Open Form Architecture Blog

Foun­ded in 2004 by th­ree in­tern archi­tects –Mau­rice Mar­tel, Ma­xime Mo­reau and Da­rrel Ro­nald– Open Form Archi­tec­ture seeks to sti­mu­late in­no­va­tion bet­ween tech­no­logy, de­sign and archi­tec­ture. The th­ree de­sig­ners are cu­rrently fi­nishing off pro­fes­sio­nal re­gis­tra­tion with the Or­dre des archi­tec­tes du Qué­bec in Canada.

The of­fice is cha­rac­te­ri­zed by the ex­ce­llence of it’s pro­file and ac­com­plish­ments in the do­mains of archi­tec­ture and ur­ba­nism, as well as pho­to­graphy and wri­ting. The mem­bers –part­ners– have been awar­ded many pres­ti­gious pri­zes and scho­larships such as the Ro­yal Archi­tec­ture Ins­ti­tute of Ca­nada Gold Me­dal, Ex­ce­llence pri­zes for their Master’s pro­jects as well as nu­me­rous scho­larships. In 2008 OFA has re­cei­ved the high-profile Type B Re­search and Crea­tion Grant from the Qué­bec Coun­cil of Arts and Let­ters. Be­fore foun­ding Open Form Archi­tec­ture, Mar­tel, Mo­reau and Ro­nald have co­lla­bo­ra­ted with a num­ber of re­cog­ni­zed in­ter­na­tio­nal prac­ti­ces such as Zaha Ha­did (UK), Servo (SE), NL Archi­tects (NL), Veech Me­dia Archi­tec­ture (AT), Max­wan a+u (NL), OMA/AMO (NL), Hal Ing­berg Archi­tect and Callas-Shortridge (US). Since their start, OFA has con­ti­nued to re­ceive pri­zed in Ca­nada, the US and in Eu­rope on com­pei­tions such as the Musée de la Na­tion Huronne-Wendat, ACSA/STI Mi­llen­nium Park De­sign and the City of Skyscrapers.

Open Form Archi­tec­ture has wor­ked on in­no­va­tive pro­jects in many coun­tries which has gi­ven the team broad ex­pe­rien­ces, in­te­lli­gent pers­pec­ti­ves and a high le­vel of cri­ti­cism in con­tem­po­rary archi­tec­ture. The of­fice work is strongly in­fluen­ced by ques­tions con­cer­ning the evo­lu­tion of ci­ties, so­cial in­te­rac­tion and new tech­no­lo­gies. Th­rough co­lla­bo­ra­ting in in­ter­na­tio­nal stu­dios with Stephen Wol­fram (A New Kind of Science) the of­fice has been able to de­ve­lop new links bet­ween re­search and social/architectural ap­pli­ca­tions. Further, OFA per­sues an ex­per­tise in the use of po­wer­ful soft­wa­res (such as Mathe­ma­tica) to dis­co­ver new archi­tec­tu­ral forms that can res­pond to con­tem­po­rary cul­ture, eco­no­mics and in­dustry. OFA seeks a pro­cess of open thin­king and crea­ting in or­der to res­pond to the ques­tions and cha­llen­ges for the evo­lu­tion of archi­tec­ture and ur­ba­nism in our society.

Open Form as a game
Open Form as a de­sire to learn
Open Form as a so­cial function.

Open Form as the act or po­wer of an­ti­ci­pa­ting that may come to be: trans­gres­sing the tra­di­tio­nal co­des, the fi­gure of archi­tec­ture and con­ven­tio­nal town planning.

[The Ver­ti­cal Ur­ba­nism Of Ge­ne­ra­tive Net­works, Image by Da­rrel Ronald]

Open Form as the image of di­ver­sity,
Open Form as the image of Na­ture which evol­ves and gra­dually pe­ne­tra­tes our con­tem­po­rary society.

Open Form as a laby­rinth which cla­ri­fies a so­cial chaos, a per­fo­ra­ted space.
Open Form as both sim­ple and random.

Our archi­tec­ture emer­ges from a re­search of the im­per­fec­tion and accident.