Talk:Saucier + Perrotte

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 16 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Catherinewang24. Peer reviewers: Aghafoori.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

neutrality

I am going to suggest a significant edit to the article to remove bias, meaningless fluff and unsupported claims. There are a number of things that greatly bother me, but the most crucial one is that anything that is not supported by a source may be removed. I remind contributors of our policy on verifiability: All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. I'll make each suggestion individually so that the discussion thread doesn't become unwieldy. 11:45, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

proposed removal of 'Built Projects"

The section on built projects is unsourced and effectively a copy/paste of the subjects's own website: http://saucierperrotte.com/en/years/ Because Wikipedia is not a a place to host one's resume or CV, and it is neither sourced nor attributed properly, it should be removed. If these projects have received significant coverage in independent, reliable sources, they can be described in the article. Vexations (talk) 15:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

proposed revision of "Built Project Awards"

Typically, awards have their own section called "Awards", not the awkward, incorrectly title-cased "Built Project Awards" (The MOS recommends sentence case). The awards should only be listed if they are significant. That is, they either have an article, or sufficient independent, reliable sources exists to create one if it doesn't already exit. The Governor General's awards, for example are clearly notable. What is not appropriate is to copy http://saucierperrotte.com/en/awards/ and paste that. Awards should not be in boldface, per MOS:BOLD. Each award listed should have it's own source that is independent of the subject. Vexations (talk) 15:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

"Notable projects"

There can be no such thing as non-notable projects (if it's not notable, we shouldn't have it) so the section should be renamed to "Projects". Use of weasel-words like notable, major and other vague adjectives that add no information is strongly discouraged. Opinion should be attributed. Poorly articulated aesthetic judgement should be attributed and rewritten in plain English. For example: "The ideas of movement and energy are showcased by the building’s composition" is incomprehensible gibberish. The source (sonsored by Mini Clubman, really) says "The two volumes appear to float, suspended by the kinetic energy emanating from the heart of the project, thereby evoking the dynamic nature of the activities (sports, athletics, training) taking place within." That could probably be paraphrased as something like: "The weblog ArchDaily noted that the building's angular shape brings to mind the nature of the sports activities that take place there". That's still nonsense, and it is highly dubious to use an anonymous sponsored post as a source, but at least it would be attributed correctly. Vexations (talk) 16:06, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I can support this and the above sections proposed revision of "Built Project Awards" and proposed removal of 'Built Projects", but I would wait until the article's creator sees this before removing these sections. Perhaps "Notable projects" can be changed to "Selected projects".Jonahrapp (talk) 17:04, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Jonahrapp, OK @Catherinewang24, Elsalam01, Helaine (Wiki Ed), and Shalor (Wiki Ed): the creator (who doesn't own this article BTW), the instructor and the wikied folks . "Selected" this-or-that is typical for CVs. If I wanted to inflate my CV a little, I list my awards as "Selected Awards" or my exhibitions as "Selected Exhibitions". It's completely un-encyclopedic. Every item in list we publish by its very nature is selected, because we do not publish indiscriminate lists of anything. It's meaningless fluff, designed to make things look more impressive (although I have to admit that it has the opposite effect one me). Vexations (talk) 17:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

By this logic, we should either include all of their works or none of them, neither of which I agree with. I propose we only include the projects that are notable in that there is significant coverage of them in independent sources online, such as the ones currently elaborated upon in the "Notable Projects" section, with maybe a few more with a bit more research. As for the Awards section, I do agree that the list is a bit extensive and most awards don't really mean anything to the average viewer of the article. I thus suggest short listing the list to include only the ones that would resonate with the average viewer with some basic knowledge of architecture (Gov. Gen. awards, RAIC awards etc.) i.e. ones with either Wikipedia articles or awarded by organizations with Wikipedia pages, perhaps in the form of a paragraph rather than a tabulated list. See featured article on the architect I.M. Pei for how this was done, as I'm sure he was the recipient of over 100, or even hundreds of awards over the course of his career, but not all appear on his WP article.Jonahrapp (talk) 17:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Jonahrapp, No, we should only include projects that have received coverage in independent, reliable sources. That is we do not publish indiscriminate lists of everything, nor do we select anything ourselves. We follow the sources. Vexations (talk) 17:50, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

It appears as though you didn't read my response above. Please look it over. I'm not really sure what you're saying "No" to, before proceeding to write exactly what I wrote.Jonahrapp (talk) 17:55, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Expand this a bit: Note the similarities between http://www.archdaily.com/881193/saint-laurent-sports-complex-saucier-plus-perrotte-architectes-plus-hcma and https://architectureprize.com/winners/winner.php?id=2939 "The two volumes appear to float, suspended by the kinetic energy emanating from the heart of the project, thereby evoking the dynamic nature of the activities (sports, athletics, training) taking place within." Now, who wrote that? What about S+P themselves, here: http://saucierperrotte.com/projets/complexe-sportif-saint-laurent/ "Les deux volumes paraissent comme soulevés par l’énergie cinétique émanant du cœur du bâtiment, qui regroupe les services et les vestiaires, évoquant ainsi la vocation sportive du lieu et son dynamisme. Une rampe minérale donne accès à la surface végétalisée qui les surplombe." And just to be perfectly clear; I couldn't care less what a subject has to say about itself. We go by what independent, reliable sources say. ArchDaily is unusbale as a source because they fail to attributes statements by the subject correctly. And so is the Architecture Masterprize. They can't seem to produce a jury report, instead they just copy the firm's own "artists' statement". So, I propose removing them from the list of awards for that reason. Vexations (talk) 18:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hi! Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I would agree with reducing the projects section to just those that have received coverage. The plans for the awards section looks good as well. With the projects section, should that be reduced to a list for the time being? Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:18, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

the firm believes

This sentence: "The firm believes in the symbolic and physical aspect of the architectural setting; merging architecture, landscape, and geology together". is cited to https://montrealgazette.com/life/urban-expressions/building-on-nature/ I've read that article twice now and can find nothing in there that supports this claim. The firm isn't said to believe anything. Both believed they could propose a different kind of architecture; Saucier believes that industrial areas are being transformed by young architects, that the city of Montreal has to take responsibility for something, that they never abandoned the way they work. But not that they "believe in the symbolic and physical aspect of the architectural setting", whatever that means. "Believe" in the way that it's used by the Montreal Gazette means to have confidence in the truth or accuracy of statement. It's another way of saying I am confident that such-and-so is true. How one can have confidence in the truth of the symbolic aspect of something is beyond comprehension. This is just nonsense. Because the statement both not verifiable and gobbledegook, it should be removed. Vexations (talk) 13:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

At present

The lead says: At present, the firm comprises a small team of fewer than 20 That is a problem, because while that may have been true at the time of writing, it is not something that is always going to be true. Per WP:PRECISELANG such language should be avoided. I'm going to mark it with {{As of}}. Vexations (talk) 14:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I support thisJonahrapp (talk) 17:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)