City Pier was perhaps the most fun I’ve had while working on a studio project. Our site was an old pier in Montreal’s Peel Basin, and it occurred to me that it would be obvious to preserve it for future use as a multifunctional public space, which, in some ways, it already was, despite its rough and unfinished surfaces leftover from old warehouses. These footprints inspired me to think of the opposite: what if the pier was once again a platform for buildings? The program I developed was dense. It called for office space, affordable studio spaces, some concessions at grade, an event space, a small hotel, and an observation tower with an interactive light beacon at its crown. Each building was raised on columns to make room at grade and massed in visual alignment with nearby landmarks. In its total architectural language, the project is fully aware of its industrial heritage (with elements like exaggerated chimneys and sawtooth rooflines) while otherwise exploiting archetypal, simplified architectural forms.
