PSPC to hold design competition for Block 2
A block of land immediately across the road from the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa has been earmarked for a significant transformation.
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) announced in late January that it would hold a design competition to select an architect for the project that would transform the mix of aging buildings into “an efficient and innovative complex that will meet the needs of a modern Parliament as well as the public.”
Block 2, as it is known, is the city block immediately south of Parliament Hill. It faces the Centre Block and the Peace Tower. It is the threshold between the city-owned and Crown-owned lands. The block is bounded by Metcalfe, Wellington, O’Connor and Sparks streets, and is considered part of the Parliamentary Precinct, having been expropriated by the federal government in 1973.
Many of the 11 buildings in the block are nearly 100 years old, and are in need of significant repairs.
A redesigned block, says PSPC, “will provide office space for the Senate and the House of Commons. It will include space for a branch of the Library of Parliament. It will also include renovated retail space on the Sparks Street Mall.”
The idea of using a design competition for the space harkens back to the days of the original design of the Parliament Buildings in 1859. Similar competitions have produced many significant cultural buildings in Canada and around the world, including the Canadian Museum of History, Toronto City Hall and the Sydney Opera House.
“The goal of the competition is to provide a cohesive design solution and to redevelop the site into an efficient complex of buildings,” says the PSPC procurement notice. “The redevelopment is to create a new integrated building complex, which would include the appropriate rehabilitation and modernization of aging and underutilized buildings, maximize the site developable capacity and enable the ongoing rehabilitation of core buildings on Parliament Hill.”
The design competition will unfold in two phases, and will be overseen by professional advisors designed by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. The first phase will be open to all qualified parties. As many as 12 will be invited to participate in the second phase of the process, which will see competitors submit outlines of their preferred concepts, and the number of competitors reduced to as many as six.
Those six will be invited to submit advanced design concepts, and the best chosen from among those.
There is currently no timeline for the process, but pre-qualifications could begin this spring, while the competition itself could take at least six months.