RAIC National Urban Design Awards (Urban Fragments category): two winners
Impulse - Lateral Office / CS Design
Lola Sheppard (BArch 1995) is a co-founder of Lateral Office; Adjunct Professor Conor Sampson (BArch 1996) is the founder of CS Design; Anne-Marie Paquette (MArch 2016) was the manager of this project at CS Design, with the assistance of Eloise Barry (MArch 2017); and Tom Egli (who teaches the Civil Engineering course Structures to Architecture students) is president of EGP Group.
From the RAIC awards webpage: “Impulse transforms the urban realm into a space of play through a series of thirty interactive see-saws which transform when in motion. The seesaws form units of light and sound that can be played by the public to create a temporal event. When not in use, the see-saws stabilize to the horizontal and remain at a lower glowing level. The see-saws shift along the length of the public space while their vertical motion creates a dynamic light and sound wave. Playing with ideas of serialism and variation, Impulse is an ever-changing urban composition and urban instrument, engaging to all ages, in which city dwellers are the musicians and artists.”
Jury comments: "With Impulse, the installation of a line of LED-lit seesaws transforms the plaza into a night-time winter playground. The result is innovative and playful and brings people out into the city. The jury was so delighted with both entries that they elected to recognize the owner/organizer, Le Partenariat du Quartier des Spectacles de Montréal, with a certificate of merit.”
Entre les Rangs – Kanva
KANVA’s principals are Rami Bebawi and Tudor Radulescu (both MArch 2001).
From the RAIC awards webpage: "Entre les Rangs revisits the agricultural history of Quebec to contextualize a dialogue with a contemporary urban context. As a reference to Quebec’s wheat fields that undulate in the wind and through the seasons, the installation comprises thousands of flexible stems topped with white reflectors that take advantage of the surrounding stimuli to create an ever-shifting array of animation. Immersed in a sensory experience, visitors walk through a series of winding paths, where the stems merge into a large canvas agitated by the wind, caressed by light and carried by music."
Jury comments: "The winning projects are separate entries with separate projects but they share one site and one convening organization. They both feature winter installations that epitomize the best effects that urban fragments can achieve. Both projects creatively reconceive the experience of being in Place des Festivals that is otherwise inhospitable to the winter pedestrian. In Entre les Rangs, the installation recalls Quebec’s wheat field history with thousands of flexible stems. The effect is inviting, educational and playful."
