Charles Hazell co-founded Taylor Hazell Architects with Jill Taylor in 1992.
Charles contribution as a design leader and his commitment to design excellence and conservation has distinguished the practice and secured its influence and reputation as a leading architectural, planning and conservation practice in Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto.
After 32 years of work at the forefront of the firm, he has led hundreds of the firm’s significant design, master planning and construction projects, always vying for the lead on the most challenging ones. The stand-outs are the ones that start with the biggest challenges due to their uniqueness, their state of transition and their unresolved problems, where he can tackle the adventure of making something contemporary and well-built, using the best trades possible. He is actively engaged with the construction process and has an enduring respect for the contractors and craftspeople who make buildings, often working together with them on site to find the best way of making things better. His interest in the material science is exemplified through his work including research and design to create new clay masonry products, synthetic stone for the conservation industry, building envelope pre-fabrication and a range of environmental issues.
Charles projects include award-winning modern and retrofit works in the cultural, educational and governmental sectors. Examples of his work include the conservation and adaptive reuse of the Clarke Centre for the Arts, Whitney Block retrofit at Queens Park in Toronto, the conservation of the Manitoba Legislative Building, the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital into a campus for over 6,000 students, and the conservation of the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant. Each work is a study in the pursuit of meaning and the power of architecture to inspire, reinvent and renew itself.
Charles driving interest is applying the expertise and resources of the firm to the service of understanding environmental, community, social, and cultural issues around us, and how our future can be shaped through architectural engagement and how we can be agents of positive change.
Charles served as architect and heritage specialist on the Toronto Deign Review Panel from 2011-2014, and lectures and appears in media on subjects dealing with planning, conservation and design. He has been awarded an RAIC Fellowship (FRAIC) and won numerous awards for architecture, planning and building conservation.
AFFILIATION
OAA, MAA, FRAIC, CAHP
