06/29/2025
Client: +VG Architects – The Ventin Group Ltd.
We procured an important press hit for our PR and photography client +VG Architects: Dave LeBlanc’s widely read Architourist column in The Globe and Mail, devoted to +VG’s 65 Delhi Street Transitional Housing Facility in Guelph, Ontario.
Notice, in the top photo, how we took advantage of the time of day and position of the sun to fill the otherwise boring, empty negative space of the lawn with the dramatic shadows of the tree branches. Evoking thick, masculine intertwining pythons, they counterpoint the delicate, lacy, feminine forms of the actual branches atop the photo. Together, the two masses frame the composition and move the eye toward the subject of the photo. View all our photos from the shoot at https://davidlaskerphotography.com/guelph-transitional-housing.
The ribbon cutting earlier this year signified more than just a lucky break for the 28 adults who will live there for up to three years. Through the adaptive reuse of an esteemed but abandoned historical edifice, the project serves as a best-practices template for simultaneously solving two seemingly intractable municipal issues: repurposing disused or derelict heritage buildings while giving “a life” to homeless people. It is the prototype for a new building type, one with the gravitas and dignity of the original handful of civic institutions that define a community: city hall, courthouse, hospital, library and places of worship.
