Location
Hamilton, ON
Size
10,200 sf
Client
McMaster University
Status
Complete
In 2013, Dr. Robert Fitzhenry, a McMaster alumni, donated generously to the School of the Arts (SoTA) for a new addition and renovation to the existing studios and classrooms at Togo Salmon Hall. The gift was made in honour of Robert’s late wife Andrée, a painter and art collector.
Upon award of the project, DPAI led a full day design charrette involving current students, alumni, faculty, and staff at SoTA, as well as many other stakeholders. In the early stages of design, DPAI worked closely with a group of community alumni practitioners to contextualize the project as a link between the school and Hamilton’s arts community.
Gentle north light pours into the double-height painting studios and the addition of a 25’x25’x25’ glass-enclosed atrium (“the Cube”), provides a powerful environment for critique, exhibition and performance. SoTA’s new urban prominence has strengthened connections with other faculties so that art students can offer their unique perspectives to engineering and humanities students, and vice versa. Because of urban connections at two levels, the highly transparent Cube is now in frequent demand as an event space on campus, while broadly showcasing the work of students and faculty members during both working critiques and final exhibits.
The new addition provides vastly expanded floorspace and amenities for more equipment-intensive media (e.g. printmaking and sculpture) including facilities for lithography, etching, and silkscreen, as well as wood and metal working. The studio also features one of Canada’s few remaining metal casting facilities housed in a University fine arts facility. Once-windowless studios for upper-year students have been expanded, and flex-studio and new media facilities balance the use of traditional media with an understanding of the shifting nature of creative practice with the emergence of new tools.
