From an airplane to design shows to a home bar to scratch-and-sniff wallpaper to a remembrance center — here is a detailed look at the 5 finalists in this year’s GRAY Awards Wild Card category.
WINNER
Restock
Brief
Interior Design Show Vancouver is the premier showcase in Western Canada for new products and furniture, Western Canadian-based designers and avant-garde concepts from North America and
beyond. The show planners asked the architects and their collaborators, a construction company and demolition company that upcycles upwards of 85% of its materials, to design and build the central bar of the show. The theme of the show, “Design DNA”, prompted the architects to consider the building blocks of construction.
Challenge
The team decided that whatever structure they envisioned and created, it would be a zero-waste design, as sustainability is a dominant gene encoded in all their DNA.
Result
Restock, the name for IDS Vancouver 2019’s central bar, became an examination of a standard, dismantled single-family home and its environmental footprint. With its use of old-growth lumber, Tyvek, building paper, and vapour barriers — materials that constitute a home on a typical 33’ x 122’ Vancouver lot — the collaborative team sought to radically rethink, and then represent, residential demolition. The architects designed a barcode system for the bar to catalogue the different ways building materials are salvaged. The gaps in the barcode provided spectators with glimpses of the cozy interior and invited them into the structure — a feature of and gathering point for the show. Another access point provided those within with direct views of the main stage. With 60% of Vancouver’s landfill being materials from the residential construction industry, Restock is a celebration of sustainable practices, designed to shed light on demolition strategies that protect the salvage content of a building. Restock is ultimately a catalyst for change: an honest representation of salvage materials, and a use that promotes awareness and positive decision-making in the construction industry.
Environmental impact
The aim of the architects and their collaborators was to disrupt unsustainable demolition practices through a commitment to considered, environmentally focused approaches. To maintain the integrity of the materials, which were repurposed at the end of the show, the architects’ design called for no drill holes or cuts, with each piece connected instead through clips or straps. True to its design, at the end of the show, 85% of the structure was recycled and 15% repurposed. No materials headed to a landfill.
PROJECT DETAILS
Design Team:
Clinton Cuddington, Piers Cunnington, Hannah Newton, Dana
Salama, Matt Kijewski, Sam Dunner, Lewis Canning, Patrick Gonzales
Collaborators:
Photographer: Ema Peter Photography
Videographer: Martin Knowles Photo/Media
Contractor: Patrick Powers, Powers Construction
Unbuilder: Adam Corneil, Unbuilders,
Structural Engineer: Nick de Ridder, Fast + Epp Partners
Printing: ARC Document Solutions
Other: Cloth Studio; Habitat for Humanity; Komol Plastics; Nelcan Electric; Nu-Tech Roofing; Plum Framing and Forming; Rebecca Anderson; Graham Case; Eero Cuddington; Mika Ishizaki
Date of Completion: September 2019
Finalist: Affinity
Greenpoint Technologies’ Affinity aircraft interior concept began with their client’s desire for positive change and a renewed need to connect with nature.
The team studied the benefits of biophilic design, a concept used to increase the sense of connection to nature through the use of organic, sustainable materials, including how this technique would reduce stress and have a positive impact on one’s mood, energy, focus, and productivity.
The resulting interior spaces of the project seamlessly balances sustainable design and well-being with innovative technology concealed within the natural user interface. The result is a modern, holistic, and
meaningful aircraft interior. The team worked closely with the end-client to fully understand their
aircraft mission requirements, design preferences, and desires. The client requested a functional, sustainable aircraft interior suitable for installation on any wide-body airframe.
The design process began with a floorplan catering to the client’s requirements. The team defined
the overall interior architecture and furniture standards, then modeled and sketched all interior elements. 3D Illustrators utilized software including 3Ds Max, Photoshop, and V-ray to build
engaging, accurate interior renderings. Lighting and soft materials such as fabrics, colors, and textures were selected to finish the interior for client approval. The visualization process evaluates the
décor, functionality, and livability of the layout to ensure client satisfaction.
