To improve water quality, the City of Montréal built a new water intake along the Aqueduct Canal.
The announcement of such a facility on the lush green banks of the canal, in the heart of a public park in Verdun, immediately raised concern among residents and users. For both the City and the design team, it was essential to carefully manage the building’s visual impact within this natural setting—achieving a discreet, delicate insertion while embracing an expressive and meaningful architectural language.

The City’s initial wish was for a fully transparent envelope revealing the interior of the building. Security and performance requirements made this impossible. The concept therefore drew inspiration from the very nature of water: a metaphor that permeates both the materiality and composition. Like water—always moving yet never the same—the building appears immutable, yet changes with time and seasons.

The glass cladding features a gradient of blue pixels, shimmering and sparkling with the daylight like the water’s surface. At night, the façade glows with a soft, reassuring light. In summer, it takes on a vegetal appearance, while in winter its tones evoke blocks of ice. The building’s horizontal lines—articulated through its plinth, glass cube, and parapet—recall the perpetual horizontality of water.

From a utilitarian structure meant to be hidden, the architects sought to create a design that harmonizes with its environment while expressing essential community values in the public realm. Pure, luminous, and straightforward, the building that provides both water and light also becomes a visual landmark, reminding us of the preciousness of these vital resources.