Hintonburg Brick and Tile Works

Student Name: David Woodruff

School: Carleton University

Degree Program: M.Arch

Location of Project: Ottawa, Canada

Year of Project: 2018

Brief Description of Project:

The Hintonburg Brick and Tile Works produces limited-run clay products for building and decorative purposes using post consumer material and sustainable manufacturing and operating practices. At its location on Somerset Street in Ottawa, technicians and artisans work in tandem to produce bespoke brick and tile designs for residential and commercial uses. The Hintonburg Brick and Tile Works embodies and advocates a reimagined notion of craftsmanship in the 21st century, while maintaining its connotations of authenticity and integrity. The metaphor of a gabion provided the conceptual departure for this adaptive reuse project. Just as the wire mesh of a gabion contains and displays its contents, the new construction contains the ‘pieces’ of the existing building’s slip-form concrete exterior. Although these walls remain largely intact, they are experienced in fragments by selectively removing sections for circulation between the new and existing construction. The programs and services are arranged around these pieces of wall, such that the activities in the building come to occupy the interstitial space of the gabion. Thus, the conceptual departure becomes a spatial experience in the workshop.