Architecture has traditionally been a profession of generalists, but can offer fulfilling opportunities for those who choose to specialize.

 This was the case for Bill Chomik, a Calgary-based architect who, over the latter half of his career, has become the world’s leading expert in planetarium design.

Chomik’s foray into this esoteric specialty happened largely by circumstance. In 1983, he was approached to perform some minor conceptual planning for the Calgary Science Centre. He eventually joined the Science Centre’s board, as well as helping write a closed RFP for retrofitting the building with the new style of planetarium—a tilted dome that allowed for upright seats, replacing the original flat dome that required almost fully reclined seats.

To complete the design, Chomik consulted extensively with suppliers. He also travelled to Finland to visit the just-opened Hereka Planetarium, by Heikkinen-Komonen Architects.

Chomik and colleague Urs Kick studied the new structure from top to bottom, and ultimately used it as a model for the Calgary planetarium.

At the grand reopening of the Calgary venue, suppliers approached Chomik saying that he was good to work with, and that—unlike many architects, whose designs undermined the ability of the projectors and other technical elements to perform at their best—he listened to what they had to say about their equipment. Chomik replied, “We’re Canadians, we listen and deal with everyone around us.”

A month later, he got a call from Athens: his name was put forward for a new planetarium being built there. He interviewed and got the job. Soon after, he was working on planetariums in Chicago, Guangzhou, Seoul, and San Jose. Although they were never the sole focal point of his practice, the firm took on these projects, and he continued to work on planetariums—one a year or so—after his practice was acquired by Kasian and he became a principal with the larger firm.

To date, Chomik has been involved in the design of some 18 completed planetariums, with another 14 projects currently underway. Now retired from Kasian, he is a sole practitioner who works as a consultant to firms leading the design of planetarium-containing venues. In this capacity, Chomik has worked with the likes of I.M. Pei, Ricardo Legorreta, MAD Architects, and Zaha Hadid Studio.

His scope now focuses on high-level conceptual design, and Chomik is glad for the opportunity to have a seat at the table, and for the travel his work involves. “I’d encourage young architects to try and develop a specialization if they want to have an interesting time in the prime of their career,” he says. “I made it a point 30 years ago to really understand planetariums—what clients wanted, what technologies were out there to support it, what flaws were out there that should never be repeated again—and became a world expert.” 

As appeared in the November 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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PROJECT Old Crow Community Centre, Old Crow, Yukon 

ARCHITECT Kobayashi + Zedda Architects 

TEXT Adele Weder 

PHOTOS Andrew Latreille 

Arriving in Old Crow is like entering another country. Tucked into the northwest corner of Yukon, this tiny village of 280 citizens of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation is accessible only by air, or—for intrepid seafarers—along the adjacent Porcupine River. A grocery store is the sole commercial outlet. All-terrain vehicles putter through a network of dirt roads lined with simple wood houses in various stages of weathering, many festooned with caribou antlers. 

In this otherworldly hamlet, Old Crow’s new Darius Elias Community Centre, designed by Kobayashi Zedda Architects (KZA), stands out like a spaceship. 

From the road, the building reads like a giant cylinder clad in wood slats. From the waterfront side, it flexes inward, roughly framing the outdoor space into a naturalistic courtyard and subtly echoing the meandering river. On a balmy late-summer evening, a young man and woman and their dalmatian are hanging out around the building—under the building, actually. Like almost all structures built in the Arctic, the Centre is raised above the ground so that its warmth does not melt the top layer of permafrost that sheathes the Arctic. This building is raised even higher than the norm, partly to account for the periodic flooding of Porcupine River. Architect Antonio Zedda notes that the building’s elevated condition creates “a completely different planar experience”—inside and out. 

The Centre comprises a community hall, Elders’ lounge, industrial kitchen, games room, meeting spaces, offices, and exercise room. The main space—the large, circular hall—hosts the Vuntut Nation’s assemblies, which include intense discussions, heritage dances, bonding, and reconnecting. Although Old Crow is the current home base of the Vuntut, the Nation’s thousand citizens are dispersed across Yukon. A few times a year, those citizens gather and reconnect in the large hall. “It’s a beautiful space for dancing,” observes Vuntut Gwitchin Chief Pauline Frost. The adjoining kitchen—industrial in both size and equipment calibre—runs at full steam during those events to provide the accompanying traditional feasts. 

The oblique angles and concentric double circle of the ceiling’s radiating structural beams make the space feel alive and active even when empty, and emphasize the centrifugal force of the plan. 

At the other end of the structure, the spacious exercise room offers a stunning panoramic vista of the river, and doubles as a repository for traditional costume-making materials, with a hundred-plus bolts of fabric stacked floor-to-ceiling along one wall. The textiles are end-rolls donated to the community for use by local seamstresses. While it would be incongruous for a big-city gym, this juxtaposition makes perfect sense for a tiny community reclaiming its heritage crafts.

KZA also designed the John Tizya Cultural Centre a few dozen metres down the road, a rectangular mass sheathed in corrugated metal. The Cultural Centre serves as a venue for locals and visitors to explore Vuntut Gwitchin culture and history. That compact and superbly designed building, like the new Community Centre, resulted from the advocacy of Chief Frost, who successfully lobbied for these and other new buildings while serving as the Vuntut Gwitchin’s MLA from 2016 to 2021. She was sworn in as Chief last year, in the same Community Hall that she helped bring to fruition. 

The Community Centre presents an architectural contrast to KZA’s Cultural Centre, both in terms of massing and material. “The clients wanted a building clad in wood, period,” recalls Zedda. “Not metal, nor anything simulating wood. That was the challenge for us; the reality in Yukon is that wood does not last long because of the extreme sun and extreme temperatures.” In response, the design team researched an array of materials, finally settling on modified pinewood by Kebony, a Norwegian wood producer. Infused with an alcohol solution that preserves the wood, Kebony pine will naturally weather into a silvery hue over time, but will not decompose.

To many locals, the building is shaped like a snowshoe—an Aih in Gwichin. Others, like Vuntut Gwitchin Deputy Chief Harold Frost, tell me it’s designed to resemble a caribou trap. To this reporter, as a descendant of Prairie settlers, the plan evokes a leather waterskin. Read into it what you will. Drum? Snowshoe? Caribou trap? “It’s all those things,” says Zedda. “We don’t typically design things that reference something specific.” When the architects showed the floor plans to community members, he recalls, “they started to infer ideas of what it resembled.” 

