Design/Build Workshop - Kingsburg, Nova Scotia
Area: 186SM (2000SF)
The Ghost Lab is a design / build workshop led by architect Brian MacKay-Lyons. Sited at the LaHave River estuary on Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast, the 2000 square foot building was designed, detailed and constructed by a group of international participants that included architects and students. The project was recently awarded the AIA Institute Honour Award for Architecture.
“Ghost is a very physical learning experience, involving cold wind and rain or blazing sun, tramping in mud or clambering up scaffolding, hoisting materials or wielding and guiding tools. Participants gain more than intellectual knowledge about construction but acquire that all-important feel for its materials and processes, as well as an understanding of the need to always consider the sequencing and safety of the latter. It should be clear that insight into detailing is only one of many lessons offered by the Ghost experience. Others included acquiring the all-important ‘feel’ for materials and construction, as well as for the relationship between architecture, landscape and climate.”
-Excerpt from an essay by Peter Buchanan: Escaping Normality to Embrace Reality
Project by: MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects Limited. Sean Solowski working on design and construction.
Photo Credit: James Steeves