Governor General’s Medals in Architecture

The compact glass form of the Photographer’s Studio on Stoney Lake sits on a granite plinth at the water’s edge; suspending the building, lantern-like, on the site. Continuously bathed in diffuse and undiminished natural light, the transparent façade of the north–facing live/work studio becomes the essential element in a photographic apparatus while transforming the site and surrounding vistas into a sublime, ever–changing backdrop.

The project establishes an architecture of the River, defining and invoking its physical qualities and cultural legacy through an integrated approach to architecture, landscape and exhibit environments.  Moving beyond the role of container, the project embraces its condition as a place of passage, and is itself an expedition; through its siting, organization, views and exhibition, and as a responsible construction in nature.

A former pure spirit storage room becomes a contemporary gallery in Toronto’s Distillery District. The legibility of the existing elements and their relationship to new insertions are fundamental to the design proposition. By judiciously removing only a few elements, clear strong spaces that respect the industrial nature and its associated scale are created within and above the existing walls and columns. Multiplicity of levels and range of heights create a varied and layered space.

The Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex at the University of Toronto Mississauga accommodates teaching and research facilities for three distinct user groups: the new Mississauga Academy of Medicine, the Department of Biomedical Communications and the Department of Anthropology and Forensics. The stacked ‘boxes’ parti facilitates individual program space and adjacency requirements, with a focus on maximizing views and daylight. Residual outdoor spaces at each floor integrate the building with the site, while also providing communal accessible terraces with roof gardens.

Municipal operations centres rarely attract attention from designers or the public, despite their functions being critical to the life of most communities. The LEED Silver Newmarket Operations Centre represents an attempt to celebrate these services with a new civic landmark, and aims to set a new national standard for the design of this underappreciated building type. Far from being an afterthought, spaces for maintenance of the town’s fleet and related equipment are the heart of the building and are conceived as part of an efficient and sustainable workplace.