Centre financier Boulevard de la Caisse populaire Desjardins à Drummondville / Boulevard Financial Center of Desjardins Credit Union in Drummondville
1991
Drummondville, Quebec, Canada- Financial institutions
- Building
- Financial institutions
(...) the directors of the Caisse populaire Desjardins in Drummondville were considering, in the spring of 1991, an architectural competition for the design of their Boulevard financial center, a commission of approximately 1.3 million dollars.
The competition for the project was an invitational, one-stage competition requiring the presentation of a preliminary sketch graphically outlining the urban problematic of the project, a general solution and the shaping of an architectural party. Its particular formula had to respond to two general principles stated by the promoter:
*Favouring home-buying, i.e. awarding the commission to a local architectural firm;
*Encourage young entrepreneurs, i.e. call upon the "young architecture" of Quebec to broaden the pool of possible competitors.
Also, the priority of the Drummondville competition organizers was to establish a program that contained qualitative criteria that would humanize the technical imperatives of the organization of spaces.
This theme, the energy of the plural, was inspired by the very nature of the Desjardins Group, a true cooperative organization whose strength is born of numbers and whose energy is born of the movement of numbers.
The program set out three vocations: the first was obvious, favouring economic exchange; the second, unprecedented, advocating the socio-cultural contribution of the caisse in its environment; and the third, initiating, sought to provide a quality built proposal that could influence the evolution of the urban typology of the "boulevard". In addition, four conceptual objectives encouraged the competitors to create an energetic, revealing, concrete and intelligent building.
(From specialized magazine)
(Unofficial automated translation)
The competition for the project was an invitational, one-stage competition requiring the presentation of a preliminary sketch graphically outlining the urban problematic of the project, a general solution and the shaping of an architectural party. Its particular formula had to respond to two general principles stated by the promoter:
*Favouring home-buying, i.e. awarding the commission to a local architectural firm;
*Encourage young entrepreneurs, i.e. call upon the "young architecture" of Quebec to broaden the pool of possible competitors.
Also, the priority of the Drummondville competition organizers was to establish a program that contained qualitative criteria that would humanize the technical imperatives of the organization of spaces.
This theme, the energy of the plural, was inspired by the very nature of the Desjardins Group, a true cooperative organization whose strength is born of numbers and whose energy is born of the movement of numbers.
The program set out three vocations: the first was obvious, favouring economic exchange; the second, unprecedented, advocating the socio-cultural contribution of the caisse in its environment; and the third, initiating, sought to provide a quality built proposal that could influence the evolution of the urban typology of the "boulevard". In addition, four conceptual objectives encouraged the competitors to create an energetic, revealing, concrete and intelligent building.
(From specialized magazine)
(Unofficial automated translation)