On Wednesday, September 23rd, the Canadian Canoe Museum held an open house where five potential designs for a new museum from architectural teams were presented to the public for the first time.
The process began back in April 2014, when the museum announced plans to relocate to the Parks Canada property beside the Peterborough Lift Lock.
The following February, the museum launched a design competition for a short list of three to five architectural firms to submit design concepts.
In May of this year, after reviewing 97 proposals, the museum announced the six teams to develop design concepts over the summer.
One of the selected teams (Patkau Architects of Vancouver and Brook McIlroy of Toronto) withdrew from the competition over the summer, leaving five teams in the running:
- Kohn Pederson Fox of New York City (www.kpf.com)
- Heneghan Peng Architects of Dublin (www.hparc.com)
- The team of Bing Thom Architects of Vancouver (www.bingthomarchitects.com and Lett Architects of Peterborough (www.lett.ca)
- The team of Provencher_Roy of Montreal (www.provencherroy.ca) and NORR of Toronto (www.norr.com)
- The team of 5468796 Architecture Inc. of Winnipeg (www.5468796.ca) and Moriyama & Teshima Architects of Toronto (mtarch.com).
Here are the design concepts presented by each team at the open house:
Kohn Pederson Fox
Heneghan Peng Architects
Bing Thom Architects and Lett Architects
Provencher_Roy and NORR
5468796 Architecture Inc. and Moriyama & Teshima Architects
The open house was also streamed live on YouTube. If you want to hear the comments from the architects about each design, you can watch below.
The museum welcomes all comments and ideas by email to newmuseum@canoemuseum.ca.
The next step in the process is for the museum to appoint a committee to make a recommendation to the museum’s board on the winning design, with the final selection to be made in the fall. The museum will then award the contract to design the new facility to the winning firm.
Regardless of which firm wins, a locally licenced architect will be part of the final design team.
The target for groundbreaking of the new museum is 2017 — the 20th anniversary of the museum’s opening and the 150th birthday of Canada. The Canadian Canoe Museum estimates that the construction of the new facility may create as many as 600 construction jobs and as many as 23 additional permanent jobs with the new museum’s expanded programs and facilities.
All photos courtesy of The Canadian Canoe Museum.
