Team: Dino Barbarese, Vladimir Topouzanov, Karl Robert, Hugo Duguay

At the corner of Contrecœur and Myra-Cree streets, residential buildings will be built on either side, corresponding to phases 5 and 6 of the Faubourg Contrecœur project, led by the SHDM. Some 170 divided co-ownership housing units, eligible for the SHDM Accès Condo program, form the basis of the architectural program. Indoor parking spaces complete the order. The architectural concept must meet the requirements of the Urban Planning By-law (01-275) and the By-law on the construction of buildings on the Contrecœur site (07-017). Beyond the requirements of these by-laws, the SHDM wants a contemporary architectural language that contributes to the enrichment of the surrounding built environment.

The suburb is developing in relative continuity with the existing urban network to the south. However, its density is higher and it borders the immense Lafarge quarry, the most remarkable element of the site on an urban scale. Carlos d’Alcantara Park and a lot to be developed, on the north side of Rue Contrecœur, separate phases 5 and 6 and the quarry and reduce their joint ownership. From east to west, the silhouette, on the building side, increases in height, from the buildings of phase 4 to that of the Coop Fusion verte. The volumes of the buildings in phases 5 and 6 then follow a gradual transition in levels, in deference to the neighboring buildings, to the east and south, and their occupants. Their C-shaped layout surrounds a garden terrace open to the sun. The garden is open to both the neighboring homes to the south and the future occupants of the planned phases. It thus contributes to the enrichment of the surrounding built area.

The volumes of the two buildings are expressed as constructions of colorful megablocks. The “block” is inspired by the neighboring quarry and the history of Montreal construction from the quarry era. In masonry, blocks of standing stone or grouped bricks form corner chains, sometimes expressed as projecting from the planes of the facades they join. In the same way, certain blocks stand out from the volume and form projections, on the east side, to open up views, and others are subtracted, on the west side, to let light penetrate. The crossing dwellings of the first 2 floors of the central wing of each of the buildings are set back from the upper floors, while the loggias of the last 2 floors project from the facade and express without artifice the crowning of the buildings. This construction of megablocks are tinted with the colors of the neighborhood. The anthracite and buff colors of phase 6 match those of the Fusion Verte Cooperative building to the east, while the ocher and red of phase 5 derive from the colors of the buildings of phase 4 and phases 1 and 2, respectively. These blocks of differentiated coloring break up a monolithic reading of the whole. They correspond to the typologies of the units in the background. Thus facilitated, their identification allows occupants (visual) appropriation of their own space. All the facings are in brick, but the loggia niches are available in stucco (on light concrete panels) to highlight the difference in plans, the niche. The colors and texture of the stucco essentially follow those of the mortars of the brick sections. They extend them into the background and allow an unequivocal perception of the megablocks. The glass railings of the loggias also reflect, in transparency, the respective dominant colors of the megablocks to perfect the impression of homogeneity. The resulting composition of the facades offers strata which join, by analogy, those, geological, of the neighboring quarry. The play of colors forms a simple whole as in the works of Monilari, an example of which is illustrated. The game still symbolically recalls, in its correspondences with the neighborhood, the synchromies of McLaren from which the neighboring alley borrows the name (McLaren matched colors and sounds in its synchromies). That said, the abundant fenestration will make the blocks perceived as the hollow objects that they are in fact, as evidenced by the designs of the facades.