For Zedda, the original community hall—a wooden octagon that still stands, vacant and rotting, beside the new structure—was the biggest driver. “The idea was to capture the essence of that building and its [interior] space in the newer building,” he says. The concept of circularity, rather than any specific representation, is at the heart of the design, echoing Indigenous respect for the cycle of life.

But here is the uncomfortable question: is this building too big, and too state-of-the-art? For Chief Frost, the biggest challenge of the Community Centre is its high heating costs. That is not an architectural failing per se: the design team followed the design brief in terms of size, but few buildings of this size and scope could keep their energy costs low in an Arctic locale with viciously cold winters. The huge circular space that is so highly appropriate and welcoming for the quarterly gatherings of the Vuntut Nation is otherwise often vacant. 

Zedda argues that our system of consistent building-code application and aggressive energy targets is problematic for remote places like Old Crow, with populations so small that residents are unlikely to have the skill sets to address and maintain the technical issues and features. “In terms of codes and standards that affect building systems such as mechanical heating and ventilation, for example, the code requirements tend to overly complicate the systems without understanding the context in which they are being placed,” he says. “This needs to be revisited. Otherwise, highly complex and efficient systems, if not operated properly, tend to perform poorly and are more expensive to operate.”

The time has come, he argues, to question whether it’s imperative in every instance to follow every code requirement when in certain communities it might be inappropriate or cost-prohibitive. “And by inappropriate or cost-prohibitive,” he clarifies, “we are not talking about life safety items, for which there should be no flexibility.  What’s needed is more consideration for the immediate geographic and cultural context.” 

He cites a real-life example from a past project in Old Crow: “The client asked why we needed to include a wheelchair ramp in the building design. Being on permafrost, the raised building resulted in a steel ramp system that was over 12 metres long with a price tag of over $50,000.” The client told Zedda that a ramp wasn’t strictly necessary, since on the rare occasions when someone would need assistance to enter and exit the building, others in this tightly-knit community would step up to help. “They would never leave an Elder or mobility-challenged individual to navigate these spaces and places on their own,” says Zedda. “I was in awe hearing this.”   

What are the fixes for the Darius Elias Community Centre and buildings like it? An architectural solution—unfeasible now, but perhaps viable with some future technology—is crafting a means to expand and contract a building’s capacity in response to shifting needs. As for the challenge of making and maintaining buildings in small and isolated places, it may be time to consider encouraging flexibility with certain code requirements and energy targets in such communities. 

Ultimately, for the Vuntut Gwitchin, the Darius Elias Community Centre is not just a functional amenity, but an existential one. Their periodic gatherings are essential as a cultural reaffirmation, both amongst their Nation’s citizens and to the outside world. “We were essentially the forgotten community, because of our remoteness and social isolation,” says Chief Frost. “We didn’t have anything before. But what’s happened here in the last six or seven years is so amazing.”

Adele Weder is a contributing editor to Canadian Architect. KZA Architects contributed a portion of the travel costs for this article.

CLIENT Vuntut Gwitchin Government | ARCHITECT TEAM Antonio Zedda (MRAIC), Chris Chevalier, Sheelah Tolton, Phillippe Gregoire, David Tolkamp | STRUCTURAL Ennova Structural Engineers Inc | MECHANICAL Williams Engineering Canada; Building Systems Engineering | ELECTRICAL Williams Engineering Canada | CONTRACTOR Johnston Builders Ltd. | FOOD SERVICES Lisa Bell & Associates | ENERGY MODELlING Morrison Hershfield (now Stantec) | SOLAR PV STUDY Green Sun Rising | GEOTECHNICAL EBA/TetraTech | AREA 940 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION June 2021

As appeared in the November 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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PROJECT Bombardier Global Manufacturing Centre, Toronto Pearson Airport, Mississauga, Ontario

ARCHITECT NEUF architect(e)s

TEXT Ian Chodikoff

PHOTOS Salina Kassam

Creating an aircraft manufacturing space is a unique programmatic challenge for an architect, combining advanced technology, precision engineering, and meticulous attention to safety. When Bombardier approached NEUF architect(e)s to create its new aircraft assembly centre at Toronto Pearson International Airport, the architects embarked on a five-year-long journey to realize a state-of-art facility, with 2,000 employees manufacturing over a dozen planes at a time. 

A complex coordination challenge

Not unlike the complexity of planning for a hospital, the project required NEUF to navigate many client requirements, specifications, and workflow methodologies, translating them into a functional design. Beginning with client-supplied diagrams built in Excel, the architects worked through detailed programmatic diagrams to assimilate everything from equipment requirements to unique fire and life safety standards. The complexity was multiplied by the challenges of the site—the aeronautic campus was to be built adjacent to Canada’s busiest runway, handling over 200,000 planes annually.

NEUF partner Lilia Koleva led the project, working alongside Marco Chow and Rainier Silva to ensure every detail aligned with Bombardier’s operational requirements; Linh Truong headed up the interior design. At one point, the NEUF team had 30 staff coordinating with 120 external professionals from various disciplines and specialties, including over 75 engineers and designers from Stantec. The project began in late 2019; after nearly 400 meetings, it officially opened in the spring of 2024. 

Koleva’s ability to coalesce complex programming requirements were previously honed through her involvement with the renovation and expansion of the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) completed in 2021, where, in collaboration with CannonDesign, she coordinated a constantly evolving list of facility and equipment requirements for dozens of operating theatres. For the Bombardier facility, Chow noted the creation of over 750 room data sheets with the client, as well as over 3,200 requests for information (RFIs) for the construction phase alone, 260 sheets of drawings, 3,000 Revit wall tags, 3,718 Revit construction notes and 58,000 Revit families. The architects had to address Bombardier’s evolving corporate needs as well. During the pandemic, the facility’s footprint was reduced by 30 percent, requiring the team to adapt the program to ensure it met Bombardier’s operational and strategic goals. 

Adapting to a new site and scale

Bombardier’s previous site was a century-old 366-acre campus at Downsview Airport. To enable the move to a much smaller, irregular 41-acre parcel at Pearson, the architects had to negotiate a comprehensive site planning process, and navigate complex municipal infrastructure requirements and aviation regulations.

