Lateral Office
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Lateral Office is a Toronto-based architectural practice. It has had a longstanding interest in the contextual relationships of environment and the shifting paradigm of culture and technology imagined through architecture.[1] Founded in 2003 by Mason White and Lola Sheppard, they investigate architecture’s relationship with the Arctic and its communities. Nunavut is the second least populous territory of Canada and contains a population of 35,944 that is largely Inuit.[2] Initial Canadian government intervention in the North was largely based on concern for the living conditions of the Inuit.[3] The firms values centre around the strategy of a network of architectural interventions that create solutions to the underlying spatial and contextual issues. This core value of creating a more site-specific and detailed solution is highlighted particularly in their design for the Arctic Food Network.[4] The project delves into the food issues dealt with within the northern communities and provides an architectural solution for the community. The changing cultural and environmental context of the north frames the role of architecture in remote communities.[5] With many of their exhibitions such as Arctic Adaptations for which they received an honourable mention at the 2014 Venice Biennale.[6] Their book Many Norths describes the relationships of architecture to the Northern Arctic context and its Aboriginal communities while tackling the issues of neocolonialism of the North.[7] The exhibitions and designs were imagined to bring focus to an exploration and dissection of “modern enhancements" that have been absorbed into the fabric of Nunavut’s Indigenous communities. The broader spatial disciplines such as health, food, ecology, transportation, and environment that influence the spatialization of the territory.[8]
The elaborate shift into modernization of the Canadian North is noted to be a “by-product and tool” of “internal colonialism.”[7] The overarching objective of the creation of Nunavut was to restore the economic, cultural and political autonomy of Inuit living in the Eastern Arctic. Due to forced settlement, a lot of their stratified culture and social structures were eroded.[9] Inuit in the Canadian Arctic were introduced to western-style housing, during a time referred to as the settlement era.[10] However, this influx of imported technologies led to a progression within the community and territories infrastructure and can be marked in four distinct eras that determined the architectural development in the Canadian North. The eras of: Traditional structures, pre-1920’s; early modern outposts from the 1920’s to 1950s; modern experiments of the 1960’s-’80’s; and aspirations of consensus building, which began in the 1990’s and continue today[7]
Lateral Offices investigation into the North and Inuit Communities
Lateral Office is an experimental design practice.[1] Firms such as EVOQ Architecture are also recognized for Inuit and First Nations architecture, their focus lies on the broader aspect of the culture, history and location.[11] With Lateral Office similarly, the objective of the firm's research with regards to the North heavily focuses on local stories and perspectives, from the past and present that guide their design intentions.[1] However, within their research they have used numerous formats and platforms.[12] The intent is to explore the potential of using a network of architectural interventions.[13] Architecture aims to improve and re-establish the context of the North and its community as it faces its rapid and elaborate shifts within its environmental, social and economical influences.[14] This focus on the changing paradigm shift within Nunavut and its Inuit community has bolstered a new perspective about what urban redevelopment within an Arctic context would look like.[6] The concurrent problem remains the fragility of urban structure within the North, and the appropriateness of centuries-old Inuit approaches for addressing Nunavut’s environmental instability.[15] Indigenous lifestyle within the Nunavut territory wouldn’t be completely restored to its original state but the thesis of Lateral offices research, is guided in a fashion that aims to prove that adaptability and resilient design can act in the foreground of an Arctic redevelopment strategy.[16]
Key Projects
Arctic Food Network
A rapid increase in population growth over the years has led to overpopulation and overcrowding and the solution to accommodate this increase, historically has been an imposed juxtaposition of southern economists altering the patterns of food, housing, or education. The forefront of the Arctic food Network works under the lens of architectural design and research with regards to the loss of food culture within the Nunavut territory.[17] Due to the population influx within Canada’s north, there is a larger demographic of young population with an age average of 25[18] alongside which the Inuit have become increasingly dependent on resources and food from southern networks.[7] The co dependency of these two factors has led to a devastating effect on the traditional Inuit culture and diet of hunting and fishing due to the import of manufactured food products, that have led to increased obesity and diabetes within the community.[4]
The project uses research and analysis to perforate an existing network of winter snowmobile trails by constructing rest stop cabins, arctic farms and camp hubs.[5] The design looks at addressing the socioeconomic and environmental issues by placing hubs along the trails to capitalize on the ecosystems that line the area. Using a high density of research, the project focuses on becoming a direct response to the contemporary relations of Canada and the Arctic.[4] The design is diversified into a series of operating systems that intend to enhance the local knowledge within particular sites.[19]
Health Hangars
Nunavut's healthcare delivery centres reflect their history as isolated nursing stations, these stations are defined by their history and the working staff.[20] Due to the economic model of Nunavut's territory that is ever-shifting and population that is ever-expanding, there is a current lack of consistency in how healthcare is organized and delivered. [21]
