The future library in the center of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, looks good aesthetically with its sloping geometry evoking the traditional shape of a teepee and its large glass entrance opening onto wooden structures reminiscent of a Métis dwelling. Other projections of the interior offer vast open, friendly and interconnected spaces, all bathed in light.
This magnificent cultural facility of 12,000 square meters (a third of the surface area of the Grande Bibliothèque de Montréal) will cost approximately $135 million. The building designed by the Montreal firm Chevalier Morales in partnership with Formline Architecture and Architecture49, two Western firms, will be inaugurated in 2027.
This is already very impressive, but this exceptional shell hides much more. Some libraries become, through the force of social pressure, third places of refuge for the homeless or single people, for example. The one in Saskatoon was immediately designed as a community center to address certain systemic social problems such as illiteracy, social isolation and exclusion.
The reference documents speak of a “place for sharing and circulation of indigenous and Western knowledge”. All spaces, without exception, remain universally accessible, including by electric scooter. There is even a community kitchen. These choices are the result of public consultations conducted in 2021 and 2022 involving hundreds of Saskatonians, including many members of the largest urban Indigenous community in the country.
“We have been holding competitions for twenty years and obviously we want to produce good architecture, but we also want our buildings to be functional, flexible, well integrated into the social and urban context,” explains Stephan Chevalier, co-founder of the firm. “We have built several libraries in Quebec in recent years [notamment à Drummondville, Mont-Laurier et Lachine]but this is the first project where the book is not necessarily at the heart of the discourse. This place, the equivalent of the Grande Bibliothèque de Montréal, was designed as a vector of reconciliation. The Saskatoon library is a pivotal project of new architecture in Canada. »
Rebuild the building
Jean-Pierre Chupin, professor of architecture at the University of Montreal (UdeM), thinks no less. It was he who pointed to the example of Saskatoon at the cutting edge of the changes underway in his field. Holder of the Canada Research Chair in architecture, competitions and mediations of excellence, he directs the program Quality of the Built Environment in Canada launched in the middle of a pandemic. The objective of the vast project: to question the current notion of quality to broaden the perspective on constructions and developments beyond aesthetic criteria.
“The program was born from the feeling of several researchers that new values are transforming the representation that architects, urban planners, interior designers or landscapers have of their profession and their role,” explains the professor. All disciplines of the built environment are grappling with new expectations. »
The five-year work plan for the $2.5 million program, running through 2027, involves fourteen Canadian universities. They divide their reflection around “roadmaps” organized by theme: adaptive reuse (Ottawa), participatory processes (Quebec), inclusive schools (Halifax), healthy cities (Calgary), collectively managed housing ( Manitoba), resilient parks (Toronto), etc. The teams seek and find in synergy. University institutions finance part of the research. In total, around 70 researchers and as many public and private organizations are participating in the major national survey.
The UdeM School of Architecture works on universal accessibility issues. The initial observation is clear: the famous prizes of excellence do not really take this criterion into account, relegating it to compliance with a few technical standards. “We do not consider that accessibility is part of quality, which is all the same absurdity,” says the professor. This observation disturbed us greatly. We must challenge the award organizers and ask them to put in place criteria to measure the degree of accessibility of buildings. In Canada, 27% of the population is directly affected by some form of disability that reduces mobility. »
McGill University received the mandate to reflect on the city at night, a kingdom of marginalized communities, a refuge for transgressive practices, a space for celebration and a place of certain dangers and insecurity, including for the homeless. “The more we open this area, the more we realize that it is enormous. »
The Concordia University team, led by a biologist, is interested in urban biodiversity. Investigations include the effect of parks and more natural areas on older people.
Re-align lines
The large community mobilized to rethink excellence in architecture includes representatives of citizen groups, cities and associations traditionally responsible for evaluating the quality of buildings, including by awarding prizes. “Our goal is to move the lines in schools, which is essential,” says Professor Chupin. All built environment professions must learn to work with citizens and users. The program will publish sheets with open access. Each team will make concrete proposals to improve practices. »
The educationist hopes that the program will have profound effects on the country's training schools. “This is the most important question: if we want to teach lessons to everyone, it has to start at home first. » Theoretical courses are already opening up to other cultures and architectural traditions, breaking away from the strict Western rut. The changes that have been under development for years to go green are also moving in the right direction.
The professor wants the practical lessons to follow the change. “Most of our training is done in workshops where students in small groups learn through contact with professionals,” says Mr. Chupin. We realize that all this runs in a closed circuit, sometimes with dated value systems. We will have to clean up to make our teachings truly relevant again. »
He takes up the example of accessibility “which almost no one talks about in training”, explaining that student surveys have revealed this defect in the country's fourteen architecture schools.
Causes, effects
There remains the question of the causes of this ongoing transformation, which Mr. Chupin does not yet dare to describe as a paradigm shift (“We will see in 20 years”). The feminization of the profession certainly has something to do with it. Feminist architects and urban planners think of the city differently, if only with greater concern for the safety of people.
Environmental concerns also weigh heavily, and movements in favor of greater equity, diversity and equality are now crossing the building disciplines, if only through the increasingly multicultural and international cohorts themselves.
“We have moved from a concern for technical sustainability, quite environmental, to a concern for social sustainability,” summarizes the professor. I present the cutting edge of the reflection and my point of view. The profession is not quite there yet, but architects will quickly catch up. Our students, who are mostly female students now, are increasingly sensitive to the social value of what they want to produce. The new cohorts no longer want to do things that are purely aesthetic, these Frank Gehry-style architectures, a little extraordinary, that we have seen a lot for years. »
