Archinect - Features

A Conversation with TBA on How Speculative Work Goes Hand and Hand with Built Projects

2019-02-04T10:00:00-05:00

Montreal-based architect Tom Balaban founded his eponymous architecture firm, TBA in short, in 2009. Since, he and his small but growing studio have built up an impressive portfolio of built and speculative work. While Balaban oversees the firm's built projects, his partner Jennifer Thorogood helps to run the research-side of things, which the practice is constantly pushing. For this week's Studio Snapshot, the firm discusses how their plethora of research projects is vital to their design process.

From Paris to Montreal, Atelier Barda Brings A French Touch to Their Designs

2017-11-27T12:24:00-05:00

The Quebecois studio Atelier Barda, founded by Cécile Combelle and Antonio Di Bacco, was recently named among Azure's 30 leading Canadian architectural firms. The young practice originally set up shop in Paris before launching a satellite office in Montreal, where they now reside.

For this week's Small Studio Snapshot, we talk with the multidisciplinary firm about the difference between the two countries, their new furniture line, and the "French touch" they bring to their designs.

Moshe Safdie Reflects on the 50th Anniversary of Habitat 67, the Masterpiece He Completed at 25

2017-05-10T11:41:00-04:00

Fifty years ago, a young Canadian-Israeli architect got the chance of a lifetime: the opportunity to realize his senior thesis for the 1967 World Fair in Montréal. The resulting housing complex inspired generations of architects inside and outside of Canada, and its influence is visible in buildings built to this day. It wasn’t just formal innovation that determined Habitat 67’s significance—although that’s certainly part of it—but also the new way of life it imagined by way of affordable, dense urban housing with all the greenery, spaciousness, and privacy of the suburbs.

Showcase: Slate House by Affleck de la Riva architects

2014-11-06T20:27:00-05:00

Suburbia doesn't have to be faceless. Slate House, a proud black sheep in a family of tract houses, manages a demurely chic presence amid the former farmlands of Laval, Montreal's largest suburb.

Screen/Print #15: Sophie Yanow's "War of Streets and Houses"

2014-05-08T09:47:00-04:00

Student protests broke out in Montreal in February of 2012, rallying against Quebec’s proposed university tuition hike. The protests were massive, flooding the streets for days with students, sympathizers and police, while universities saw dramatic student walkouts. Sophie Yanow was one such sympathizer, whose experience in the protests made her reconsider the city as a place where systems of control are made physical. Her graphic novel, War of Streets and Houses, reflects on the protests and her own place in the city’s power structure.