FOURTH YEAR UNDERGRADUATE
Luca Castellan—Ontario Association of Architects Exceptional Leadership Through Design Excellence: Sustainability Award
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Luca Castellan—Ontario Association of Architects Exceptional Leadership Through Design Excellence: Sustainability Award
About the Award
Ontario Association of Architects Exceptional Leadership Through Design Excellence: Sustainability Award:
For best demonstrated design excellence and exemplary response to the climate crisis.
The Scadding Court Community Hub emphasizes civic architecture's role in shaping social cities that advocate for environmental sustainability. By elevating human experiences and alleviating street congestion, the hub assists the human scale through porous urban programs. The building design performs as a landscape, bringing people to Alexandra Park on or under canopies that support cycling safety and welcome individual and multicultural ownership. A plan with familiar programs but an organic shell facilitates an ungoverned environment staged for personal connection. The form rejects specialized components typically associated with organic structures and uses the reconfiguration of structural modules to reduce embodied carbon. Keeping the elevation low and oblique reduces glazing and enables individual roof surfaces to group functional requirements, such as passive energy strategies, that different assemblies would often separate. While cities evolve based on competing architectural bodies, the civic landscape generally morphs based on its surroundings. The hub challenges the "building-first" mindset that often results in neglected parks, reframing green spaces as active community assets that dictate our buildings rather than becoming afterthoughts. The design minimizes an architectural presence to create a strong engagement with the natural space, creating a sense of care that inspires communities to preserve it. By strengthening this connection, communities see their natural parks as social builders to be woven within cities more. Ultimately, the plan engages the public in reassessing their agency with Toronto green spaces and their dependence on the surrounding buildings.
Thank you for honoring me with the Ontario Association of Architects Exceptional Leadership Through Design Excellence: Sustainability Award. I aim to continually promote an open dialog over sustainability in collaborative design environments, and remain grateful for being surrounded by forward thinking and inspiring educators. I look forward to advocating with the OAA for a sustainable future and seeing the industry evolve.
*The Scadding Court Community Hub was done in collaboration with Babak Abnar
Ontario Association of Architects Exceptional Leadership Through Design Excellence: Sustainability Award:
For best demonstrated design excellence and exemplary response to the climate crisis.
The Scadding Court Community Hub emphasizes civic architecture's role in shaping social cities that advocate for environmental sustainability. By elevating human experiences and alleviating street congestion, the hub assists the human scale through porous urban programs. The building design performs as a landscape, bringing people to Alexandra Park on or under canopies that support cycling safety and welcome individual and multicultural ownership. A plan with familiar programs but an organic shell facilitates an ungoverned environment staged for personal connection. The form rejects specialized components typically associated with organic structures and uses the reconfiguration of structural modules to reduce embodied carbon. Keeping the elevation low and oblique reduces glazing and enables individual roof surfaces to group functional requirements, such as passive energy strategies, that different assemblies would often separate. While cities evolve based on competing architectural bodies, the civic landscape generally morphs based on its surroundings. The hub challenges the "building-first" mindset that often results in neglected parks, reframing green spaces as active community assets that dictate our buildings rather than becoming afterthoughts. The design minimizes an architectural presence to create a strong engagement with the natural space, creating a sense of care that inspires communities to preserve it. By strengthening this connection, communities see their natural parks as social builders to be woven within cities more. Ultimately, the plan engages the public in reassessing their agency with Toronto green spaces and their dependence on the surrounding buildings.
Thank you for honoring me with the Ontario Association of Architects Exceptional Leadership Through Design Excellence: Sustainability Award. I aim to continually promote an open dialog over sustainability in collaborative design environments, and remain grateful for being surrounded by forward thinking and inspiring educators. I look forward to advocating with the OAA for a sustainable future and seeing the industry evolve.
*The Scadding Court Community Hub was done in collaboration with Babak Abnar
