UQÀM's Campus in Montreal, Canada by Tétreault Parent Languedoc & Saia Barbarese Topouzanov

The UQÀM campus urban planning acknowledges the diverse urban character of the immediate context at the heart of Montreal’s historic cultural artery. The first implementation of the urban plan was to restore the importance of the north-south cultural axis by creating a new pedestrian road through the location. The recondition of Kimberley Street as a pedestrian route separates the site into two distinct landscape domains.

To the west, a series of triangular yards surrounds the site’s existing buildings (including industrial constructions that date back to 1911), which become pavilions in a garden of densely planted trees. To the east, the new buildings incline to the perimeter of the campus block, creating a strong urban identity.

The western sector of the site has been revitalized with the renovation of an amphitheatre and existing structure of the beaux-arts technical institute that has occupied the site since 1917. A new Sciences library reprograms a disused studio building, its new glass addition a transparent beacon symbolizing the vibrant collage of new and old. The campus receives a new heart with the renovation (still in progress) of an existing foundry and power plant.

The largest of the new buildings, the Biological Sciences pavilion, embodies UQÀM’s spirit of democracy and accessibility in its architectural expression. The public nature of the building is emphasized in the luminous entry from St-Urbain Street. This illuminated porte-cochère slips beneath a DNA-patterned skin of glass and brick, leading to the subway entrance below grade or through the building to the landscaped court at its centre. This cladding, which evokes the spirit of scientific exploration of the building program it contains, wraps both the street and court-facing surfaces of the building, changing to translucent yellow and grey glass where it faces St. John the Evangelist Church at the south end of the site to provide an interesting reflection of the historic structure in its façade.

The courtyard of the Biological Sciences building centres around the super-scale shapes of two magnolia blossoms that appear as if seen under a microscope. The giant petals become colourful beds of low planting, the stamens are translated as tree branches. These figures become increasingly recognizable from higher up in the building, designed to be seen from the transparent circulation corridors that line the inner perimeter of the building.

A second courtyard, nestled between the TELUQ pavilion and the student residence, negotiates the dramatic change in grade with an open glade punctuated by the forms of several leaves scattered throughout the court. An oculus in the TELUQ building to the north provides a privileged view of this whimsical landscape feature from above.

Architects: Tétreault Parent Languedoc & Saia Barbarese Topouzanov
Architect Team: Michel Languedoc (project architect), Mario Saia (director of design).
Landscape: Claude Cormier architectes paysagistes inc.
General Contractor: Hervé Pomerleau inc.
Site Area: 5,000 sqm
Constructed Area: 63,215 sqm
Photographs: Marc Cramer, Nathalie St-Pierre, Ivanoh Demers, Michel Brunelle, Jean-François Vézina, Claude Duchaîne, Andrew Dobrowolskyj