Seabird School

Seabird Island Community School designed by Patkau Architects and built on the Agassiz reserve a two-hour drive east of Vancouver suggests a huge bird poised to take flight. Its angled planes do seem to unfold like a bird's wings as you walk around it. One student explained why he loves the school's sloping ceilings: "If I'm in a flat room, I feel like I'm going to get squashed and so I don't feel like I can focus."

Chief Matthews School

In Haida Gwaii, Acton Johnson Ostry's 1995 Chief Matthews School in Old Massett was designed and built in collaboration with the local Haida community. The building evokes a longhouse and is imbued with elegant, locally sculpted Haida iconography.

Red Stone School

A gathering circle in Red Stone School, a longhouse-inspired post-and-beamer in the Chilcotins, designed by Larry MacFarland Architects and built in the Red Stone reserve in Alexis Creek, about 100 kilometres from Williams Lake. The school's soft lighting and heavy timber beams imbue the school atmosphere with a warmth that counterpoints the surrounding stark countryside.

Chilcotin Landscape

Stone School architect Peter Cardew provided The Tyee this photo of the stark Chilcotin countryside as context for his controversial design: "This image illustrates the unsparing but in its way, grand landscape, so different from the lush coastal sites," writes Cardew.

"The traditional kikwilli house, which families dug into this landscape to escape the harsh winters. [40 below is common]. In these houses the elders told stories about their people to the children. Thus the kikwilli became the place of education," writes Stone School architect Peter Cardew.

Stone School

"Our version of the kikwilli place of learning. The structure at the back was the gymnasium to be built in phase 2 when funds [became] available. It deliberately evokes the ranch buildings of the Chilcotin, which are another aspect of the cultural landscape with which the people of the Chilcotin have successfully cohabitated for more than a century and which has been a source of local employment," writes Stone School architect Peter Cardew.

Stone School

"A plan and worm's eye view of the school. This view emphasis the buried nature of the building with a view to the sky." -- Stone School architect Peter Cardew.

Stone School

"The entrance to the school. I love this picture with the kids and the dog. Note that the grass roof slopes in two directions, thus every classroom, although similar in plan, has a different ceiling height varying from 8ft to 14ft. the lowest part of the roof is appropriately scaled for the kindergarten with the large window looking out to the activity around the entrance." -- Stone School architect Peter Cardew.

Stone School

"Looking up to the sky against a pole structure cut from surrounding trees by members of the band, just as had been done for centuries to construct the kikwillies," writes architect Peter Cardew, explaining the controversial cone atop his Stone School. He asks: "Are the kids at Stone told any of this?"

Stone School

When The Tyee travelled out to Stone School more than a decade after its construction, we found a radically modified exterior. The chain-link fence and other features were a post-design addition.

Stone School

The conical skylight, so disliked by many locals when viewed from outside, fills the Stone School interior with ethereal light.

Stone School

The roof at Stone School was designed to be insulated with a carpet of green, but years later, the lack of maintenance is evident.