U2 studio Fall 2008
Professor Pieter Sijpkes' section
"Architecture is the design and construction of physical structures
that envelop and nurture a host of human activities that support social structures"
-the 'in-house' definition of architecture for the purposes of this studio-
Design project
General
In the U2 studio we attempt to introduce students to the design of
buildings of modest scale and complexity in urban settings (generally
in Montreal). The aims of the studio are mani-fold, and vary from
section to section, depending on the expertise and interests of the
instructor. The variables addressed in this section of the studio can generally be grouped into the two classes: physical aspects,
relating to the hardware aspects of a building such as the choice of
materials and of structural systems and the way these aspects harmonize
with the existing context, and the social aspects
of a
problem, such as the way the builing design enhances interaction
between those who spend their days there and the way the use of a
building meshes with the already existing activities in the
neighbourhood.
A sheltered workshop in Point Ste Charles
The design problem:
Design a mixed-use building which will include a sheltered workshop
with some live-in accommodation for people with reduced
abilties from the larger Montreal area, and which will also feature
some social
and retail activity space to benefit the overall community of
Point Ste Charles.
The client is a hypothetical non-profit corporation incorporated in the Province of Quebec, that
is mandated to own property, manage a non-profit business, and
accept tax-deductable donations in order to full fill the goals set-out
in the charter of the non-profit corporation. One key goal of the
corporation is to gainfully employ and house people with reduced
abilities in order to make it possible to participate as fully in
society (socially, economically) as their capabilities allow.(We
will collectively discuss what exactly the mandate of this corporation
might be.)
The idea of creating special places to employ people 'with
reduced abilities' on a community scale dates back to Victorian
England. Before that most people with handicaps were cared for in a
family setting and contributed as well as they could to
family-originated commercial activities, (including habitual
begging.)
See references.
Introduction
In this section special attention will be given to the following aspects of architectural design:
at the social end of the scale:
Context (in this case the neighbourhood of Point Ste Charles)
Social relevance of the project (the opportunity for people with
handicaps of various kinds to meaningfully participate in society
through renumerated work in a supervised setting)
at the physical end of the scale:
how does the building 'fit in' the context of the immediate
surroundings in an architectural sense. Does it try to blend in? does
it try to stand out ? Does it advertise its purpose ?
The Site
A scanned version of a chapter on "The four lives of Point St. Charles"
by Pieter Sijpkes in the book Grass Roots, Greystones and Glass Towers,
Bryan Demchinsky editor:
http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/charrette/Greystones/
The site for this project is in a mixed part of a mixed
neighbourhood.
Point Ste Charles has been the mixed neighbourhood 'par excellence'
since the first European settled there in 1658. At that time it became
a farming community. (We will visit the Ferme St Gabriel, founded in 1668).
In 1825 the Lachine Canal was opened and the
neighbourhood became a thriving mixed area of industries and
workers' housing. The opening of the Victoria bridge in 1860
strenghtened this role, and till 1959 (when the St. Lawrence Seaway was
opened), the Lachine Canal basin formed the largest concentration of
heay industry in Canada. All that changed after 1959, and by the early
70's Point Ste Charles and all the other Lachine Canal Basin
communities (St. Henri, Cote St. Paul, Ville Emard, Lasalle and
Lachine languished with abandoned buildings and high unemployment
rates, after the
industries moved away and people moved to the suburbs. In the early
70's a major change occurred in the neighbourhood when the Green Line
of the Metro was extended from Atwater to the current terminus at
Angrignon. The Charlevoix Metro station gave for the first time 'equal
access' to the area, after centure of relatively tortured access over
bridges or though a tunnel that strongly isolated the neighbourhood. It
was in the
late 70\s that interest in the area perked up, and the revival has been
steady since. Industrial buildings have been turned into upscale
housing, the canal zone has been turned into a very successful linear
park and the canal itself has been reopened to pleasure boating.
An important, little noticed fact::The population of the area has
decreased dramatically since the 1950's; at that time there were almost
35.000 inhabitants, while the most recent sensus enumerated only 13.500.
The street
Rue Augustin Cantin offers an interesting record of the
transformations of the area that have been going on over the last 30 or
40 years. Several buildings have been transformed from industrial use
to residential use, empty sites have been infilled with new housing,
and the Northern electric building at the Easter end of the street has,
after its closing in the 1970's been used for almost twenty years for a
mix of small businesses, and will, over the next few years, be
converted into one of the biggest mixed-income housing projects in the
country.
The site chosen is a 22 meter by 40 meter square lot on the North side
of the street. We will make a site visit to record the border
conditions and the topography of the site.
Our project follows the edicts of 'slow architecture. Acroos the Canal,
in Griffintown there is now a grandiose project of 'fast architecture'
The Program- An outline
All building design projects have to be based on a program;
this consists of an outline of what functions will be served by a
building and what kind of spaces are to be created to fulfill those
functions.
