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GBCA Architects is pleased to announce the expansion of the firm’s management team with the appointment of three Principals – Robert Brough, Sharon Vattay and Carlos Morell. The new leadership roles taken on by Rob, Sharon and Carlos will better position our team of talented specialists to deliver quality architectural and heritage services. In addition, Dorota Lobanowska has been appointed to the role of Controller.

Senior Principal, Christopher Borgal, announced the restructuring and appointments in January 2019. These appointments recognize the contributions that Rob, Sharon and Carlos have each made to their respective specialties in the field of heritage conservation practice.

Robert Brough has been the Vice President of GBCA for ten years. He has 35 years of experience in various aspects of architecture, as an architect and as a client, and has extensive experience in conservation from the inception of his career. His project portfolio includes the North Toronto Station / LCBO flagship store at Yonge and Summerhill, the Bruce County Museum and Archives in Southampton Ontario, and Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) in Brampton. Robert is involved in all of GBCA’s projects.

Sharon Vattay joined the firm as an Associate in 2008. Her Ph.D. in architectural history, coupled with her professional experience in heritage conservation, has been leveraged to help guide GBCA clients through complex heritage projects, lending analytical skills to interdisciplinary and cross-practice assignments. Sharon’s portfolio of work at the firm includes all stages of projects from assessments and evaluations, to conservation strategies and management plans, and her leadership skills will enhance the firm’s ability to meet the needs of our valued clients.

Carlos Morell has been with GBCA for over a decade. Trained as an architect in his native Cuba, Carlos brought to the firm a wealth of knowledge in materials conservation. He has worked in heritage for over 20 years. Carlos’s contributions to a wide range of projects at GBCA has steadily grown over the course of his tenure, and he currently oversees projects from preconstruction, through construction, providing technical advice for heritage-related issues.

Dorota Lobanowska has been with GBCA since 2014 and has played an expanding administrative role during this time. She has recently been named as Controller in recognition of her senior role within the company, and is a member of the GBCA management team.

GBCA wants to congratulate stained glass artist Eve Guinan of EGD Glass for receiving the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario’s 2018 James D. Strachan Award for Craftsmanship. Eve has been working with GBCA over the past few years on the Massey Music Hall project, surveying all of the original stained glass windows. And currently, in conjunction with Vitreous Glass, EGD has been retained to undertake the restoration of close to 100 stained glass windows, which will be returned to the hall when it reopens in 2020.

The rehabilitation of Humber College’s Building G has been nominated for a Heritage Toronto Award. GBCA was the heritage consultant to the College and the prime architect was Moriyama & Teshima.

The Heritage Toronto Awards Ceremony will take place on October 29, 2018 at the historic event space, The Carlu on Yonge Street.

The Ontario Heritage Conference – a joint event hosted by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) and the Community Heritage Ontario (CHO) – will take place June 7-9 in Sault Ste. Marie. Chris Borgal (Principal) and Sharon Vattay (Associate) are both speaking at this year’s conference. For more on the CHO, go to the CHO website.

With the Hall set to close next month, restoration has already begun on the 120 year old stained glass windows. GBCA (heritage consultant for the revitalization project), in conjunction with Eve Guinan, glass conservator, completed a detailed condition assessment of all of the windows in the summer of 2017 – for some windows it was the first time anyone had seen them in decades. While the whereabouts of two important Composer windows were initially unknown (as reported in the Toronto Star), those panels have since been found.

Interest is growing around our historic Weston Bakery Building project. Since 2016, GBCA has been working with Graywood Developments on the adaptive reuse of the former bakery building at 462 Eastern Avenue. After sourcing primary archival sources, the century long evolution of the industrial building complex was determined and the condominium design, as prepared by Diamond Schmitt Architects, will now see much of the historic building conserved for true loft conversions. A few of the articles include Dave LeBlanc’s May 1, 2018 article in the Globe and Mail and an entry on BlogTO.

GBCA’s recladding project (with RJC) at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library on the University of Toronto campus was included in a recent article on heritage in the U of T News. The project required a carefully thought-out intervention that would solve the building envelope issues without impacting the character-defining features of this 1970s Brutalist building. Read more here.

This past Sunday (May 7, 2017), principal Chris Borgal was a guest on The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright.  The segment’s topic was: Is architectural facadism an abomination or a way to preserve the beauty of the past?

To hear the Sunday Edition podcasts, click here.

On April 22, GBCA Associate Sharon Vattay took part in a one-day symposium celebrating Canada 150.  Organized by the Toronto Branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, the talks covered the cultural heritage at the time of Confederation and at the time of the Centennial of Confederation.  The presentations can be reviewed on the ACO Toronto website.

GBCA congratulates our clients, Alterra-Zinc Limited, for their nomination at this year’s Heritage Toronto Awards. A collaboration of Zinc Developments and Alterra, the development at 36 Hazelton Avenue, in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood, reused a portion of the existing historic school building within the high-end condominium designed by Toronto’s Quadrangle Architects.

It was our pleasure bringing heritage to life in collaboration with our clients, Ken Zuckerman and Robert Cooper.