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An international student competition launched by the Concordia University Chair of Integrated Design, Ecology, and Sustainability for the Built Environment (IDEAS-BE) and the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions, Mediations of Excellence (CRC-ACME) at Université de Montréal

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How can design accelerate the transition from the end of the pandemic to a new experience of public transportation?

This design competition is part of a joint research initiative. The Concordia University Chair of Integrated Design, Ecology, and Sustainability for the Built Environment and the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions, Mediations of Excellence at Université de Montréal are working together to mobilize the creativity of young designers of the built environment in order to stimulate debate on the renewed experiences of public transportation for increased urban resiliency.

This 2021 edition is done in collaboration CRE-Montreal and ARTM. The Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal (CRE-Montreal) promotes sustainable development for the City of Montreal. The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) is the transportation authority, which plans, funds, and promotes public transit and paratransit services for the Montréal metropolitan area.

This ideas competition seeks to gather:

  1. narratives of renewed experience of public transportation;
  2. design idea(s) for encouraging the use of public transportation;
  3. series of design principles for implementing a renewed experience of public transportation.

February 1, 2021: Competition Launch online + Registration Opens
March 1, 2021: Registration Closes
April 12, 2021: Competition Submission Deadline at 5:00PM EST
May 17, 2021: Event for the Announcement of the Winners.

For more information : www.ideas-be.ca/project/competition-reimagining-public-transport

Aurélien Catros, doctoral student in architecture, wins the Academy of Architecture Prize for the best paper of the SCAN’20 conference

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After evaluating the quality of the research, scientific writing and oral presentation during the two-day conference, the members of the Academy’s prize jury selected the winner of the prize for the best paper. This jury was chaired by Paul Quintrand, Former President of the Academy of Architecture. The Academy of Architecture Prize for the best paper of the SCAN’20 conference was awarded to Aurélien Catros, doctoral student in architecture at the Université de Montréal, under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Chupin and Bechara Helal, for his paper entitled: “A categorization of BIM models within scientific models”.

New book « Sustainable Architecture – Between Measurement and Meaning » by Carmela Cucuzzella and Sherif Goubran

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Carmela Cucuzzella (Concordia University) and Sherif Goubran (American University in Cairo) co-edit a new book, “Sustainable Architecture – Between Measurement and Meaning”.

Sustainable Architecture – Between Measurement and Meaning takes a step back to reflect on how sustainability in the built environment can be theorized and practiced critically. This book exposes that architecture remains a human and social science that lies at the intersection of measurements and meanings. It reveals that sustainable architecture can still operate in a dialectic space of expression, rather than serving as a manifesto for either the technical or socio-cultural extremes. It purports that the human intuition, senses, and skills still holds the key to unravelling alternative futures of sustainable built spaces. And that most importantly, humans still have a place in sustainable architecture.

It includes chapters from Anne Cormier (Université de Montreal), Nada Tarkhan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)), Tom Jefferies (Queen’s University Belfast), Laura Coucill (Manchester School of Architecture), Izabel Amaral (Laurentian University), Ted Cavanagh (Dalhousie University)

Louis Martin publishes a chapter in the book The Figure of Knowledge: Conditioning Architectural Theory, 1960s-1990s

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“It is a major challenge to write the history of post-WWII architectural theory without boiling it down to a few defining paradigms. An impressive anthologising effort during the 1990s charted architectural theory mostly via the various theoretical frameworks employed, such as critical theory, critical regionalism, deconstructivism, and pragmatism.

Yet the intellectual contours of what constitutes architectural theory have been constantly in flux. It is therefore paramount to ask what kind of knowledge has become important in the recent history of architectural theory and how the resulting figure of knowledge sets the conditions for the actual arguments made.

The contributions in this volume focus on institutional, geographical, rhetorical, and other conditioning factors. They thus screen the unspoken rules of engagement that postwar architectural theory ascribed to.”

Contributors: Matthew Allen (University of Toronto), Karen Burns (University of Melbourne), Ole W. Fischer (University of Utah), Philip Goad (University of Melbourne), Hilde Heynen (KU Leuven), Rajesh Heynickx (KU Leuven), Paul Holmquist (Louisiana State University), Sandra Kaji-O’Grady (University of Queensland), Peter Lang (Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm), André Loeckx (KU Leuven), Sebastiaan Loosen (KU Leuven), Louis Martin (Université du Québec à Montréal), Joan Ockman (University of Pennsylvania), Carmen Popescu (ENSAB, Rennes), Ricardo Ruivo (Architectural Association, London), Andrew Toland (University of Technology Sydney).

