Coming Soon to Kamloops! Multi-Phase, Multi-Unit Urban Infill Residential Building. Meeting BC Energy Efficiency Step Code 3.

This proposed Independant/Assisted Living Facility is moving through funding and approvals. The design team collaboration of Shauna Noyes Architect, ASK* For A Better World, & Wild Montane Construction Services worked closely with the client and community and involved extensive community engagement with on-site (socially distanced) concept design & planning meetings and workshops. The design delivered on the needs and wishes of the local community who wanted a bright, healthy & beautiful building with direct access to nature and the outdoors. Each living unit is self-contained with both internal access to the adjacent building amenities and direct external access to a private, covered patio.  Artist Concept by Tara McCashin, IA AAA.

This design-build collaboration is under construction. Funded by BC Housing, the 13 unit affordable housing rental apartment in Valemount, BC, constructed for The Valemount Affordable Housing Society, provides accessible and adaptable ground floor units. Each unit has their own private ground floor entrance. Private internal stairs leads to 2nd floor units from the ground floor. Heating and ventilation is contained within each unit. These are responses to adapting to a pandemic to limit passage of airborne contaminants between occupants. The building is highly energy efficient, using ICF construction and triple glazed windows. The design-build team included Whitson Contracting Ltd. & Wild Montane Construction Services with Shauna Noyes Architect, architect of record, AVID Architecture, designer, including artist concept above, and ASK* for a Better World as Energy Efficiency and Building Envelope Consultant.

Working with Tri-City Canada, this proposed health centre is a pending design-build project for a small & remote community in Northern BC.

The parkade mural is complete! I've attached the news release

This amazing project is almost complete! A true transformation. 

The City of Kamloops came to BlueGreen Architecture back in 2017 asking for 3 concepts for "beautifying" the Lansdowne Street parkade.

I was asked to design the 3 concepts for transforming the parkade and the idea of installing a mural using metal tiles on a specialized stainless steel cable net system was the concept selected by the local downtown business association.

The project snowballed from there......what mural were we going to make and who could design and install it? My concept had only suggested a mural with mountains and rivers....the predominant landscape of Kamloops. It was also really important to me to try to bring in a dynamic element, to somehow depict the water of the river moving.

So, the City of Kamloops consulted with the Kamloops Arts Council and local public artist Bill Frymire got involved at that point as the artist selected to undertake this monumental project, which had never been done before, ever in the world! 

Bill's mural is outstanding. With his incredible talent he really embraced this challenge.   

Word's cannot describe how special this project is to me, a culmination of bringing together so many combined local voices to pull off a truly unique piece of monumental art.

Blackwell Dairy near Kamloops, suffered a devastating fire in 2017. BlueGreen Architecure was asked to be part of the rebuilding effort and I was honoured to design a new dairy for this iconic local and independent dairy while working at BGA. The construction started after I left BGA last March and just re-opened this spring. 

The Blackwell's are amazing people and it was wonderful to work with them. They love their new dairy facility and that makes me really happy. This is why I love doing Architecture, to make owners and the community happy.

The old building was a boxy, grey industrial construction. It seemed obvious to me that the design of the re-build should somehow fit in better and follow the form and character of the traditional farm buildings it was adjacent to.  Even within the constraints of time and budget I was able to design the building to blend and fit into  the existing farm campus.

Ted Blackwell asked at every meeting to not forget the cupolas. We didn't forget them! They still have the same purpose for roof venting as traditional barn cupolas.

Open and celebrating their Grand Opening this week, Ashley Furniture came across my desk at BlueGreen Architecture in 2016. After many months of design and contract negotiations, the construction began shortly after I left BGA last March. The owners & staff are thrilled with their new building and we are all pleased how well it was constructed by Vic Van Isle Construction. Indeed, it exceeded expectations!

This building is in a high profile visible location. The client asked about the possibility of adding imagery to the building. I wanted the building to show it's process somehow. I decided to simply clad the building with varied green, grey and blue shades of horizontal cladding, evocative of moving water. The sculpture piece is a pipe cross-section with water flowing through.

I designed the Burfield Hostel at BlueGreen Architecture. The building program morphed 3 or 4 times between Condo & Hostel and both in-between, but the look pretty much stayed the same from original rendering to final product. Thoughtful, careful planning allowed flexibility for room types and layouts while keeping the building facade coherent.

This building is designed to be very energy efficient and will be constructed with non-combustible cladding to mitigate risk of forest fire ignition.

It's been over 10 years now living and practicing Architecture in Kamloops and area. I've had the privilege of working on some really great projects with some really great clients, Engineers & Architects.

The REVELSTOKE AMBULANCE STATION was a fun project working with with Owen & Hunter Architects. Completed in 2010, we used advanced energy modelling to optimize the building envelope with it's mechanical & electrical systems. 

The NORTH KAMLOOPS LIBRARY earned LEED Gold CI in 2012 for it's bright and healthy commercial interior. I worked with Owen & Hunter Architects to complete the LEED Certification and JM Architecture designed & coordinated the project.

