A PLANT-led team is one of four shortlisted for the Global Affairs Canada Commemorative Artwork in Ottawa, which will honour Canada’s diplomats, consular professionals and Embassy staff who have lost their lives in foreign service. Our team’s design, The Eddy, was conceived with artists Adrian Göllner, Michael Belmore, and Pierre Poussin for a site on Green Island in the Global Affairs Canada precinct, near the confluence of the Rideau and Ottawa Rivers.
An eddy is a place in a river where a stone or tree stands against the current, causing the flow to curl back on itself. We see eddies as a metaphor for both the foreign service workers who put themselves directly in harm’s way, and the moment of calm we require to reflect on their sacrifice.
The Eddy is a defining form within the landscape and is clearly visible from Global Affairs Canada offices in the Diefenbaker and Pearson Buildings. Tracing upward from the water to the land and sky, it draws anyone in the vicinity into its slowly spiralling orbit of connecting paths and seating.
The memorial’s site, the globe-spanning duties of Canada’s foreign service workers, and the interconnectedness of the world’s waterways find integrated expression in this design concept. Names of the fallen are carved into the memorial’s tall Standing Stone, a river-inspired sculptured granite form that speaks to time and resistance.
The Standing Stone ‘conducts’ an eddy-like swirl of berms and pathways around the ceremonial oval – the placid centre in the stone’s wake. By taking this space out of the current, the stone creates a moment of calm where individuals or a group gathered for a memorial service can slow down, reflect, and remember those we have lost.
- A Conversation of Views
- Admiral Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Residence
- Albany Avenue Residence
- Alcina Garden
- Alexandra Park
- Aporia Records
- Asphalt Poetry
- – Poem
- Baby Point Gardens
- Beach Garden
- Beach Village BIA Master Plan
- Beaty Residence
- Bennington Heights Garden
- Berkeley Street Residence
- Bin-Scarth Garden
- Blink and you miss it.
- – Poem
- Block 22 Landscape
- Bloor St. Apartment
- Blue Note
- Booth Avenue Residence
- Boustrophedon Garden
- Braemore Gardens Residence
- Browning Avenue Residence
- Brunswick Avenue Residence
- Camp Arowhon Offices
- Canadian Firefighters Memorial
- Channelled Buried Moved Lost
- Chocolate Loft
- City Instrument
- Clarendon Garden
- Conversation Piece
- Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
- Creemore Farm
- Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
- Dickson Park Garden
- Dilworth Residence
- Don Landing Revitalization
- Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
- Duncanwoods Townhouses
- Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
- Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
- East Point Bird Sanctuary
- Eglinton Ave Forecourt
- Eglinton Park Master Plan
- Elizabeth Fry Society
- Ellsworth Residence
- Face to Face | Tête à Tête
- First Avenue Garden
- First Avenue Residence
- Flyover Canada
- Foote’s Pond Wood
- Forest Hill Village Streetscape
- Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
- Global Affairs Monument
- Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
- Gormley Garden
- Governor's Bridge Lookout
- Greener P
- Greer Road Garden
- Greer Road Residence
- Guelph Bridge
- Head in the Clouds
- Helena Ave Residence 4
- Jackman Institute for Childhood Studies
- Junction Craft Brewery
- Kelpies Competition
- Kew Gardens Streetscape
- King's Landing Apartment
- Kipling & Islington Developments
- Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
- Le jardin du repos
- Lenticular Curtain
- Leslie Slip Lookout Park
- Liberty Village Parkettes
- Liza’s Garden
- Lynwood Garden
- Macroscape
- Makwa Waakaa'igan
- Markham Garden One
- Markham Street Residence Two
- Massey College Landscape Restoration
- Midtown Yonge Streetscape
- Mount Dennis Parkettes
- Mulock Park
- Nathan Phillips Square
- – Streetscape
- – Peace Garden
- – Podium Roof Garden
- Noel Garden
- Octane Medical Campus
- Orchard View Garden
- Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
- Owl Cottage
- Paperstone Scissors
- Pendrith Residence
- Peripheral Sitings
- Pottery Road Crossing
- rare
- Ravine Forecourt
- Ribbon of the Lower Don
- Riverside BIA Master Plan
- Roxborough Garden One
- Roxborough Garden Two
- Schulich School of Business
- Sheridan College
- – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
- Spadina Quay Wetland
- St. Anne's Road Garden
- St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
- Stratford Market Square Competition
- Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
- Superkids Dental
- Superlegible
- Sweet Farm
- Sweet Farm Pond House
- Swift Medical Offices
- The Meadows Reconsidered
- The Red Sash
- Thick & Thin
- Thistletown II Townhouses
- Tipping Point
- TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
- TMU Science Building
- Tranby Garden
- Tree House Residence
- UBC Okanagan – The Commons
- UHN Tunnels
- University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
- Venice Biennale 2012
- Vermont Square Park
- Vernon Avenue Garden
- Walk the Walk
- Walmer Road Residence
- Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
- Wellesley Cottages Garden
- Wells Street Residence
- Westminster Residence
- Weston Village BIA Masterplan
- With Words as Their Actions
- Woodlawn Avenue Residence
- Woven Stories
- Wynford Drive Residences
- York Park
- Yorkwoods Townhouses