Montreal Old Port Infill
WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
This quiet infill project feels inevitable and fresh. The design strikes an intelligent balance between the modern and the historic as it rebuilds and abstracts the footprint of a previous structure that burned down in 1959. A modern mansard roof doubles as a shroud for unsightly mechanical equipment, a change in stone texture marks the parapet of the previous building, and each floor’s efficient planning responds to the stairs and exits of the adjacent building.
– D’Arcy Jones, juror
LOCATION Montreal, Quebec
An 18 x 80-foot sliver of real estate in Montreal’s Old Port district has been vacant since 1959, when the modest 19th-century warehouse that formerly occupied the site burned down. To state the obvious, any land parcel that has remained a pocket-size parking lot for more than six decades in this bustling tourism, dining, and shopping district must be fairly resistant to redevelopment. However, the owner of both this corner lot and the mixed-use heritage building adjacent to it determined that an infill building would be viable if it shared elevator and stair access with its neighbour to the east. Architecture écologique’s efficient design makes this happen, and it addresses the site’s challenges with urbane grace.
Due to the topography’s southward slope, the existing building has five storeys along its Rue de la Commune façade, which overlooks the St. Lawrence River, and only four on its north façade, along Rue Saint-Paul. It has retail tenancy at street level on Saint-Paul, and on the first two floors along Rue de la Commune, with two levels of office space above that and a residential loft on level five. The infill building will have a similar disposition of retail space, plus five apartments on its upper four levels, ranging in size from a studio to a three-bedroom unit. The top two apartments are each two-floor stair-connected units, with an upper-level terrace. A mansard-like roof, echoing the form of many others in the district that became Montreal’s main port in the 1600s, tucks the mechanical equipment out of sight.
While clearly a building of its own time, the infill structure subtly alludes to its predecessor, echoing the fire-destroyed building’s rounded corners and marking the height of its parapet with a shift in stone texture.
Best known to date for rural, single-family residences, architecture écologique founder Etienne Lemay demonstrates a deft touch on this project for mixed-use infill in a heritage district. And as his firm’s name suggests, this building will have a small footprint, sustainably as well as literally: its above-ground structural system will be cross-laminated timber; its heating and cooling will be geothermal.
CLIENT Pierre Bouvrette | ARCHITECTS Etienne Lemay, Odile Lamy | STRUCTURAL Latéral | MECHANICAL Canopée | CODE Technorm Inc. | AREA 965 m2 | BUDGET $4.5 M | STATUS Design development| ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2026
As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine
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