Upon arrival at the new facility, one first notices an enormous parking lot filled with dozens of Teslas. There is a culture within Bombardier to improve the sustainability of their business—in addition to their aircraft design—as they continue to explore environmentally friendly aviation fuel options, and to reduce waste and emissions. Over 50 percent of the energy used on-site comes from renewable sources. The facility’s expansive exterior façades are marked by barcode-like vertical strips of curtain wall and translucent polycarbonate panels, which help to maximize daylight. 88 percent of workstations have access to natural light, boosting workplace health and wellbeing while reducing energy demands. The design intuitively orients employees to the fire exits, highlighted by narrower, single-width translucent overhead panels.

The new campus is responsible for Bombardier’s Global line of business jets, marketed for use by governments and private clients. NEUF’s detailed planning was most intense for the 60,000-square-metre manufacturing building—the largest standalone building constructed at Pearson airport in the past 20 years. The extensive production floor is divided into 16 interior work centres, each measuring approximately 38 by 38 metres, and tailored to specific stages of aircraft assembly. There are eight similarly dimensioned exterior work areas. The 75-metre clear span over the production floor allows plenty of natural daylight through highly translucent fabric “megadoors,” while the large volume of space makes for considerably reduced ambient noise compared to the old Downsview production facility. Beyond the production floor are testing areas, flight simulation rooms, offices for engineers, classrooms for the aerospace program at Centennial College, and training, orientation and computer labs. Separate buildings include a 10,600-square-metre flight test hangar. 

Designing anything near an airport means the architects must adhere to strict Transport Canada and NAV Canada regulations, including the Obstacle Limitation Surface (OLS). James Lambie, Industrialization Director at Bombardier, explains that with OLS protocols, nothing can be built within 100 metres from the centreline of the nearby runway. From there, every seven feet you go out, you can go up one foot. At the tightest points, the building stays within 15 centimetres of the OLS to provide construction tolerance. Safety and environmental considerations also required integrating advanced fire suppression, ventilation, and lighting systems.

Koleva estimates that, given the number of employees and requirements for the building, the needed municipal infrastructure upgrades that Bombardier performed were equivalent to handling the needs of six or seven residential towers. The existing sewers were nearing capacity before construction. Therefore, Bombardier had to build a new sewer alongside the runway and underneath the aprons for the busy FedEx distribution centre next door. At specific points, excavations had to go down 20 metres to build a sewer that could then be tied back into the main trunk lines for the City of Mississauga. At the same time, the airport runway and the FedEx facility maintained their complete operations, without any dust or disturbance that could affect the safety of the aircraft. Similarly, the architects had to control stormwater before releasing it to the City, by installing four underground tanks. The capacity of the two largest tanks totals 7.6 million litres of water—the equivalent of three Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Integrating advanced systems and equipment

Various custom solutions were needed to accommodate large component handling, specialized racking systems for the thousands of parts on reserve, and the need for precise clearances along the manufacturing line.

Large parts like wings and fuselage sections—manufactured at other Bombardier facilities outside of Toronto—are transported to Pearson using specially designed vehicles and handling equipment, to ensure they arrive without damage. Wing sections unloaded in the aerostructures facility undergo an initial inspection, and are then decanted in a climate-controlled area. This allows the components to expand or contract back to factory-specified dimensions in the case that they have been transported in excessively hot or cold environments.

Specialized robotic arms assist in drilling and riveting, as well as performing component quality checks. These robots are programmed to perform tasks with incredible precision, and are guided by specialized GPS sensors embedded in the concrete slab. An elaborate system of sprinklered scaffolding and cranes runs overhead and underneath the aircraft components as they move along the line, eventually arriving at a point when the fuselage, cockpit, wings and landing gear are assembled. In the factory, they call this the transformation into “weight on wheels.”

The building isn’t air-conditioned, only humidity-controlled. This is because the one-metre-thick double-reinforced concrete floors that run through much of the facility act as an effective heat sink. These floors are designed to house some 1.5 kilometres of slab-on-grade trenches, which run beneath the floors to accommodate power lines, vacuum systems, and hydraulic connections. The trenches help keep the workspace free and clear of objects and hazards, minimizing the risk of foreign-object debris (FOD). Anything from a plastic wrapper to a screwdriver could cause severe damage if it were to interfere with, or contaminate, the aircraft in any way.

To Bombardier Vice-President of Management and Programs Julien Boudreault, the biggest challenge in designing the new facility is to allow listening and seeing to happen. “It is the first line of defense where you must be able to quickly see which aircraft is in position on the assembly floor at any given time, and this is our company’s culture.” Many senior management offices have windows overlooking the two U-shaped assembly lines; the offices are also positioned to allow anyone to walk out onto the assembly floor quickly. “This configuration fits within Bombardier’s ‘go-and-see’ approach,” says Boudreault, referring to the concept that the CEO, a mechanic, and an engineer can quickly resolve an issue together, during any assembly stage. 

This exceptional degree of accessibility extends to all levels of production. The aeronautics industry is highly regulated, with many trades concentrated on the production floor. At every manufacturing stage, clusters of desktop workstations bring engineers within earshot of the production crew, so they can quickly collaborate to identify and resolve problems. Around the perimeter of the production line are areas where a new part can be replaced, modified or built—all designed so that workers in charge of those parts are within a four-minute walk from any point they need to access on the floor. Specialized tooling shops on the periphery operate around the clock to keep the flow moving.

The facility’s high-power engine run booth, unique to Pearson Airport, is designed to handle the immense power, heat, and noise generated during the testing and calibration of aircraft engines—the most expensive part of the aircraft, valued at around $10 million per pair. The extensive aircraft inspection process also includes a process known as “soaking,” where the aircraft is fuelled to its maximum capacity and left to sit to check for leaks or other issues that could affect performance.

Some bespoke aspects of the build-out are handled at Bombardier’s Montreal facility, including custom interiors, unique paint jobs, and the installation of specific equipment. Whether a customer chooses a particular sound system, carpeting, or bathroom fixture, each piece of equipment must be carefully sourced and documented—similarly to the plane’s rivets, bolts, or landing gear—to ensure airworthiness and safety. 

