Canadian Canoe Museum
Lisa Rochon has been retained as Design Director & Co-Chair of the Design Committee for the new $65-million Canadian Canoe Museum, a major new cultural and recreation destination starting construction in 2020. As part of the core museum planning and design team, Lisa advocates for excellence in architecture and landscape on behalf of her client, and is engaged in the evolution of the museum design, from conceptual, schematic through to design development. She organizes and chairs regular Peer Design Reviews with professional leaders to evaluate and refine the landscape, architecture and structural design of the competition-winning design by Heneghan Peng Architects (Dublin) and Kearns Mancini Architects (Toronto.)
Overtop, a 1.5 acre green roof will be planted with local pollinators and indigenous medicinal herbs. The serpentine, east-facing glass curtain wall faces the Peterborough Lift Locks and the Trent-Severn Canal, both listed as National Historic Sites.
Lisa lends her expertise and networks to the CCM’s exhibition design, consultation with Indigenous artists, architects and thought leaders, approaches to wayfinding and fundraising strategies.
The new Canadian Canoe Museum offers the public full access to Class A Exhibition Space, a multi-function Great Hall, Artisan and Canoe Building workshops as well as classrooms for children and a cafe and retail boutique. Storytelling and smudging ceremonies led by Indigenous elders also enrich the experience. Canoeing instruction and day trips can take place outside the great lawn on the Trent-Severn Canal. Pictured here, the Collection Centre is part of the museum experience, offering visitors an internationally unique collection of more than 550 canoes and kayaks from Canada and around the world.
The competition-winning scheme by Heneghan Peng Architects (Dublin) and Kearns Mancini Architects (Toronto) aligns with the natural setting, burying the light-sensitive collection of canoes and kayaks - the largest in the world - into the slope of the site.
In 2015, Lisa served as the Jury Chair of the Architect Selection Committee, which engaged representatives from Parks Canada, Curve Lake First Nations, and business, community leaders as well as staff from the CCM.
rendering credits: heneghan peng architects; Collection Centre by Florencio IV Tameta, and, middle rendering of the wedding, by Amirhossein Sadeghiesfahani.