this page is a recap of my career, not an active arcitect's website. i have retired from practising and live in Italy. this page shows highlights of my work between the early 1980's and 2022. the firms in which i produced these works as partner or sole proprietor are named under the images. hover over images for larger photos!
my last firm, f2a architecture ltd., is now managed by my former partner and successor Austin Hawkins, architect aibc. i maintain contact with him as mentor and to brainstorm when needed. visit his website at www.f2a.ca for more details on the works we completed together!
a structural engineers home office and testing lab.
a lot of advanced tech went into this building,
like the electrocromic glass that keeps the heat
gain down at the almost fully glazed west face.
but the design also wants to honour the spirit
of classical modern architecture by offering
visual calm in an awfully busy place.
the new owners of the Maurer House wanted a place to display their art collection. it floats on steel posts on a bedrock slab, low enough not to obstruct the views of lake and mountain from the existing living area. The staircase's glazing rests on slots in the bedrock slab.
when part of the fortification wall around this castle collapsed i couldn't resist thinking about how to use the event to turn the castle from little more than a ruin into an attractive public venue. we believe that the lightness and transparence of sparingly used glass and steel could bring to light the strength of the ancient stone masonry. unfortunately this view was not shared by the local decision makers.
to gain views and southern exposure the building was placed an top of the hill, with garage and interior access buried into the hillside to the north. The building was named Fred, Wilma and Pebbles: Fred is the glass living area, Wilma with the bedrooms is tucked under a green roof, Pebbles is the underground garage.
site and program allowed to configure the building rigorously for best energy performance in this latitude: open to the south, closed east, west and north. fixed sun shades on the south shade prevent heat gain during summer but allow the flat winder sun to provide welcome passive heating. The closed sides are clad in rusty steel (Corten).
the small pavilion sits in the civic park of a small city in BC's Okanagan. it's there for markets, concerts, or just to meet, enjoy the park or have a picnic. The sculptures were cut from rusty steel plate by the Swiss craftsman who built the structure for us.
Naramata, BC, 2007-2015
a few design-built houses
with Allen + Maurer Architects Ltd. we also had a small construction management company to buid our designs directly for our clients. This allowed us to use details, materials and techniques not familiar to local contractors. details could be fine tuned and changed, quality control was possible without the often adverserial and costly process laid out in standard construction contract scenarios.
this k-12 private school was, at the time, unusual because of a daylit gymnasium. the large north facing glazing runs parallel to the main playing field and so avoids giving an advantage to one of the teams. Slatted ceiling and wall elements achieve were used to achieve good acoustic performance.
during my time in Italy i began working for the Swiss humanitarian organisation Ethos Open Hands in Romania. This work relationship lasted 20 years and realized social housing, clinical and care facilities, a large kindergarten and the 4000 m2 k-12 private school shown here.
in the South Tyrolian community of Lana/BZ. The animated form was a direct consequence of the difficult site configuration, but could be used to create points that allowed the children to perhaps imagine the prow, tackle and sails of
a pirate ship.
designing a First Nation's cultural centre along the historic design guidelines of Dawson City was of course unacceptable. so we were happy to be allowed to place it on top of the dyke fronting the Yukon river, separated from the city centre by Front Street. a dialogue of cultures, rather than a clash could happen, and the building could face the a river with great significance for the Tr'ondek Hwech'in people
in Whitehorse we bought a 1950's Public Works Canada house, took off the roof and added a storey. we built it with our hands, and it has been called "Le Box" by the locals. it served us well while living in Whitehorse.
early competitions, early 1980's
with our design for the Canada/British Columbia pavilion for the 2006 Torino winter olympics we wanted to portray Canada as a producer of refined products and culture, not as the carriers of waters and hewers of wood the ultimately chosen log house seemed to suggest. we also wanted to showcase BC Forst Nation heritage and suggest to make it a permanent legacy building, not just the temporary solution it finally was.
Maurer homestead 1977-1991
Telegraph Creek, BC
this is where my wife and I started as young immigrants from Germany: in the wilderness of the north-western corner of BC. the stereotype of the log cabin in the bush was just too powerful to resist, even for a young architect nurtured in classic modern tradition! after just a couple of years in the log cabin however we saw the light and built something a lot more comfortable and practical.