A complex building for a complex process

“Building an aircraft is an undertaking that rivals the complexity of a major building project,” says Graham Kelly, Vice President of Operations for Global Aircraft at Bombardier’s Toronto facility. “We needed a space that could not only handle the scale of our manufacturing operations, but also reflect our commitment to innovation and to exceeding client expectations, while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our employees.”

NEUF became one of Bombardier’s “Diamond Suppliers” after completing the landmark facility at Pearson. Architects may not like to be referred to as “suppliers,” but in this context, it is an honour that demonstrates an earned trust with a client that lives and breathes a technical, process-driven culture.

For Koleva, designing this facility was also a personal achievement. She flew a lot with her parents as a child, and was fascinated by planes. She wanted her thesis project at McGill University to be an airport. (It ended up being an embassy.) As an architect, she always hoped to design an airport. From her perspective, “the Bombardier facility is as close to an airport as it gets, because it’s about all the requirements for moving people through space.” Bombardier builds the planes, while NEUF builds for the people who make them.

Ian Chodikoff is an architect and consultant focused on architectural leadership and business strategy.

CLIENT Bombardier | ARCHITECT TEAM Lilia Koleva (RAIC), Antoine Cousineau (RAIC), André Cousineau (FRAIC), Azad Chichmanian (RAIC), Marco Chow (RAIC), Rainier Silva, Linh Truong, Annabelle Beauchamp, Jean-Luc Bourbeau, Stéphane Claveau, Ailsa Craigen, Sophie Del Signore, Feroz Faruqi, Gabriel Garofalo, Marie-Pier Gervais, Valérie Godbout, Gary Hlavaty, Sarah Ives, Mathieu Jolicoeur, Nadia Juarez, Kazim Kanani, Madina Koshanova, Guillaume Lallier, Celia Lauzon, Alain Piccand, James Rendina, Kristen Sarmiento, Marina Socolova, Naomi Su Hamel, Sam Taylor, Serge Tremblay, Don Toromanoff, Varteni Vartanyan | STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/ACOUSTIC/LANDSCAPE Stantec | INTERIORS NEUF architect(e)s | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER Ledcor | AVIATION CONSULTANT BDI Blast Deflectors  | AREA  Building area–54,250 M2 ; Gross floor area–70,400M2 | BUDGET $500 M | COMPLETION May 2024 

As appeared in the November 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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When North America’s building codes were first drafted in the late 1800s, they had strict measures to prevent the spread of fire—a reaction to conflagrations that consumed New York, Chicago, and other cities built quickly from wood. That legacy has repercussions to this day, including in Canada’s requirement for two exits from any multi-unit dwelling above two storeys. 

This turns out to be the world’s second-most restrictive multi-unit residential exiting requirement (Uganda requires two exits in all multi-unit buildings above a single storey). In Hong Kong, single staircases are allowed in buildings six storeys in height; in Norway, Australia, and New Zealand, the limit is eight storeys; Sweden and France allow single egress in buildings up to 16 storeys; China up to 18 storeys.

The stringency of Canada’s requirement is outdated, says intern architect Conrad Speckert, who works at LGA Architectural Partners, and who has spent two years researching the issue full-time. Now, over a century of building performance and fire mitigation measures provide more effective tools for fire safety. Moreover, says Speckert, updating the code would unlock the possibility for greater housing density and affordability. “After zoning reform and revisiting parking minimums, it’s the next most obvious barrier to building small multi-unit buildings,” he says. This is primarily achieved by freeing up more space, he notes: “A staircase is roughly the same floor area as an extra bedroom on each floor.”

In April 2022, Speckert and fire protection engineer David Hine submitted a code change request to the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes (since restructured as the Canadian Board for Harmonized Construction Codes)—the body in charge of maintaining and updating the National Building Code. Speckert also petitioned Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force, in a letter co-signed by some four dozen local architects, planners, and developers—a who’s who from Shirley Blumberg of KPMB to Mazyar Mortazavi of TAS. 

Speckert emphasizes that the requests are based on maintaining—and in many cases outperforming—current fire safety standards. The proposal sets out the possibility of single stair access in buildings up to six storeys, with a maximum of four dwellings per floor, sprinklering throughout, and stringent fire separation and positive pressurization of the exit stairwell.

British Columbia’s architects are advocating for a similar change. Public Architecture recently completed a report with grants from BC Housing and the City of Vancouver studying how point access blocks could transform Vancouver. BC’s Ministry of Housing just closed an RFP asking for a policy and technical options report for single egress stair buildings up to eight storeys in height, paving the way for possible changes by this fall. “It’s a political priority—the province is sold on the benefits of this,” says PUBLIC senior associate Jamie Harte, who led the report.

The Canadian research is also helping to catalyze state-side pushes for reform. In the United States, single egress is allowed in buildings up to three storeys high—only a single storey higher than in Canada. Seattle, New York City, and Hawaii are exceptions: in these jurisdictions, a single stair is possible in buildings up to six storeys. Now, other West Coast areas experiencing housing shortages—including Oregon, Washington state, and California—are showing an interest in going higher.

Beyond creating more room for housing, the potential code change creates more room for creativity. “It makes all kinds of small apartment buildings more high quality,” says Harte. “Everything gets a little bit more flexible and more creative when you don’t have to drive a corridor through the middle of your plan.” 

What kinds of things would be possible with the change? Vancouver’s Urbanarium is running an ideas competition for mid-rise buildings that challenge the double-egress requirement and other existing policies. A comprehensive design studio at U of T’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design also allows for a single egress stair in its program for a 200-unit building “There are really good benefits for that typology,” says studio coordinator and SvN principal Sam Dufaux. “With more cores and more stairs, you get small communities within a building. You can put a lot more design ambition behind the project, and think about making great living spaces. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities.”

As appeared in the April 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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PROJECT Les Pavillons du 49° apartment building, Chibougamau, Quebec

ARCHITECT PERCH architecture

INTERVIEW BY Marco Marini

PHOTOS Ulysse Lemerise, unless otherwise noted

Last summer, one of Quebec’s first mass timber, factory-fabricated modular apartment buildings was built at lightning speed in the city of Chibougamau (population 7,500), a community some 700 kilometres north of Montreal. The four-storey Les Pavillons du 49° apartment complex was constructed from 47 modules, delivered and assembled on site in a mere four days.

The project was spearheaded by Nordic Structures, whose sawmill and production facility is located in Chibougamau, and whose engineered wood products are distributed throughout North America. They worked with Montreal-based studio PERCH architecture, a firm led by architects Suresh Perera and Julie Charbonneau.