Health hangars is a project outlining the new models of northern healthcare and infrastructure design are speculative proposals that project an architecture that aims to respond to the challenges of Nunavut's rapid modernization and its adverse effects on the community.[21] The project embraces the seasonality of its northern context, which is largely to do with the firms research on early architectural typologies of the North that focus on the seasonality of vernacular structures of the Inuit.[21]
Arctic Adaptations
Projects planned in the Arctic are a system where all subsystems play their roles within environmental, sociocultural and environmental boundaries. Design acting as one of these subsystems can start to provoke questions outside its boundaries.[7] Using the resources and discipline given within the context, a project can begin to tell a story while simultaneously testing out the boundaries of a system. By providing spatial and alternative solutions and presenting ideas and works that reflects a preconceived story and deeply rich history.[14] Arctic Adaptations is a project exhibition curated by Lateral Office during the 15th anniversary of the creation of Nunavut. the exhibition was featured at the 2014 Venice Biennale for Architecture[1] representing the Canadian pavilion. Arctic Adaptations is meant to serve as a testimony of experiences of life, culture and community within northern Canada.[14] “Modernity” when described in the architectural context of planning and design is a positive preconceived notion, as it insinuates that when a place becomes more “modernized” it is either in the process or has reached a stage of development.[15] However, when closely examining the typologies of a ‘place’, there are many factors that contribute to “modernity” becoming a positive or negative reinforcement.[3] In the case of Nunavut, a territory with a rich inbuilt background of Indigenous culture, frigid climate and drastic environmental conditions, the notion of modernity has evolved differently in simultaneity with migration mobility and seasonality.[3]
The architectural discourse of the Arctic needs to examine and emphasize issues with strong inherent values and ideologies that are reproduced from the past and adapted for the future in relation to the shifting social structures and conditions of architecture within the North.[7] The projects brought into the exhibition question and debate of what life within the North means to its communities and how architecture and its timeline and evolution within Nunavut can be shifted.[14]
Historically, the trend in Canada’s north is to import building designs and methodologies to respond to the rapid growing population, due to housing shortages, the approach has become utilitarian, as these newer building typologies do not culturally or climatically respond to the area and community. Arctic urbanity becomes different when looked at under a closer lens. The project argues that modern Inuit cultures continue to evolve and merge the traditional and the contemporary in unique and innovative ways, the core strategy of using an ‘adaptive’ design strategy is to provide an answer to question of whether architecture really has failed this region.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Inside "Arctic Adaptations" - Special Mention Winner at the Venice Biennale 2014". ArchDaily. 2014-08-07. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "The People of Nunavut | Travel Nunavut". Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Ont.), Aboriginal Policy Research Conference (2nd : 2006 : Ottawa (2007). Aboriginal policy research : moving forward, making a difference. Thompson Educational Pub. ISBN 978-1-55077-164-0. OCLC 234081427. Search this book on
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Sheppard, Lola (2012). ""Arctic Food Network." Lateral Office. Food and the City: A Future For the Metropolis" (PDF).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Bullough, Michelle (2014-06-29). "Interview: Arctic Adaptations at the Venice Biennale". Bridge. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:10 - ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Sheppard, Lola (2017). Many norths : spatial practice in a polar territory. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-940291-31-4. OCLC 993852719. Search this book on
- ↑ Sheppard, Lola. "FROM SITE TO TERRITORY". pp. 179–184. Retrieved 2021-04-08 – via www.academia.edu.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:13 - ↑ C., Dawson, Peter (2006). Seeing like an Inuit family: The relationship between house form and culture in northern Canada. Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit Inc. p. 114. OCLC 748668623. Search this book on
- ↑ "Profile". EVOQ. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:14 - ↑ ""Sometimes a Building is Not Enough": Lola Sheppard on Architecture as a Cultural Act". ArchDaily. 2020-12-22. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 "Nunavut in Venice". ArtsEverywhere. 2014-09-12. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 "The Conflicting Future for Arctic Settlement and Design". www.architectmagazine.com. April 27, 2017. Retrieved 2021-03-01. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Lateral Thinking in the Arctic - A\J". A\J. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ Goldring, Philip (December 2015). "Historians and Inuit: Learning from the Qikiqtani Truth Commission, 2007–2010". Canadian Journal of History. 50 (3): 492–523. doi:10.3138/cjh.ach.50.3.005. ISSN 0008-4107. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:16 - ↑ "ARCTIC FOOD NETWORK 2011-12 - LATERAL OFFICE". lateraloffice.com. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
- ↑ "An In-Depth Look at the Nunavut Health Care System | CIHI". www.cihi.ca. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 "HEALTH HANGARS 2010 - LATERAL OFFICE". lateraloffice.com. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
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