For Owen & Hunter Architects & Urban Systems, I designed the Kamloops Wastewater Treatment Plant buildings. Completed in 2013, overall plant designed by Urban Systems, OHA were hired to design and coordinate 5 buildings on site. The admin building and headworks building were the most significant architecturally, the admin building housed the offices, lab, control, room, and staff areas. We created a cental spine for circulation with high clerestorey windows for daylighting the centre. Exposed Glulam beams added incredible warmth to the interior. Google street link below to site. The project won an engineering award of excellence in 2015.

I've always been keen on new opportunities and not afraid to jump in and figure things out as I go if I think I'm headed in the right direction. I like to go with the flow and see where life takes me. I really believe in following your instincts in life and in Architecture.

Following graduation from Architecture School and after my 4th tour living and working in Europe, I returned to Canada in 1996. On my way to look for a job in Vancouver, I met with Robert LeBlond and settled for a job in Calgary at LeBlond Partnership Architects. Robert has retired and the firm today is now BeckVale.

I ran into Greg Beck at the last AAA Banff Sessions Conference at the Banff Springs Hotel. Greg has dedicated half his career to that hotel's redevelopment, and we both agree that it was a pivotal project for our careers. My contribution was only part of the design for the front entrance redevelopment, but I've always considered this one of my favorite projects. I've linked images below.

I have worked for quite a number of Architecture and Design firms over the past 30 years and I have many people to thank for giving me the opportunity to work on some really great projects.

Thank-you and congratulations to Vivian Manasc. Architect, AAA, FRAIC, MBA, LEED®AP, AOE. Vivian was awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence this year for her outstanding commitment to Sustainable Architecture. It was an honor and a privilege to work under her, first as a student and then, years later as and Intern Architect in 2004. While I was a student, the Yukon Visitors Centre and Saddle Lake School were being designed. The Visitor's Centre won a Governor General's Award of Excellence for Architecture in 1997. As an Intern Architect, I assisted on the Calgary Water Centre, which won several architecure and engineering awards. I designed and managed the St. Thomas Health Centre Residential Care facility and also the Stony Plain High School. The High School won a major international design award. I've added links to these Manasc Isaac Architects' projects.

Custom Architecture, not "off-the-shelf" variety. This shed was needed on our property to shelter hay, horses and equipment. The old garage roof was falling in, but already had electric and water installed and it sat on a good concrete floor, so we decided to build the new shed over the old garage. This influenced the shape to some degree, but the shape also took it's form to respond to the view and it's location on site. In other words, we didn't want it to block our view and our existing roadway, so we cut back a bay. The roof is a wedge to shed all the snow and rain off the back. The truss size (span) is the largest we could economically achieve and the slope was the steepest (widest) we could fit on the road in one piece. Value Engineering isn't all bad! The architecture is as simple and as complex as it needs to be, nothing more, nothing less. I encourage you to also look at the architecture if Brian MacKay-Lyons. I recently attended his talk about his work at their Ghost labratory. Kenneth Frampton remarked of MacKay-Lyons that his architecture had achieved the Banal. He considered this is a compliment and I realized when I heard him say this that my hay shed achieved this also.

I met my husband because he had piles of reclaimed wood in his yard to build his house with and a friend who thought I could help introduced us. We share the same vision to try to live a sustainable life. This wood was salvaged from an old warehouse demolished in the Lower Mainland. We will reuse all this reclaimed wood for all sorts of secondary uses - structure, roofing, siding, cabinetry, windows, doors, furniture, landscaping and finally firewood for heating when all other uses are exhausted.

Jump ahead a few years and we purchased an undeveloped ranch. After couple of years of observing and planning and we have a site location and orientation for our house.

House site facing West

We spent alot of time deciding the location for the house. The master plan for the site hinges on the house location. We chose a location that provided the best view combined with the longest solar exposure in the winter. We want to take advantage of as much passive solar as possible, but because we only get 4 hours of sunshine in the dead of winter in our mountain location, we will incorporate other forms of renewable energy into our design.

Concept Sketch - Birds Eye View

The house and garage will be mostly earth sheltered to the North and fully under a living roof. Ample glazing with indoor greenhouses will be predominant on the South face.

The footprint is compact. The idea is that we don't need separate rooms for each dwelling experience, but that the rooms can be combined to serve many functions.  An internal street will connect the entries to the open kitchen/dining/living room and into the master bedroom and bathroom. A bright, sunny office will bridge the corridor between the house and the attached garage. Ancillary space between the office & garage will provide storage, additional sleeping & office space and an additional bathroom.

Concept Sketch for House

This may sound counter-intuitive for an architect - don't build new buildings! But new, energy efficient green buildings only account for about 5% of our new building stock! More than 80% of our buildings are old energy hogs, so retoifitting existing building stock can make sense. It can save a lot of new resources and help reduce the waste stream that goes into building a new building.

Before

After

Consider renovating! This 1920's Vancouver home has been transformed inside and out, saving resources and maintaining a heritage character in the neighborhood.

After