When we submitted our conceptual approach to the first stage of this competition, we announced an ambitious program of work: to break down the performance hall, library and community center programs to create a project that blurs, if not eliminates, the boundaries between these programmatic entities. We also wanted the identity of the Peter McGill Centre to emerge from this recomposition work, in addition to testifying to the omnipresence of the digital and to be imbued with a musical signature expected by its protagonists. Here is what, to date, follows from our reflections.
During the visit to the site, we noticed that the space made available to the project by the city already possessed, through its openness, its light, its raw materials and its indeterminacy, an undeniable quality that we wanted to preserve: that of constituting a field of possibilities. Just like the project we are proposing today, the original space is a potential space, a canvas which, despite certain constraints, remains open to the imagination, to the project, which will go far beyond the limits of our interventions. This opening, this incomplete project, we wish first to submit it to the integrated conception and then to transmit it to its operators, to its future ideators, to the very population of the sector that will be involved and that will take possession of it and transform it over time, notably through co-management.
In order to initially compromise the programmatic entities of the performance hall, the library and the community center and to recover a certain form of indeterminacy, we called upon the typologies of the museum and the art gallery. Spaces dedicated to hosting exhibitions, events and objects of different nature, the museum and the art gallery offer first and foremost an enclosure and an infrastructure: envelope, circulations, lighting, grids and hanging poles, flexible floors and ceilings are essentially thought and constituted with the aim of accommodating multiple forms of exhibition and hosting artifacts of various nature and dimensions. Still in the reflection on the typology of the museum and the art gallery, it is important to mention that these typologies also take root in a recurrent manner in other spaces, emptied of their initial program, such as former factories, disused power stations or former train stations. With the right infrastructure in place, these spaces almost always welcome their new function with surprise and ease. In the project that concerns us, the passage from the raw space as it was entrusted to us, to a space of museum typology, allows in our opinion to maintain a part of the potential space of departure.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
-Despite the interest generated by the conceptual approach at the first stage of the competition, its concretization could not convince the Jury to opt for a raw space whose identity would be achieved by the appropriation of the place by the community. The attraction contributing to the feeling of belonging is not there.
-The conceptual party is very marked and fully assumed.
-The proposed facilities are described as unwelcoming and cold. This characteristic is so strong that it seems impossible to reconcile the objectives of the project with the community appropriation of the site.
-It is doubtful that the challenge of democratizing the space to encourage the use of the Centre will be successful here.
-The sustainability of the projected interventions is recognized.
-The Jury appreciates the proposal to place reclaimed red clay bricks on the floor in a sector of the first floor.
-The construction of coffered ceilings supports the project concept. However, the complexity and maintenance of the systems is questionable.
-The proposed layouts are inflexible and have limited seating for reading at the periphery of the building.
-The positioning of the employee areas in a northwestern area of interest is deplored, to the detriment of users and the community. This choice does not allow the animation of the site from Henri-Dunant Park.
-The functionality of the site varies according to the use. The "book chain" is excellent and obviously well mastered by the designer.
-The furniture could have served as a counterpoint identity for the community, but it is very little colored or even monochrome. Moreover, it seems fragile and not adapted to the function of the Center.
-The water tanks proposed cannot be supported by the structural slab. Modifications to the technical concepts must be considered.
-The proposal to achieve LEED Gold certification is adequate at this stage.
-The budget feasibility has been satisfactorily demonstrated, following the submission of the requested cost reduction measures. However, there is a potential for cost increases due to the structural challenges of the water tanks and the concrete staircase. The complexity of the ceilings also represents some budgetary risk.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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