Afin de viser des possibles clients la nuit à la recherche d’un fast-food, McDonald’s a pensé avec l’agence Cossette Vancouver ce panneau publicitaire réflechissant. De jour, le panneau est blanc sans message, mais la nuit, les phares font apparaître un message publicitaire.
The world’s lightest NeoShell jacket from Canada’s tech-driven outerwear maker
Weighing about as much as a bottle of water, Westcomb‘s impressive 15oz Switch LT Hoodie is the latest to be named the world’s lightest NeoShell jacket. While outerwear companies spend every season trying to capture industry attention, Westcomb is one of the few to hit the high mark year after year with cleanly designed, solidly manufactured gear created from start to finish under one roof in Vancouver.
A performance-driven, waterproof shell designed for all conditions, the Switch is made of Polartec Neoshell fabric, a revolutionary lightweight material rated at the market’s highest level of breathability and waterproof capability. With a slightly slimmer fit and articulated joints for ease of motion, the jacket maintains function while tackling the divide between tech and style. Multiple zippered pockets give the jacket just the right amount of portage possibilities while keeping contents completely dry. Westcomb president and lead designer Alan Yiu explains that the design team “started with a core foundation of the best possible materials, and then built the design upward from there, adding only what’s truly necessary for users in the field.”
The Switch LT Hoodie is now available from Westcomb in colorways spanning basic neutrals to adventurous bold hues, for $430. An investment piece, the ripstop nylon jacket will likely last a lifetime, allowing you to easily traverse rainy city streets or off-road trails.
Found objects and custom pieces with a vintage industrial aesthetic fill a Vancouver storefront
Inspired by the nostalgia of old wooden docks, mills and factories that once thrived in Vancouver, Union Wood Co.‘s recently opened shop in the city’s developing Downtown-Eastside community is a haven for those who covet vintage, repurposed and industrial objects.
After a stint working as a garbage collector, Union Wood Co. founder Craig Pearce discovered his love for things that other people discarded. “I would only buy used clothes. I started collecting things I would find in alleys. I started making things out of old wood. I didn’t like anything to be new.” What started off as a few pieces for friends quickly turned into a series of contracts to make things for those beyond his social circle. By 2009 Pearce had created a full-fledged business, which recently expanded into a storefront as well.
The shop not only acts as a source for found objects and antiques, but also produces its own line of products and furniture. On a recent visit we fell for the shop aprons made from rigid denim, hand-cut leather straps and vintage brass hardware. The hammered brass rivets and bolts make the straps easily removable, allowing the aprons to be washed when needed. The online shop also currently features handsome vintage treasures like a collection of one-off Victory Cups you can get engraved and an aged brass marine spotlight.
Using wood reclaimed from salvage yards and demolition sites, Union Wood Co. also creates furniture pieces that are solid, bold and one-of-a-kind. The company also works directly with clients to produce custom pieces.
Head over to the Union Wood shop to see their current stock, or contact sales[at]unionwoodco[dot]com for custom inquiries.
Slideshow: this glass pavilion on the edge of a lake in Ontario, Canada, houses a studio, apartment and boathouse for a photographer and was designed by Toronto Studio gh3.
A dark granite plinth supports the glazed upper walls of the building, spanning the height between ground level and the water’s edge.
Boats are stored inside this supporting structure, while the studio and residence are located on the upper floor and mezzanine above.
During warmer weather the glazed walls of the building can slide open for ventilation, while more sliding walls provide separation inside the house between the studio and en suite bedroom.
You can see more projects in Canada here, including a group of plywood skating shelters.
Photography is by Larry Williams.
The text below is from gh3:
Photographer’s Studio over a boat house on Stoney Lake is a reimagination of the archetypal glass house in a landscape.
A continuation of thinking about this architectural ambition, the central conceit of the glass house is reconceived through a contemporary lens of sustainability, program, site and amenity.
The compelling qualities of simple, open spaces; interior and exterior unity; and material clarity are transformed to enhance the environmental and programmatic performance of the building, creating an architecture of both iconic resonance and innovative context–driven design.
The program envisions a building as north–facing window: a photographer’s live/work studio that is continuously bathed in diffuse and undiminished natural light.
The transparent facade—a continuous curtain wall glazed in Cradle to Cradle–certified Starphire glass—becomes the essential element in a photographic apparatus to produce images unobtainable in a conventional studio.
The availability and fidelity of north–facing light in the double-height space provide the photographer with unparalleled natural illumination, while the clarity of the glazing transforms the site and surrounding vistas into a sublime, ever–changing backdrop.