Affinity features an expansive main cabin with contemporary architecture and natural details. A vast digital skylight extends down the center of the cabin ceiling, bringing daylight and starry night
scenes into the cabin. Throughout the journey, the light scenes adjust to different time zones, programmed to align with passengers’ natural circadian rhythms. A refined, louvered archway features
meandering organic greenery and soft LED lighting diffused to mimic natural daylight. The natural oak archway separates the two lounges while maintaining an open and tranquil cabin environment. The forward lounge is ideal for relaxed social gatherings, featuring an oversized sectional and outboard-facing viewing display. Passengers may use the viewing display as a window to the outside world, with
the ability to project views from external High Definition (HD) cameras; bringing the excitement of flight and nature’s beauty into the cabin. A central feature of the forward lounge is the circular, layered moss green wall symbolizing energy, harmony, and mindfulness.
The aft lounge achieves a formal space perfect for business or dining. A delicate, slated oak wall covers the aft lounge walls and sidewalls, providing elegant texture and refinement with craftsman floral cutouts. Serene blues, inspired by the Pantone color of the year, offer a sense of calm and solidarity.
The selected suppliers with a strong focus on sustainability, vegan materials, and recycled fibers. The interior features organic materials throughout; including a silky bamboo carpet, reclaimed oak, green feature walls, and the use of discarded, bespoke materials such as mother of pearl an eggshell as accents.
Greenpoint Technologies’ Affinity interior achieves a contemporary, honest, and open cabin. Each space offers the highest level of function and adaptability, with adjustable lighting and advanced technology concealed throughout the cabin. Whether traveling for business or leisure, the Affinity interior offers a comfortable, serene oasis for all passengers onboard.
PROJECT DETAILS
Design Team:
Greenpoint Design interior designers and 3D illustrators, graphic designers, and CAD designers.
Ms. Annika Wicklund - Design Director
Ms. Madeline Tuesley – Designer
Ms. McCahl Troupe – Designer
Mr. Shawn Bomers – Group Lead, Illustration
Mr. Marcus Bailie – Sr. Design Illustrator
Date of Completion: March 2020
Finalist: Gig Harbor Residence
A showcase of the design team, the highly crafted Gig Harbor Residence is a display of the intentionality and detail of each item and move within the project. For this category, Mutuus Studio entered the bar, which sits adjacent to the living room.
Styled with glassware and the firm’s Tiny Drift Candle Holders, the open shelving and countertop span the width of the bar and are nestled against a backdrop of torched stainless steel panels.
Elevating the humble materials used in the beginnings of paintings, the three Dead City Pendants (also by Mutuus) are composed of Micarta — a composite material made of linen and epoxy resin — and offer a magical translucency of the numerous layers revealed within the lathed linen resulting in an ethereal, timeless glow when illuminated.
The bar underneath features cabinets faced with custom linen panels and pulls that create a seamless relationship between the cabinets and the living room furniture, unifying the open area. A testament to the design team’s practice in functionality, beauty, and timelessness.
PROJECT DETAILS
Design Team: Kristen Becker, Saul Becker, Jim Friesz
Date of Completion: July 2020
Photographed by: Saul Becker
Finalist: Sensorial Estates x Hong Kong Pavilion
For the London Design Biennale 2018 theme ‘Emotional States’, the WE-DESIGNS team designed the experience, production, and design-build of the Hong Kong Pavilion.
‘Sensorial Estates’, focuses on the sensory experience of smell and its relationship with nostalgia and memory in the context of everyday life. Exploring the emotionally profound link between smell and
time/space, the Hong Kong Pavilion focuses on the exploration of how the sensorial experience of smell heightens nostalgia and memory within our everyday lives and how smells can take us back to physical places and states of being. If visitors have ever passed through Hong Kong, its sensorial estates are sleeping within the memory; the experience of the Pavilion, and its various sensorial estates, immerse the viewers into different emotive states through smell.
The research and development of this installation explore the sensorial representation of Hong Kong through an interactive, sensorial, physical, and tactile installation. It will aim to showcase emblematic cultural icons and experiences and capture local influences through site-specific objects and designs — representing the locality, regionality, and complexity of Hong Kong.
