Architecture and the urban condition that results from the high concentration of built form requires special attention and resources devoted to research around  its successful operation. Our project positions itself within Calgary’s existing design community as a place of idea exploration and conceptual development of architecturally related projects. It will be a home of interdisciplinary research that welcomes globally diverse teams on a short and long term basis focusing on systemic urban issues.

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The purpose of the building is to improve the lives of city dwellers, therefore the form and spatial arrangement suggests a publicly accessible building that welcomes the people it is meant to be researching. 
The relationship that this exploration has with the public realm is twofold; it serves as a physical space that is dedicated to propogating research centred around systemic urban issues (finding future solutions) while being a physical example of a solution in its own capacity.

Access, choice, and shelther were used as the formal drivers of the design, chosen based on their universality and comprehendable nature. The point of this project was to explore the notion of a design that is inclusive enough to allow all of society to enter, but does nor prescribe its users with specific ways of occupying the sapce.