The Official Award announcement:
(TORONTO) December 1, 2023 Perkins&Will and Smoke Architecture have won a prestigious Canadian Architect Award of Merit, for Dawes Road Library & Community Hub in Toronto, Ontario. The awards were announced today by Canadian Architect, the national magazine of record for architects across Canada.
The jurors commented: “This well-resolved neighbourhood library building explicitly wears its commitment to reconciliation on its sleeve with its Indigenous-inspired façade and rooftop programming area for First Nations. We reviewed a large number of projects attempting to acknowledge First Nations, and this one seemed to do so in a particularly comfortable way.”
Now in their 56th year, the Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence are the highest recognition for excellence in the design stage in the Canadian architectural sector. By focusing on commissioned but not yet completed projects along with exceptional student work and architectural photography, the program recognizes design ambition and supports an overall culture of design excellence.
Of the 218 professional, student, and photo submissions received for this year’s awards program, the jury selected five projects for Awards of Excellence, eight projects for Awards of Merit, three projects for Student Awards of Excellence, and two winners of the Photo Award of Excellence.
The jury comprised architects Omar Gandhi of Omar Gandhi Architects in Toronto and Halifax, Claire Weisz of WXY Architects in New York City, and Michael Heeney of Surrey City Development Corporation and C+O Advisory. They were joined by photography juror Jacqueline Young of Winnipeg-based Stationpoint Photographic.
The award-winning projects are announced here and general jury comments on this year’s submissions can be viewed here. The winning projects are described in full, along with images and complete juror comments, in the December 2023 issue of Canadian Architect, available in print and online.
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In collaboration with the Toronto Public Library, City of Toronto, and a range of Indigenous and non-Indigenous community stakeholders, the project team created a design that evokes an Indigenous star blanket, celebrating learning and discovery. The star blanket serves as an architectural metaphor. Blankets have a personality and spirit, communicating something about their maker and the techniques used in their making. Blankets also protect us from the environment, offering a strong analogy to the role of an architectural envelope. The blanket wraps and embraces the building, providing colour and texture and conveying a sense of motion.
“To translate the blanket metaphor into an achievable building system, the design team started with a 1:20 scale physical model and rolls of industrial felt to experiment with folds, wraps and layering. In the final iteration, the front of the blanket remains open and welcoming. Clad in four colours of individually formed zinc panels, the façade was developed through a parametric design process and a close collaboration with a specialized metal fabricator.
The metaphor of the star blanket is further supported by the articulation of a high-performance envelope with a low percentage of glazed openings. The building will be fully electrified, with a rooftop photovoltaic array to offset a portion of the energy use. A borehole below the building will serve a geothermal mechanical system to lower the peak energy demand.”