More than one hundred and fifty years ago, tragedy struck off the coast of Nova Scotia. On April 1, 1873, the SS Atlantic, a White Star Line steamship bound for New York, ran aground near Terence Bay, Nova Scotia. Over 550 lives were lost, making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters of the 19th century.

During the summers of 2021 and 2022, our Peter Braithwaite Studio (PBS) team invited a group of Dalhousie School of Architecture students to our studio in Terence Bay for an intensive, two-week design-build course named FreeLab. We worked to design a memorial for those who perished and to honour the brave locals who risked everything to save survivors from the freezing Atlantic waters.

In 2022 we built a mock-up of one element of the memorial at our Terence Bay studio. We hope to someday see the final installation along the Nova Scotian coast so that the courageous efforts of these Nova Scotians will always be remembered.

Architecture and Design : Peter Braithwaite Studio Ltd. + Dalhousie University Freelab Students

Construction : Peter Braithwaite Studio Ltd. + Dalhousie University Freelab Students