The Paul H. Cocker Architecture Gallery, Gow Hastings Architects’s latest upgrade to Toronto’s Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science building, has been shortlisted into the Public Space category for the 2014 Society of British and International Design (SBID) Awards. SBID is the standard-bearer organization of the profession of interior design in Britain.
The SBID International Design Awards recognize, reward and celebrate design excellence across a broad range of categories. Gow Hastings was selected from an impressive group of entries from over 30 countries across the globe. The winners will be announced at the SBID International Design Awards Ceremony in London on Nov. 14, 2014.
Gow Hastings transformed a space formerly occupied by a storage room into the Paul H. Cocker Architecture Gallery, providing Ryerson University with an adaptive space for exhibition and events. The gallery’s contemporary sensibility introduces a focal point amidst the complex geometries of famed Canadian architect Ron Thom’s Brutalist lobby while reminding students that a modest interior intervention can create memorable architecture through creativity and fine craftsmanship.
The Paul H. Cocker Architecture Gallery also received an Institutional Honorable Mention in the 2014 Ceramics of Italy Tile Competition. Open to North American architects and designers using Italian ceramic tiles, the annual competition recognizes inspiring institutional, residential and commercial/hospitality spaces.
Gow Hastings used thin, white Italian porcelain floor tiles to create a gallery floor that provides additional exhibition space that can be reinterpreted with each new show. They extended the tiles just beyond the gallery’s threshold into the heavy concrete and quarry tile lobby, announcing the transformed space.
For more info about the firm. visit http://gowhastings.com/