CONTEXTO

The Centre culturel Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (CCNDG) is the last project on Benny Farm, a redeveloped WW2 veterans housing complex in the NDG borough located within Montreal’s metropolitain area. Unique to the area, it is a long-lived and tightly knit community with a self-defined social mission: community access and empowerment. The CCNDG is the last piece placed in a decades-long story of social activism, memory and collaborative design process that consistently rejected expediency for an expanding and inclusive idea of community. NDG is a community that has undergone dramatic changes in social composition. While once primarily English-speaking and family-oriented, it is now diverse and multi-ethnic and was in need of community spaces where such diversity can gather and interact. The community required a 21st century ‘third space’ library, one that was more socially and digitally accessible and engaged. The evolution of the library from a book archive to social hub is a key concept in the CCNDG. In addition NDG was in need of a new theatre space, one specifically able to serve contemporary dance performances. Combining both programs in a single project has added a key cultural hub within the arts landscape of both NDG and Montreal. The CCNDG is a 4,500m2 (48, 440 sqf) municipal building belonging to the Ville de Montréal (City of Montreal). The project was built at the cost of 14,5M$cdn, that is at about 3 220$cdn/m2 (228$us/sqf). The project was the winning scheme for an architectural competition.

ACTUACIÓN

The CCNDG spins a new design language in the red brick borough from its historical materials and forms. A segmented brick curtain envelops the building while permitting generous daylight. The library reading areas feel almost outdoors. Abstracting conventional systems of enclosure (brick cladding, shell, indoor finishes), the design places reading areas in an envelope of expanded metal and wood while offering a variety of views. The use of CLT in a public-building wall system was a first in Quebec (at time of design there remained a prohibition in the Quebec building code). Cross-laminated timber has an historical connection on the Benny Farm – the existing buildings used a constructed 2-ply cross lam for the exterior walls. The building received a LEED silver certification. Culture is the deepest root of both architecture and sustainable design, and this project is extremely well used by the citizens of NDG. In addition to resource efficiencies and innovations, the primary requirement of sustainable design is the support of a culture of common endeavour : the only way to guarantee sustainability in the long-term. It is also a necessary pragmatism in a province where energy has a small fraction of the carbon density elsewhere on the continent. Community, comfort, flexibility and economy therefore organize the CCNDG’s sustainability goals as much as resource efficiency. Understanding the limited means of the present, the project proposes a simple additive infrastructure strategy to become deeper green with time, which will continually educate and engage the NDG community.