Citadel Beacon illustrates the dialogue of Citadel Hill with the City of Halifax’s urban form. It provides a tangible experience of intangible narratives and boundaries shaping the city.
The dialogue between Hill and Harbor has always been significant. Military and trade histories as well as contemporary urban life and civic identity coalesce on the sloping topography. The significance of this relationship was enfranchised in 1974 by establishing legislated View Planes drawn through the downtown area from Citadel Hill to the Harbor. High rise development was restricted between these planes to preserve the visual connection with the harbor and other unique environmental features.
Once used as a means of communication between St George’s Island and the Citadel, Citadel Beacon reanimates these voids as corridors for communication. Projecting light down the length of the view planes signals the Citadel’s participation in Nocturne events and renders visible the otherwise invisible View Planes.
Contributors: Pearl Chan, Jason Ejzenbart, Nathaniel Merrithew, Staz Klas
Petal condenses notions of site specificity and perspective into the tight hollow of a wall, as if the wall has been crumpled and ruptured. The sculpture’s geometry builds off of the positioning and orientation of the crevice gallery, playfully coalescing in a geometric dance calculated around principles of perspective construction and light manipulation.
Augmented Weave explores the use of a cementitious composite and augmented reality (AR) technology to develop minimal bending building components resulting in reductions in building component weight, material resource consumption, and material waste from concrete formwork. A natural fibre substrate is coated with a cementitious matrix, then draped and woven inside a wooden armature. The draping matches a target geometry derived from a three-dimensional computationally simulated minimal bending diagram. Using parametric design software this diagram is rationalized into discrete architectural components. Each component rationalization produces a woven assembly of warp and weft strands and discrete mounting plates. The plates are inversely positioned to provide targets for the placement of cementitious coated strands of felted cotton which assume minimal-bending configurations.
The fabrication and assembly is accomplished without a single drawing by utilizing a mixed-reality application integrated with three dimensional, parametric modeling software. A public exhibition invited visitors to occupy the pavilion, handle the material, and see visualizations of the centreline geometries through augmented reality headsets.
Project Team: Makenzie Ramadan, Sebastien Sarrazin, Aswin Ak, Felipe Guimaraes
Completed in partnership with precast concrete producer Strescon Limited and with support from the Canadian Precast / Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI), JVI Inc. Precast Connections, and Reckli/US Formliner. Additional funding provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Installation photos by Kevin MacCormack
“Lap, Twist, Knot” uses orchestrated movement with a cementitious composite to construct large scale building components. This utilizes material properties of malleability and strength to create immediate, tangible associations between people and the spaces they build.
Project Team: Aziza Asatkhojaeva, Liam Guitard, Amber Kilborn, Ryan Vandervliet
Urban Curtain is a small, free standing structure in the city that has the soft undulating quality of fabric, but the solidity of concrete. Like a curtain, the structure screens, shades, and shelters space. It is constructed from precast concrete blocks formed with a dynamic mold of custom-formed elastomer sheets. The whole structure is cast from this single dynamic mold.
Project Team: Aziza Asatkhojaeva, Stavros Kondeas, Liam Guitard, Ryan Vandervliet
Completed in partnership with precast concrete producer Strescon Limited and with support from the Canadian Precast / Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI), JVI Inc. Precast Connections, and Reckli/US Formliner.
Installation photos by Kevin MacCormack and Steven Farmer.
With Perkins+Will, Boston
A faceted, folding wooden screen activates a large interior atrium and is utilized as circulation, workstations, information desk, and seating. It is assembled as 1x4” ash slats ganged together in panels with steel thru-rods and supported from tube steel armatures bolted to the base-building steel frame. The wooden slat panels stitch together with double bent, steel splice plates. I was the lead designer overseeing the project’s design, documentation and procurement.
Research and community and youth engagement in developing interpretive landscape for Africville, Halifax, Nova Scotia. In collaboration with the Africville Museum.
The Piano Craft Gallery (PCG) is a commercial renovation of a 2400 square foot gallery space in a former piano factory. We developed a raw-space approach complemented by digitally fabricated components. The raw space consisted of treating the concrete slab, sheathing the interior with professional gallery-grade plywood-backed gypsum wall board and lighting array, coordination of exposed ductwork, and highlighting the raw granite columns in the space. The baseboard detail stopped the gypsum wall-board shy of the floor, exposing the plywood-backing. Custom-built components are highlighted infrastructure including a mobile storage and display cart, exposed ventilation grilles and a uniquely carved handrail.
To reclaim a civic presence lost from their previous space we lobbied the city and owner to provide an outdoor gathering place during openings that would highlight activity to passers-by. For this space modular, white precast concrete benches are set against a charcoal concrete slab. Produced in collaboration with Radlab, Inc. and Rukamathu-Smith.
The Belmont Residence is a 1500 square foot multi-story residential addition containing spaces for bathing, eating, and hosting of guests. Digital technologies in design and fabrication were utilized to coordinate views and light.
Natural lighting passages were studied using solar simulation software aiding in the precise location of skylights. Artificial lighting from custom fabricated recessed coves provided smooth evening light transitions in the dining nook and soft indirect illumination of the skin in the up and downstairs vanities.
The digital model also provided precise detailing for eccentric, angled exterior trim details that framed and coordinate views out of the main living space and through the exterior porch. A digitally fabricated sliding privacy screen manages views into the master bathroom. This screen also filters western light into the space.