House in Ramsey Lake – Sudbury

“As a child, I did site visits with my father, a builder and developer of many institutional buildings in Sudbury. My best friend and neighbour was the daughter of the renowned Northern Ontario Architect, Art Townend. I particularly remember visiting and playing in their 1st home on the same street where we lived. The house was very modern, with a separate wing for their many children.

As their family continued to grow to 7children, Art Townend built a new home high up on a hill in the Lockerby suburb of Sudbury, overlooking an extensive marsh and Ramsey Lake. The first time I visited their new house, I was awestruck. It’s remarkable quality of design affected me so deeply, spiritually, visually, viscerally, feeling light and dark and an immenseness of space at a scale I had never experienced. Grounded in a big wood cavern, dark wood, yet floating over the huge landscape of the massive marsh and lake.

I felt a deep and profound sense of a spirituality of space; a feeling I couldn’t have even put into words at the time. I returned last summer on a tour of his work and re-entered both houses.50 years later, still, with all the worlds I have visited and seen published, it had that impact of the stillness and vastness, of simultaneous darkness and lightness of space it first had.

All my life I have been deeply affected by the composition of space. Sometimes one small object in the landscape, the excitement of good Public Realm with the pedestrians enlarged by it, a humble space evolved from a dishevelled ‘before’ to a transformational ‘after’. In the most modest sense, leaving it better than you found it, visually and operationally.

Now many people have copied this style, and so it may seem obvious or even ubiquitous, but it taught me about the power of space as a young person and gave me a heightened awareness that has marked me throughout my career.”(Booklet Positive Lived Experiences of Quality in the Built Environment 2024, p.15).

Google map link Hillsdale Cresent – 3 houses.https://www.google.com/maps/@46.4739653,-80.9976874,3a,90y,124.05h,81.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUAeMx23JVXQMzJOc5jqm9g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Lake beneath and kitchen images – Susan Speigel Autumn and living room images – LAL exhibit