A story of community, water, wood and steel.
This project starts with a speculative interpretation of Nelson’s most famous boat project, the Ladybird. The Ladybird won the world’s speed record in 1933, an international success story borne out of a collaborative process that involved the entire community. The project galvanized the entire community and still exists as a matter of pride for Nelson’s citizens.
A process of co-design and volunteerism.
Like the Ladybird, the Hall Street Pier is a community initiative that involves co-design with a multitude of volunteers, stakeholders, local wood workers and suppliers, as well as time and materials donated-in-kind. This effort not only made the project a reality, but also transformed it into an expression of pride and purpose reflective of Nelson’s culture.
A context of disconnect.
The design intent of the project is to suture city and lake, reconnecting the city to its most prominent but underutilized amenity. The design is characterized by a wood canopy that defines the entry to the pier while providing covered programmable space. The lower section of the pier creates a publicly accessible swim area and boat mooring locations.
Multi-sensory space: an experiential field between land & water.
Leveraging Nelson’s culture of wood manufacturing and wood crafting, the design explores wood and wood tectonics as a vehicle to condition our perception of space, our negotiation of bodies in space, and to condition light, including acting as a repository of the shifting light-scape defined by the surrounding water’s reflection of light. The canopy is designed with a hybrid wood and steel primary structure layered by two slatted surfaces that are biased to induce strategic views and transparencies. The pier exists to connect and augment our experience of water through the crafting of wood, the design builds similarities with the Ladybird, a machine that augmented our senses connected with water and motion.
The social condenser: a re-grounding of the city at the water’s edge.
The project widens the existing footprint of the pier and provides new services (electrical, data, water, and gas) to facilitate community programming and everyday activity, including informal gatherings, boating, strolling, and people-watching. Finally, the new pier is home for the Ladybird itself, housed in a climate-controlled glass pavilion as part of the outreach of The Nelson Museum of Art and History.
Project Specs:
The pier structure, made of steel piles and structure, is clad as a walking surface with locally sourced and milled Fir dimension lumber, while the canopy itself is clad in locally sourced and milled rough sawn Cedar. The spacing between the Cedar wood elements was designed to have a spatial complexity; opaque and read as a single surface when viewed at an acute angle, and open and transparent when viewed at a right angle to the canopy surface. This spacing also creates a light play with both natural and artificial light.
The guardrail is designed as a vertical picket expression of galvanized steel bar stock, creating a highly transparent tectonic when viewed from the front, but able to catch light and in effect glow when viewed at an acute angle.
The glass pavilion that houses the Ladybird is conceived as a minimal container with key design attributes that removes any visual noise in order to optimize the reading of the Ladybird as an historic artifact. To that end, the curtainwall is silicone-jointed, and carried to the top of the parapet. The depth of the roof assembly is camouflaged by a mirrored interior fascia. The Fir wood decking from the outside of the pavilion extends within the interior of the pavilion while the ceiling is clad in mirror in order to facilitate the viewing into the Ladybird from the outside of the pavilion. Finally, the columns that support the roof assembly are Chromium-plated to reflect the exterior and minimize their visual impact.
Project Data
Architects: The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative
Location: Nelson, BC, Canada
Project Year: 2024
Type: Public Architecture
Photo Credits: Tamarack Media Co.,
Other Credits
Architect of Record: Stanley Office of Architecture (soa)
Structural Engineers: Fast + Epp
Mechanical & Electrical Engineers: Prism Engineering
Geotechnical Engineers: Pennco Engineering
Geotechnical Engineers: Deverney Engineering
Geotechnical Engineers: SNC LAVALIN
Environmental: Mass Environmental
