For 35 years, ERA Architects has been a strategic thought leader in understanding the ever-evolving phenomenon of heritage. As the firm grows and our approach to working with heritage evolves, we welcome three new principals and one new director to lead and expand our innovative, adaptive, and forward-thinking practice.
To explore their experiences, reflections, and intentions as they step into their new roles, cultural critic Alessandro Tersigni sat down with new ERA principals Samantha Irvine, David Winterton, and Shelley Ludman and new ERA director Dan Eylon to discuss some of the ideas and questions that excite and guide them.
Alessandro Tersigni: Congratulations on being promoted to principal! Tell me a bit about your role at the firm.
Shelley Ludman: I’m an architect licensed in Quebec and Ontario. More so than the deep, technical aspects of heritage, my passion is the relationships we have with the existing built environment and the places that are special to us. I’ve always valued projects in which I get to work intimately with clients and communities to understand those significances. Supporting the evolution of spaces within living cultures is what’s made ERA such a great fit for me.
AT: How do you think ERA differs from other firms?
SL: One of the things that’s always stood out to me as unique about ERA is that our portfolio of work spans every type of scale, project, and client. As a consequence, we’re constantly finding ways to reinvent ourselves. At other architecture firms, you may work exclusively on one project for five years, whereas at ERA, we jump between very diverse pursuits on a day-to-day basis. That affords us all kinds of lessons and insights that are applicable across our practice that we might not otherwise have access to.
AT: How does the concept of heritage intersect with your work?
SL: I view the work I do more in terms of existing buildings and places than traditional notions of heritage. Everything that exists in the built environment holds potential meaning for one or more people. The root of what we do is understanding what those meanings have been for people in the past and what they can be for people in the future. Many projects I’ve led at ERA have been tied to the firm’s Culture of Outports initiative, which seeks to understand what’s allowed smaller communities to grow in the past and how they can understand what they might be in the future, given shifts in community priorities, economics, and social evolution. In that sense, the heritage of a site and the needs of its users are deeply related.
AT: What’s an example of a past or current project that illustrates that mindset?
SL: Cambium Farms is a great project of ours that gets at how heritage and evolution are intertwined. In this case, we worked on sensitively transforming an agricultural barn that had outlived its use into an event venue. We ended up specifying a board-form concrete structure and finish for a new addition that simultaneously referenced the vernacular of concrete silos and the wood siding of the existing barn — it sits almost like a sculptural element in conversation with the historic building. It’s amazing to animate a century-old site that you might have previously driven by without noticing into a place where people spend time and find meaning. There’s something beautiful in bringing together continuity and change.
Portrait photography by Mina Markovic
