Kuujjuarapik Planning Workshop (studio)

A multi-stakeholder project, the KJ Village Plan coupled the objectives of a Post-professional M.Arch studio with a community visioning workshop in the community of Kuujurapik, QC. A design team from the Minimum Cost Housing Group at McGill worked in close collaboration with key municipal members of Kuujuarpik to generate design proposals and ideas that would open a conversation about the village’s future growth strategies for its new village master plan. Design ideas focused on three themes:

Community Connections: worked to build on existing social infrastructure in the community through landscaping strategies that could provide physical places to bring together different community groups. Interventions create outdoor public community spaces with minimal costs or impacts to the physical environment.

Accommodating growth through house upgrading: presented a series of infill strategies that explored modest approaches to upgrading, expanding and infilling existing housing in the community to accommodate the village’s growing population.

Expansion through responsive housing: explored new models of housing, independent of existing housing practices. Two potential locations were analyzed and a study of different lotting patterns - inspired by local environmental conditions - was undertaken. In experimenting with new housing models, this strategy looks to flexible space configurations that can respond to a fast growing population. Importance is given to the need to accommodate Inuit culture, lifestyles, and traditional extended familial arrangements.

Ideas were presented to the KJ municipal council, and the community at large over five days in December, 2016. The MCHG continues the dialogue with the municipality.