Royal Architectural Institute of Canada innovation awards go to local B.C. architects

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      The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada has called two B.C. projects “extraordinary examples of true innovation".

      The comment was made as the RAIC handed out Innovation in Architecture awards to Prince George's Wood Innovation Design Centre, designed by Vancouver's Michael Green Architecture, and to One Fold, a project by this city's Patkau Architects to explore the possibilities of folding a single sheet of steel one time.

      The former was commended for showing the way tall timber buildings can be economical and safe, and for celebrating wood as a beautiful and sustainable material.

      Durable and recyclable, One Fold project took its inspiration from a challenge put to origami artist Paul Jackson to make an origami sculpture with only one fold. For the project, which exists only as a prototype to date, Patkau Architects developed a series of machines to fold and bend sheets of stainless steel of increasingly large sizes. 

      “It is an efficient structure that embodies a minimal ecological footprint,” said the jury of architects, comprised of Omar Gandhi, MRAIC, of Halifax, Donald Chong, MRAIC, of Toronto, and Jean-Pierre LeTourneux, FIRAC, of Montreal. “More than this, it represents an attention to material that finds beauty in structure and structure in beauty, promoting that aspiration within architecture generally.” 

      Follow Janet Smith on Twitter @janetsmitharts.

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