Camp Arowhon Offices

Camp Arowhon is a family-run summer camp in Algonquin Park. The new 250m² two-storey Toronto storefront is a headquarters intended to create a visual presence in the community, facilitate administration, and create a place which fosters the post-camp alumni community. The owners wanted the building to feel like “a piece of Algonquin Park in the city,” without resorting to clichéd imagery. The character was established through the use and detailing of materials: raw and rough-hewn wood harvested from the camp was detailed in simple but polished ways that depart from typical summer-camp rusticity.

In the simple dumbbell plan, discrete elements link the camp community with a “constructed nature” in three guises: as concept (storefront with forest picture frame and public bench on the street), as artefact (‘memory forest’ with birch saplings and a wall displaying more than 70 years of camper photographs), and as roof garden (a private garden space replete with trees and grasses, bringing a patch of nature into the city). Private offices and reception are at the front and rear, and common space at the centre is connected with the skylit memory forest. The cedar cladding extends above the building, allowing cut-out letters, in a font reminiscent of treehouses and camp-craft wood burning, to spell out Camp Arowhon, with the sky showing through behind them.