Tiphaine Abenia wins the prize of the thesis in co-tutorship 2020

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On October 19, 2020, the Consulate General of France in Quebec City, following the recommendations of the evaluation mission of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and lʼInnovation, designated Tiphaine Abenia as the French winner of the 2020 cotutelle thesis prize. The French and Quebec cotutelle thesis prizes, in the amount of $1,500, will be awarded at the Gala organized by Acfas (Association francophone pour le savoir) to be held virtually on December 9.

Jean-Pierre Chupin named honorary member of the AAPPQ 2020

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It was at the launch of the 2020 Reference Manual of the Association des architectes en pratique privée du Québec (AAPPQ) that the name of the honorary member she has chosen was unveiled, a title granted to a person who contributes to promoting architectural quality and enhancing the importance of architects in society. According to Anne Carrier, President of the AAPPQ, “this title is awarded to a committed individual who, through his or her career, contributes to promoting the architectural quality of the built environment and the importance of architects in society in general. This year, the Board of Directors of the AAPPQ wished to emphasize the importance, for the private practice of architecture, of cooperation with the university community. The contribution of research, based on knowledge, is indeed essential to identify, qualify and define best practices. This year’s honorary member has played a pioneering role in researching and documenting the role of competitions as tools for creating and improving quality in architecture. » During this event, the 25 achievements selected by the Reference Manual selection committee were presented. Among them, the Science Complex of the MIL Campus of the Université de Montréal, realized by Menkès Shooner Dagenais Le Tourneux Architectes | Lemay | NFOE, in consortium.

The 5 competitions of the LABécole fully documented exclusively on the CCC

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As part of a collaboration with the LABécole organization, the Canadian Competitons Catalogue is the first to deliver all 160 projects submitted in 2019 to the 5 competitions for the construction or expansion of elementary school in Shefford, Rimouski, Gatineau, Maskinongé and Saguenay. The official unveiling of the winners took place on Monday, August 24.

“Please, will you draw me an elementary school competition (about 5 competitions organized in Quebec by LAB-École in 2019-2020)”, by Jean-Pierre Chupin

LAB-ÉCOLE | Construction d’une nouvelle école primaire à Saguenay, sur le terrain de l’actuelle école Marguerite-d’Youville 

LAB-ÉCOLE | Agrandissement et rénovation de l’école Saint-Joseph à Maskinongé 

LAB-ÉCOLE | Rénovation et agrandissement de l’école primaire Pierre Elliott Trudeau à Gatineau 

LAB-ÉCOLE | Construction d’une nouvelle école primaire à Shefford 

LAB-ÉCOLE | Construction d’une nouvelle école primaire à Rimouski 

“In 2020, judging by the number of architecture competitions held in Quebec over the past two decades and the number of award-winning buildings, it is easier to find an excellent library than an elementary school worthy of the name. This series of 5 competitions – open and in two phases – organized by the LAB-École organization therefore confronted two contradictory convictions: the certainty that places of schooling forge and shape what we are since early childhood and this conviction, widespread among public decision-makers, that we could basically study and teach anywhere. Particularly well organized by LAB-École, these competitions show, on the contrary, that architecture is not a luxury, but a necessity. For contexts as different as Saguenay, Maskinongé, Rimouski, Gatineau and Shefford, the proposals prove to be rich in reflections demonstrating that the question of primary school remains complex and cannot be circumscribed in models that can be repeated – in blue, wood or aluminum – whatever the context.”

 

Thanks to the teams of students from Université de Montréal working on the CCC and to CRC-ACME for this intense digital documentation work.

Louis Martin and Georges Adamczyk publish Melvin Charney’s important theoretical texts on architecture in Quebec

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From 1964 to 1989, Montreal architect and artist Melvin Charney (1935-2012) published some forty essays dealing with the problems confronting contemporary architecture in Quebec and elsewhere, and describing the works he designed in response. This collection makes accessible to French-speaking readers, in revised and often unpublished translations, a selection of these writings that presents the essence of Charney’s critical reading of contemporary architecture in Quebec, while exposing the originality of the thinking that nourished his artistic practice.

