Welcome Kerri Hallman

We're pleased to announce that Kerri Hallman has joined our team at Inertia and Gravity.

Kerri comes to Inertia Corporation with 20+ years’ experience in the architecture industry. Kerri graduated on the Dean’s List from 3 year Architectural Technologies program at St. Clair College of Applied Arts & Technologies in Windsor, Ontario. Her first job was with a small firm in Victoria, B.C. and upon moving back to Calgary she has worked with Cohos Evamy Partners (Dialog), Riddell Kuczaba Architecture, Poon McKenzie Architects (NORR) and Sahuri + Partners.

We're very happy to have Kerri on our team!

Farewell Schuler

Larissa Schuler, Intern Architect

Sadly, we said farewell to Larissa Schuler, our Intern Architect, last week. 

During her six months with Inertia and Gravity, Larissa was involved in almost all aspects of our projects and our firm. She did some great schematic design work and helped us immensely with our marketing effort.

We'll miss having her energy in the office, as well as her sense of humour. All the best, Larissa!

MA+DS Modern Home Tour 2016 - Part 2

In our last post, we discussed the first three projects we visited on the recent The Modern Architecture + Design Society Home Tour. The latter portion of our tour took us to the north west of the city. We went to St. Andrew's Heights, a neighbourhood blessed with amazing views and large lot sizes.

Photo Credit: NewGrowth & Stephen Barnecut

The NewGrowth House was an interesting contemporary design with an industrial feel, exemplified by the massive concrete walls of the house and the weathered corten steel fins used to tier the landscaping. We loved that the main architectural feature, the board-cast concrete wall, runs through the whole house and acts as a compass within the plan. The concrete on the interior was contrasted by the warmth of the dark walnut window frames. With it's front facing kitchen and dining space, the project captured light and views in the spaces most commonly inhabited by the residents. 

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnecut & Larissa Schuler

We intentionally visited MBAC's house last and we wanted to end with a bang! Marc Boutin has always been one to push boundaries and create unique spaces, and we were not disappointed. The exterior features a factory-like corrugated metal siding paired with cedar tongue and groove. From the front, the house appears to be the size of a low-lying bungalow. However, once we stepped inside, we discovered that the grade quickly dropped down to the backyard and allowed for a full walk-out basement. The L-shaped house created a courtyard between it's two wings. The two-level elevations facing the courtyard were clad with full curtain walls spanning from the basement floor to the roof. Aluminum grating at the roof overhang shielded the space from direct sun without significantly limiting the views or light available to the spaces within. We appreciated the industrial and commercial materials used in a residential project; they were tempered with wood cladding and many delicate millwork details that kept the interior feeling intimate. 

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by many new design types and ideas that are starting to emerge in Calgary. We get the sense that local housing design is becoming a lot more sophisticated and bold. Here's to the future of residential!

MA+DS Modern Home Tour 2016 - Part 1

We're happy that as the residential design industry grows in Calgary, local practitioners have started to share their knowledge and experience with each other. The Modern Architecture + Design Society Home Tour was a great leap forward, where we got to experience first-hand some of the innovations our fellow designers have put to use. 

Our first stop on the home tour was in Bridgeland (a community we are working in frequently) to visit a project on a narrow lot along 4th Avenue designed by KaBeN. Slim parcels have their own challenges, but KaBeN took on another by designing a sustainable house. 

We were pleasantly surprised by the materiality of the house: the cork floors, plywood on the walls upstairs, oak on the ceilings, etc. The main floor was polished concrete, while the upper floor was cork—a great example of using materials to differentiate between public and private spaces. The narrow 22' lot meant that the interior would be quite tight, so partitions on the main were kept to a minimum and spaces, such as the kitchen, was delineated using bulkheads.

Photo Credit: HouseBrand

Our next stop was the reFAB design by HouseBrand, which was a project designed for aging-in-place. John Brown is addressing a growing market for individuals who do not want to move every time their life changes.

One of the features we loved most about the design was the built-in millwork that separates rooms instead of stud-walls. The house has core walls for mechanical systems, but otherwise has a modular room design that allows for alternative layouts as needs change without major renovation. We also liked the clever use of cost-effective Hardie-board cladding, which was tiered in gradients of grey to add more variety and tone to the exterior. 

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnecut & RNDSQR

Next we visited RNDSQR in their show home in Marda Loop. They're experimenting with interior and exterior textures to add complexity to clean, streamlined designs. Exteriors feature natural-tinted cedar shakes on west-fasting facades while the interior showcases an patterned steel screen to act as a guard for the stairs and geometric tiles on walls and bathroom counters tops. 

Stay tuned for our next post too see the other houses!

Office Skydivers

Normally, we think we’re pretty lucky to have the great staff that we do. Occasionally, we’re lucky just to have them stay alive long enough over the weekend to show up again on Monday morning. 

The steadfastly responsible, somber and occasionally comically derisive Tom Jenson skydives far more frequently than anyone would expect. He started two years ago and had done it at least three time and has plans to go again. He says he skydives as a way to celebrate his nieces' and nephews' 18th birthdays, but we think he might start doing it for no reason at all.

His affection for skydiving has been infectious and this past weekend, Chris Fedyna joined him! 

Tom: loving the view of the Alberta plains.

Chris: calm and serene during his first dive ever. 

Coffee

Some of us here at Inertia are fans of coffee. We are fairly indiscriminate about our modes of coffee making. Yes, we have a Keurig and a Nespresso machine. We also have a grinder and a French press. What we haven't had is a coffee shop that we can walk to.

