We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our Honorable mention winners for our “Toronto Affordable Housing Challenge” competition – Jerry Hacker from Canada!
Jerry Hacker from Canada
An architect now based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Jerry has always been suspicious of top-down predictive ideas motivated by enduring order, appearance, or style, but supportive of creating processes and frameworks that sponsor evolutionary architecture without architects. To help explore these ideas, in 2020 he founded the practice hACT (hacker Architecture Collaboration Technique) where he is the sole proprietor. He also currently teaches architecture at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism.
hACT is a relatively new firm and endeavor, launched just before the pandemic settled in, so in some ways any project is a preferred project! But ultimately, with time, the hope is to focus on people and issues, not projects per se, and see every undertaking (regardless of scale or typology) as an opportunity to fight for something or someone. This is something all projects can have in common, and it has been the focus of what little the firm has been fortunate enough to work on to date.
For me, both of these questions mean trying to prioritize a creative user over a defined style or outcome, recognizing and striving for temporary permanence and evolutionary realms of existence (materially, formally, programmatically), trying to pursue and transform substantive questions through built artifacts, trying to embed a ground-up process for design and communication, and putting potential social impact before formal investigation and response. If the former can be accomplished, then the latter can follow too.
Because it’s fun. And because it reminds me of being in architecture school, a time I will always cherish. Idea competitions such as this one also provide venues for the unfettered exploration of ideas, and allow architects an idealized opportunity to imagine the way the world ought to be, instead of how it is.
Before starting hACT, I was part of an incredible architecture office that made a commitment to always try and pursue interesting design competitions; regardless of how much pressure people were under from the day-to-day efforts, all practicing architects endured to see projects through to fruition. It sounds like an easy thing to do, but it was not. But I think we tried partly because it kept us on our toes; and partly because it kept us critical of ourselves, of the work, and of the world; but mostly, I think we did it because win or not, we just loved it in principle. With that in mind, unsolicited advice is always a bit tricky to provide, but one thing I might offer to hesitant participants is to remember that benefits are relative and can come in many forms, shapes and sizes.
Take a seat and make a statement!
Reimagine senior living spaces
Design an iconic tower for De Smet, South Dakota, USA
Design a beer spa in Iceland's captivating landscape
Design a memorial that speaks to the cause of ending all nuclear weapons programs
Redefine the future of workspaces
Use architecture to create different emotional states
Design affordable housing solutions in Los Angeles
