Architecture news: Letter from Canada
Rotman School of Managment by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg
The Toronto firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg is one of the few firms in North America to design and deliver large buildings at a consistently high level of quality. This academic project for the University of Toronto is a case in point: it fits a large bulk of research and event space into a complex inner-city campus - partly by going below ground in a bravura piece of spatial manipulation. The tailored facade of grey glass and zinc panels reflects KPMB's taste for subtle manipulation of materials, while a grand stair inside provides social space, circulation and poetry in one stroke.
www.kpmb.com
...
Telus Sky by BIG
This 58-storey tower, planned for the centre of downtown Calgary, Alberta, will add to the sophistication of a small city being reshaped by oil wealth. Bjarke Ingels Group, with the Canadian architects DIALOG, are designing an irregularly-shaped tower whose bulky lower half is filled with LEED Platinum office space, and slimmer top half by luxury apartments. This will join the Bow Building, a recent tower by Foster and Partners just a block away.
www.big.dk
Gillett Student Commons by Teeple Architects
Toronto's Teeple Architects have carved out an unusual path in Canada, favouring highly sculptural - and tightly executed - buildings for commercial and institutional clients. The Gillett Student Commons at Ottawa's Algonquin College is a case in point: clad in galvanized aluminum, its folded forms provide a gathering point for a relatively placeless campus. A strong list of sustainability strategies take it to meet a LEED Gold standard.
www.teeplearch.com
Ryerson University Image Centre by Diamond Schmitt Architects
Ryerson University, located in the centre of Toronto's downtown, scored a coup with an anonymous donation of the entire archives of the Black Star photojournalism agency. This spurred the renovation of a building for the school's Image Centre - with an archive, research space, event space and a new public gallery. Toronto's Diamond Schmitt Architects Inc. took a characterless industrial building and made it more urbane - by glazing the facades and connecting it to a nearby square. They have also added a series of LED lighting panels across much of the exterior, which produce constantly shifting colours that have a dramatic visual impact. A smartphone app allows students or passersby to alter the colour pattern, making the bulk of the building somewhat interactive.
www.dsai.ca
Mirvish + Gehry tower
Frank Gehry, who has made his career and life in Southern California, was actually born and reared in Toronto. Yet, aside from one large gallery renovation, he has never worked in that city. This project by the local arts figure and developer David Mirvish will remedy this in striking fashion. Gehry is designing a complex with three residential towers - at over 80 storeys each and among the tallest in Toronto - that draw on the varied formal vocabulary of his past highrise designs. It would also include a shopping mall, academic space and a new museum for Mirvish's own notable collection of colour field painting. The project's future is not assured, because of its bulk and the fact that it would demolish several protected heritage buildings, but it would be Gehry's largest-ever built project and among North America's most important tall buildings.
www.foga.com
Edmonton Eskimos Field House and Commonwealth Community Recretation Centre by MJMA
This athletic facility in the western city of Edmonton combines community uses with those of the professional Canadian Football League team, the Edmonton Eskimos. Maclennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects, specialists in instutitional buildings, carved dramatic forms and patterns, working with locals HIP Architects. www.mjmarchitects.com
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Newmarket Centre by Superkül
The small Toronto office Superkül springs from KPMB - principals Meg Graham and Andre D'Elia both worked there - and they share a finesse in working with ordinary wood and steel. Here, Superkül reorganized and renovated a 20,000 sq-ft athletic centre in the Toronto suburb of Newmarket, making a civic gesture with a new glazed entrance and a boldly patterned facade in painted galvanized prefinished steel panels and oiled ipe.
superkul.ca
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
Where Saltie Girl met SweetBoy: how an LA pastry chef and his Boston restaurateur mother accidentally created a family business
The collaboration between foodie duo Kathy and Ben Sidell sprinkles sugar dust over a West Hollywood haunt
By Luciana Bellini Published
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Rwanda’s Wilderness Bisate Reserve: ‘There are few lodges more magical than this’
Located south of Volcanoes National Park, the exclusive Wilderness Bisate Reserve caters equally to sybarites and the gorilla-obsessed
By Chris Schalkx Published
-
Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2025 highlights: Auralee to Louis Vuitton
Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2025 began yesterday with Pharrell Williams’ celebration of a ‘friendship for life’ with streetwear legend Nigo. Reporting from Paris, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss picks the best of the week, as it unfolds
By Jack Moss Published
-
We zoom in on Ontario Place, Toronto’s lake-defying 1971 modernist showpiece
We look back at Ontario Place, Toronto’s striking 1971 showpiece and modernist marvel with an uncertain future
By Dave LeBlanc Published
-
This Canadian guest house is ‘silent but with more to say’
El Aleph is a new Canadian guest house by MacKay-Lyons Sweatapple, designed for seclusion and connection with nature, and a Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025 winner
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025: celebrating architectural projects that restore, rebalance and renew
As we welcome 2025, the Wallpaper* Architecture Awards look back, and to the future, on how our attitudes change; and celebrate how nature, wellbeing and sustainability take centre stage
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The case of the Ontario Science Centre: a 20th-century architecture classic facing an uncertain future
The Ontario Science Centre by Raymond Moriyama is in danger; we look at the legacy and predicament of this 20th-century Toronto gem
By Dave LeBlanc Published
-
Year in review: the top 12 houses of 2024, picked by architecture director Ellie Stathaki
The top 12 houses of 2024 comprise our finest and most read residential posts of the year, compiled by Wallpaper* architecture & environment director Ellie Stathaki
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
This sustainable family home is an Ontario retreat in tune with its setting
Ridge House by Superkül is a private Canadian retreat that nods to its context and embraces nature and landscape
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Bunkie on The Hill is a cosy Canadian cottage full of charm
Bunkie on The Hill, a design by Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, is tucked into the trees, slotting neatly into Ontario's nature
By Shawn Adams Published
-
Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2024: meet the practices
In the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2024, our latest guide to exciting, emerging practices from around the world, 20 young studios show off their projects and passion
By Ellie Stathaki Published