We have produced infill projects in this north-end Halifax neighbourhood over a period of three decades, often by acting as both architect and developer. The 2005 MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple office presents a tough façade on the toughest street in Halifax—a street that had not seen significant private-sector investment in more than forty years. This optimistic infill strategy has helped to offset urban decay and strengthen the urban fabric of this community.

In order to help finance the office, four free hold lots with ten (good-generic) residential and office units were added on the residential side of the city block. This project responds to the needs of a practice in transition. In recent years the firm had grown as a result of taking on larger public commissions, while still protecting the spirit of an open atelier. In 2005 it grew into a partnership with long-time associate Talbot Sweetapple. The office was described by architectural historian Malcom Quantrillas as a ‘temple-of-work’.

One enters the concrete block building under a 52’lintel, passing through the port-cochere with its sliding gate and then into the southwest-facing courtyard with its recycled granite retaining wall. All public spaces are contained on street-level: foyer, conference room, administrative offices, kitchen, and washrooms. Narrow shafts contain steel-bar grating stairs—the secret access to the monumental hidden workroom above. While the foyer orients to the street at grade, this monumental “Temple to Work” (24’wide, 80’ long, and 20’ tall) is oriented to the rear courtyard. Its focus is a central 40’x8’ communal worktable. Open lofts at either end contain meeting areas with breakout spaces underneath. Two-story maple cabinets bookend the room. Floating drywall wall kites both provide pin-up surfaces and shutter the20’x18’ window.

This project embodies two important elements of the design philosophy of the practice: urbanism and humanism, or the improvement of the neighbourhood and the celebration of the dignity to work. The invisible nature of this building on the street offers the practice a filter from much of the outside world, affording us a critical intellectual distance. Its tough, commercial, vernacular character expresses a plain modern, rather than minimalist, architecture.

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