atelier BUILD : Michael Carroll + Danita Rooyakkersatelier BUILD was founded in 1995 by Michael Carroll and Danita Rooyakkers and is based on the belief that the processes of design, construction and economics must work together to create an architecture of lasting integrity. Since 1995, atelier BUILD has designed several urban infill projects for Montreal’s inner city neighbourhoods. These projects include, THIN House, TWIN House, BACK House and BOX House, Eco-Cite 1, Super 8, and @Mentana – an eight unit stacked townhouse development. The most recent project, two contemporary urban cottages at the foot of Mont Royal have just started construction - the project completion date scheduled for early 2009.

All the projects are further challenged by their urban contexts. Most of the projects are located on marginal, interstitial sites within Montreal’s unique urban fabric. The level of making is extended from the house to the city. The inherent domestic nature of the projects is tempered by an industrial sensibility. The result is a series of urban infiltrations that make an argument for a leaner more urbane architecture for city life.

The result is a holistic outlook that ultimately links thinking with making in the design/build process. As ‘poetic’ pragmatists interested in innovation and the larger project of the city and the environment, atelier BUILD is both immersed the logistics of designing to the specifics of the situation with an eye on the larger ‘global’ picture of urban, cultural and ecological sustainability. Even within the tightest constraints the project extends beyond the lot line to encompass the larger constructed landscape in which it sits.

atelier BUILDinterstitial intervention

BACK HOUSE1998 3776-78 St-ChristopheMontreal QC Canada Two Unit Condominium 3,000 square feet.

Back House fronts on a narrow one lane street, that historically was a ‘service’ lane for rue Saint Hubert. The project encompasses the renovation of a large house at the front of the lot and the new construction of a two unit condominium that replaces an existing garage. Both units have four levels that are 11’-0” wide and 35’-0” long. The ground level incorporates a narrow passage from the street to an inner court that separates the new construction from the existing house. The masonry facade of the project with its French doors and balconies addresses the neighbourhood square of Place Roy.

BACK HOUSE

TOWER HOUSE1997 3776-82 av LavalMontreal QC Canada Four Unit Condominium 4,500 square feet.

The project covers 90% of the site and is situated on a corner lot. Natural light was a main concern because of the limited exposure to sunlight. The solution was to create two towers separated by a narrow court that allowed for two sets of large corner windows. An industrial skylight over the stairs creates a lightwell to give natural daylight to living areas below. Each tower is composed of two units, with the upper unit gaining a mezzanine and a roof top terrace. The site is situated in a heritage area and careful attention was given to seek a balance between a contemporary industrial sensibility and the existing historical context.

TOWER HOUSE

BOX HOUSE2000 4056 rue Saint Christophe Montreal QC Canada Semi-Detached House1,500 square feet.

The Box House is situated at corner of an alleyway and narrow lane in the heart of Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal. The site marks the point where the width of the lane is reduced by half. The house is literally in the middle of the street. The Box House occupies the margin. The envelope is quite simply a box with metal appendages. The openings in the box are carefully scribed. The ground floor’s north window marks the end of a sidewalk. The double height corner window allows a view down middle of the laneway. The triple height slot on the house’s west side captures the afternoon sun and a view of the illuminated cross that tops Mont-Royal. The house oscillates between an industrial and a domestic sensibility for a generic, custom designed architecture. The soaring living space with its mezzanine is zoned between a ground floor studio and a third storey bedroom with ensuite bath. These spaces are connected by a thirty-six foot high stairwell with an industrial skylight. Throughout the house, metal frame screens, expanded metal mesh landings and sheet metal stairs add to the industrial aesthetic. For the domesticated, the Box House demands considerable courage.

BOX HOUSE

THIN HOUSE1996 4646-4648 av de L`Hotel-de-VilleMontreal QC Canada Duplex3,000 square feet.

The duplex is situated on a narrow site on the Plateau Mont-Royal. Each unit is 10’-8” wide and 56’-0” long with a 35’-0” tall atrium. The vertical division allows an entry door at street level, a back garden and skylight for both units. The city required on-site parking and as a result the entry door is made up of three doors which can open up completely to the street. Both garage areas are now used as studio spaces. The split in the section from the front to the back of the house creates a series of flexible live/work spaces. The design stresses section over plan and volume over area, with the qualitative aspects of the design overriding the dimensional restrictions of the site. The result is a thin vertical loft that seems more spacious than its 10’-8” width suggests. The exterior addresses the context of the street while maintaining an industrial edge, with the use of galvanized exposed C-Sections, folded metal cornices and for the back elevation corrugated metal siding. The design offers an innovative prototype for the City in order to develop other narrow and marginal sites for inner-city neighbourhoods.

THIN HOUSE

SUPER 82004 2010 rue AmherstMontreal QC Canada Eight Units12,000 square feet.

Situated to the east of the Quartier Latin in downtown Montreal, Super 8 is a micro-loft development that consists of eight units that range from 500 - 1200 square feet - addressing an emerging need for affordable lean spaces in an escalating real estate market.

The assymetrical facade composed of glazed white and metallic brown brick, separated by the zig-zag of a galvanized c-channel is a ‘gestural response’ to the dramatic slope of the land directly to the north. Also evident to rue Amherst are the12’-0” x 8’-0” patio doors with minimized glass guards that allow a full 6’-0” opening onto the busy street below. The entryway is lined with large format glazed ceramic tile contrasted on the opposite side with corruguated galvalume wall and soffit that extend from the street to the lobby.

