The design consists of two crucial portions. First, the history of the Redpath complex is important and will be reviewed. This historical background will provide a reference on which to judge the potential advantages of existing buildings and elements, and to justify selective reuse and demolition. The goal is to establish new programs in a complex that was intended for another use. Second, the entire Redpath complex represents changeable conditions. I will seek a space type with clarity of public movement that can reveal a self-evident relationship of exhibits. This should both ensure intervention of new functions and represent the spirit of industrialization.

Design Idea

Industrialization means the increasing use of machines to replace human skills in the production of goods and services. Hence, the design idea of the museum and park might somehow be absorbed from the section image of James Watt’s steam engine and Henry Ford’s assembly line. The latter would be applied throughout the shape, plan, structure, public movement, and skin of the project to symbolize industrialization.

The design operates at bodily, architectural, and urban scales. Sustainability should be ensured. I will aggressively and adaptively reuse the Redpath complex, in a certain sense, because of the tense relationships among the new functions, urban intention and existing building form. This means that it is positive for me to view the existing buildings, much like a conventional site, as a given but changeable “site”. The intervention ideas are as follows:

1. The buildings along the Lachine Canal waterfront will be preserved for the museum programs—the existing layer, and as we have known, the entire complex have been expanded and modernized several times over the past hundred years (see building history portion.); therefore, not too much architectural heritage is left, and the buildings along the St. Patrick Street will be partially demolished for the public park. I envisage using the architectural language of transparency and light as the new layer to symbolize the new life, function and use of the entire site, juxtaposing with existing skin, structural and other elements.

2. New public movement and selective preservation, such façade and structure, are the central consideration of the design that have function and symbol sense.

3. A new and transparent public space would be inserted in the middle of the preserved building group as a central circulation area. This would not only create a visual link for both banks of the canal, but also generate dynamic visiting movement and a courtyard for the public. In addition, this arrangement would establish and enhance the relationship between the main entrance and the canal.

4. The existing building skin would be partially replaced with a new transparent double-skin structure to bring more light in—a new sustainable façade for both interior and exterior, combining with the existing brick wall at lower level. In some respects, the overall effect is like a new thing growing out of its old shell.

5. The floor of every other story of the refinery building (highest building) would be demolished to ensure the function and building height requirement of two new programs (we assume that the bearing and shearing capacity of the steel posts are still high enough, since the principal structural components of the complex were originally intended for industrial use, and fire proof material or other similar means—sandblasting and repainting steelwork are necessary). A central light well or courtyard—a void core for sunlight will be carved out in the middle of the building.

6. Three layers on the same site—the park, buildings, and the canal. A water feature will be invited into the main entrance side of the project.

These points, carried out through contemporary technologies, seek to clarify the functional and symbolic meaning for the new public space and to accentuate the existing conditions of the Redpath complex and its site.

Space Type for Exhibits

Viewing the history of man-made things in terms of their development within the temporal sequence of related ideas, George Kubler stated in The Shape of Time that when the relationships between ideas and objects are connected, time is exhibited. Therefore, all exhibits are to be grouped according to event sequence and other related factors. It appears that a kind of linear spatial type can meet the demand of the museum program as well as be reasonably adapted into existing building and site.