Now, this was a deliberate decision. When we signed the lease on our Highfield office we were very busy. We contemplated renting an office with a more fashionable address. But Inertia has been through one downturn in it's history, and we've learned that the last thing you want when things get slow is high overhead. As well, our commitment to our staff is unwavering, and we didn't want to be faced with the prospect of eroding our team just to pay the rent.

Which brings me back to coffee. Early in 2014, we were watching an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (which we recommend for obvious reasons), and Jerry Seinfeld took Patton Oswalt to a Handsome Coffee, a shop in Los Angeles that was quite clearly in the middle of nowhere. 

Handsome Coffee as featured in Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

We decided to check it out. Last year, when we were in Los Angeles for the Dwell Home Tour, we took a detour to the industrial wasteland south of Downtown Los Angeles. The coffee business was going strong (as was business at the taco truck outside that would deliver your tacos right to your seat in the coffee shop!). Bluebottle has since purchased the location (and the talent), and a restaurant has moved in across the street, but we still had to pass a number of crumbling brick warehouses and razor wired lots to get there from our parking spot.

We thought, if Angelenos can have a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, why can't we! And yet we didn't ... until just a few months ago.

The latest Analog Coffee is in our 'hood!

Fratello Coffee Roasters has been in the coffee business coming on thirty years. Their roastery on 9th Street SE has served a growing number of Analog Coffee locations in Calgary as well as a much broader network of shops that serve their beans. And, a few months ago. they decided to open their training counter up as a full service coffee shop!

Darcy manning the counter at Analog in Highfield

We're thrilled to be able to walk to our local coffee shop. And it's not just any shop; it's arguably the best coffee in the city. We recommend to all of our clients (and everyone else) that you pay a visit when you're in the neighbourhood. And say 'Hi' to Darcy from us!

Ten Years of Inertia!

Ten years ago today, Trent Letwiniuk, Stephen Barnecut and Paul Shannon met for breakfast and decided to go to the registry office before the end of the day and start a partnership. It didn't take long for us to become incorporated and grow out of working from our homes. We joined forces for a while with a number of small design firms including Casola Koppe Architects (where Paul is currently plying his skills).

More recently, Inertia has doubled the size of our office, increased our staff to eight, and started a sister company called Gravity Architecture which specializes in multi-residential and mixed use projects.

We're looking forward to the next ten years!

Holiday Hours

Inertia's office will be closed from December 23rd through to December 27th, and then again from December 30th through to January 3rd, 2016. Our office is open on December 28th and 29th, and we are open and back to our regular schedule on January 4th, 2016.

For urgent after-hours matters, please call Trent at (403) 464-7721 or Stephen at (403) 617-2724.

Post-Bowling Glow

This past Friday, the staff at Inertia could barely contain their joy that they didn't have to bowl any more. Well, except Trent who thought if he could just play one more game he would come out on top. Yes, that is the shirt that Stephen bowled in. He doesn't have any bowling wear and found it hard not to come home with the cool shoes they gave him.

Inertia Turns Nine Today

Today is Inertia's ninth anniversary.

At the beginning of 2006, Trent Letwiniuk, Stephen Barnecut and Paul Shannon were all working at Jager/AlanRidge homes, and Calgary was booming. Builders couldn't build the homes as fast as they could sell them, and that was especially the case with AlanRidge. Things were going a bit sideways are work, and we were each being approached by colleagues desperate for help with their residential design.

So the three of us agreed to meet at Denny's before work on Monday, January 30th. It didn't take long before we had agreed to start our own firm. But before breakfast was done, Stephen expressed his concern that if we didn't get moving right away, then inertia would be against us, and we needed to have inertia on our side.

Before the day was out, we had gone to the registry and registered Inertia.

Residential Designer Wanted

Inertia is currently undergoing a period of growth. With this expansion and increasing number of projects, we are in need of a team player to who will extend our great reputation for high quality work while maintaining our positive working environment. We are currently searching for a Residential Designer that has experience using Autodesk Revit.

As a Residential Deigner, the successful candidate will be responsible for generating new architectural designs, including plans, elevations, details, perspectives and other views as required. The Residential Designer will principally be working in Revit, though he or she will also be helping with project management, drafting, administration, interacting with clients and vendors, occasionally going on site, working on a variety of projects, and will be set into an excellent position of growing within this expanding firm.

The successful candidate will be in possession of an Architectural Technologist Diploma or Architecture Degree, and will need to have an understanding of the the Alberta Building Code. The Residential Designer will need to have meaningful experience with Revit. Inertia is a firm that is always interested in individuals that have experience working on a variety of projects, but having residential experience is an asset as this is our firm’s specialty. These are the minimal requirements for this position, with all other experience being advantages for the successful candidate.

An excellent opportunity awaits the successful candidate, including an extremely competitive base salary, and an extensive amount of opportunities for growth within this company. There is also the opportunity for an Intern Architect to be supervised by a registered architect in a related company. If you believe that this could be a perfect fit for you, please send your resume immediately, or if you know the perfect person for this position then feel free to forward this correspondence. All applications will be kept in the strictest of confidence.

Apply at: http://regionalhelpwanted.com/calgary/jobs-residential-designer-inertia-corporation-calgary-ab/117173539/#sthash.jot3ZE4P.dpuf

Or here: http://www.inertiacorporation.com/firm/careers.html