The compact glass form sits at the water’s edge on a granite plinth whose matte black facade dematerializes to suspend the building, lantern-like, on the site.
The granite’s thermal mass exploits the abundant solar input, eliminating the need for active systems on winter days, while the lakefront site allows the use of a deep-water exchange to heat and cool the building year–round through radiant slabs and recessed perimeter louvers at the floor and ceiling.
Sliding panes in the glass skin—three metres wide at the ground floor, and one and a half metres wide on the mezzanine floor—allow the facade become completely porous for natural ventilation, while an individually automated blind system, white roof, and deciduous hedgerow guard against excessive solar gain.
The continuous blind system additionally serves as a second aesthetic skin, transforming the interior into an enclosed, intimate space, and the exterior into a gently reflective mirror of the surroundings.
Entry into the site is facilitated through a minimalist landscape that deploys endogenous materials while leaving the greatest portion of the site in its evocative, glacier-scoured state.
A simple granite plinth serves as threshold for the south-facing entrance, where solid program functions and vertical circulation are arranged in a narrow, efficient volume.
From the outset, the goal was too accommodate the clients programme within a small footprint, so domestic functions are integrated into a furniture-like mezzanine assembly suspended above the main space, where bedroom, bathroom and closet are coextensive, and sliding fritted glass allows the whole to be concealed from the rest of the space.
Throughout the upper and lower levels, interior partitions are clad with seamless white lacquered panels whose reflective qualities diffuse light into every part of the interior and create complex layered views through the space.
Organic potato vodka, locally malted whiskey and G&T syrups brewed in British Columbia
On a recent trip to Whistler, we had the opportunity to sample the vodka from Pemberton Distillery, a fledgling outfit nestled in the Pemberton Valley of British Columbia. Within their unassuming walls, the distillery employs copper stills to create a line of locally sourced, organic liquors.
Designed as a sipping spirit, Schramm Vodka has a deliciously clean flavor followed by a distinctive finish. Pemberton’s potatoes are free from herbicides, long-life chemicals and fertilizers, earning organic certification from the B.C. Pacific Agricultural Society. The distillery also produces syrups to spice up gin & tonic cocktails and vanilla extract made from the house vodka.
Schramm Gin is a potato gin created in handcrafted, small-batch runs with only eight botanical flavors added during the distillation process. Pemberton is also adding a whiskey to their line when it matures in 2013, which will be made from organic barley that’s malted in B.C. and then aged in bourbon casks.
Spirits from Pemberton Distillery sell online and from select distributors in B.C.
Laser-cut leather goods from Vancouver combine precise details with a vintage feel
On a recent trip to Vancouver, British Columbia we were pleased to discover Alex Fairbairn’s line of finely made leather goods, Wülf Work at the new shop Much & Little. The Swedish hardware on buckles and fasteners complemented the fine leatherwork, all of which is crafted under the company’s philosophy of sustainablity and innovation.
The young brand foregoes traditional machine-stamping methods and opts instead to laser-cut their leathers, which lends each product a clean, precise edge. Each item is hand-sewn and burnished to enhance the personalized aesthetic, during a process that’s closely monitored to keep production local and minimize material use. The brand fit well with the simple and solidly designed wares at the similarly focused boutique, which also carries Matteo bedding, Small Trades striped cotton shirts and whale knives by Japanese government-certified sickle-maker Tetsu Yamashita.
Besides Much & Little, Wülf Work is available in-store at the Vancouver boutique Crome Yellow.
Architects Foster + Partners have attached a 35-storey tower onto the side of two renovated 1920s buildings in Vancouver’s financial district.
Nestled alongside the restored Ceperley Rounsfell Building and the retained facade of the Royal Financial Building, Jameson House provides 23 floors of apartments above offices and shops on the floors below.
The glazed tower’s northeast elevation is articulated as four vertical tubes, which begin at the cornice height of neighbouring buildings.
Other projects we’ve featured in Canada include an interesting canoe store and a set of plywood skating shelters – see them all here.
Photography is by Nigel Young.
Here’s some more information from Foster + Partners:
Jameson House, Foster + Partners first mixed-use project in Canada
Jameson House is a new 35-storey mixed-use tower in the heart of Vancouver and includes the first residential development to be completed by the practice in North America – completed at the end of last year, already the building is now almost fully occupied. The project combines the restoration of heritage buildings with new construction: the lower level offices and shops knit with the existing streetscape to reinvigorate the downtown neighbourhood, while the apartments above face dramatic views of the bay and create a new landmark on the skyline.
