November 12, 2024
We are happy to announce that the winner of the last month's JMA Architectural Scavenger Hunt is..... Neal Campbell! for being the first to identify the October clue: University of Waterloo Health Services Centre on Strauss Lake, and can be approached from Westmount Ave.
A bit about the University of Waterloo Health Services Centre Expansion:
Many of us at JMA graduated from the University of Waterloo, and remember the older health services building, on the edge of the pond – an early project of Moriyama and Teshima Architects in 1968. By 2010, when we (Kearns Mancini Architects and us) started working on this project, the university population had grown from 9,000 to 36,000, and health priorities and service models had changed.
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October 22, 2024
2024 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Canada’s most famous and influential architect, Arthur Erickson. Yesterday a number of JMA staff attended and enjoyed a lecture and documentary film screening at KPL about the 1962 Dyde House, presented by architecture critic/curator Trevor Boddy, in partnership with the GVSA.
Arthur Erickson's Dyde House (2023) tells the story of the recently discovered Dyde House, a stunning early Erickson house that would prove influential for Erickson's work that followed. If you have the opportunity to watch the film, we highly recommend it.
Boddy's opening lecture briefly mentioned the architect's impressive Hilborn House, located in Preston. With the recent focus on Arthur Erickson and his legacy, we …
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October 11, 2024
We are happy to announce that the winner of the last month's JMA Architectural Scavenger Hunt is..... Tim Ingold! for being the first to identify the September clue: Breslau EMS/Fire Station at 51 Beacon Point Ct.
A bit about this Fire/EMS station:
Completed in 2018, this is the only station in the region that Fire and EMS share. The training room was designed to double up as a community room for public use. The massing of the building articulates a sense of address and identity for each of the occupants. Recognizing the need to safeguard response times, and a concern for safety across the site for all users, designing a successful pattern of circulation was of huge importance.
A special water saving fea…
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October 08, 2024
Conestogo Lake home with gables
As we continue our office Word of the Day exercise, we’d like to share another round of definitions.
Infrared (thermal) emittance: A value between 0 and 1 (or 0% and 100%) that indicates the ability of a material to shed infrared radiation (heat). A cool roof (one designed to reflect more sunlight than a conventional roof, absorbing less solar energy) should have a high thermal emittance. The wavelength range for radiant energy is roughly 5 to 40 micrometers. Most building materials (including glass) are opaque in this part of the spectrum and have an emittance of roughly 0.9, or 90%. Clean, bare metals, such as untarnished galvanized steel, have a low emittance and are the most important exceptions to the 0.9 rule. In contrast, aluminum roof…
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September 25, 2024
Our office recently took a Friday off to enjoy a 22 km canoe trip down the Grand River, starting at Kaufman Flats and finishing at the Freeport bridge. It was great to become reacquainted with the river, especially considering our work’s relation to the Grand River Watershed.
Just over halfway into the journey, we stopped for a picnic at the Stanley Park Optimist Natural Area, where we enjoyed a potluck of watermelon, charcuterie-style meats, doughnuts, chips and lemonade.
Numerous impressive birds were spotted along the way, including kingfishers, red-tailed hawks, great blue herons and even several great egrets.
The paddle wasn’t without challenges though, as the relatively low water levels left several of us beached on the rocks at a f…
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September 24, 2024
We recently brought an engaging and interactive booth to Kitchener’s KidsPark festival, where we were able to expose kids to architecture in a way that is inspiring and fun. Additionally, we also used this opportunity to answer questions, mostly from parents and caregivers, about what architects do. This festival presented us with a great opportunity to engage with audiences we do not normally reach.
Our booth, “Fun with Architecture" was a massive success. We were busy non-stop all day, as kids played an architectural matching game, built with wooden blocks and drew on title block. With this pilot project, we tested activities and our approach.
Recently, we were very pleased to learn that the project has generously be…
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July 16, 2024
Dickson Public School, ongoing residential conversion - How many keystones can you spot?
As we continue our office Word of the Day exercise, we’d like to share a second round of definitions.
Enfilade: In architecture, an enfilade is a series of rooms formally aligned with each other. This was a common feature in grand European architecture from the Baroque period onward, although there are earlier examples, such as the Vatican stanze. The doors entering each room are aligned with the doors of the connecting rooms along a single axis, providing a vista through successive rooms. The enfilade may be used as a processional route and is a common arrangement in museums and art galleries, as it facilitates the movement of large numbers of people through a building. [Wikipe…
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July 02, 2024
In the world of architecture, there are many specific and technical terms. As a fun office exercise, we recently started an internal Word of the Day, where a different JMA staff member is invited to share a definition with the office every day, before nominating a colleague to contribute the next day’s definition. We just thought we’d share some of the words that have come up so far:
Pastiche: an artistic work in a style (or styles) that imitates that of another work, artist, or period. [Google Dictionary]
Fanlight: A window over the door that is curved or shaped like a fan is called a fanlight. A transom is the rectangular version of the fanlight. [OntarioArchitecture.com]
Examples: http://www.ontarioarchitecture.com/FANLIGHT.HTM
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April 15, 2024
Our staff are looking forward to participating again in Jane's Walk, the annual community-based approach to city building that uses volunteer-led walking tours to encourage people to rediscover the value of walking, and to observe, reflect, share, question and re-imagine the places in which they live, work and play. This year, both John and Scott have Jane's Walks planned for the first full weekend of May (3-5). Scott's walk will be announced shortly.
How Do you Do? The Happy Accident of Meeting a Stranger, with John
An interactive session that uses our city as a backdrop for an important conversation.
What are the spaces / places in our community that help us meet people who aren’t like ourselves? How do our actions in public affect our a…
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February 09, 2024
Every December the JMA team gathers at John and Margaret’s house to share the holiday cheer with our annual potluck.
Everyone is gathered around the table to explain the dishes they have cooked. Here John is showing the kimchi that took him a week to prepare.
Each year we choose a different theme for the potluck. We all agreed with enthusiasm that
this time around we wanted to eat Korean food, so we got our creative juices to work! We learned that Koreans take great pride in their cooking traditions and having good wholesome foods in their homes.
It was great fun attempting to prepare dishes we had never cooked before...and great fun to eat them! Try out our recipes below:
Tong Dak (barbecue chicken wings) …
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February 09, 2024
Elyn, Matt, Margaret, Marc, John and Melhik pause for a quick photo op while scaling the rocks on Wreck Island.
On the last weekend in July, 7 intrepid explorers from the JMA team set off into the sunshine to continue the tradition of the JMA Massasauga Camping Trip. Good weather, great company, and even better food were enjoyed by all over three days of canoeing, hiking, and swimming against the wild backdrop of the Canadian Shield.
Feasting in style, a full gourmet steak dinner cooked over an open fire, and “Bear Paw” pancakes!
The local fauna as seen in their natural habitat.
Marc and Elyn captured our exploration of the stunning landscape as resident office photographers.
Until next year, Mas…
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Scott
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August 02, 2023
Thanks Nolan. If you can think of anything to add to the list, we'd be interested to hear from you.
Nolan Bentley
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August 01, 2023
I am going measuring tomorrow so this is a timely reflection :-) thx!
