Cross-posted from No Mean City, Alex’s personal blog on architecture
A changeroom and lunchroom for bus drivers. That is the very prosaic program of this very beautiful building in Oakville, which I recently wrote about for Azure. (PDF is here.)
The architects, Bortolotto, have truly made something out of nothing: the site (Google Map) is as uninspiring as you can imagine, the budget was not huge, and in most contexts a structure like this would be a shed. (A decorated shed, if you’re lucky.) This project, which they’ve dubbed Pit Stop, is special.
For a full photo gallery, visit No Mean City.
2 comments
As Hunertwasser, Calatrava, and other architects have shown, utilitarian doesn’t have to be ugly! See the former’s District Heating Plant in Vienna (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/9073182) or any number of stations by the latter. Curious to know budget of this pit stop as compared to the budget for a similar building done in a more conventional manner.
From what I understand, the budget was no more than a typical building of this sort. The difference is the imagination of the designers.