Architecture MasterPrize & Canadian Architect awards recognize library designs

Both Waterdown Library and Civic Centre, and the Idea Exchange Old Post Office have received 2018 Architecture MasterPrize (AMP) Awards, Institutional category, and Restoration and Renovation category respectively, which will be celebrated at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in early 2019.

A 2018 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence has also been given to the Idea Exchange Old Post Office, Canada’s first “bookless” library that has a program primarily comprised of studio spaces for public creation, supplemented by a café-restaurant as a secondary, contiguous use. The design scheme uses material transparency in an attempt to promote views of the historic structure, bring light into the various levels of studio space, and project the life and vitality of the progressive public program to the city beyond. Jury member David Penner commented “What’s most admirable in my mind is the balance between the conservation of the existing building and the addition”, and Monica Adair said: “The modern architecture has as much character as the heritage structure that it elegantly envelopes. The two not only co-exist, they enhance each others’ assets.”