For the third edition of its ideation contest, Héritage Montréal is inviting the next generation to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by the urban and landscape identity of its industrial heritage. With ten days at their disposal, from September 5 to 15, 2024, up-and-coming designers were challenged to rekindle the flame of the Carrières and Dickson incinerators at not one, but two sites proposed in this edition of the competition.
Burning with desire... and waste!
Urban lifestyles, whether at home or in factories, lead to waste production that industrial societies have to contend with. The incineration of household waste is a practice that dates back to the end of the 19th century in Western cities: Montreal, in the midst of an industrial boom, took the trend in its stride and built several incinerators.
The Dickson incinerator was built in the 1950s and represents the second generation of municipal incinerators, which were among the most modern in North America at the time of their inauguration. An example of the functionalist architecture of the modern movement, designed by the office of Ville de Montréal architect Donat Beaupré, the building was forced to cease operations in 1978 in response to pressure from environmental and citizens' movements.
The Carrières incinerator, built in 1970 to replace and modernize the old incinerator on the site dating back to the 1930s, represents the latest generation of this type of industrial infrastructure. With its monumental, 78-metre-high chimneys and raw concrete volumes, the building was one of the largest in the world at the time of its inauguration, and did not go unnoticed in the Montreal landscape. However, in 1993, due to a lack of maintenance, budgetary constraints and a change in urban mentality towards the pollution emitted by the incinerator, it closed.
Both victims of the awakening of environmental awareness, these facilities, which were originally symbols of hygienism and gigantism, have turned into urban ruins. Against this backdrop, La Relève's teams were called upon to requalify and reinterpret these sites, rich in an industrial vocation, within the daily reach of waste management.
A new generation of enthusiasts
This is the first edition of the competition in which not one, but two sites are proposed to the teams, who are free to concentrate their efforts on one or the other while finding a conceptual guideline that can meet the interest of each site. So, why did we choose two incinerators for this third ideation competition?
Clarence Hatton-Proulx, Member of Heritage Montréal Next Generation Committee
"When Montreal was Canada's industrial metropolis, factory chimneys numbered in the hundreds. While most of them have now disappeared, the Carrières and Dickson incinerators, used to burn household waste, are a reminder of this special history. With their imposing volume and raw materiality, they represent a precious potential for requalification, at a time when urban space is becoming increasingly scarce and calls are being made to reuse what already exists."
Over forty people took part in a tour of the Carrières incinerator on September 6, 2024. Hosted by Jean Laberge, architect at Ville de Montréal's Heritage Division, and Clarence Hatton-Proulx, member of Next Generation Committee, the tour covered the site's history and heritage interest.
Jean Laberge, architect with the Heritage Division at Ville de Montréal
"I was impressed by the forty or so people present at the presentation. The interest was palpable. I really enjoyed participating with the passionate members of Next Generation Committee d'Héritage Montréal and was impressed by the depth of their knowledge of the various aspects of these issues."
With a total of 24 projects submitted, this year's edition of the Next Generation Committee d'Héritage Montréal competition was a resounding success, thanks to the enthusiasm of the new generation for visiting one of the icons of the past, and their desire to breathe new life into these industrial monuments. The jury's deliberations sparked a passionate discussion to select the winning proposals.
Here are the 24 projects submitted
To view the plates in full-screen mode, click on the icon to the right of the viewer. You can also download the PDF in full-screen mode.
Awarding the prizes
First Jury Prize - Contes de ce qui persiste
Philippe Tremblay and Maude Lefebvre
Contes de ce qui persiste proposes to rethink the Ville de Montréal waste management network by bringing together three major sites. The Carrières incinerator becomes a waste treatment training center, accompanied by a heating network and an urban park on its roof. The Dickson incinerator is a snow dump feeding a cooling network. The Francon quarry is converted into an urban park.
Jury's comments
"The jury underlines the inventiveness of the proposal, which reconciles an approach rooted in the reality of the site and its context, while incorporating a narrative framework of colorful stories, which contributes to the evocative aspect of the proposal. The variety of stories depicting the daily lives of various users exposes a social reflection completed on multiple scales, all the more so as it allows the proposal to be skilfully considered in the future. The complementary programs proposed for the Carrières and Dickson incinerators, evoking the conceptual autonomy of the team members' thinking, echo the opportunities offered by their immediate context while drawing on the potential of a structuring network on an urban scale."
Second Jury Prize - Artéfacts des Possibles
Étienne Genest and Christopher Malouf
Artéfacts des Possibles proposes a light intervention based on the current state of urban ruin in which the Carrières incinerator finds itself. Suggesting an architectural stroll, it turns the incinerator and its surroundings into a space for exploration and reflection, fueled by the material traces of the various metabolic functions that have marked the site's history.
Jury's comments
"The jury's attention was drawn to the architectural program's sensory appeal. The Carrières incinerator is treated like an urban sculpture, with breaks for strolling. This indoor-outdoor vegetated walk emphasizes the well-being of the urban user, who can take advantage of every moment of the site at his or her own pace, all of which is marked by a poetic dialogue between the openings uniting the return of nature and the points of mediation in dialogue with the monumental. The formal intentions of the proposal offer an architectural resolution of caliber and complement very well those evoked in the text, making it a convincing and coherent proposal."
Special Jury Mentions - Impérissable and Qu'est-ce qui mijote?
Impérissable proposes to equip the incinerator with prefabricated greenhouses, solar panels on the roof and a park to encourage sober, urban agriculture. Qu'est-ce qui mijote? aims for a similar function, proposing a panoply of interventions to accompany the life cycle of organic materials, from their cultivation in greenhouses to their valorization through methanization.
