The Building Site
Address: 1612-1614 Store Street The Janion Building
Area: Downtown Victoria near the Johnson St. Bridge
History: Constructed in 1891, originally owned by John Turner. Architect/Contractor unknown. Is a 3 storey free-standing brick commercial building. It originally served as an upperclass railway hotel for 2 years before turning into offices and warehouse space for E&N Railway.
Present: Heritage-registered building, has sat empty since 1973. Recently bought for a future development.
Future: Current proposal is to rehabiliate and construct additions to the side and rear of the Janion Hotel to accomodate commercial use on the ground floor as well as 113 dwelling units. Construction expected to be finished in 2015.
Our project: Although this site already has a large construction plan, we used the site and it's location as the basis of our design project.
Area: Downtown Victoria near the Johnson St. Bridge
History: Constructed in 1891, originally owned by John Turner. Architect/Contractor unknown. Is a 3 storey free-standing brick commercial building. It originally served as an upperclass railway hotel for 2 years before turning into offices and warehouse space for E&N Railway.
Present: Heritage-registered building, has sat empty since 1973. Recently bought for a future development.
Future: Current proposal is to rehabiliate and construct additions to the side and rear of the Janion Hotel to accomodate commercial use on the ground floor as well as 113 dwelling units. Construction expected to be finished in 2015.
Our project: Although this site already has a large construction plan, we used the site and it's location as the basis of our design project.
Site Visit
On September 26th we took a field trip down to the Janion Building to do a "site inspection." The construction for the new proposal had just begun so it wasn't possible for us to get too close. I made little booklets for the students to take down notes or sketch details that they saw. I felt that it was important for the girls to visit the site, like architects and engineers do in real life, to get a better sense of the location of the building, its surroundings, and elements of the heritage building itself before we began designing the hypothetical art studio that would replace it. I would have loved to be able to contact the foreman and get permission to take the girls on a tour of the construction site (wearing proper safety equipment, of course) but it was not possible at the time. However, a student's father who is an architect accompanied us to the site and pointed out various aspects of the design. This enhanced the experience by getting the girls to notice details more closely, and several of them indicated these observations in their booklets.