On April 30, Open Concepts returns with guest William O’Brien Jr., principal of Cambridge, Massachusetts firm WOJR, founding member and collaborator in Collective LOK, and Associate Professor and M.Arch Program Director at MIT. William O’Brien Jr. comes to architecture from a background in sculpture and music. It’s no surprise, then, that his firm’s designs are masterful works of order and expression - simultaneously intimate and expansive, they balance the familiar with the transcendental.
What makes WOJRs work so exciting - whether ideas, design proposals, or built projects - is their ability to approach design in unexpected, experimental ways. They are not afraid to challenge norms, innovating with bold geometries and unconventional materials. But in order to be compelling, any experiment must be precise, ordered, and meticulous. Difference and diversity - of forms, materials, programmatic arrangement, narrative - are made compelling by their careful and nuanced deployment within an overarching system of order. This rigorous play is where O'Brien and his team truly excel.
In Hall House, WOJR investigates how circulation might be simplified and elevated to a unifying feature of the project. The front hall structures the plan, becoming a defining organizational element: it is simultaneously a neutral backdrop against which a variety of volumes and programs are registered, and a common element that links the each individual space conceptually and physically.
For their project Mask House, faced with the task of designing a lake house for a grieving client whose brother drowned in the same lake that the cottage will overlook, WOJR explored grief as a formal and material driver: how might a small, simple building convey an experience of transition, transformation and confronting the unknown, and simultaneously be a place to find refuge and comfort? The eventual material manifestation of this is the eponymous mask, a tall screen made of charred wood that mimics the qualities of light and shadow of the forest around it and obscures the volume of the house from the approach. The entrance across a long, narrow footbridge translates the ephemeral and the emotional into something tangible.
House of Horns, which is currently under construction, is a showpiece of nuance and control over the composition of space and the play of light on surface and volume. Having inherited an abandoned foundation for a Spanish-style home, WOJR was able to envelop the existing work within a totally original formal concept. The existence of the building is bookended by a creative, experimental visualization process and nuanced, artistic documentation that extend the impact of the architecture beyond its physical existence.
Open Concepts Design Collective
Open Concepts is a cultural initiative that works to support and expand design thinking in Calgary. We exist to take closed, settled, established concepts and open them for reinterpretation.
We bring a diverse audience of Calgarians together to contemplate complex architectural ideas. We invite everyone who shares a passion for design to join us to learn, discuss, and act on the issues facing our built environment.
By making connections to exciting, innovative design practitioners outside of Calgary, we aim to enhance our city’s and its citizens’ understanding of the greater design world and our own role within it.
The Open Concepts lecture series is presented by XYC Design in partnership with Carraig Ridge and The Canadian Museum of Making.
