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+ Competition Finalist, 2012

CHARS is a landmark project of global, national, regional and local significance. As a cutting-edge research facility so closely located to the geographic 'Heart' of Canada, CHARS must symbolize and express the unity and community of all peoples of Canada from our most northern to most southern to most western to most eastern reaches. Sufficiently dignified to stand as a national symbol of Canada's Arctic Sovereignty, CHARS must also be respectful of the culture of the existing community and all Northerners, in character, scale and values: it must express the "Spirit of Place" that defines the culture and location of Cambridge Bay.

As the concept for our design, we have embraced the radial geometry of the snowflake as a symbol of unity and community. Every snowflake grows radially from its hexagonal heart to become an ice crystal, the elemental building block of Canada's North, now vulnerable to climate change and a primary reason for the creation of CHARS. Beyond the snowflake, the radial geometry of unity and community expresses itself, for example, in the stone circles left on the Northern landscape as the memory of where a family once sheltered together in warmth; in the organized huddle of musk ox protecting their young; and in the communal gathering of story-tellers around the glowing heat of an oil lamp.

Sun, moon and star light are celebrated in our design by mapping the hexagon paradigm on to the site along a primary Axis defined by the North Pole at one end, and by the first sunrise of the year-initiating a day of only 40 minutes-to the south. A second prime Axis connects the core of the site to the project gateway and to Natik Street, connecting CHARS with the community of Cambridge Bay as part of the "Cambridge Bay Campus" networked to recreational, educational, residential and commercial stakeholders and facilities in the Community.