Cannon Design

According to their website ^[1], “For nearly two decades, Cannon Design has been nurturing a culture where imagination, invention and creative talent flourish. As a premier, world ranked firm by most any standard in all of our primary markets, we recognize that our continued success relies on more than just what we have done before; it relies on what we do next. Today, our portfolio reflects enormous experience and expertise. Our enduring client relationships reflect our commitment to principles of collaboration and partnership. Our record for effective project delivery reflects our serious discipline in the balance of time, cost and quality. All these things are vital dimensions of our practice; all are the basis of the trust we seek to engender with our clients – trust which, in turn, fuels the kind of strategic optimism and courage that permit the exploration of new possibilities.”

Richmond Olympic Oval

Social Media

Website ^[2]/Facebook ^[3]/Twitter ^[4]

Like the other firms, Cannon has tapped into social media, like Facebook, in order to drum up excitement for their bid for the new SUB project Out of all the firms, they do have the most followers on their Twitter which leads me to think that they’ve been reaching out and are comfortable with social media. With social media being one of the most economical and efficient ways to reach out to students, it will be important to have an architect who can manipulate social media.

Presentation

Cannon has an advantage over all the other architects because they created our program (feasibility study). This is a significant advantage because our program is complicated and intricate parts of our program might have to stay in the current SUB. Having been the firm that created the program feasibility study, Cannon will be significantly more familiar with the program building, making them the most effective at translating our program into a building. They stressed their take on open design during their presentation. This is great because that is what we want; an architect who is going to be completely open to our ideas. They also tuned into the idea that it is really about what the present students wants to say to give to the future students. This will be a difficult issue to mitigate and Cannon has identified it as important.

Consultation and Communication

Cannon plans on using the true and tried methods of communicating with students and communicating the importance of this project. They’ve identified campus tradition as something that needs to be communicated and seen in the new building, something that I’m sure will be communicated to students. This will be important for students to understand and hopefully will attract more students to the project.

The Team

The team Cannon has proposed seems carefully and specifically chosen. The video that was shown at the beginning of the presentation really showed the range and the expertise that this firm possess. I think they have a great grasp on the project and also what the students are looking for from this project.

Criticism

I don’t know if Cannon will be able to inspire and motivate students into participating in the design process. I would have liked to seen more ideas/a vision on how they are going to do our project. They also mentioned something about how our building will have an economic component. They believe that a good design will mean a higher cash flow that will equal better programs. I don’t really see how that fits into the design process of this project; it seemed a little disconnected to me.

Overall

I think the major advantage Cannon Design has is the fact that they wrote the programs helped the AMS make the original decision to start the process of building a new building. It means that they will have the ability to hit the ground running faster. With that being said, this isn’t something that the other firms can’t overcome. I can’t get over the fact that I wasn’t necessarily inspired or excited about our project after their presentation. This is a big issue for me because this project needs architects that are going to be as excited, if not more, than students. They will also need to do so much more work to gather consultation on the project from students. Frankly, I don’t know if Cannon seems up for it.