In a city the street must be supreme.  It is the first institution of the city.  The street is a room by agreement, a community room, the walls of which belong to the donors, dedicated to the city for common use.  Its ceiling is the sky.

- Louis I. Kahn (Lobell 1979,47)

Old Montreal, the location of my Urban Shadow’s site, is ridden with deception.  Unquestionably the most historically fertile ground in the city, with enough charm to support Tourisme Montréal in itself, Old Montreal’s full potential has yet to be realized as an arena for true urban conquest.  It is deserted for the most part, devoid of a substantial permanent after-hours occupation, with a high crime rate that cries for a Jane Jacobs-esque “eyes on the street” revolution.  Most of the things that the collective “we” have done thoughtlessly are plaguing us: the general term being “pollution.”  As Serge Chermayeff argues, “you can pick the birds which have died as a result of eating the fruit which has been sprayed by the DDT we have introduced into our environment” which can then be attributed to what in science is referred to as the “Pinnochio Results” – when the toy you are making suddenly becomes a monster that can devour you (Chermayeff 1986, 12).  It is not hard to think of innumerable examples of the architect's toy reincarnating to haunt the urban domain, Old Montreal being no exception. 
 
 

The design of an Urban Shadow on such a prominent historical and public location must therefore recognize its mandate to be a symbiotic addition to its context.  It is interesting to examine the precedent survey and identify that there is a strong community sense fostered by the design whether the context is that of a rural-type campus, or the confines of an urban domain.  The tight urban domain that I have selected constrains the nature of my program as a more compact rectilinear distribution of the program.  However, I have every intention of creating an intimate campus-like community that is both introspective and responsive to the domain of the street.  Furthermore, in an effort to engage the program of the art institute as a rich container of life, the program elements that address the street will be designed to conform with the spirit of the Urban Shadow's doctrine to adopt the institutional philosophy from the urban scale to the street scale, to the program construction. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the shadow.

T.S.Eliot
"The Hollow Men"

For further documentation on site and site history, please refer to the appendix of drm assignments.