ARC3020Y F
Instructor: George Baird
Meeting Section: L9106
Synchronous
Tuesdays, 9:00am - 1:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm

This academic year, I propose to offer a studio research project that focuses on three intersecting design issues: 1: designing on a constrained urban site 2: designing for a complex institutional or other urban program 3: designing in conjunction with existing heritage structures on the site in question

The vehicle I propose to use for the project during Architectural Design Studio: Research 1, is the design of an expanded facility for the Vancouver Art Gallery on its existing site. Currently, the gallery is housed within the shell of a 1905 Courthouse building designed by the distinguished British Columbia Architect Francis Rattenbury. The Gallery moved into the renovated shell of the Rattenbury building in 1972, as part of Arthur Erickson’s design of the major downtown Vancouver project, Robson Square, which included a new courthouse facility, thus rendering the former one available for a new use. Erickson also designed the renovations to the courthouse building to accommodate the art gallery program.

Some half a century later, the Art Gallery requires further expanded facilities. A master plan for such expansion was prepared in 2005 by Michael Maltzan Architecture Inc with Henriquez Partners Architects. Their report sets out the program for the expanded facility, and this program will be used by the studio as the basis of the design of the expanded facility. The Maltzan/Henriquez report also sets out a variety of ways of providing the additional space the gallery needs, and this range of options is intended to stimulate the students’ thinking in regard to how to proceed with their own design.

The challenge for each of the students opting to take the Baird studio - for Design Studio: Research 1: will be to design a new facility for the gallery that includes new space for the gallery as well as the re-renovation of the existing gallery, all in a manner appropriate to the original Rattenbury building, as well as to the 1972 Erickson complex.

The follow-up challenge for each of the students in the studio for Design Studio: Research 2: will be to design a building with a complex institutional or other urban program of their own choosing, on a constrained site of their own choosing, hopefully one which includes an existing heritage structure of some kind.

Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, no studio field trip is planned for the fall term, and all instruction will be online. No studio field trip is currently planned for the winter term, either, but pandemic permitting, there may be some face to face teaching in the winter term.