An eight-story building at Vancouver Community College will feature a cutting-edge electric/hybrid automotive shop to train students on servicing and maintaining electric vehicles and provide education on clean energy. The 343,832-sf Centre for Clean Energy and Automotive Innovation, to be designed by Stantec, will house classrooms, labs, a library and learning center, an Indigenous gathering space, administrative offices, and multiple collaborative learning spaces. Areas will also be dedicated to design media, fashion, jewelry, and CAD/BIM.
The structure is focused on sustainability both in design and in the teaching and learning that will take place within. The building will be outfitted with powerful HVAC systems that respond to climate change and mass timber as the primary structural material in the atrium space. Designers will aim for low embedded carbon and to meet British Columbia’s Step Code 2, LEED Gold Certification, and Rick Hansen Foundation Gold certifications requirements.
Special considerations were given to Indigenous consultation and involvement in the design. Two Row Architect is the Indigenous design collaborator. The proposed design was informed and inspired by the pre-settlement history of the site, based on stories shared with the integrated project team by Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations knowledge keepers.
The significance of the canoe, including its relationship to the land and water, and the craft involved in the making of the canoe, emerged as a design theme. This led to the exploration of design and massing opportunities that conveyed the idea of a traditional Coast Salish canoe. Dark metal panels on the façade mimic traditional Coast Salish canoes. Angled panels represent a canoe as it is being carved. Wood details in the interior will minimize maintenance and further allude to the canoe narrative.
“That didn’t mean we wanted to put a canoe on a building,” says Eleonore Leclerc, Stantec principal and architect. The canoe, water, and land are symbolized in three important design elements: the atrium represents water, the solid volume represents the earth, and the overstructure represents the canoe in construction. “It’s less figurative and more conceptual,” Eleonore says.
On the project team:
Owner and/or developer: Vancouver Community College
Design architect: Stantec Architecture
Architect of record: Stantec Architecture
Indigenous design collaborator: Two Row Architect
MEP engineer: Stantec
Structural engineer: RJC Engineering
General contractor/construction manager: Bird Construction
Related Stories
| Mar 11, 2011
Historic McKim Mead White facility restored at Columbia University
Faculty House, a 1923 McKim Mead White building on Columbia University’s East Campus, could no longer support the school’s needs, so the historic 38,000-sf building was transformed into a modern faculty dining room, graduate student meeting center, and event space for visiting lecturers, large banquets, and alumni organizations.
| Mar 11, 2011
Texas A&M mixed-use community will focus on green living
HOK, Realty Appreciation, and Texas A&M University are working on the Urban Living Laboratory, a 1.2-million-sf mixed-use project owned by the university. The five-phase, live-work-play project will include offices, retail, multifamily apartments, and two hotels.
| Mar 11, 2011
Slam dunk for the University of Nebraska’s basketball arena
The University of Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball programs will have a new home beginning in 2013. Designed by the DLR Group, the $344 million West Haymarket Civic Arena in Lincoln, Neb., will have 16,000 seats, suites, club amenities, loge, dedicated locker rooms, training rooms, and support space for game operations.
| Feb 23, 2011
The library is dead, long live the library
The Society for College and University Planning asked its members to voice their thoughts on the possible death of academic libraries. And many did. The good news? It's not all bad news. A summary of their members' comments appears on the SCUP blog.
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable features on the bill for dual-building performing arts center at Soka University of America
The $73 million Soka University of America’s new performing arts center and academic complex recently opened on the school’s Aliso Viejo, Calif., campus. McCarthy Building Companies and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects collaborated on the two-building project. One is a three-story, 47,836-sf facility with a grand reception lobby, a 1,200-seat auditorium, and supports spaces. The other is a four-story, 48,974-sf facility with 11 classrooms, 29 faculty offices, a 150-seat black box theater, rehearsal/dance studio, and support spaces. The project, which has a green roof, solar panels, operable windows, and sun-shading devices, is going for LEED Silver.
| Feb 11, 2011
Research facility separates but also connects lab spaces
California State University, Northridge, consolidated its graduate and undergraduate biology and mathematics programs into one 90,000-sf research facility. Architect of record Cannon Design worked on the new Chaparral Hall, creating a four-story facility with two distinct spaces that separate research and teaching areas; these are linked by faculty offices to create collaborative spaces. The building houses wet research, teaching, and computational research labs, a 5,000-sf vivarium, classrooms, and administrative offices. A four-story outdoor lobby and plaza and an outdoor staircase provide orientation. A covered walkway links the new facility with the existing science complex. Saiful/Bouquet served as structural engineer, Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers served as MEP, and Research Facilities Design was laboratory consultant.
| Feb 11, 2011
A feast of dining options at University of Colorado community center, but hold the buffalo stew
The University of Colorado, Boulder, cooked up something different with its new $84.4 million Center for Community building, whose 900-seat foodservice area consists of 12 micro-restaurants, each with its own food options and décor. Centerbrook Architects of Connecticut collaborated with Denver’s Davis Partnership Architects and foodservice designer Baker Group of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the 323,000-sf facility, which also includes space for a career center, international education, and counseling and psychological services. Exterior walls of rough-hewn, variegated sandstone and a terra cotta roof help the new facility blend with existing campus buildings. Target: LEED Gold.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Apartment complex caters to University of Minnesota students
Twin Cities firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects designed the new Stadium Village Flats, in the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus, with students in mind. The $30 million, six-story residential/retail complex will include 120 furnished apartments with fitness rooms and lounges on each floor. More than 5,000 sf of first-floor retail space and two levels of below-ground parking will complete the complex. Opus AE Group Inc., based in Minneapolis, will provide structural engineering services.