The program in this project will be defined by our joint efforts over the first few weeks of the studio.
The basic functions to be accommodated are, in outline:
1. a versatile work space where various workshop contract functions-
such as assembly of parts, packaging of goods, sorting of goods and
manufacturing of goods- can be executed.
2. basic facilities such as an area for receiving and storage.
3. A multifunctional 'store front' area where goods may be
offered for sale, but where also the interface with the community will
take place in the form of a small coffee shop. (Many 'depanneurs' in
the are fulfill this dual function of a place of sale and a social
centre by virtue of a brewing pot of coffee and cups on shelf in the
store, overseen by the shop owner; in summer this function often spills
over in the street).
4. A private administrative office is needed to store records and to
serve as the home of basic management operations, record keeping,
communications and private one on one meetings.
5. A small grouping of private rooms with communal kitchen and bathroom
facilties is needed to house homeless or out of town co-workers.
6 Basic amenities such as a kitchen, washrooms and storage,
7 Parking for the project van and maybe one or two cars.
8 A garden that should be as peaceful and sunny as possible.
Site usage.
For the purposes of this project it is assumed that we are
free to set our own reasonable rules for the use of the site. (This is
very much at variance with 'the real world'; neighbourhoods are very
tightly 'zoned' as to the kind of uses that are allowed and the kind of
occupancy is permitted (e.g. the % of the land used, set-backs,
views, heights, modes of access.)
Buildings less than three storys in height do not require an elevator;
most of Point St Charles is two or three storeys in height.
Schedule of activities
This project will take all or most of the time this term.
Week 1
Reading the attached references.
Next Friday area and site visit.
Week 2
Next Monday afternoon discussion session and planning of the term's work.
Wednesday-Discussion and ArchiCad tutorial by Prof. Mellin
Friday Presentation by Leila Farah, showing vegetable growing in a community context.
at 2.00 Tutorial by Professor Mellin.
after that a group meeting in room 101 to organise:
* the making of a group site model 1: 100 ( 5 or 6 people)
* the collection of info on structural systems suitable for a building on our site. (5 or 6 people)
Week 3
Presentation on Wednesday afternoon September 17, starting at 2.00 in Room 101
references
Montreal in Evolution by Jean Claude Marsan; a classic overview of the history of the City of Montreal:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=fVEeYOKjvfcC&dq=Montreal+in+Evolution&pg=PP1&ots=bF-9jPIane&sig=3P5BOnOJ8ZFrBxSIyTqpRxD0VEg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=11&ct=result#PPP1,M1
Classic history of the area "The City Below the Hill" by Herbert Ames Brown (1897) available in the library and on line :
http://www.archive.org/details/thecitybelowhill00ames
A scanned version of a chapter on "The four lives of Point St. Charles"
by Pieter Sijpkes in the book Grass Roots, Greystones and Glass Towers,
Bryan Demchinsky editor:
http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/charrette/Greystones/
McGill digital archives:
http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/industrial/ptstcharles.html
A short animated history of development of Montreal:
http://agora.virtualmuseum.ca/Agora/ViewLoitDa.do;jsessionid=1D41A94EC2E1C729DAD3E474B61FD49F?method=preview&lang=EN&id=1453
A very interesting article on sheltered workshops for the blind:
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/799510?seq=1&Search=yes&term=sheltered&term=workshops&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsheltered%2Bworkshops%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=2&ttl=1114&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle
Sheletered worshops for the elderly
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/2771571?&Search=yes&term=sheltered&term=workshops&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsheltered%2Bworkshops%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=10&ttl=1114&returnArticleService=showArticle
Which clients should a sheltered workshop serve?
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/3561101?&Search=yes&term=sheltered&term=workshops&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsheltered%2Bworkshops%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=5&ttl=1114&returnArticleService=showArticle
The Handicapped in the workforce
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/257380?&Search=yes&term=handicapped&term=workshops&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dworkshops%2Bfor%2Bthe%2Bhandicapped%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dhandicapped%2Bworkshopos%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=1&ttl=2764&returnArticleService=showArticle
The sociology of disabled persons:
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/975983?seq=3&Search=yes&term=handicapped&term=architecture&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26la%3D%26wc%3Don%26gw%3Djtx%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Darchitecture%2Bhandicapped%26sbq%3Darchitecture%2Bhandicapped%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines%26si%3D26%26jtxsi%3D26&item=45&ttl=2167&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle
Philip Johnson: "The seven crutches of architecture"
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1566834.pdf
Interview with Mario Botta
https://webvpn.mcgill.ca/http/www.jstor.org/stable/1567069?&Search=yes&term=handicapped&term=architecture&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Darchitecture%2Bhandicapped%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=25&ttl=2167&returnArticleService=showArticle
