NEW NOTRE-DAME-DE-GRÂCE CULTURAL CENTER
Before beginning to sketch out the project, we conducted iconographic research to create a cultural inventory of the site. As archaeologists do with material artifacts extracted from the ground, we looked for images related to Benny Farm's past in order to reconstruct its history in a shortcut that telescopes billions of micro-events. This quilt of images feeds the reflection on the project and contributes to the search for context-specific solutions for this neighborhood in the making. We first sought to identify common denominators that could contribute to the identity of the place and we chose a color. Closely associated with the commemoration of the veterans' effort (fig.1,2 and 3), with the materiality of the masonry for those who live there (fig.4 and 5) and with the fruits of the orchard linked to its agricultural past (fig. 6), the color red is also inseparable from the pageantry of the show (fig.7 and 8). This color will be the only one used as an accent on certain important surfaces (red carpet of the entrance portico, plant ribbons of the memorial garden, etc...).
Like the apple that is sliced and whose peel contrasts sharply with the white flesh, we have chosen to cover certain surfaces set back from the building alignment and the anthracite-colored brick facing with white lacquered metal panels, because the hollows are more important than the solids at Benny Farm. The overall plan illustrates how the ribbon of houses produces recesses used as interrelated courtyards (fig.10,11,12) in contrast to the traditional alignment of street facades in Montreal's central neighbourhoods. This particular morphology provided a territory for children's play and community activities that former residents of the neighborhood describe with emotion in blogs (fig.15) that now serve as common ground for them as they are scattered across America. We therefore chose to excavate the body of the building to create the poppy-striped garden of remembrance, the square courtyard that allows the preservation of a majestic maple tree (fig.17) and the entrance portico. These three recessed spaces with large windows contribute to the decompartmentalization of the House of Culture while preserving the acoustic intimacy necessary for the activities.
The Maison is increasingly called upon to play the role of a cultural mediation space, inviting citizens to participate in meetings and exchanges that promote exchange and appropriation. The traditional dichotomy between a black box for presenting performances on the one hand and a warehouse of books available to the public on the other must be replaced by a more unified vision of the Maison as a set of spaces allowing the public to interact with cultural production and those who participate in its dissemination as well as its creation. An author participating in a public reading in the performance hall while two actors explain their opposing understanding of a character to children in the library's animation room illustrates the need for this unified vision of the Maison.
This desire to restore spatial unity is evident in the grand staircase in the lobby, where a simple glass wall separates spectators going to the balcony from library users going to the adult section.
While the lobby staircase was transformed into a tiered seating area, we also imagined making the window an oversized shelf to hold information about the shows (fig.13) and events (fig.14) on the season's schedule. These two emblematic figures of the Maison de la Culture, the bleacher and the shelf, are staged in the main entrance portico on Monkland which plays the role of a proscenium facing the new sports center. We chose to concentrate all public activity that could generate nuisance for the citizens of the neighborhood, including the bistro and the terrace that overlooks it, to guarantee their tranquility.
The fragmentation of the building's volumetry resulting from the subtraction of the volumes of the courtyards, portico and terraces favours access (fig.16) to natural light for the occupants and facilitates integration into the partially pavilion urban fabric of the neighbourhood. Thus the volume of the block housing the multimedia space at the intersection of Monkland and Benny is similar to that of the adjacent house. This desire for integration led us to favour a sober and relatively restrained expression on the exterior, contrasting with a more complex interior playing on the ambiguity between inside and outside. It should also be noted that the alignment of mature trees on the periphery of the site will limit the perception of the new building's facades for a good part of the year and we tried to imagine how the vegetation present could contribute to the quality of the interior spaces.
In terms of sustainability, we believe that the proposed building can achieve gold certification, thanks in large part to the energy performance optimization efforts undertaken during the design process of the competition project. The use of geothermal energy and the systematic use of LED sources for the lighting of the building allow us to hope for a reduction of more than 50% of the recurring operating costs of the building related to energy consumption.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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