The 20 rental units of the building accommodate a varied clientele. It’s anticipated that workers and retirees will live in the building’s studio unit, two accessible units, and five two-bedroom units, while families may rent its dozen three-bedroom units. 

It’s only the second mid-rise apartment building in this remote northern town, where the main industries are forestry and mining, and an acute housing shortage leaves many locals living in temporary trailers. This housing shortage is exacerbated by a lack of construction labour, intense winters, and a short exterior construction season. Those factors made an alternative approach to design and construction both necessary—and ideal.

In this exclusive interview, we spoke with architect Suresh Perera to learn more about the project.

Modular building vs. traditional construction

Canadian Architect: Can you explain how the mass-timber modules fit together to create the finished building, and why you feel this was the right approach in this situation?  

Perera: For this project, mass-timber and modular are intrinsically linked. Continuous cross-laminated-timber (CLT) panels make up the walls, floors and ceilings of each module. This CLT shell is the core concept and forms both the structural and architectural components—it is self-supporting, inherently fire-resistant (without needing interior gypsum finishing, for example) and forms an interior vapour barrier. 

Each module is, in many ways, a mini-building. Two linked modules become an apartment. The corridors, stairs and elevator are their own modules, which is important in order to avoid sound transmission. 

These “mini-buildings” were individually constructed in a factory setting, and were then assembled into one complex system on site. An apartment building is essentially a collection of smaller repeated units, without large spaces or high ceilings, and is a perfect candidate for a modular building—especially in this case, considering all the constraints of building in the North. Being close to the factory and the source of the wood made the CLT construction an even more sustainable choice.

CA: From an on-site perspective, when you’re assembling the project, what are some of the big differences between this type of modular structure and a more traditional approach?

Perera: The construction of each module—each mini-building—occurred in a controlled factory environment and included the installation of doors and windows, exterior cladding, interior finishes, electrical and plumbing fixtures, and millwork. This process continued for many months over the winter and spring. The foundations were poured in early summer and, within just four incredible days, the modules arrived on trailers and were hoisted into place. The roofing joints were sealed, making the building waterproof. 

The advantages are obvious. Not only are site-related weather issues no longer a problem, the factory fabrication allows for a high level of control, easy inspection and testing of systems, and safe working conditions, as the modules are always only one floor high.

Working relationships and factory fabrication

CA: How did you and your relatively small Montreal-based firm end up working with Nordic Structures on a project in such a remote northern city?

Perera: A few years ago, Nordic Structures was looking to build modular mass-timber classroom additions to schools. They approached
us to help develop the concept, as we had relevant experience with institutional projects. What started out as simple one-storey additions eventually led to more complex two-storey structures, where fire and acoustic separations and stair modules had to be carefully considered. 

These projects were very successful—not only because of their technical efficiency, but also because the CLT product allowed us to leave the wood structure exposed on the interior, making the classrooms very attractive learning spaces. 

Based on these early experiences with modular CLT construction and our experience with various scales of residential projects, it seemed a perfect next step to work on this building. Certainly, working on a project so remote posed many challenges!

CA: Working on a project so far away, with so many different people involved, sounds like it could be a major headache. Can you describe the working relationships that evolved as the project got underway? How complicated was it for you to work with a remote fabrication site?

Perera: Being a design-build collaboration, the entire process was different from a traditional design process. Strangely, the process also coincided with the pandemic, when remote work came into its own. Right from the very beginning of the early design stages, we had daily—and often more than just once-a-day—video-conference meetings and phone calls with the factory fabrication team at Chantiers Chibougamau and the engineers at Nordic, to work through design questions and details. 

It was a huge learning curve for us, and for them as well. Not a single detail was standard, and we had to understand the factory fabrication sequence, limitations, and how to detail CLT structures from an architectural point of view. The engineering was inseparable from the architecture, and so, as our drawings developed, so did the engineering drawings. 

There were ten distinct types of modules. We would physically visit the factory at the start of the construction of each type to ensure a complete coordination, and to make adjustments to the details and drawings as necessary. In some ways, the drawings were only complete at the end of the building process! 

Nordic Structure’s engineers and the team at Chantiers Chibougamau were extremely dedicated throughout, and had a high understanding of their product and the process. Given that the entire approach was new to us, we relied on them as much as they did on us, to guide the process.

Architectural and technical design aspects

CA: Can we talk about some of the specific architectural and design challenges related to the project? How did your approach to the design manage to overcome these—and turn them into advantages?

Perera: Factory fabrication means the completed modules are limited in height and width due to the limitations of transporting them by road. However, using CLT panels means the wall, floor and roof compositions could be comparatively thin. We worked closely with the fabrication team to achieve the maximum height possible. 

Our interior finished ceiling was 8’-9”. By combining several modules, we were able to get living space widths of 14.5 feet and bedroom widths of 12 feet, which compares favourably with traditional apartment building sizes. 

The CLT shell had other benefits, such as a highly thermally efficient structure in comparison to wood-frame. We strongly felt that the wood should be exposed on the interior, and we picked certain areas to do so, including the ceilings, certain accent walls in the units, and the walls of the staircases. The big advantage is that the CLT plays multiple roles—structural, technical and architectural—thereby reducing the total material consumption while creating warm, aesthetically pleasing interior spaces. 

CA: From the viewpoint of aesthetics, modular buildings have a reputation of being quite repetitive and banal, with minimal architectural opportunities. “Generic” is a word that’s plagued the modular approach. How did you flip this impression and create a building worth talking about?

Perera: Modular construction becomes most cost-effective by repeating identical components, which often leads to monotonous and flat buildings with small openings. The concept here was to find visual shifts and variations within repetition that did not reduce structural or construction efficiency. Shifting window positions in modules that were identical on the interior reduced the monolithic aspect of the building, as did pulling in and pushing out adjacent modules. 

We also worked closely with the structural team to create large balconies that appear to flip and shift on the façade, but are identically attached to each module, in order to standardize construction. Likewise, we worked with the structural team to have large windows in the living spaces that provide ample natural light and animate the façade. The structural capabilities of the CLT also allowed for open interior living spaces without the need for columns, structural division, or large structural members.

