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WORKSHOPS - urban design/exploration

Alleys, Canals, Festivals, and Zambonis

@CCA, Montreal, 2012


Alleys, canals, festivals and zambonis are unique aspects to the city of Montreal. This family workshop investigated Montréal from A to Z as families worked together in alliteration and architectural collage. Each participant followed prompts to write a poem about the street they live on. Following that, they illustrated the poem by collecting black and white print outs of historic and contemporary images of Montreal to collage a new reality and tell a new story of how they envision the city. This workshop was conceptualized and implemented for ABC:MTL is an urban abecedary and exhibition-based initiative that maps the contemporary Montréal cityscape through design, photography, installations, models, and public programs at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Canals, Piping, and Juice Boxes

@CCA, Montreal, 2012

 

This workshop engaged  families in the discussion “Do you know how much your family consumes on an average day?” Families worked together on creative projects in consideration of the impact of water use from the local to the global. Participants sampled water from various neighborhoods in a sensory mapping of Montreal. This workshop was curated as part of the exhibition Imperfect Health for the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.

“L” is for Landuse: On the work of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander

@CCA, Montreal, 2013

 

This family program was inspired by the imaginative landscape architecture of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, whose archive is kept at the CCA in Montreal. Oberlander was known for her Adventure Playgrounds - unique spaces of unrestricted play for children that deeply engage nature. Families gathered to discuss the use of plants, trees, water and rocks as architectural materials and how landscape architects often consider and use natural materials when designing an outdoor space. Together we worked outside in the winter landscape to map out an adventure playground for Baile Park.  This workshop was conceptualized and implemented for ABC:MTL, an urban abecedary and exhibition-based initiative that mapped the contemporary Montréal cityscape through design, photography, installations, models, and public programs at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Engineering the Unlikely Model

@CCA, Montreal, 2011

 

This workshop engaged families to work together on a design and build of fantastical architecture (in miniature). The first part of the workshop was to select from 3 containers a random assortment of words. These words then became their design brief/assignment. They collected materials from a displayed selection and began their architectural model construction, contemplating possibilities such as - How would you build an underwater chicken farm? Or a flying beauty salon? This workshop was curated as part of the exhibition Modernism in Miniature: Points of View for the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.