Roadways and railways carve long, sharp cuts through the vast Canadian landscape and are often the only mark of modern human occupation. For Vancouver-based Shape Architecture, working with Calgary-based Hindle Architects, a sliver of such infrastructure would serve as the conceptual touchstone throughout their design process for the Columbia Valley Centre in Invermere, British Columbia. A compact rusty-steel rail bridge just south of town echoes the hard line of the new building; both bridge and building presents a counterpoint in colour and form to the fortified mountains beyond.
Opened in the fall of 2017, the Columbia Valley Centre is an 1,672- square-metre multi-purpose hall and library for a district of roughly 3,000 people nestled between the Rocky and Purcell Mountains in the East Kootenays, 100 kilometres west of the Alberta border. The Centre replaces an aging community hall on a new site. Since 1947, the old hall had hosted theatre productions, weddings, ski swaps, Christmas concerts and craft fairs. It was long loved and well worn, lately suffering from structural problems and a failing roof. Practically, it offered little more than a heated room and a stage. A new hall would have to do much more. As one of the largest public buildings ever undertaken in Inver- mere, the Centre needed to function both as a resource for the local community and as a magnet for larger regional conferences and events. The Columbia Valley Community Facility includes a community hall ...