CA: Sounds like the materials used in this project really allowed you to push the conventional understanding of what modular structures can be from a design perspective. How did the technical aspects of working on this project compare to standard construction methods?

Perera: An important challenge was resolving some of the acoustical and fire safety details within the construction—especially dealing with construction voids, points of contact between the modules, and the passage of electrical and mechanical building services. The other significant challenge was understanding how to deal with differential movement between the modules over time, and how to maintain accessibility for people using mobility devices. The building is a prototype in many ways, and will continue to be monitored over time, as part of a project between Nordic Structures and FPInnovations. 

How to configure and build certain modules was another challenge. The entire stair shaft, for example, was a single module, for several reasons, including fire resistance. It was built horizontally—including the installation of the staircase—and then installed on site vertically.

CA: Wood construction is usually considered far inferior to a material such as concrete when it comes to acoustics and fire resistance—important elements when designing a multi-unit building like this. Can you discuss how you were able to use wood so effectively in this project?

Perera: We worked closely with acoustical experts and testing companies to evaluate wall, floor and inter-module compositions, shifting the design and detailing to respond to the results. 

Conceptually, the idea was to structurally separate the residential units from each other and from the public spaces. The modular system of construction allowed us to do this, as each apartment had its own shell—its own floors, walls and ceiling—separate from adjacent units. The corridors were their own modules. There are no attachments tying the modules together, removing a major weakness that causes sound transmission. Each module simply rests on the module below, with acoustic pads to separate them. The tested STC and IIC values were well above the building code requirements.

The CLT panels have an inherent fire resistance, making it a much more effective building material for fire resistive assemblies than, say, wood frame construction.

Sustainability

CA: Sustainability has evolved to become the foundation of so many projects in the past decades. How does Les Pavillons du 49° fit into this approach to building? How does it move the concept forward?

Perera: It’s estimated that the 987 cubic metres of wood used in this project is grown in US and Canadian forests in three minutes. With the stored carbon and avoided greenhouse gases, it’s easy to argue for the benefits of mass-timber versus, say, concrete or steel construction. But each module still has its own floor and ceiling, and though this is great from a sound transmission and fire resistance point of view, it also means more wood is used compared to a typical wood-frame construction. I believe there’s still room for an improved efficiency of construction. We are still searching for that perfect balance of responding to needs and working within construction limitations, while achieving minimal material and energy use.

This being said, the higher density achieved by the mid-rise compared to the typical North American neighbourhood of single-family homes is great in terms of minimizing urban sprawl and dealing with deforestation in this type of ecosystem. Especially in light of last year’s fire season—which saw Chibougamau evacuated as forest fires approached the city—the need to be conscious of the fragility of this ecosystem seems more urgent than ever.

Marco Marini is an architect with Figurr who works extensively on projects located in Quebec’s north. 

CLIENT L’OBNL des Pavillons du 49 | ARCHITECT TEAM Suresh Perera, Julie Charbonneau | STRUCTURAL Nordic Structures | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL UNIGEC | CONTRACTOR & MODULAR FABRICATION Chantiers Chibougamau | AREA 2,275 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | COMPLETION January 2024

 
As appeared in the April 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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Over the past decade, engineered mass timber has evolved from a new and innovative choice of structural material to becoming almost mainstream. Canadian architects have played a major role in the material’s acceptance in the North American building industry, with British Columbia architects at the vanguard of harnessing Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) around 10 years ago. 

As the three in-construction projects featured on the following pages demonstrate, Canadian mass timber expertise continues to advance—and in Michael Green’s case, it is garnering international projects. Moreover, architects including MTA with Acton Ostry are looking beyond the material’s vaunted renewability and carbon-sink aspects to make their mass-timber buildings even more environmentally sound. And lastly, architects like Intelligent City are integrating and overhauling the very process of designing and building with mass timber. 

The material choice still requires something of a helping hand in terms of subsidies and investment. Though few architects speak freely about it, choosing an engineered wood structure is usually a more expensive way to build—at least for the moment. But that could change quickly as the immense carbon costs of construction become reflected in pricing and in regulations. And as more innovative and impressive projects near completion and prove their mettle, Canadian architects will continue to show that they remain at the forefront of mass timber innovation.

Limberlost Place

An innovative structural system and pre-fabricated envelope set new standards for mass timber public buildings.

LOCATION George Brown College, Toronto, Ontario

ARCHITECTS Moriyama Teshima Architects + Acton Ostry Architects

Even while still under construction, Limberlost Place is hauling in acclaim. Part of George Brown College’s waterfront campus in Toronto, the building has pulled in over a dozen awards, including the RAIC’s 2023 Research & Innovation in Architecture Award, and a Canadian Architect Award of Excellence. Expect more accolades upon its projected completion in January of 2025. 

At 10 storeys high, Limberlost Place is one of the world’s tallest mass-timber institutional buildings. Buildings of this typology must meet onerous construction codes and design considerations; this one will serve 3,400 students and staff. Teaching and gathering spaces occupy the full structure, including a tall-wood research institute, childcare centre, classrooms, and areas for lounging and study. MTA’s Vancouver-based joint-venture partner, Acton Ostry Architects, has already established a benchmark in designing the 18-storey Brock Commons Tower at the University of British Columbia, at the time the tallest mass-timber project in the world. 

Like Brock Commons, Limberlost Place is a hybrid structure of CLT, concrete, and steel. But where Brock Commons’ CLT was mostly hidden under drywall, roughly 50 per cent of Limberlost’s is exposed to view, including its nine-metre-span beams and every column in the building. Its 10-storey height clocks in four storeys above the conventional pre-CLT code, “so we had to be meticulous about every element,” says MTA principal Phil Silverstein, who is the construction administration lead on the project. 

While many North American mass-timber structures are still sourced from overseas suppliers, Limberlost has taken a made-in-Canada approach. Its prefabricated envelope system arrived in two-storey panels assembled in Windsor, Ontario, and delivered just-in-time to eliminate on-site storage needs. The prefab wall panels have been manufactured up to 11.7 metres high and are quickly assembled on site and supported by jack posts.  The CLT for Limberlost Place—manufactured largely from fast-growing black spruce—comes from Quebec-based Nordic Structures. 