The project with its concrete floors, floor to ceiling glass and zero detailing attempts to create a stripped-down architecture for the array of young professionals that reside in one of Montreal’s up and coming neighborhoods.

SUPER 8

CODE : ZEROInstallation, Designed and Fabricated by Michael Carroll Canadian Center for ArchitectureMontreal QC Canada

“The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A sin-gle flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underpassage into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now:in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.” E.B. White, 1948

CODE : ZERO was an architectural installation designed by Mi-chael Carroll of atelier BUILD. We were one of six Montreal design ateliers approached by the Canadian Centre for Architec-ture to contribute to Laboratoires, a show that commented on the events of September 11th in New York and the ‘zero-degree’ of architecture. The show was curated by Mark Wigley (New York) and Frédéric Migayrou (Paris). CODE : ZERO was situated in Room 5 of the CCA and was de-signed as an ‘extended threshold’ meant to engage and destabi-lize the participant. Eighty aluminium rods, hung from the ceiling created a double undulating ‘curtain wall’ and formed a narrow passageway. The second component of the installation was com-prised of a large translucent screen measuring 5’-6” x 17’-0” suspended at a 25 degree angle above the floor. This ‘dropped ceiling’ seemed as if it was caught in a free fall. Projections on the screen added to the sense of disequilibrium, instability and vertigo - an inherent part of the physical component of the installation.

CODE : ZERO

EcoCité Habitat I

EcoCité Habitat Icompleted 2001 rue ColeraineMontreal QC Canada Eight Stacked Townhouses~ 8,000 square feet

EcoCité Habitat I is an eight unit, inner city, ‘environmentally-sensitive’ condominium project located at the end of a residential block overlooking a neighborhood park just south-west of downtown Montréal, Canada. The project is essentially comprised of four ‘towers’ each of which is divided into two stacked townhouses. The compact square plan is split by a narrow, sky lit atrium that acts as both a communal space for the residents as well as a ventilation plenum. The cubic form is terraced towards the south with two angled window boxes on each side with a square projection on its front – the surface of which was designed to receive photovoltaic panels.

Although domestic in scale, the interior finishes specified for the project are decidedly industrial with polished concrete floors and exposed steel structure. All interior metal work is galvanized and the cabinetry is constructed of exposed straw board. The industrial palette is tempered with reused, sandblasted solid wood doors, re-enameled claw foot metal bathtubs and bamboo stair treads. In an effort to reduce toxicity, low VOC paints, sealants, glues and finishes were used. In an effort to dramatically reduce energy consumption, a geo-thermal system was designed for the project with a radiant heating and cooling system installed in the ceilings of each unit. Glazing was maximized on the southern exposure to insure a high solar gain in winter. In order to control overheating, a brise-soleil constructed of folded metal and expanded metal mesh was installed over the windows and heat-mirror films were applied on the west windows. In the end it is hoped that the project was use 80% less energy consumption than conventional new housing construction.

@ Mentanacompleted 2008 rue MentanaMontreal QC Canada Six Unit Towntown Deveopment~ 10,000 square feet + Underground Parking

@ Mentana is a six-unit development situated on an inner-city corner lot in Montreal, Canada. The project is composed of four towers, each with their own stair that leads from the ground to a sky-garden that faces southwest. The two end towers are undivided, however, the two middle towers are each split from top to bottom to form stacked townhouses – the lower double height unit is a cubic volume complete with a sleeping loft. The upper units are more spacious, with a generous open floor plate for the living/dining and kitchen on the main level with two bedrooms and a double height bathroom on the upper level topped by a rooftop terrace.

As an elongated box – the maximized envelope of the project sits on a lot that is twenty-five feet wide and a hundred feet long and is punctured by two, double-height, portals that provide an entrance to each unit at street level. Each portal is lined with a tile that contrasts with the project’s two-tone masonry shell. Besides the portals, the project’s boxiness is further relieved by galvanized c-channels that are inscribed into the brick façade, and four balconies, two of which project over the sidewalk on rue de Mentana, and the other two extend toward the laneway that forms the southern border of the site..

@ Mentana

Fernhill Urban Cottagesunder construction 81-69 rue Fernhill Montreal QC Canada

The project consists of one detached and one attached urban cottage on each side of a renovated 1920’s house. Situated just below Mont-Royal Park, the site is steeply sloped with substantial retaining walls along the south and northern borders of the lot. The project maximizes on the allowable buildable area of the site that consists of three divided lots. The result is two trapezoidal volumes (one more elongated than the other) with large expanses of floor to ceiling glazing and elongated ribbon windows incised within each project’s ‘masonry mass’.

Architecturally, the project is decidedly contemporary in contrast with more historic tone of the neighborhood. To maximize on solar gain, a curtain wall system and skylight was introduced on the south wall of the upper cottage – this is aligned with the house’s tripled height atrium that features a planted trellis on its exterior and a vertical ‘biowall’ on the interior that lines one side of a folded metal stair. Each cottage also features a planted roof with expanses of cedar decking and reflecting pools. Full access to the roof allows immediate views of the mountain and in the distance the flat urban landscape of the Plateau Mont-Royal.

Fernhill