit Delta braid appliqué, local artist Maureen Gruben worked with a team of community members to weave giant stitches of scarlet broadcloth through more than 100 holes drilled into the ice, winding across the expanse of Pingo Canadian Landmark toward the settlement in the distance. Stitching My Landscape is a visual expression of Gruben’s desire to hold together the place from which she draws her inspiration: a town on the front line of climate change, where rising temperatures are eroding and reshaping the Arctic coastline. Part of LandMarks 2017 (a curated series of art projects…

For over 40 years, Studio Fuksas, led by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, has denied having a style, emphasizing instead its flexibility and singular approach to each project, whether it is the one-million-square-metre Fiere (2015) in Milan, the site of Salone del Mobile; an airport terminal at Shenzen Bao’an International Airport (2013); or a goldaccented beer glass (2017). With offices in Rome, Paris and Shenzen, Mr. and Mrs. Fuksas have an international presence defined by a breadth of materials and a purposeful use of contrasts. As a young man, Massimiliano Fuksas, who is now 73, wanted to be a poet. Becoming an architect, he says, was a natural extension of that desire. Ahead of attending the AZ Awards Gala as Guest of Honour, Fuksas discusses with us how personal expression informs…

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU is a proverb that could typically apply to a kitchen. Not so with this system by Riccardo Randi. Dubbed Very Simple Kitchen (VSK), the Bologna designer’s idea for a kit-of-parts kitchen germinated when he moved into an apartment that was devoid of any kind of cooking space. This led him to fabricate his own – one that he didn’t want to leave behind when he left. “I think the concept of nomadic furniture is really strong right now,” he says. “It reflects people of my generation, who move and change houses many times.” Made in collaboration with fellow designers Federica Poluzzi and Michele Bernini, VSK works hard to make things easy. Its powder-coated sheet steel was chosen for its durability, but also for its…

FIVE FIELDS PLAY STRUCTURE Lexington, U.S. Firms Matter Design (Boston, U.S.) and FR|SCH Projects (Lexington, U.S.) Team Brandon Clifford and Michael Schanbacher with Dar Adams, Courtney Apgar, Josh Apgar, Liam Apgar, Mack Apgar, Bella Dubrovsky, Michael Leviton, Sam Leviton, Johanna Lobdell, Daniel Marshall, Chris McGuiness, Dan Roseman, Ainsley Schanbacher and Judson Schanbacher IT SEEMS ONLY FITTING that the Five Fields Play Structure should be the result of an architect-led collective exercise. Born from a sense of social utopianism, Five Fields is a Massachusetts community of 68 homes built in the 1950s by a group of architects that included renowned Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. The community was conceived as an experiment in modernist aesthetics, and as a neighbourhood-centric antidote to what Gropius deemed a growing scourge of “social loneliness.” Sixty-five years…

A CHURCH FOR THE LOCAL COMMUNITY Wrocław, Poland Firm Adamiczka Consulting, Wroc?aw, Poland Team Bartosz Adamiczka, Jerzy Adamiczka and Tomasz Broma FOR A DEVOUT COMMUNITY in Poland, spirituality is as much about connecting with nature and community as with God. The Wroc?aw-based architecture firm Adamiczka Consulting approached this postmodern interpretation of religion with a postmodern house of worship, simple in form and modest in construction – the un-church, if you will. Engaging with the building, formed of concentric rammedearth quads, is akin to taking a journey through a labyrinth. Neighbours pass through slots in the two-storey outer walls to access a “procession path,” beyond which is another, deeper rammed-earth ring. In this second ring are carved small rooms with social functions: confessionals, community workplace, kitchen and refectory. In each, skylights…

PAIR CHAIR Designer Benjamin Hubert, Layer, London, U.K. Manufacturer Republic of Fritz Hansen, Allerød, Denmark WHEN IT COMES TO FURNITURE, simple is rarely simple. With its clean lines and light-as-air profile, Pair Chair, by London designer Benjamin Hubert, projects an effortless clarity. And while its casual elegance will likely help it become a go-to choice for all types of interiors – from workspaces to cafés and patios – its simplicity belies the over three years and more than 30 prototypes it took to get Pair Chair exactly right. It’s the joining of materials that gives the chair its name and character. Atop one of three bases (sled, star, or four tubular metal legs), Pair combines a seat pan of oak plywood and a backrest of injection-moulded polycarbonate. The backrest takes…

CHUM PASSERELLE Montreal, Canada Firm CannonDesign (Toronto, Canada) and NEUF Architect(e)s (Montreal, Canada) Team Azad Chichmanian and Jose Silva MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, the bridges and byways that consume so much of our urban space are built for function and nothing more. Especially in cities like Montreal, where civic pride and tourism are so dependent on the architectural richness of the streets, dull infrastructure can be a real visual downer. Alternatively, it can become a focal point. Local firm NEUF Architect(e)s, in collaboration with CannonDesign, has turned a potentially run-of-the-mill sky bridge between two glass towers into a powerful work of art. Called Passerelle, the street-spanning passage is part of North America’s newest and largest teaching hospital complex, and serves as a vital link between the Centre hospitalier de l’Université…

BLOOMBERG SF TECH HUB San Francisco, U.S. Firm Volume, San Francisco, U.S. Team Adam Brodsley, Emanuela Frattini Magnusson and Eric Heiman with Bryan Bindloss, Aine Coughlan, James Edmondson, Leah Elamin, Erin Kemp and Paola Meraz “For a company like Bloomberg that is trying to finance and encourage creativity – essentially asking people to see more than what is actually there – this kind of wayfinding is smart, intelligent and beautifully executed.” – Michael Vanderbyl TO EMPHASIZE ITS ROLE as an innovation leader, Bloomberg set up its flagship West Coast Tech Hub in an art deco building on San Francisco’s New Montgomery Street. Then the company called on IwamotoScott Architecture to reimagine the space, not for a start-up but for a mature leader in data technology. Added to a sophisticated backdrop…

PRESTON OUTDOOR EDUCATION STATION Cottonwood Falls, U.S. School Kansas State University, College of Architecture, Planning and Design, Manhattan, U.S. Team David Dowell with Torrence Campbell, Tamra Collins, Luke Custer, A.J. Henry, Brent Higgins, Daniel Johnson, Phil Macaluso, Alex Martinez, Kelsey Middlekamp, Briana Reece, Jake Rose, Sevrin Scarcelli and Blake Toews CHILDREN IN KANSAS take field trips to Camp Wood, a YMCA facility located an hour outside of Wichita, to gain a greater appreciation for the area’s tallgrass prairie ecosystem. As the institution approached its centennial, staff sought fresh facilities that could act as an inspiring backdrop to their outdoor education lessons. The scheme, developed by architecture students at Kansas State University, does not introduce the sort of Emerald City that would trick Dorothy into thinking she’s not in the Midwest…