BEHIND THE SCENES

Fold Interviews

—Todd Saunders

Designing with locality of place

Forty-four residences will be built over the next decade in Alberta’s foothills, developed by Ian MacGregor and called Carraig Ridge. Todd Saunders is a Canadian architect based in Bergen, Norway, and overseeing the design of the first series of residences. His practice,  Saunders Architecture, continues to be recognized for the work on Fogo Island, and has been listed as one of the “10 Best Architects in Norway” and “100 Best Architects in the World.”

We at FOLD were particularly curious about how architecture connects to the locality of place. What sensitivity might be revealed by observing the relationship between landscape and form?  

FOLD: What was your experience of the foothills landscape and how did that inform the Carraig Ridge design?

Todd Saunders: The first time I went was in the early fall. I’ve actually spent a lot of time up there, did backcountry skiing a year or two before, and I’ve done heli-skiing. I know Lake Louise and Banff quite well. Ian MacGregor has a farm, and I spent four days on the farm. I had jet lag so I was up really early in the morning, and I would see the sunrise and sunset. It was an old agricultural farm, and there were a lot of qualities to the buildings: the way they’re put together with certain types of porches, certain types of materials…the way they didn’t disturb the landscape that much, they kind of blended in, they weren’t very dominant on the landscape. So that was a clue.

A lot of the discussions were around quality of materials, and [Ian] was also very interested in never disturbing the land, or ruining what he had. It’s such beautiful landscape. So we actually spent a lot of time sighting the buildings, moving them so we didn’t have to take that tree. We used a lot of time on that, we were very very careful. Another thing we noticed is that the winds out there, they are nice, but sometimes they can work against you. One of the houses, the O House, has a courtyard which was actually an answer to solving this. You can be outside eating without having everything blow away.

Is there anything special about the topography?

Yes, it’s quite undulating terrain. And it’s quite forgiving, actually. Because other places that we build in, Scandinavia and Newfoundland, you cannot destroy the landscape…Up there, it’s like a grassy landscape, so if you do dig and make a mistake, it grows back within a year’s time. But at the same time, the trees were so beautiful there we didn’t want to mess with them. So we were working around the trees the whole time.

You once talked about the form of an equipment building that was defined by engineering of the solar capture. Are there issue’s you’ve dealt here with in terms of sustainability?

Well, for me, sustainability is like common sense. Creating nice porches, having the glazing on the southern side get the most passive heat. And then keeping the north side of the facade tight so you don’t lose heat. And then the mechanical stuff, we haven’t addressed yet, so that will be the next step in the project.

What is the relationship between form and topography?  What differentiates the Squish House on Fogo Island from the Y House in the Alberta foothills or the Aurland Lookout in Norway?

In the other projects, form was based on the vernacular architecture. But in Carraig Ridge, the form was dictated by framing the best views and [providing] protection from the wind. It was about capturing the view of the Rocky Mountains. Almost all the buildings face in that direction.

Addressing the views and the wind, these are particular to the Prairies. How would you address form differently in Newfoundland or outside of Canada?

 Probably in a similar way, but the Newfoundland climate—I’m looking out the window and there’s the wind and the waves are gigantic. And it’s just blowing. I tried to run this morning and the wind was almost stopping me. The climate here is extremely harsh, whereas the climate in Alberta is quite forgiving.

That’s interesting, it takes an outside perspective to know that. 

But at the same time, we were there some days and it was -10, and then the next day it was +25. There are big temperature shifts, which didn’t really affect the design that much, but we still had to be aware of it.

As a Canadian architect, living in Norway, how does one translate perspective to a particular region? If you think about the local vernacular, thinking of Kenneth Frampton’s concept of critical regionalism, or this idea of  “placelessness”, how do you address that in what you design?

You spend a lot of time there and you ask a lot of questions. It’s rare that we design right away; you get a lot of information from a place. We’re never actually experts. But we’re lucky in a lot of our projects because the clients—and especially in this situation, they knew the land really well. Ian has been out there for 30 years, so we had an expert on our panel that we could ask questions. In Newfoundland, I grew up there and all the people were from the islands. And [since] I’ve spent 20 years in Scandinavia and I feel like I know the place well enough and experienced enough seasons to have informed my designs. That said, we’re working in Costa Rica and Bali now, and those are much more difficult since I’ve never experienced these places over a longer time.

What kinds of questions do you ask these experts? What things do you need to know to understand the land?

We get them to tell stories basically. There’s no particular question. “Tell us what the seasons are like, the best time of year, the best views.” Just get them telling what they love about the place. And then they tell us what to watch out for. So it comes out of a lot of conversations, not necessarily a series of questions. And the answers pop out without you asking them.  At the end, if you feel like you’re missing information, then you ask questions.

We didn’t try to dominate the topography; we tried to sit a little low in the terrain. That’s why the buildings are one-storey. We wanted to keep close to the terrain. They’re like houses that look like they grow out of the terrain. What we built in Newfoundland floats above, because that’s the tradition there. Whereas in the Prairies, [the design is] very grounded. And Ian’s done it, really, in the Rock House, for example; it’s really well sited, it just pops out of the land. It’s not overly active in form. The forms that we made are very simple and almost shy.

What should younger architects keep in mind when working in territory they’re not familiar with?

Take their time. I guess that’s the main thing. And know that the people living there know more than you do.  And another thing, really get to know the site well by serving it well, spending time there. I’ve been at Carraig Ridge all four seasons, and I’m on my way out there again in February. So frequent visits, but when you do visit, spend some time there. I’m in Newfoundland now for nine days: I don’t come and leave in a day and get a little taste of it. Spend a significant amount of time when you do visit. It’s a bit like osmosis, you can’t go with a preconceived idea because you’ll never find it. It’s just letting it come to you, I guess. Like a journalist.

This interview was conducted between amery Calvelli and Todd Saunders on January 23, 2018.