gh3* — Firm Profile

Firm Profile

 

gh3* is a peer-recognized and award-winning Canadian design practice. Our office works in the increasingly complex realm where architecture, urbanism and landscape overlap. We design with a modernist’s eye to order, beauty, and social possibility, an environmentalist’s awareness of sustainability and long-term thinking.

We have completed projects at every scale, from small park pavilions and private houses to large civic and transit infrastructure, most recently Canada's first natural swimming pool.

Our energetic and interdisciplinary team is committed to the best in creative practice. We bring a tailored, client-centred approach to every stage of the design and construction process, with the aim of achieving pragmatic, poetic, environmentally-responsible, and aesthetically powerful design solutions. We believe that excellent design is an essential part of everyday life, and that spatially and visually engaging places can inspire joy and civic pride.

gh3*’s work has been published widely and has received numerous awards. Notable project awards include Governor General medals for the Stormwater Facility, Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool, the Borden Park Pavilion, Real Time Control Building #3 and the Photographers Studio over a Boathouse. gh3* was named one of the World’s Twenty Most Innovative Companies in 2020 by Fast Company for their projects related to urban water.

 

 

Studio

Pat Hanson (Founding Principal and Creative Director BFA MArch OAA AAA FRAIC) is a founding partner of gh3*. Under her leadership, the firm has established a reputation for design integrity across a range of building typologies and through all scales of practice. She is the architect of institutional, infrastructural and residential projects that create meaningful connections between architecture and landscape within the urban realm. Exemplary projects include the internationally-recognized June Callwood Park in Toronto, the Trinity College Quadrangle at the University of Toronto, and the Governor General's Medal-awarded projects Borden Park Pavilion in Edmonton and the Boathouse Studio on Stony Lake, Ontario.

Pat is an expert communicator of compelling design visions that are both environmentally and socially sustainable. She is a strong and insightful advocate for the potential for built form to rise above the merely functional, to integrate the pragmatic with the poetic, and to achieve an aesthetic impact that brings pleasure to everyday uses. For over 30 years, she has led clients and interdisciplinary design teams through complex programs, negotiating extensive public consultation processes to achieve internationally-recognized, award-winning projects, whether at the scale of infrastructure or the sheltering of a community programme.

She currently serves on the Toronto Waterfront Design Review Panel, and is a senior advisor for Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), which supports diversity and women in the design fields. She has lectured on the work of gh3* in Europe and North America, and has taught at University of Toronto and University of Waterloo. In 2016, Pat was recognized by the international arcVision Prize for Women and Architecture.