Lateral Office — the firm of Associate Professor Mason White and Lola Sheppard — has won a  Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Urban Design Award for Impulse — a playful installation in the Place des Festival in Montreal.

The full team for the project included: Lateral Office (Architect & Co-Designer); CS Design (Lighting Design & Co-Designer); EGP Group (Engineering); Generique Design (Fabrication); Mitchell Akiyama (Sound); Robocut (Interactive); Iregular (Video); Maotik (Video).

Held in cooperation with Canadian municipalities, the winning projects are announced by the RAIC along with the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP), and the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CLSA).

Impulse transforms Montreal’s arts district “into a space of urban play through a series of thirty interactive acoustic illuminated see-saws that respond and transform when in motion. The seesaws form repetitive units of light and sound that can be activated and played by the public to create a temporal, ever-changing event.”

The installation also incorporates a series of nine commissioned videos that visualize sound and are projected on buildings in the neighbourhood.

The Jury for the award commended the project for bringing people out into the city — even on cold winter evenings.

Related:

• Lateral Office transforms Montreal's art district with playful installation
• Lateral Office 'Makes Camp' at Chicago Architecture Biennial
• CBC Radio features Making Camp on Spark
• Mason White and Lateral Office win the Arctic Inspiration Prize
• Mason White and Lateral Office chosen to represent Canada at the 2014 Venice Biennale