January 2015
| Business World
183
It allowed the firm to share this free reign
with the contractors and designers working
on the project with them, such as Fei Dis-
brow, who participated as design consultant
for interiors, and also created art pieces for
the exterior of the Cloister House.
“When we won this award with the city of
Vancouver, the award was as much an award
for the clients that allow architects to flour-
ish with their ideas, so the fact that the city
and the mayor had acknowledged that we
had made something exceptional with an ex-
ceptional client was great, because that was
exactly what had happened to us,” says Cud-
dington.
Additionally, the award hints at the impor-
tance of cohesiveness between the city and
its architects, and the opportunity for mu-
tual benefit when both parties foster this re-
lationship. “It acknowledged that we as ar-
chitects had built a very strong relationship
with City Hall, and did not consider them
adversaries but rather part of the team that
we needed to work through to leap up and
out of,”Cuddington states.
The firm’s relationship with the city also
hinges on the former’s patronizing a city ini-
tiative that provides an avenue where way-
ward youth on the mend can find resume-
building experience. The program involves
a dismantling team pulling apart buildings,
with the intention of salvaging them for re-
cycled material. This initiative provides an
environmentally friendly alternative that
simultaneously serves disadvantaged city
youth. Most importantly, it allows compa-
nies such as Measured Architecture to incor-
porate it into their projects without incur-
ring premiums for their clients.
Here’s where Measured Architecture’s subtle
environmental strategy comes in: they em-
ploy eco-friendly alternatives to convention-
al architectural practices, ones that are estab-
lished enough to allow for guarantees and no
risk, yet bring a great degree of efficiency to
the project. “An architect should be look-
ing for innovative solutions that have been
through warranty cycles, have a track record
of keeping the rain out, keeping the heat in,
those kinds of things. We don’t want to be
pioneers, nor do we want to pay the penal-
ties of being pioneers, but its amazing how
many things have been kicked to the wayside
that are positive solutions for building in our
society,” explains Cuddington.
