This year’s Teron Scholars were presented with their awards by William Teron, founder of the Teron Group of Companies and the “father of Kanata.” Mark Madera, Ming Fu, Benoit Maranda and Mateusz Nowacki were awarded prizes with  Matthew McKenna, Nilakshi Roy and Andrew Bako receiving honorary mentions.

To kick off a new academic year in the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, provide inspiration to future Scholars, and recognize the achievements of this year’s winners, the awards were presented at the Director’s All-School Welcome.

Since the Teron Scholar program began in 2007, the annual awards have challenging students in the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism to hone the skills needed to become multidisciplinary lead architects.

Students in any year of study can tailor a studio project identified by a professor as a Teron contender, and submit it for critical review by distinguished members of the Ottawa architecture community. The winners, judged on five critical disciplines (physical, social, environmental and economic dimensions and imagineering), display a holistic approach to architecture.

Ming Fu’s Dugout: The Art Centre for the Discriminated

D’Elia and Graham founded superkül in 2002 in Toronot and count among their project +HOUSE, Newmarket Community Centre, SPLIT House and SHIFT Cottage.

D’Elia is a registered architect with the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) and a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He is a member of the Toronto Community Housing Design Review Panel, and an OAA mentor. His areas of expertise include sustainable design, construction detailing and sequencing and the redevelopment of heritage and existing properties at all scales.

From Kelvin Browne | National Post (Canada) | July 6, 2013

“I think people are attracted to our houses because they sense they can be comfortable there, not just because they like the look of them,” says Meg. Indeed, surfing through their portfolio, the houses are sleek, somewhat minimal and yet definitely not unfriendly. Andre points out this is not accidental. “We like a certain modesty; we focus on light, the materials and proportions. Great proportions are essential.” Elegant proportions are indeed super cool. No amount of marble and fancy fixtures can redeem a space that begins with the handicap of thoughtless proportions.

Superkül has been in business for 11 years. They now have a firm of 15, including them. In addition to award-winning houses, the firm has designed the Fielding Estate Winery, the head office for St. Joseph and other commercial projects.

Andre says: “Our clients are typically very busy people, but when it comes to the design of their house they’ll make time to understand all the details.”

Andre adds, importantly, “You’re realizing someone’s dream for them, it’s a big financial commitment, but it has to be enjoyable, fun too, or it’s not going to work out.”

Across from the Cultural Centre is a flat, open field. At least, that’s what most people see. Steph Bolduc, a Carleton University architecture student from Timmins, Ont., sees something else—a recreation centre containing a hockey arena, a soccer field on a flat part of the roof and, on one side, a glassed-in area shaped like a giant overturned canoe. It’s meant to house retail shops, a market for local produce and crafts, artists’ studios, offices and other tenants whose rent would help pay for maintenance of the sports facilities.

Bolduc is not alone in envisaging a recreation centre here, and his project—for his master’s degree in architecture—is an offshoot of a partnership between Carleton and the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation.

Read the full story in Carleton University Magazine.

Teron is the founder of Teron International Building Technologies and is known as the “Father of Kanata” for his influence in shaping and building the west-end neighbourhood in Ottawa. He is responsible for two suburban developments in the Ottawa area – the development of the former hamlet of Bells Corners, Ont. into a garden suburb (through the development of housing estates called Lynwood Park and Arbeatha Park in the early 1960s) – and the development of Beaverbrook, the beginning of the city of Kanata (later amalgamated into greater Ottawa) from a greenfield site in the Township of March, west of the Ottawa greenbelt.

From 1973 to 1979, he was the chairman and president of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). He has been active in the community through his work with the National Arts Centre, Canadian Housing Design Council, the Ottawa General Hospital and the African Students’ Foundation.

He is an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1978, he was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He has won three national and four regional awards for housing from the Canadian Housing Design Council. He has also received the Queen Elizabeth ll Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilee medals.

Teron is a generous supporter of architecture at Carleton. Through a gift from the Teron Foundation in 2007, the Teron Scholars program at Carleton is able to challenge students to push their creative and technical boundaries to be leading Canadian architects.

