From fluid promenade to pragmatic functionality, the project involves the rehabilitation of a Montreal cottage orchestrating a sculptural experience with an architectural dimension. Interfering in the daily life of a couple of young professionals, a system, both simple and complex, multiplies geometric interweavings and visual breakthroughs to reveal a home in the image of its owners.

Focusing as much on compactness as on organizational interrelationships, the development of the architectural system requires its users to scrutinize their habits, and question the needs related to their daily life. In this process of collaborative creation, the owners adopt the playful approach of the architects with enthusiasm, humor, and sensitivity in order to specify the character identity of the project.

Playing with positive and negative spaces, the proposal articulates a crystallization fragmenting the volumetric entity by a physical and visual permeability, altering the perceptions of dimensioning. Opting for the subtraction of floor areas in favor of spatial qualities, volumes and interstices compose a domestic ecosystem of rows and vis-à-vis. Livened up by the constant variability of color shades, enlivened by the seasons and the natural light coming from the garden adjoining the living space, the MB project manifests the expression of these external parameters on its unifying monomateriality. Associated with its urban context and the flow of dynamic interactions generated by its internal conditions, including the movements of users and their way of living, a rhythmic versatility stands out in contrast to the geometric rigor of the assemblage.

Beyond the amalgamation of domestic functions, MB proposes an intervention multiplying interrelationships to enhance the movement through a parcours revealing its spatial polysemy. From archetype to abstraction, space is transformed. From an organizational matrix to a discovery game, MB presents a place participating in the active life of its neighborhood, while generating an enveloping family haunt.

The post Cottage Redesign in Montreal was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Chemin des Carrières, the Quarries’ Track, is a lace undulating in the landscape, an invitation to travel as our ambition behind the reconquest of the Rosheim-St Nabor railway in Alsace, France. Ominous, sometimes hidden, the vestiges of the railway still mark the reading of the site. The desire to create a route to serve the quarries had to adapt to the undulating landscapes of the sub-Vosges hills and the very form of the tracing tells the history of the landscape and the men. The journey to discover forgotten landscapes or to take a different view on everyday landscapes is addressed to both local users and tourists. Like the old track that offered a dual function (industrial and passenger transport), the route has a double vocation where the functional must rub shoulders with the imaginary of travel. Along the 11km path goes a story, which the stops split into five chapters of different sequences of landscapes offering varied universes and highlighting remarkable sites. Unusual elements punctuate the way, aiming at awakening the visitor’s senses, and water is encountered repeatedly.

Rosheim tells the story of the past. Realized by intertwined circles in Corten steel, the pavilion has a labyrinthine character and play with irregular concave and convex interiors, which the visitors are free to roam. The train tracks are conserved in that area, benches are built, and openings are created to open or close the sculpture to chosen views of the surrounding landscape allowing for viewing, seating – reflexion and contemplation. 

Boersch tells the story of water. The river, which historically allowed connection to the world and tells about the true cleanliness of a place. It is a dynamic element in the landscape, running to the ocean. We enlarge the riverbed and build a large open space amphitheater to access the water.

Leonardsau tells the story of the land. After a long green tunnel, two large corten steel plates amplify the opening effect at the end of the forest corridor to the open landscape, embodying a gate and opening a perspective towards Mont St-Odile, which develops the idea of discovery. Ottrott tells the story of travel. Former train station, the stop materializes the history of the railway and highlight the presence of the heritage (balance, bridge, crane, pump…). In a fabric of housing buildings, the reservoir, symbolizing water, and concrete crossings connect housing to historical elements and landscape.

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter

Florent Michel @11h45

The post Chemin des Carrières was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Moving Dunes is inspired by the early arts. It is an extension of the temporary exhibit From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face Picasso, Past and Present, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). The plastic approach of cubist painters questions the role of perspective in visual representation. Anamorphosis, which is the distortion of the subject reconfiguring itself according to the position of the body in space, is one of the methods used. Through this process, Moving Dunes introduces the public to the essence of this approach in a playful way.

 By manipulating the street surface, large ripples are generated, recalling the features of a body or a face. Reflective spheres and geometric shapes amplify patterns and multiply points of view. As the observer moves, the street transforms, shapes are reversed, the ground comes alive and destabilizes. Moving Dunes is an experiential mirage in the heart of Downtown Montreal. Along the way, the passer-by discovers the presence of spheres reflecting the different buildings of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, all unique in their architecture and history. Moving Dunes brings together the real and the virtual worlds and awakens the senses.

The MMFA animated the pedestrian area of ​​avenue Du Musée, which has become a must-see for citizens and tourists alike. The goal was to pedestrianize the street and to create a temporary signature layout. Among the challenges encountered were the development of a concept in relation to the theme of the exhibition, the activation of a pedestrian public space while allowing the passage of emergency vehicles, and the creation of an experience with high media impact on a limited budget.

NÓS

Alex Lesage-Threefold

Raphaël Thibodeau

The post Moving Dunes was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.