Project Name: Aspire WestJet Lounge

Location: Calgary, Canada

Design Team: MRDK

Total Floor Area: 2800 ft²

Completion: 2025

Photography: David Dworkind

Feature: Montreal-based MRDK has transformed Calgary International Airport's transit experience with the Aspire WestJet Garden Lounge, a verdant sanctuary that redefines airport hospitality through innovative design ingenuity. This 2,800-square-foot expansion seamlessly extends the existing Aspire lounge into a garden-like retreat, where soaring 40-foot ceilings and expansive skylights create an unexpectedly tranquil atmosphere within the bustling Transborder terminal.

The project's most brilliant stroke lies in its infrastructural innovation: faced with the impossibility of coring into concrete floors, MRDK devised an elegant solution using raised planter boxes that ingeniously conceal electrical cabling while delivering charging capabilities to every guest seat. These sculptural elements serve triple duty—housing lush greenery, defining circulation paths, and organizing intimate seating zones throughout the space.

MRDK's design vocabulary speaks fluent hospitality, organizing the lounge into distinct residential-scaled zones that evoke living room intimacy rather than sterile transit functionality. The rhombus-shaped island bar, crowned with cascading planters, creates visual anchor points, while custom steel tables cantilever gracefully from planters and curve upward to integrate soft-glow lighting at each seat. Half-round niches carved into eastern planters become cozy dining alcoves, demonstrating the architects' commitment to spatial poetry.

The material palette—warm earth tones, muted greens, rich browns, and soft neutrals—reinforces the garden concept while maintaining sophisticated restraint. Layered lighting strategies enhance the calming ambience, making the space feel more like an urban conservatory than an airport lounge.

From the terminal concourse, the floating Aspire sign glows invitingly among visible vegetation, transforming what could have been merely functional transit space into a compelling destination where travelers can truly recharge—both digitally and spiritually.

Design Team - MRDK represents a distinguished collaborative partnership of like-minded creatives operating from Montreal, Canada, specializing in residential architecture, commercial interiors, and industrial design. Founded through the convergence of Guillaume Ménard Design and David Dworkind Architect, the firm has established itself as a progressive force in contemporary design practice since its formal inception.

Under the leadership of Principal Architect David Dworkind (M.Arch, MOAQ) and Designer Guillaume Ménard, MRDK's current project management is spearheaded by Benjamin Lavoie Laroche, who brings environmental design expertise from UQAM and international experience from Belgian architectural studios. This dynamic leadership structure enables the firm to maintain rigorous design standards while fostering innovation.

MRDK's design philosophy centers on contextual sensitivity, material authenticity, and collaborative craftsmanship. Their methodology bridges aesthetic excellence with functional pragmatism, creating spatially coherent environments where every architectural element contributes to a unified narrative experience. The firm's commitment to detail-oriented design manifests through close collaboration with skilled artisans and craftspeople, ensuring each project explores innovative construction methodologies and material applications.

With an impressive portfolio spanning hospitality venues, residential projects, and corporate interiors across Canada and the United States, MRDK has demonstrated exceptional versatility in translating diverse programmatic requirements into architecturally distinguished solutions that resonate with end users through thoughtful spatial choreography and material refinement.