Fusing old and new, the site connects the city’s financial centre with its emerging creative hub, and the scheme integrates two 1920s Beaux Arts structures: the entire internal double-height volume of the A-listed Ceperley Rounsfell Building has been returned to its original configuration and the facade of the B-listed Royal Financial Building has been retained.
The development comprises eleven storeys of offices and shops, topped by twenty-three storeys of apartments. The tower’s form articulates these different functions: the first two storeys continue the row of shop units at street level, while the uppermost office floor aligns with the cornice line of the adjacent building. Contrasting with the flush facade of the offices, the residential floors curve outwards in four wide bays, which are staggered to allow daylight to reach neighbouring buildings and oriented to provide uninterrupted views of the landscape.
The tower’s flexible plan supports a variety of apartment types, with interiors by Foster + Partners and living spaces in the deep curve of the window bays. At the top of the tower are two-storey penthouse apartments and landscaped roof terraces.
The design was developed in response to the local climate, seasonal sun paths, prevailing winds, humidity levels, air temperatures and precipitation rates specific to Vancouver.
Foster + Partners’ in-house engineering group – formerly PHA Consult – has been involved in the project from the outset, in a fully integrated approach to environmental engineering and architectural design.
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This has led to innovations such as chilled floors and a mechanised valet parking system, which reduces the number of parking levels and associated excavation, lighting and ventilation requirements.
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Lord Foster said:
“Vancouver has a spectacular location, surrounded by mountains and the sea. The design makes the most of the city’s fantastic natural setting, with balconies and deep bay windows looking out towards the landscape. Jameson House further develops a number of key themes that have been integral to our work for many years. The project combines restoration with new construction; it is high-density and mixed-use, offering a sustainable model for urban living; and it demonstrates innovation, both in its evolution of the high-rise building and its progressive environmental agenda.”
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Nigel Dancey, a senior partner at Foster + Partners, said:
“Jameson House was the result of a team effort: we worked closely with environmental engineers, as well as the city, from the outset. This collaborative approach led to innovations, both in the tower’s design and in our interrogation of the brief – we were able to significantly increase the density of the scheme to create a highly sustainable mixed-use development. And by combining these different functions within a compact footprint, we can further balance energy usage with the mixture of daytime and night-time activity.”
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Colin Bosa, CEO of Bosa Properties:
“Foster + Partners has created a unique building for Vancouver, which combines high-quality finishes and a strong design sense with a clear commitment to sustainability. We are most pleased with the architectural legacy that Jameson House offers to our city.”
Black frames outline rows of olive oil bottles at this culinary shop in Toronto, while images of olive branches decorate the walls behind.
Completed by interior designers Burdifilek for oil specialists Ta-Ze, the shop features marble tasting-counters and a stone mosaic floor.
Additional bottles are displayed on marble tabletops, while more valuable oil varieties are stored on shelves behind floor-to-ceiling glass doors.
See also: a wine store built from packing crates and an all-white macaroon shop.
Photography is by Ben Rahn of A Frame, c/o v2com.
Here’s some more text from the architects:
TA-ZE by Burdifilek
Canada
Ta-Ze is a unique retail experience for the gourmet chef and food enthusiast alike. It is a modest 800 square foot space, showcasing a variety of premium olive oils and complementary products. The environment is a clean, modern and tranquil space which evokes at once the history of the brand and the purity of the product.
Established in 1915 by the Union of Taris Olive and Olive Oil Cooperatives, the brand represents over 28,000 olive producers and is the first of its kind to carry fair-trade products exclusively. The design emphasizes purity of form and material and complements the product offering beautifully.
The impressive floor to ceiling glass facade showcases products on a simple hanging display system. A welcoming arch of sand-blasted dark solid pine lifts the viewer’s eye toward the illuminated signage, and draws them into the store. The customer steps out of the busy concourse corridor and into an elegant clean space where they are surrounded by beautiful and gracefully merchandised products. Light green walls are subtly layered with an olive branch vinyl deco. On the foreground, matte black powder-coated frames effortlessly float, showcasing the olive-oil, olives and vinegars.
Clear glass cabinets double as storage space and feature wall. The cabinets hold premium olive oil and are located at the back of the store, inviting the customer to explore the entire depth of the space. Two marble countertops serve as a display and a tasting bar, allowing the customer to experience the brand while a sales consultant details the product’s quality and unique characteristics.
The careful design of the store ensures that the product is constantly on display, no matter what feature it is showcased on The customer is free to wander the store while being educated on the uniqueness and pricing of each piece. Product cards displayed in front of each item help navigate the customer as they browse. The use of natural materials such as stone mosaic flooring, wood detailing and solid marble countertops reflect the freshness and authenticity of the products being sold.