As we walked through Limberlost mid-construction, we could already sense the dramatical verticality of its interior, dominated by a three-storey-high glazed foyer connected to smaller common spaces—“breathing rooms,” as design partner Carol Phillips calls them—on the second and third levels. The open volume of the foyer is anchored by a 16-metre-high glulam column, the heaviest member of the entire project, weighing in at 22,000 pounds. “Timber doesn’t like to transfer loads very well,” notes Silverstein. “Timber likes to work vertically.” 

In horizontal terms, a major innovation is the ultra-generous 9.2-metre span of the teaching spaces. It’s essentially a “beamless” construction system: its main structural member is a timber-concrete slab band, composed mostly of CLT, topped by a layer of reinforced concrete. “It’s an extremely shallow system,” notes Phillips, allowing for greater floor-to-ceiling heights as well as column-free spaces ideal for large-group instruction. 

The building has environmental attributes well beyond its use of mass timber. Solar chimneys on the east and west façades will draw air up and through the building from operable windows, to harness the stack effect and establish a natural convection system for temperature regulation. The building informally meets Passive House standards and meets the energy targets for LEED Platinum status, according to the architects, although they will apply for LEED Gold. 

The most salient value of the project is that it will provide a paradigm for many more sustainable mass-timber public buildings in the future. “This isn’t a one-off,” says Silverstein. “It’s a starting point.”

Flora

Canadian mass timber expertise is being tapped for this project in Europe.

LOCATION Nanterre, France

ARCHITECTS MGA | Michael Green Architecture + CALQ Agence d’Architecture

The first thing you notice about Flora is the sensuality of its form. Even in mid-construction, its rounded corners, jogged massing, and prow-like base distinguish it from the other rectilinear buildings around it. Its principal designer, Michael Green, avers that the building’s voluptuous shape is entirely logic-based, following the irregularities of the site and the material economy of avoiding 90-degree corners that often end up as wasteful underused space. 

Flora is a nine-storey mixed-use complex, with offices and retail slated for the lower floors, and a mix of market and non-market housing above. Here in Nanterre, a fast-growing suburb of Paris, Green has teamed up with local architecture firm CALQ Agence d’Architecture to bring his knowledge, design, and powers of persuasion to France. CALQ’s website states that the firm’s main reason for using mass timber is to combat “le réchauffement climatique.” Green concurs. And Woodeum, the Paris-based real-estate developer and the project’s client, promotes itself as a specialist in low-carbon wood architecture—making Canada’s best-known mass-timber advocate a natural choice for a partnership. 

This summer, as Green surveyed the busy construction site in person for the first time, he noted some of the distinctions between building in France versus in his homeland. For instance, the interior of Flora is enlivened by a spiral staircase—a charming, fun, and space-saving element. In Canada, the building codes disallow spiral staircases, because they are allegedly dangerous—although, as with so much in life, risk calibration is partly a subjective matter.

Although the French remain détendu about risks that furrow the brows of Canadian code-writers, they are rigorous about certain other requirements that enhance sustainability and quality of life, notes Green. Their national building code includes the stipulation for cross-ventilation, for instance, while our national building code has nothing of the sort for residential construction.

In Green’s most recent TED Talk, he unpacked his bid for the next big transition in mass-timber engineering and design: a system based on biomimicry. He foresees a future of plant-based materials whose lignified tissues and cellulose are reinforced in a way that will allow the architecture to carry loads in the same way as tree branches, with an aesthetically pleasing curvilinearity that would have an inherent structural logic. And instead of the standard spruce-fir-pine now used for most Canadian mass timber, the choice of plant will be based on what’s local and ecologically appropriate. “It might be bamboo in one region, and then grass, or salal, or hemp in another,” he says. His concept “is going to be a big thing. It’s not happening yet, but it will in ten, twenty years,” he avows. “As humans, we’re very resistant to the idea of starting over. But we need to rethink all aspects of the built environment.”

Back to the here and now: French authorities, like their North American counterparts, are still nervous about transitioning the entire structural framework of buildings to mass timber. That’s not the way Green would have it. The ground floor of Flora is concrete, and so it’s essentially a hybrid structure.  All over the world, including here in Canada, notes Green, “concrete use is driven largely by code. So, you have different trades, you have two different structural materials, you have finger-pointing.” It’s not the cheapest or the most efficient way of building, but it will change, he expects, or at least hopes. “We’re still stuck in a version of the old system. It’s time to move on.”

Intelligent City

An integrated system of design and manufacturing is the project.

LOCATION Delta, British Columbia

In some ways, the Intelligent City factory in Delta, B.C., seems like some sort of sci-fi film set. A giant robot lumbers around in a caged space, looking oddly like a Meccano dinosaur. And yet this metallic creature may well be the future master builder of the region. Controlled by a petite woman holding what looks like a PlayStation remote-control device, the robot is building mass timber components for the firm’s first real-world project. 

“We saw that the delivery of infill urban housing—multi-housing in particular—was difficult to develop,” says Cindy Wilson, the company’s co-founder with architect Oliver Lang. “Every time you have a new person come to a team, they have their own way of thinking how things should be done. So how could we curate a system that is more integrated and could be repeated at scale?” 

By unifying and distilling the messy process of construction into software-controlled prefabrication, the firm essentially smooths over the schism between design and manufacturing, and streamlines the custom design work that is usually dedicated to discrete buildings. Since the Intelligent City team has more control of the overall process, they can also ensure more price stability. This was evidenced in one of their current projects. “During Covid, the price of construction almost doubled,” notes Wilson. “But importantly, about 60% to 80% of a building’s superstructure is our components, so those prices remained stable. We’ve also developed an ecosystem of a supply chain.”  

As previously reported in Canadian Architect, Intelligent City—the sister firm of Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture (LWPAC)—opened its manufacturing facility in Delta, B.C., two years ago. Now the factory is thrumming as its staff and ultra-high-tech software produce the largely pre-assembled components for the “product proof,” a kind of miniature sample building that staff work on to determine where and how the components will later be assembled on-site. 

The firm’s first “real-world” building will be the Vancouver Native Housing Society’s Khupkhahpay’ay Building, a nine-storey housing project to be built in East Vancouver by GBL Architects and Ventura Construction Corporation. Intelligent City is producing the building’s Passive-House façade system. 

