Luke McElcheran graduated from the University of Toronto in 2013 with a Bachelor of Architectural Studies and Literature. In the years that followed, he held a series of jobs that he describes as “formative”: Graphic design and communications. Working in a call centre. Designing and building props for escape room game operators.

“I took English literature for the same reasons I think most people in general arts do,” he says. “It’s very like architecture, though, in the way that you can make it about anything that you’re interested in. Analyzing narratives demands a similar kind of open-ended problem-solving.”

Eventually, his explorations led him back to architecture.

In 2021, he completed a three-year Master of Architecture program at Carleton University, specializing in heritage conservation. In addition, his experiences searching for a career gave him the idea for his award-winning thesis, Vital Traditions: Assessing the Status of Skilled Trades Work in Toronto’s Heritage Policy.

All images: Courtesy of Luke McElcheran

Career search inspired thesis topic

“I was thinking about my own experience making the decision to enroll in the MArch program over other paths,” he recalls.

“I was skeptical of the idea that skilled trades gaps are happening because young people just aren’t interested in those careers or can’t access specialized education. I wanted to understand the pressures that people are facing when they decide whether or not they can afford to pursue that interest.”

Early jobs taught useful skills

In 2013, he began his first full-time job at a tech startup that was building a web tool for farmers to sell directly to local restaurants. “I got to do a lot of different things there and had a certain amount of flexibility to try things that might not end up going anywhere.”

Next, in 2015, he took a temporary contract as a communications coordinator at an Ontario government agency that facilitates course credit transfer between postsecondary institutions.

“I was involved with tracking advertising metrics, writing draft copy, and managing existing graphic assets,” he says. “It was a really interesting window into the work involved in implementing policy decisions and how postsecondary education works in the province.”

Both jobs mainly were doing graphic design, focusing on marketing and outreach.

“One of the most important things I got out of working in communications was an appreciation for concise writing in plain language,” he says. “Another was learning to work on a budget to an employer’s or client’s expectations. It helped a lot managing the workload in master’s studios to be used to thinking about work this way instead of the way studio projects are often presented as an expression of the student’s personal creativity.”

Certificate in event design

Along the way, he completed a one-year professional certificate in event design, known as the DESS design d’événements, at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

“It was built around the kind of public events and art installations that get commissioned in Montreal,” he explains. “I took it because it was recommended to me by a friend. I hoped that it would lead to interesting work.”

McElcheran went on to pursue freelance work in the entertainment industry, including doing prop building and design for escape room game operators. He supplemented his income with other occasional jobs; working in a call centre and teaching art classes at a high-school level.

“Frustrated and anxious”

At the same time, he was trying to figure out what he should be working toward for his future self.

“I was frustrated with the instability of freelancing and the lack of long-term career options in the work that I was doing,” he says. “I was also anxious about affordability and worried that my partner and I would be priced out of the city we grew up in.

“I came back to architecture hoping to find a stable career that would pay well enough to keep up with costs of living without giving up too much of what I found interesting in the work I had been pursuing.”

A life-changing program

In 2018, he entered the MArch 1 program at the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism. “I was attracted to the heritage expertise offered at Carleton when I was applying to architecture programs and the school’s general openness to alternative forms of practice.”

A life-changing opportunity came in 2019 when McElcheran was accepted into the NSERC CREATE Heritage Engineering program at Carleton. Dr. Stephen Fai of the architecture school and Dr. Mario Santana of the civil engineering department lead the program, which is coordinated by Laurie Smith, Manager of Research Operations at Carleton Immersive Media Studio.

“The NSERC CREATE program is behind pretty much any success I’ve had so far,” he says. “My current job is thanks to that program, and my thesis wouldn’t have been picked up by awards without interest from the program’s professional network.”

Funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC CREATE is a research, training, and internship program. It provides students with hands-on opportunities to work and learn in the built heritage industry, in addition to their university degree program.

“Amazing opportunities”

“I had no background in conservation, but I started going to their events at the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) and audited a heritage course taught by Associate Professor Mariana Esponda before applying to the program,” he explains.

The program granted McElcheran a fellowship position to study heritage conservation issues in building rehabilitation.

Images from McElcheran’s thesis

 “They gave me funding for the last two years of my degree, and they arranged summer co-op placements with industry partners,” he says. “Those came with conditions that were amazing opportunities. I was asked to present my work at their events, and I was expected to submit my thesis research for publication.” 

Award-winning thesis

McElcheran’s master’s thesis received an Award of Excellence in the Student Achievement category from the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals. It also won the Stephen A. Otto Award for Research and Documentation from the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.

“Luke McElcheran’s graduate thesis is an exemplary scholarly work that reveals possibilities for existing heritage policy to address skilled trades shortages and to expand the political and social relevance of heritage conservation programs,” says the citation for the Stephen A. Otto Award.

Images from McElcheran’s thesis

Completed under the supervision of Professor Mario Santana, the thesis looked at heritage policy and advocacy in Toronto to understand the tools available to the heritage sector to support traditional building trades.

 McElcheran surveyed the literature on heritage trades work in Canadian cities and analyzed and compared the frameworks by which levels of government support the trades. He also created a design project addressing the challenges and opportunities of trades in the heritage field.

“Luke´s thesis looks at the core of the conservation work in Toronto by assessing the need to provide support to skilled trades to conduct rehabilitation of historical buildings that are respectful to the value of these structures,” says Santana. “It is a great contribution to the dialogue in conservation practice that can be amplified in other areas of Canada.”

A job in architecture and heritage conservation

In May 2021, McElcheran joined ERA Architects in Toronto, where he works in architecture and heritage conservation.

“I love the interesting technical problems posed by heritage buildings and the heritage program’s mandate to serve local communities,” he says.

“At ERA, I’m working as professional staff supporting project managers and associates on projects ranging from heritage impact assessments to contract administration for ongoing conservation work,” he says. “There’s a wide range of work. I’ve mostly been working on heritage retention projects in Toronto, but I’ve also contributed to tower renewal and some new design.”

“A huge positive shift”

McElcheran looks back at his Carleton years with fondness. “The studio culture that Professors Catherine Bonier and Ozayr Saloojee cultivated in our first-year studio and how kind and supportive they were made a huge positive shift for me in the way I approached design education,” he says. “And I was lucky to be doing it with the other students in the MArch I program. My cohort was full of amazing, engaged, intelligent people I’m lucky to know.”

THESIS SYNOPSIS

New priorities in the heritage conservation field that argue for widespread rehabilitation and maintenance of existing buildings are hampered in Canadian jurisdictions by difficulties contracting appropriately skilled workers to carry out that maintenance. This thesis looks at Toronto’s conservation program and asks why heritage tradespeople don’t seem to have access to the same kind of opportunities and growth that heritage professionals are experiencing in the city. It also looks at heritage regulatory frameworks and advocacy in Toronto and the economic context for heritage work to understand this asymmetry and suggest tools to address it. 

This policy research is complemented by an illustrative design project based on the history of development and adaptation at the Wychwood library building in Toronto. This series of technical drawings and illustrations challenges readers to consider how planning concepts are translated into urban form and how the visual conventions of heritage documentation reflect a policy approach that prioritizes the façade, treating the visual characteristics of heritage as a public amenity.

 As a contrast, it proposes a series of details interpreting past additions and imagining future interventions to speculate about what heritage best practice might look like if it prioritized existing heritage criteria for craftsmanship, material, and construction method.