At last week’s
Canadian Architect Awards, Toronto’s
Rounthwaite, Dick and Hadley Architects took two of the five top prizes.
RDH won Awards of Excellent for its work on both Brampton Springdale Library and Neighbourhood Park and the new Eglinton GO Train station.
“They’re both completely different projects but the office has a consistent language and conceptual approach that’s reflected in both of them,” says Tyler Sharp, a principal at RDH.
Both projects do also share triangular influences. Although the Springdale Library is designed to organically blend with the park around with an amorphous edge where some of the rolling created topography of the exterior landscape is echoed inside the courtyards of the building, its overall shape is a triangle. The actual site is quite suburban and flat, so the hills and landscaping are meant to add interest and a greater level of engagement. A neighbourhood park with a splashpad for kids is separated from a terraced garden, intended for more contemplative uses.
The site for the GO Train station is also triangular, so Sharp and the team balanced that constraint against the perspective of the lines of sight of the train tracks. Compared to the infrastructure projects of the past, RDH was able to bring real imagination to the design. The tech specs on the station match other GO stations, but there was room to be creative.
“I think one of the reasons the Eglinton station was chosen was GO and Metrolinx’s attempting a paradigm shift in putting quality of design at the forefront of their projects,” says Sharp.
The Architect Awards recognize unbuilt work. Construction on the library and park project is expected to start soon with completion as early as the end of 2016. The Eglinton GO station has yet to be tendered is expected to be completed in 2017.
Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Tyler Sharp