Canada Council for the Arts - New Offices

Ottawa, Canada

Edward J. Cuhaci and Associates Architects Inc. was retained by the Canada Council for the Arts to advise and design the Council’s office spaces in a new office building at 150 Elgin street, Ottawa. Relocating head offices presented the Council with a unique opportunity to physically voice its strategic directives, policies, ethics and corporate identity through it’s new workspace. Embracing this opportunity, our firm sought to physically manifest the Council’s message brand personality of Vibrant, Open, Connected in the form and function of the designed space. The departure point for this project was to engage the entire staff of the Canada Council in a series of open “charettes”. On a section by section basis, the Council’s staff provided valuable feedback on how they presently worked. These workshops were used to establish common needs and desires across the whole of the Council, and identify efficiencies and adjacencies to be implemented in the new office.

The needs and desires conveyed by staff found their expression in the adoption of a “neighbourhood” design approach, with each of the various sections of Council residing in a relatively open office, linked by a main street. The streetscape achieves variation through the careful placement of collaborative spaces - brightly painted enclosed rooms for section meetings or private conversations. Both the massing and colour of these spaces vary throughout the office, creating identifiable landmarks or destinations. Each section of the Council maintains its own presence on the street in the form a woodwork section, containing storage for reference material, display space and writing surfaces for informal discussions. Featuring most prominently in the office design is the Staff Lounge, a common space to serve as a gathering point for the whole of Council staff.

In light of the decision to implement a scheme that fostered connectivity and vibrancy, an equal amount of care was taken to ensure that privacy and the ability to complete focused work was maintained Council wide. Care was taken in addressing Council’s desire for flexibility in its new office space, and opportunities were found programmatically, architecturally, and through the application of communications technologies.

Great importance was also placed on the prominence of art within the new office space. The firm worked in collaboration with the staff of the Art Bank to site specific pieces on the feature walls strategically placed throughout the Council space.

The council is Canada’s Public Arts Funder and awards grants to support Canadian Artists. Highly flexible “Jury Spaces” were designed to facilitate review of diverse art forms for grants/award submissions.