Odea

Lemay

Short description

Located on Cree territory dating back to 1995, Odea—named after the Cree word for canoe, ‘ode’—highlights the Eeyou First Nation in Montreal with a distinctive presence on the city’s skyline. Forming a visual and urban link between the history and identity of the land it’s built upon, this 25-storey mixed-use tower combining office, commercial, residential space and two preserved heritage buildings integrates Cree values and culture into a design drawing inspiration from three core symbols: The canoe, the birch, and the forest.

Prominent imprints of canoes are sculpted into the building with strong vertical lines that translate into a play of light and shadow, mimicking a vessel’s daylong glide across the sky’s blue expanse. The passage of time is evoked further by the birch and Taiga forestry, found in Odea’s white façade resembling birch bark and how the ascending floor of an interior courtyard echos the concentric rings of a tree’s heart, branching out to a vegetated terrace on the basilar and up to the roof’s treetop of panoramic views.

Carrying forth the Cree Nation’s principle of preserving the land, the project incorporates Lemay’s Net Positive™ framework for sustainable strategies to promote environmental protection, carbon emission reduction, and user health and well-being throughout. Aiming for LEED v4 Silver certification, the project aims to couple its greenspace with technologies such as central water heating, fresh air ventilation for all units, and efficient glazing to minimize unwanted solar heat gains and heat loss for sustainable construction and good water management.

Showcasing how purposeful community engagement and symbolism can translate into meaningful spaces and impactful tools for activism and inclusion, Odea is the result of designs by Lemay architect Jean-François Gagnon in collaboration with the Indigenous emeritus architect Douglas Cardinal, all to achieve an architectural balance and coherence.