Warehouse Park Pavilion

WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Whimsical, yet structured, it is easy to imagine how this pavilion will become an icon for the city and create a gravitational pull for park users. The boldness of the vaulted roof structure and its consistent rhythm defies the organic shape in plan. With its strong monochromatic colour, it creates a distinctive, warm presence in the park.
– Andrea Wolff, juror

LOCATION Edmonton, Alberta

Architecture is what separates a pavilion from a shed. Gh3*’s building for a pending park on the western edge of Edmonton’s downtown has a modest and largely utilitarian program: it contains washrooms, community multi-purpose space, mechanical and electrical rooms, storage space, and staff space. But this welcoming, emphatically red little building, topped with a yoo-hoo of a barrel-vaulted, cantilevered roof, looks set to become an instant local landmark. Warehouse Park Pavilion speaks, as its award submission notes, to a time when park pavilions were “celebratory.”

Reclaiming a former car dealership precinct as public green space, Warehouse Park aims to reconnect this part of Edmonton with its Indigenous roots. The name O-day’min, gifted by a local Elder to the ward in which the park is located, means “strawberry” or “heart-berry” in Anishinaabemowin. The berry-red pavilion on the west side of the park will embrace and define the Warming Plaza (a.k.a. west plaza), a community space centred around a fire pit,  and face toward the main, strawberry-shaped open lawn to the east.

The park’s geometry and organization generated the pavilion’s footprint. While the building encloses 270 m2, its irregularly shaped roof canopy stretches out to cover 400 m2, providing bountiful sheltered outdoor space in a configuration that aligns with surrounding park pathways. The pavilion’s large glazed areas, in combination with its relatively narrow width, allow for transparency and clear views from the alley along its west edge through to the public plaza to the east. Its robust exterior materials—tempered laminated glass and powder-coated steel—are graffiti resilient and resistant to vandalism.

This project’s barrel vaulting tips the hat to historic modern buildings in Edmonton such as Jasper Place High School and the Westwood Transit Garage—and affirms that this ancient structural form lends itself anew to contemporary applications. The vaulted ceilings and interior walls, washrooms (including partitions) and event space are clad with red-stained marine grade plywood. Lest the site’s immediate past be forgot, the exterior areas of the pavilion’s cast-in-place concrete floor have an acid-etched, aggregate-exposing finish that mimics the old car dealerships’ durable terrazzo flooring, patches of which still remained in place after initial attempts to clear the site. (Interior public-area floors are polished concrete.)

The building is passively ventilated with no cooling; its deep roof overhang reduces solar gain and associated cooling loads.

Glowing a warm red even on a cold winter night and inviting all visitors to pause for a moment to enjoy its scalloped roofline, Warehouse Park Pavilion provides basic amenities with an uplifting generosity of spirit.

CLIENT City of Edmonton | ARCHITECT TEAM Pat Hanson (FRAIC), Raymond Chow (MRAIC), Elise Shelley, John McKenna, Joel Di Giacomo, Richard Freeman, Petra Bogias, Alison Huo | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN LEAD CCxA | LOCAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE / STRUCTURAL / MECHANICAL / ENGINEERING / CIVIL / TRAFFIC AECOM| LIGHTING Ombrages / Éclairage public | PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS Twenty/20 Communications | AREA Building—270m2 ; Park—17,800 m2 | BUDGET Pavilion—$5.6M; Entire Park—$35.3M | STATUS Under construction| ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2025 

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (EUI) 179.16 kWh/m2/year | THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (TEDI) 23.5 kWh/m2/year | GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INTENSITY (GHGI) 1.38 kg CO2e/m2 | WATER USE INTENSITY (WUI) 2.22 m3/m2/year

As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

See all the 2024 Awards of Excellence winners

You can read our jury’s full comments here.

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