Barry J. Hobin & Associates Architects Inc. worked with Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation on Beaver Barracks Redevelopment to address the need for affordable housing for families, seniors aging in place and people with accessibility needs in the downtown core. Built to a high environmental standard on a former brownfiled site, the development includes geothermal heating and cooling, a green roof, tenant-run gardens and a high performance building envelope, including triple glazed windows. Beaver Barracks is also wheelchair accessible and smoke free.

With 254 dwelling units in five buildings, Beaver Barracks provides high quality rental housing to many households that would not otherwise be able to afford it.

Ross Nicholson was playing in an obscure rock ’n’ roll band eight years after leaving high school, when one day he saw the light.

“I realized that the only culture I was absorbing was bacterial in nature,” he says, “so I went to university to expand my horizons.”

Nicholson initially studied industrial design before completing a masters degree in architecture at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Born in Gatineau, Que., in 1958, he had grown up in the nation’s capital where his father, James (Jim) Nicholson, worked as a chemist for the National Research Council. While at university, he gravitated toward lighting which, the way Nicholson describes it, seems to hold a connection to the better aspects of his rock ’n’ roll past.

“It’s emotional, perceptual, almost visceral, technical, but mostly it’s fun,” says Nicholson of his (ahem) brilliant career as an award-winning lighting designer. “It’s also quite intrinsically rewarding, and cheaper than therapy.”

Nicholson’s first job right out of university was with Ottawa lighting designer Phil Gabriel, whom he credits for giving him a solid background in design principles and practice, as well as access to project opportunities.

Eventually, he was creating his own lighting fixtures, or luminaries as they are called in his industry, relying on a software lighting algorithm and interface he developed which accurately reflects natural lighting design processes.

His job can be complicated but in essence he creates and controls brightness on large-scale architectural projects, ranging from shopping malls and illuminated bridges to museum exhibits and urban planning. “I juggle the sometimes conflicting needs of the functional requirements for lighting, the desire to create an aesthetically appealing visual landscape, the need to help people intuitively navigate the spaces they travel in, reinforce the strengths of the architecture, minimize equipment cost, figure out how it’s controlled, and control how hard and expensive it is to maintain,” Nicholson explains.

His current projects include the faculty of social sciences building at Ottawa University, the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts at Queen’s University and the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health in Ottawa.

In his spare time, he creates light-art projects for the Candela Light-Art Exhibition in Ottawa, the IIDEX design and architecture show in Toronto and LightFair International in New York.

Allowing that it is hard to create good lighting without good architecture, Nicholson generally works closely with architects, including Diamond and Schmitt in Toronto, Snohetta in New York and Douglas Cardinal in Ottawa.

Some of these collaborations have resulted in award-winning projects, among them the Canadian Museum of Civilization’s Grand Hall exterior and Les Promenades St-Bruno shopping mall in Quebec.

After a decade of working with others, Nicholson, a single dad with a 10-year-old son, started his own practice.

He says he is now committed to sharing the light, so to speak, with as many people people as he can.

“I run a one-man shop,” he says, “but I get the opportunity to pass on some of what I know by teaching part-time at Carleton in the school of industrial design.

“Teaching is a blast, because there are lots of keen, sharp minds looking for new avenues of exploration.”

A new relationship sparked between Carleton University students and the Vanier community aims to create a dynamic approach to how the neighbourhood will respond to redevelopment projects.

The initiative will see 12 architecture students work with the Vanier Community Association to help create design ideas for two key properties set to be redeveloped in the near future: Eastview Plaza and St. Charles Church.

According to Mike Bulthuis, president of the Vanier Community Association, both properties are important to the community and getting residents’ ideas down on paper before a developer begins planning is a huge step.

“The goal is to ask ourselves what sort of vision we as a community have for this spot,” Bulthuis said. “In the sense of whether we come out with a concrete vision, or simply a much stronger vision, these are the kinds of steps we want to take.”

Often, he said, developers come to the community with fixed ideas and this is the type of project where residents will have the opportunity to make sure their voices are heard.

