Banff, Alberta, Canada: Courtyard on Bear / Cave Avenue Multi-unit Residential - No boundaries: America's housing designers discovers a global market for their skills

Residential Architect, August, 2003 by Meghan Drueding

Say the words "mountain architecture" and most people think of heavy logs, chalet-style elevations, and maybe even an antler chandelier. William McDonough Partners plans to change all that. The Charlottesville, Va.--based firm is designing two related projects in Banff, the Canadian resort town located within Banff National Park. "We felt there were better ways to create an architecture that uses wood responsibly and still feels native to its place," says Allison Ewing, AIA, the partner-in-charge on both projects.

Courtyard on Bear represents an ambitious attempt to remold downtown Banff, which faces the common resort-town problem of inadequate worker housing. It features a combination of studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom condominiums over retail, for a total of 10 dwelling units aimed at employees of local businesses. The second project, Cave Avenue Multi-Unit Residential, will provide loft-style apartments and town homes on a wooded, mountainside site at the edge of town. Though it's slightly more expensive than Courtyard on Bear, the prices of its 19 units will still fall within reach of those who work downtown. Together, the two projects incorporate McDonough Partners' holistic, economically viable approach to sustainability.

Ewing and her team started with an exhaustive study of the 100-mile area around the job sites. Their examination of the region's terrain, shadow and sun patterns, vegetation, and climate got them thinking about ways to imbue both projects with a sense of place while minimizing their environmental impact. For example, they decided that the buildings should reflect regional topography. So they designed folding rooflines that step up and down like the Rocky Mountains around Banff.

The architects harnessed nature to work to the buildings' advantage. Rooftop rain canopies collect water, sending some of it to irrigate the projects' landscaping and the rest to a basement cistern, where it's used as gray water. At Cave Avenue, project manager Katherine Grove, AIA, had an artist fabricate steel rain cones, which become the bases for naturally forming, tipi-like ice sculptures during the winter. Where possible, both projects feature green roofs, whose native plants protect roof membranes from moisture and remove pollutants from the air. And Courtyard on Bear runs partly on wind power.

McDonough Partners' green philosophy encompasses social as well as ecological sustainability. The complexes provide community spaces where residents can hold gatherings or just meet casually. The architects are hoping that their work will serve as models for future development in Banff. "The goal is that the project will have a multiplier effect," says Ewing.--m.d.

projects: Courtyard on Bear and Cave Avenue Multi-Unit Residential, Banff, Alberta, Canada

client: Arctos & Bird Enterprises, Banff

architect: William McDonough Partners, Charlottesville, Va.

architects of record: Zeidler Carruthers Associates, Calgary, Alberta (Courtyard on Bear); IBI Group Architects, Calgary (Cave Avenue)

landscape architect: VMDO Landscape Studio, Charlottesville

landscape architects of record: Scatliff Miller Murphy, Calgary (Courtyard on Bear); IBI Group Architects (Cave Avenue)

size of projects: 500 to 1,500 square feet per unit

site sizes: 0.6 acre (Courtyard on Bear); 1 acre (Cave Avenue)

housing units in projects: 10 (Courtyard on Bear); 19 (Cave Avenue)

scheduled date of completion: October 2004