As the visitor moves through the pavilion to view the exhibited works and curated objects, they will interact with the scent experiences created within the space and through a variety of scratch-and-sniff
wallpapers. The pavilion installation explores how ‘smell’ triggers our emotional state more intensively.
The spatial design and concept are theoretically inspired by Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, and graphically inspired by Andy Warhol and MC Escher. The final installation and exhibition is designed by the WE-DESIGNS team and was commissioned to them through the auspiciousness of the London Design Biennale Art Director Christopher Turner. Funding is made possible in part by the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office (London), and several private
donors.
‘These distinctive smells and tactile shapes remain the most instinctual way I continuously experience and develop the nostalgia and memories of my Hong Kong identity, even from the other side of the world. And, I would like to use this installation to share that experience with the public.’
– WE-DESIGNS, Lead Designer
PROJECT DETAILS
Design Team:
Lead: Wendy W Fok, Lead
Camila Varon Jaramillo, Lead Producer & Designer
Eugene Ong, Graphic Design
Erin Lee Carman, Social Media
Lillian He, Head of Communications (Project)
Collaborators:
Artistic director: Christopher Turner, V&A Museum, UK
Date of Completion: September 2018
Finalist: South Haven Centre for Remembrance
SHAPE Architecture Inc.
The new South Haven Centre for Remembrance creates a new nondenominational facility for the City of Edmonton. The primary objective of the design was to memorialize moments in time and spatially capture the quality of the seasons through the interplay of light, shadow, and darkness. The design features a symbolic thirteen metre tower which emerges from the prairie landscape which makes
reference to the existing gravesites, monuments, columbaria, and the latent memory that they embody. Our memory of visiting a cemetery is marked by time; the position of the sun, the quality of reference to the existing gravesites, monuments, columbaria, and the latent memory that they embody.
The unique nature of this building typology was coupled with the rare opportunity to position a building within a vast twenty-one-hectare site. The development of a partially submerged landform building was conceived of as a wandering line in the landscape providing a visual connection to and from the building. The planning strategy focused on the careful placement of the main entry and key public program spaces which allow a spatial sequence of public spaces to unfold to address public arrival as well as is providing spaces and areas for silence, reflection, and pause.
The organizational strategy spatially distinguishes between the ephemeral and the permanent. The ephemeral reference short visits and respond to the natural characteristics of light, sound, and weather which are closely connected to time and the seasons. The permanent correspond to burial and the physical record associated with sustaining memory and the physical artifacts that characterize
the cemetery; this is the deep foundation of the building as they service the everlasting memory of the individuals that are laid to rest in the Cemetery.
The color and overall character of the building considers the relationship of modulating light patterns within the building interior throughout the seasons as well as the long crisp winter shadows that
are cast from the building edges. The combination of black hot rolled steel panels and a black charred (shou sugi-ban accoya) skin act as a counterpoint to the snowy winter conditions and the changing
relationship of the building in the landscape throughout the year. The main entrance sequence provides a compressed moment of darkness prior to opening the oversized steel pivot doors which
reveal the light luminous interior space and the framed view of the downtown skyline viewed across the winter-garden courtyard.
The main entrance sequence is predominated by hot rolled steel walls which allow for a compressed moment of darkness prior to opening the oversized steel pivot doors which reveal the light luminous interior space and the focused view of the downtown core viewed through the layers of space.
The tower is characterized by a large triangular clerestory which allows diffuse north light to enter the meeting rooms. The form and development of the tower evolved through multiple iterations to optimize the quality of light and more specifically; how light and shadow casts within the tower on the summer solstice. The word Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), and the reverence of light and shadow within the tower are celebrated on this annual datum.
PROJECT DETAILS
Design Team:
Dwayne Smyth, Nick Sully, Jessica McGillivray, Benjamin Fisher,
Scotty Keck, Avery Titchkosky, Kate Busby, Bill Pechet, Anneliese
Fris, James Townsend, Eric Hui
Collaborators: Group2 Architects + PECHET studio
Structural : Fast+Epp
Electrical: Arrow Engineering
Landscape: Design North
Civil: V3
Date of Completion: June 2019
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