National Urban Design Awards - 2022 Merit Recipient - Student Projects | Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

National Urban Design Awards - 2022 Merit Recipient - Student Projects

Filling Pieces - Hall's Lane Creative Studios
Kitchener,
ON
Award Category: 
Student Projects

Students: Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei
Design Studio, Spring 2021
Professor: Rick Haldenby

This project envisions the future of Hall’s Lane, in downtown Kitchener, as an active cultural corridor where artists can exhibit and create their work while the community engages and learns. Eight artist studios of varying types are located between Queen Street and Gaukel Street providing community building activities through workshops, tools, and events. The laneway in this proposal is re-explored as a pedestrian space where the process of art and making is unfolded through the architecture. By partnering with local grassroots organizations, this project builds from, and emboldens, the existing arts and cultural infrastructure in downtown Kitchener.

Jury Comment(s): 

“A solid example of urban infill design, this project communicates in clean lines and articulate, communicative graphics. The execution of interior and outdoor spaces and the consistent urban background texture are compelling aspects of the solution."  

"This project is a thoughtful consideration of infill urban spaces for community use. The spaces are designed carefully to flow into each other. The graphics are very detailed and tell the story. The urban design components are clearly highlighted."

"This project demonstrates how indispensable design students are in the consideration of, and intervention in, the design of our cities. The quality of analysis, interpretation, and design, all completed with appropriate care, led to sensitive adaptive reuse and infill projects that will successfully recalibrate the growth of the city beyond speculative development.  The graphic strategies deployed are seamless and evocative.”

Jury members 

Click for full version: 
Studio render

CREDIT - Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei

Studio section

CREDIT - Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei

Studio render

CREDIT - Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei

Studio section

CREDIT - Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei

Key plan

CREDIT - Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei

Downtown Kitchener map

CREDIT - Vincent Chuang and Zihao Wei