Published during a pivotal period in Quebec’s cultural and social history, beginning with the advent of the Quiet Revolution and ending with the first referendum on sovereignty, these documents are a veritable barometer recording the changing climate of an architectural culture in perpetual motion during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of architecture. They also describe the unsuspected contribution of Montreal, Quebec and Canadian architecture to the international debates that marked the transition from late modernity to an uncertain postmodernity.

Understanding the Awards of Excellence (Issue 191 of Architecture Québec magazine) : Researchers from LEAP and the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence present some results of their recent work on awards of excellence in all areas of design

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This special issue on Awards of Excellence does not introduce new winners or reveal any results that were not previously known. Its purpose is to call for more attention to a phenomenon – the celebration of excellence – on which there is strangely little critical attention. What is to be understood from the plethora of award-winning projects, achievements and practices year after year? Certainly, the images are part of an intense ballet at each local, regional or national award ceremony. Images of architectural excellence, no doubt about it. However, it is necessary to “freeze frame” the images to begin to question the definitions of quality that they are supposed to summarize, symbolize, perhaps measure. The reader who would like to be convinced of the extent of the phenomenon in a few figures can start this issue at the end, as we draw up an unprecedented statistical portrait of it, revealing in particular the exponential increase in the number of organizers and prizes in a decade.

Georges Adamczyk first of all proposes to shift the “waiting horizon” from the reception of architects or the public to the interest of the academic world. In fact, he takes award-winning projects as models: “projects that are judged excellent by their peers for their exemplary aesthetic and functional qualities are also potential projects for learning about design and production in architecture”. David Theodore places the Quebec awards in a broader Canadian context. While Quebec architects do indeed distinguish themselves in Canada and even abroad, his survey shows that it is certain types of buildings and architectural practices that are distinguished, rather than excellence or the best buildings in general. Paradoxically, he wonders whether the awards really promote good architecture. This is confirmed by Aurélien Catros‘ reflections on heritage distinctions. The recent history of the categories of excellence in conservation first reveals the fluctuations of the underlying policies. And what could be more up-to-date than a policy for school architecture? On this point, Alexandra Paré‘s retrospective look shows that school architecture remains a poor relation of awards. She agrees with the conclusions of Theodore and Adamczyk in inviting us to conceive of prices as a true school of architectural quality. The articles by Sherif Goubran and Carmela Cucuzzella question the growing importance of ecological and environmental criteria in contemporary quality recognition. The statistics compiled by Goubran shed light on the multiplication of definitions of sustainability. Cucuzzella’s analyses show in detail that certain awards literally force the use of ever more “eco-didactic” visibility. She concludes that awards would not only play a recognition function, they would determine a form of excellence. In essence, this inversion is the game proposed by Lucie Palombi who, by temporarily obliterating the images of the prize-winning projects, wonders what a foreign visitor to three prize-winning libraries might understand by considering only the rare comments of the juries. We’ll let you guess.

For as long as the lists of prize-winning projects are not accompanied by the reasons, analyses, judging criteria and therefore the jury reports, there is a risk that the prizes will remain nothing more than nice celebrations and not stages in the full and effective recognition of an “architectural quality policy”.

 

 

Editorial: Prices, freeze frame! (Jean-Pierre Chupin, Professor, Université de Montréal)

Taking Home the Prize: Distinguishing Québec in Architectural Awards (David Theodore, Professor, McGill University)

Three award-winning libraries (the reverse visit) (Lucie Palombi, doctoral student, Université de Montréal)

School architecture, the poor relation of prizes (Alexandra Paré, doctoral student, Université de Montréal)

Learning from excellence in residential architecture (Georges Adamczyk, Professor, Université de Montréal)

Quebec in the Canadian sustainable development awards concert (Sherif Goubran, PhD student, Concordia University)

The allegory of heritage through the filter of awards of excellence (Aurélien Catros, doctoral student, Université de Montréal)

What is the purpose of architectural awards?  (Jean-Pierre Chupin, Professor, Université de Montréal)

“Eco-education”: Are “green awards” forcing the visibility of green devices? (Carmela Cucuzzella, Professor, Concordia University)