The South Haven Centre for Remembrance creates a new non-denominational facility for the City of Edmonton. The design features a symbolic thirteen-metre tower which emerges from the prairie landscape which makes reference to the existing gravesites, monuments, columbaria, and the latent memory they embody.
The unique nature of this building’s typology was coupled with the rare opportunity to position a building within a vast twenty-one-hectare site. The development of a partially submerged landform building was conceived of as a wandering line in the landscape providing a visual connection to and from the building.
The color and overall character of the building considers the relationship of modulating light patterns within the building interior throughout the seasons as well as the long crisp winter shadows that are cast from the building edges.
The combination of black hot rolled steel panels and a black charred (shou sugiban accoya) skin act as a counterpoint to the snowy winter conditions and the changing relationship of the building in the landscape throughout the year.