Project Name: Ta-Ze
Date Of Occupancy: Oct. 27, 2011
Square Footage: 748 Sf
Project Location/Address: 120 Adelaide Street West, Unit R3, Toronto, Ontario M5h 1t1
Function Of Space: Retail
Design Team Members:
Burdifilek:
Diego Burdi, Creative Partner
Paul Filek, Managing Partner
Ovunc Unal, Project Manager
Tom Yip, Senior Designer
Ovunc Unal, Cadd/Production
Daisuke Matsuura, Concept Designer
Le cabinet Mu Architecture a pu concevoir cet espace sobrement appelé “Malbaie V Residence”. Située dans la région du Cap-à-l’Aigle à Charlevoix au Québec, cette résidence en bois se dévoile dans la suite de l’article à travers une série d’images.
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A new cookbook relays life lessons learned building a Montreal restaurant
In so many ways, Joe Beef seems to fit with current restaurant trends. The team grows their own produce, sources their meat locally and buys from family vineyards, but Joe Beef is not new to the scene. If anything, it’s old hat—a study in history and a return to middle-class values in Montreal. Their cookbook (of sorts) couples recipes with legends, anecdotes with instruction, illustrating lessons learned in the creation of a restaurant. It also serves as a guide to Montreal and surrounding areas, with everything from lodging tips to itineraries to the best place to get a haircut.
David McMilland, chef and owner of Joe Beef, is everything a restauranteur should be—he’s gregarious, loquacious, a bit crass and a drinker. He knows what he likes and he’ll tell you what he doesn’t. When it came to leaving the upscale dining scene, McMilland and his partner Frédéric Morin wanted to keep it simple. “We just wanted to do a regular menu, you know. Six appetizers, six mains, interesting wines that we thought were interesting,” says McMillan. Surrounding themselves with the right objects was key. “We get off on silverware, oyster forks, Le Creuset pots, on beautiful ancient copper pots, the right banquette, an old mirror… If I wasn’t fucking running a restaurant I swear to God I’d shut it down and open an antique shop.”
McMilland doesn’t see his decision to do old French recipes as anything incongruous. Considering the the working-class neighborhood of Little Burgundy where Joe Beef is located, molecular cuisine and square plates simply weren’t an option. “We would come off as guys who don’t know what they’re doing or have no sense of time and place, no education in history. ” Instead, McMilland and Morin, both family men with a strong sense of self-awareness, set out to create a small restaurant in a plain neighborhood that served great food without pretension.
The book has recipes, sure, but the focus is on the life of the restaurant. “We wrote a book about running a restaurant, about gardening, about welding, about Montreal, other people’s restaurants, about old historic restaurants,” says McMilland. He explains that the joy of running Joe Beef lies in the fact that he can leave the din of the kitchen, go outside and plant some lettuce, or head down to the workshop to cut a cedar plank on which to serve a whole arctic char. “If you’re a fucking chef in NYC, and you run a big ass restaurant, Joe Beef is that restaurant you dream of owning.”
McMilland is a diligent student of history, constantly pulling inspiration from old Montreal as the basis for his recipes. Several of the dishes highlighted in the book are taken from Canadian dining car fare. Patrick “Joe Beef” McKiernan, the restaurant’s namesake, embodies the spirit that McMilland and Morin try to capture in their food and in the culture of their establishment. A 19th-century Irish immigrant, Joe Beef earned his monicker through his ability to find food in times of need.
The original Joe Beef’s Canteen was a roughly furnished establishment that saw its fair share rowdy patrons, sometimes referred to as “The Great House of Vulgar People.” Though Little Burgundy has for a long time been considered and up-and-coming neighborhood, the rough edges remain. As McMilland soberly relates, “We had a guy on fire in front of our restaurant three weeks ago.”
The food at Joe Beef celebrates meat, and so does the book to some extent—there’s a recipe for a sausage martini in the cocktail section—but greens are key to the restaurant’s vision. In the summer, McKiernan explains, “The appetizers are all piles of raw vegetables or roasted vegetables or vegetable salads or greens and mountains of asparagus.” If you’re eating a carrot at Joe Beef, there’s a good chance it comes from the garden out back or from McMilland’s or Morin’s personal plots.
The Art of Living According to Joe Beef is available for purchase from Amazon for $25. Tune in to see Joe Beef and other Montreal foodie havens on the upcoming episode of Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover, airing 26 December 2011.
Photography for the book by Jennifer May
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