The plaza, Bulthuis added, is the gateway into Vanier and an important development site from both a developer’s and the neighbourhood’s point of view.

The connection between the association and the students was made by Vanier resident Janak Alford, who runs a non-profit design company with co-director Camille Mendoza, PrototypeD Urban Workshops Inc., which is based in the Glebe. The students will be working on behalf of the company on the project.

Alford said he is passionate about community engagement, and willingly offers up his spare time for projects such as the one taking place in Vanier.

“Long before working with this studio, I worked with communities and I have a lot of experience with communities, and balancing design,” Alford said. “In the long run, it will make the (development application) process easier, and give buy in.”

Mendoza added that having their studio help create community connections is one of the main perks for both her and Alford.

“Communities are important and helping them understand development from both the developer’s perspective and urban planning perspective is important,” Mendoza said.

The students approached the studio seeking real-world experience and at one time an architecture student himself, Alford said he was eager to help them and began developing a workshop for the students to learn how to pitch, design and promote urban planning projects.

The project is in its early stages, but Bulthuis is enthusiastic about its potential.

“This will put ourselves in a position so that we won’t always be reacting, but being proactive of what type of development we want to see and the kind of community we want to build,” Bulthuis said.

The timing for this project, Alford said worked out really well, from both the community, student and city perspective.

“The city is reviewing the official plan, Montreal Road is also being reviewed, this feels really timely to look at the sites,” he said.

And the young businessman said he believes creating this sort of connection between developers and associations will ultimately work.

“I really do think they would be open to meeting with residents,” Alford said. “One of the failings in architectural design, an architectural proposal has to be a strong business case, to really sell a vision not just a beautiful vision, but one that will be profitable. It has to be a positive economic proposal, for this project we don’t look at just designs, we look at everything we design and it has to make sense from a dollar design.”

The project will have the students design a concept for Eastview Plaza and St. Charles Church using some of their own ideas along with input given from the community.

This particular project will wrap up in May, when Bulthuis said he would like to somehow display the results of the designs at a community forum or open house.

For the association president, this project is just the beginning of what he said residents in Vanier will be participating in to promote positive development in the community.

Visit the Vanier Community Association’s website,  for more information about this project.

“The opportunities and support I received from Carleton plays a significant role in my architecture career,” said Chu. “During my graduate studies, the professors supported the development of my thesis, extra Extra SMALL! – Learning from Poverty, Density, Housing, and Hong Kong with enthusiasm and expertise. In addition, Carleton supported me financially, with two scholarships that enabled me to focus on my studies and graduate with high distinction.

“Thanks to the education and people I met at Carleton, I continue to pursue my passion in architecture and use my skills to contribute to easing poverty and developing solutions for better living.”

“Being included on this shortlist is significant given the range of international entries,” said Inderbir Singh Riar, lecturer at Carleton’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism and Chu’s thesis advisor. “Ray’s thesis project is remarkable from both an architectural and social standpoint.  He did fundamental research in the Hong Kong archives, lived in one of the slum dwellings and produced a fine design project.”

Limited land, high-density population and overpriced housing have caused a major housing crisis in Hong Kong, forcing millions to resort to high-density housing that fails to provides even the bare minimum, with limited space, no ventilation, no sunlight and insect and mold infestations. These units are structurally unsound, with inadequate framing and partitioning drywalls.

XXS is a design that provides a housing solution for better living for Hong Kong’s poor. Through understanding, integrating and modifying the strategies that Hong Kong locals have developed over the years, XXS is a dwelling design that is both functional and practical.  It’s functional in terms of providing a space that accommodates the residents’ daily needs and activities and practical in terms of being compatible with Hong Kong’s current housing and societal context.

For more, visit graduatearchitecture.com.

Fai is director of CIMS, and an associate professor in the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism. Since taking the leadership reins of the research lab in 2007, he has been instrumental in adapting building information modelling software to a variety of projects. The technology takes sophisticated architectural graphics and ties them to a database of critical information, such as material costs and construction schedules.

This story is from Research Works.