Courtesy of Ice Breakers

Between January 21st and February 26th, five wintertime art installations will enliven Toronto’s waterfront on Queens Quay West. In a collaboration between Winter Stations and the Waterfront Business Improvement Area, the “Ice Breakers” exhibition was created “to inspire exploration of the urban Waterfront in the colder months.”

“The Waterfront is one of Toronto’s busiest communities in the summertime but, like The Beach, it can be under-appreciated as temperatures drop,” explains Roland Rom Colthoff, principle at RAW design and a Winter Stations co-founder. “Like Winter Stations, Ice Breakers is an interactive celebration of public art. We want to nudge Torontonians back outside and inspire them to keep engaging with the city.”

The five installations will be on display at Harbourfront Centre, HTO Park, Rees Street Parkette, Peter Street Basin, and the Music Garden East. Read on to see all five proposals.

Leeward Fleet / RAW (Canada Square, Harbourfront Centre)

Leeward Fleet / RAW. Image Courtesy of Ice Breakers

Celebrating Toronto’s rich harbour history, design studio RAW introduces three pivoting structures to Canada Square. Inspired by ice and sailboat technology, enamel masts hold up brightly coloured sails, each of which serve as sculptural references to the days prior to ferry transportation.

ICEBOX / Polymetis (HTO Park)

ICEBOX / Polymetis. Image Courtesy of Ice Breakers

The Canadian winter is a landscape of contrasts: between empty blank whiteness and things not fully shrouded in snow and ice; between the (more-or-less) static physical world and the temporal surfaces of frozen water that accumulate and dissipate over it; between being inside, in the warmth, and being outside, in the cold. “ICEBOX” seeks to manifest these contrasts and provide space for introspection, social interaction, and shared appreciation of winter.

Winter Diamonds / Platant (Music Garden East)

Winter Diamonds / Platant. Image Courtesy of Ice Breakers

The shimmering lights emitted from “White Diamonds” attract contemplation of these fragile, yet solid structures. The viewer is invited to engage with a poetic and dreamy focal point, in a vast winter landscape.

Incognito / Curio Art Consultancy and Jaspal Riyait (Rees Street Parkette)

Incognito / Curio Art Consultancy and Jaspal Riyait. Image Courtesy of Ice Breakers

Using architectural massing models as the inspiration for the structures, “Incognito” explores what happens when you make the City’s architectural interventions invisible. Adopting the same camouflaging technology used by warships, the wintery environment will render the installation truly incognito, shaping the public’s interaction with the piece.

Tailored Twins / Ferris + Associates (Peter Street Basin)

Tailored Twins / Ferris + Associates. Image Courtesy of Ice Breakers

A set of faceted wooden hands rise three metres from the lookouts at the Peter Street Basin. Their gold-mirror palms bath the basin in a warm sun-like glow.

Project descriptions via Ice Breakers.

• Title: Exhibition: Ice Breakers
• Type: Exhibition
• Website: http://ift.tt/2gspNSv
• Organizers: Ice Breakers
• From: January 21, 2017 03:49 PM
• Until: January 26, 2017 03:49 PM
• Venue: Waterfront, Toronto
• Address: 479 Queens Quay W, Toronto, ON M5V, Canada

http://ift.tt/2hiwVh7

© Rodrigo Daza

• Architects: Alfredo González Briceño + Ignacio Rojas Hirigoyen
• Location: Leyda, San Antonio, Región de Valparaíso, Chile
• Area: 82.0 m2
• Year Project: 2015
• Photography : Rodrigo Daza

© Rodrigo Daza

Leyda Valley is located on the west side of Chile’s central coastal mountain range. About 7 km. from the Pacific Ocean sea side. 95 km. to the west of Santiago.

© Rodrigo Daza

The Leyda Valley is reknowned because of it’s proximity to the coast, in the area there is an important development of viticulture. Because of their vicinity to the sea, their varieties are very special. From the other side, by the coast, there’s an expansion of large areas for shipping containers; they are unloaded at San Antonio’s Port, this activity is pushing the city limit towards the East.

Leyda raises as a frontier between this two situations.

© Rodrigo Daza

We were commissioned to design a weekend house, on top of a group of hills, within a large countryside lot. We were asked to take special care, with an emphasis on austerity, a very low-budget was mandatory. 

Floor Plan

On the other hand, we found ourselves in this border situation between two kinds of activities, this seemed to us a project trigger.

© Rodrigo Daza

We had exceptional panoramic views towards the vineyards located to the Southeast. By contrast, there’s an expansion of the industrial quarters, from the coast, displacing rural houses. For this side, we wanted a hermetic project, but this would at the same time make it difficult to get the best Northwest sunlight.

© Rodrigo Daza

As a first approach we tried to synthesize the project as a simple volume that we took from the ephemeral shelters used on the nearby strawberry crops. These kind of shelters can be found across the land from here down to the east side of Rapel Lake. We saw on these light constructions a very strong formal guide, with a very impressive visual value, on how this low-cost countryside house could be solved. A synthetic form, solves all economic issues by its lack of particularities. That’s how the equation between views / sun light became an opportunity, and its solution gave identity to the project.

© Rodrigo Daza

We solved the program in a very simple way. At the ends, the bedrooms, each one with its own bathroom, at the middle, the living and dining areas. In opposition to the usual orientation on this geographic location, we designed the house facing to the South, giving protagonism to the views towards the vineyards, which spread like blankets, over the valley with the coastal mountain range on the background. We injected light from the North through openings in the roof, that’s how we achieved a space that looks toward the landscape with a gentle sunbath from its rear side.

© Rodrigo Daza

In terms of materiality, this house was structured with traditional timber frames. As a cladding we used an asphaltic membrane that is elastic and continuous. The volume was thought as monolithic block without any recognizable parts. There are no eaves, no rain gutters, no seams or joint lines of any kind; this is how we generated a synthesis of the expression. 

© Rodrigo Daza

This block was worked as a solid, a bar that in its sheer simplicity reached the economy required by the clients brief. Mass was subtracted and moved vertically through the volume, this operation generated the openings that solve the views, the natural lighting and the general implications suggested by the surroundings and the location. The synthesis of all of this aspects, formally determine the project.

© Rodrigo Daza

http://ift.tt/2gOqCkP

“The Architect“, directed by Jonathan Parker, is a film that moves between drama and comedy. It features a humorous (and some would say believable) satire of architects. In the film an egocentric, and grandiose architect named Miles Moss, played by actor James Frain, works with a couple who wants to build their dream home. 

Colin and Drew, played by Eric McCormack and Parker Posey, hire Moss, who throughout the movie ends up exhausting their patience as well as their bank accounts. In one of the scenes, Moss complains, “I don’t know why people hire architects, and then tell them what to do,” referring to the famous quote from Canadian architect Frank Gehry.

However, the film doesn’t only portray the self-centered side of architects. Moss sometimes takes a break from his ego and shows his more human aspects, for example when he says: “As an architect, I have the job of transforming hopes and dreams into wood, glass, steel, and concrete.” 

Check out the trailer below:

http://ift.tt/2gOicK3