Jeanne Pelletier and Mélanie Lembregts
Xavier Saint-Jean, Joëlle Tétreault and Laurène Smith
Jury's comments
"Of all the proposals submitted by up-and-coming architects, two tied for the jury's special mention for their strong, nurturing themes with universal appeal, and their reflection on the public's involvement in their program. The proposal entitled Impérissable won the jury's attention for its clear approach to transforming the site through gentle industrialization, while taking advantage of the qualities of standardization and the potential for replication of the solution of prefabricated greenhouses aided by abundant technology. The proposal entitled Qu'est-ce qui mijote? approaches the site under various cycles of transformation and use of space, detailing a poetic approach to odors and the social character of food, while addressing a gradual transformation of the site. Its neighborhood-wide approach, combined with the theme of cooking by and for all, roots the new program in its site."
Audience Award - Bain des Carrières
Jérôme Bélanger, Eva McSweeney and Cédric Vézina
In addition to the jury's selection of prizes, the public was asked to vote for their favorite proposal between September 24 and October 1: over 450 votes were cast. Nearly a fifth of the public's votes went to the Bain des Carrières project, which proposed the creation of a soap factory, fragrant flower gardens and public baths in the Carrières incinerator.
Rekindling the flame
Worldwide, incineration remains an important technology for treating household waste, particularly in Europe and Asia. However, in North America, and particularly in Canada, it has fallen out of favor over the last thirty years. At a time when environmental awareness is growing around the reuse of existing disused buildings, public authorities are being asked to reflect on the future of these buildings and to find ways of giving them a new use, which is what the ideation competition is generating through the proposals of the participating teams.
"Ville de Montréal is always keen to collaborate with Héritage Montréal, other heritage conservation organizations, university researchers and others when it comes to stimulating ideas for the future of its building stock. The participation of students and emerging professionals in activities such as this ideation contest is compatible with our mission of raising heritage awareness [...] The free and unconstrained context of such an exercise sometimes allows ideas to emerge that those responsible for these buildings would not have thought of."
Jean Laberge, architect with the Heritage Division at Ville de Montréal
We'd like to thank all the participants for making this 3rd edition so productive.
- Artefact of possibilities (Étienne Genest and Christopher Malouf)
- Bain des Carrières (Jérôme Bélanger, Eva McSweeney and Cédric Vézina)
- Carburant Social (Vincent Boissonneault, Victor Gélinas and Victor Rifiorati)
- Recycled fireplaces (Chloé Dusablon, Justine Gauthier and Joël Potteck)
- Resilience bell tower (Jules Rodschat and Ryan Agili)
- Contes de ce qui persiste (Philippe Tremblay and Maude Lefebvre)
- Energy in motion (Glory Nasr and Laetitia Bazerji)
- En temps et lieu (Estelle Contant, Markhly Delva and Hadrien Simard)
- Once upon a time (Alexandra Lanthier and Alexandre Duchemin)
- Impérissable (Jeanne Pelletier and Mélanie Lembregts)
- Incinerator-repairer (Gabrielle Lemieux and Félicie Giroux)
- Urban inventory (Jimmy Ear)
- History burns brightly (Alexander and Matthew Venditti)
- L'incinérateur brûle (Marianne Roy, Emrick Tremblay and Hatim Assikar)
- La Rhizosphère (Paul Kuchembuck-Dardel, Béatrice Poitras and Rémy Shepherd)
- Le Point repère (Sarah Boisvert and Audrey Thomas Joyal)
- Montreal's modern cathedrals (Roxane Kasprzyk, Garance Bergeron, Leila Gillespie-Cloutier)
- Les Usines culturelles (Isabel Cano, Steven Starkell and Anastasia Jaffray)
- Montreal: brick and glass (Juliette Denis, Victor Demers and Charlotte Audifax-Gauthier)
- Montreal is burning (Louay Kaoun and Olivier Corriveau-Leblanc)
- Phyto (Sophie Howard and Jean-Philippe Larche-Boudreau)
- What's cooking? (Xavier Saint-Jean, Joëlle Tétreault and Laurène Smith)
- Living ruins (Juan Fernando Barrionuevo, Alexandra Gagnon-Roy and Lisa Hadioui)
- Towards a green glass (Évan Comte)
With the support of theAssociation québécoise pour le patrimoine industriel, CCxA, EVOQ & Sid Lee Architecture.
The Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence (CRC-ACME) proudly encourages the next generation of architects through its financial contribution to the archiving of competition submissions on the Canadian Competitions Catalogue website.
Special thanks toEspace Ville Autrement for hosting the awards ceremony.
The proposals resulting from this exercise are above all sources of inspiration and do not constitute binding plans. They are intended to provide food for thought and stimulate discussion.
The projects submitted were evaluated by the following jury members:
- Sophie Beaudoin, landscape architect, co-president and associate at CCxA
- Paloma Castonguay-Rufino, doctoral student in architecture at Université de Montréal
- Georges Drolet, Associate Managing Architect, EVOQ
- Jeffrey Perron, design architect at Sid Lee Architecture
About the Héritage Montréal Next Generation Committee
Héritage Montréal Next Generation Committee, created in 2016, wants to bring heritage to life differently, a laboratory for exploring alternative activities related to the discovery (or rediscovery) of heritage. The committee's mission is to develop new avenues of awareness, communication and exchange with up-and-coming architecture, urban planning, heritage and design professionals interested in Montreal's built heritage, in order to multiply collaborative opportunities and facilitate the sharing of diverse experiences and journeys. Comprising a dozen volunteer members, the Comité de la relève organizes events (tours, exhibitions, film-causeries, etc.) to take a playful, original and committed approach to Montreal's heritage.
