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Diamond + Schmitt Architects

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Elegant, Understated Designs for Public and Cultural Spaces

Jack Diamond and Donald Schmitt have been the lead principals of this large firm for 33 years, and while they can take credit for many buildings in the Toronto area, it’s probably the new opera house they are best known for. Completed in 2006, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts at the corner of Queen and University is not exactly radical, but it has some elegant qualities. The focus is the five-storey glazed wall that faces onto University Avenue and the glass staircase that fills the main vestibule. But the building, clad in iron-spot brick, seems mute and silent in comparison. Understated sophistication is characteristic of Diamond + Schmitt Architects’s projects: among their recent projects are First Waterfront Place (Corus Entertainment’s new headquarters on the waterfront), the über-sustainable campus for the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, which is up for LEED gold certification, and the AGO new addition. As part of the team revitalizing the Don Valley Brick Works Factory, they designed the only new building, which features a changeable exterior skin and many sustainable elements. Occasionally, D+S ventures into residential, but public institutions are their main focus. More recently, Diamond + Schmitt Architects’s design for the new Mirvish Village offers a modern take on the area’s history. dsai.ca

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The industrial designer and textile artist shares the inspirations that keep her loom whirring

In a seaside cottage in Shediac, New Brunswick, the soft hiss and swish of high-tide molds my mood like putty. Breathing in the deep calm—and the smell of last night’s seafood—my mind is miles away from my home in cosmopolitan Toronto. Here, craft feels as grounded as the clams they dig for each morning, and as I prepare for my call with textile artist Laura Carwardine, I can’t help but wonder *Carrie Bradshaw voice* what is the future of textile art in Toronto?

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