Publications

This design guide is the result of “COVIDesign”, an applied, multidisciplinary research project that brought together over 20 hand-picked experts under the supervision of Architecture Without Borders Québec. The guide examines the planning and service design of retail stores, restaurants, and groceries from the perspective of resilience and mitigating the pandemic’s economic, social, and environmental impacts. It is intended for anyone wanting to make informed business-design decisions to implement enduring, high-quality, attractive, and effective solutions that go beyond any temporary health adaptations.

The outcome of collaborations between Montréal’s Communications department, its Infrastructure and Roads department and the Bureau du design, the Boîte à outils pour mieux informer, délimiter et diriger sur un chantier (toolkit for better informing, delimiting and directing on worksites) aims to improve the visual and functional quality of spatial planning in the vicinity of worksites in Montréal. The guide to use of the toolkit, available to all city employees since 2019, outlines methods for better informing Montrealers about the nature of work and projects, better delimiting worksite areas, as well as better directing users and making it easier for them to access various services.

How can the city continue offering services and a quality experience to library users despite the many constraints resulting from the pandemic public health response? Conducted by the Bureau du design as part of the Laboratoire en design de services publics (public services design lab), the exercise was led by service design studio Meilleur monde in collaboration with architect Alexandre Landry and graphic design studio Tagteam. The teams analyzed and adapted the user pathways and indoor layout of three municipal libraries, which enabled production of a best-practices guide shared with the municipal library network.