The two-year period from factory inception to the launch of actual construction reflects the typical process of testing, commissioning and certification of the building systems and the robotics, but this first real-world project will smooth the way for more projects, built faster, says Wilson. To create a system that would not only be repeatable and scalable but also customizable, the Intelligent City team has streamlined the entire process of building, from preliminary design to construction, so that design and manufacturing are integrated from the start. The fruits of this work are most impressive at the end stages: remote-controlled with proprietary software, the factory’s giant robot lifts, positions, and custom-cuts oversized panels of mass-timber walls, floors, and ceilings. The cuts are unique to each product and can vary in size and shape, allowing electrical channels and ventilation ducts to be embedded in the components before they even leave the factory. Crucially, the customization is instantly and economically adjusted for each component and each project by altering the instructions to the robot. 

The result is a convergence of two processes—architecture and construction—that are normally sequential, separate, and rarely align as well as we’d like them to. There is usually no downtime from delays in material delivery or labour shortages. Once on-site, the components will be assembled much more rapidly than in conventional on-site construction, with much of the electrical and ventilation elements already embedded in the structural framework.

Wilson and Lang believe that Intelligent City’s approach will have an impact not only on the take-up of climate-friendly mass timber, but also in addressing the housing affordability crisis. “The more control we have over the building, the more we can control costs,” says Wilson. “This is where we can really make a difference in affordable housing. It’s not just time, materials, or labour. It’s how we can roll out the creation of housing at scale, in a systematic, predictable way.”

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PROJECT Park by Sidewalk Citizen, Central Memorial Park, Calgary, Alberta

DESIGNER Studio North

PHOTOS Hayden Pattullo

At the edge of Central Memorial Park, just south of downtown Calgary, an unassuming one-storey pavilion opens into a slice of paradise. A lemon bush reaches skyward to meet a cascade of wooden ribs, pyramiding up to two large skylights. Surrounding trees cast their shadows on the translucent walls, creating a dance of leaf silhouettes framed by tall, pointed arch window frames. Glass garage doors open to the park beyond, bringing verdant views and a flood of daylight into the room, the main dining space for Park by Sidewalk Citizen.

The park is Calgary’s oldest, founded in 1911, and Victorian-era glass-and-iron conservatories were an inspiration. “How else can you do something like that? There’s a nice feeling in here,” says Matthew Kennedy, co-founder of Studio North and the project’s lead designer. The designers also uncovered historic images of garden rooms—semi-enclosed, trellis-lined spaces for picnicking—that ringed the park 100 years ago. “That was a strong reference for the structure and aesthetic,” explains Damon Hayes Couture, Creative Director at Studio North. In the entryway of the pavilion, X-shaped motifs CNC-cut into plywood walls are patterned after the ornate window screens of Alberta’s first public library, a neoclassical building located at the heart of Central Memorial Park. 

Park by Sidewalk Citizen results from a can-do approach by client, designer, and the City of Calgary. Several operators had cycled through the park’s existing 30-seat restaurant, which sits adjacent to the new pavilion. Attracting Sidewalk Citizen—a local bakery and restaurant with a civic-minded reputation—was seen as a win for bringing a friendly, culture-minded presence to a tough part of the city. 

To make the restaurant viable, a renovation and larger space were needed that would deliver a wow factor on a tight budget. Studio North’s design-build approach was perfectly suited for the task. “We’re able to be really nimble, and to carry through a vision from start to finish, especially when it’s something this unique,” says Studio North co-founder Mark Erickson. “With the prefabrication and digital fabrication aspects, it leads to more design involvement in construction,” adds Hayes Couture. “It’s much harder to separate those two disciplines.” 

The integrated roof and wall structure in the dining room is made from 160 sheets of plywood, which were CNC-cut in Matthew Kennedy’s garage over 150 hours. Because of the size constraints of the plywood panels and CNC cutting bed, the lattice is composed of multiple layers of plywood, staggered to avoid intersecting seams and structural weak points. The nail-less structure was slotted together on-site, using 137 linear metres of dowel connections. 

Polycarbonate was chosen for the outer walls as an impact-resistant material that would let light in, and transform the restaurant into a glowing box at night. 

The City facilitated the project by permitting it as an enclosed patio space, which could be dismantled without affecting the existing restaurant or the heritage park. The total cost of the construction, including renovations to the existing restaurant, was just $550,000. “We pushed the budget really hard on this,” says Kennedy.

Extending the use of the space into all four seasons, a central fireplace and HRV system provide heating in the winter. Passive solar gain into the space also contributes to keeping it cozy. In the warmest days of summer, the skylights and garage door open up to encourage breezes.

While the solarium operates day-to-day as a restaurant, its stunning design makes it a natural as an event space. In its first years of operation, Sidewalk Citizen has hosted salon dinners and over a dozen weddings, with the solarium morphing from ceremony space, to dining room, to dance floor.

Thoughtful design flourishes pepper the space. A mirror rings the lower edge of the east wall, adding to a sense of spaciousness. A single clear-glass, operating window at the southwest corner offers a leafy view. 

And there’s a personal touch in the dining room’s subtropical plant collection: the fig tree at the room’s west end was grown from a cutting of a specimen in designer Damon Hayes Couture’s own solarium. Hayes Couture’s house addition was an early design by Studio North, from a decade ago, and following the construction he joined the Studio North team. Hayes Couture currently has a few more seedlings taking root, so the offspring of his tree—along with the ever-evolving creativity and design talents of the group—are sure to grace Studio North’s future work.

CLIENT Sidewalk Citizen | DESIGN TEAM Design—Matthew Kennedy, Damon Hayes Couture; Parametric Design—Nicolas Hamel; General Contracting—Matthew Kennedy; Fabrication and Assembly—Dan Vanderhoorst; Site Carpentry—Ryan Peters, Matthew Peters, Jeremy Adams | INTERIORS Field Kit | STRUCTURAL RJC | MECHANICAL Remedy | AREA 116 m2 | CONSTRUCTION BUDGET $550 K | COMPLETION October 2019

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In 2020, I led a studio at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design that asked: How can we halve the carbon emissions of buildings over the next decade? Our collective research focused on strategies for benchmarking and reducing embodied carbon, using a series of real-life Toronto multi-unit residential buildings as case studies.

Towards Lower-Carbon Materials

The Ha/f Research Studio has since worked to build on this initial research. Working with the City of Toronto’s Green Standards Team and Mantle Development with the support of The Atmospheric Fund (TAF), we are currently developing embodied carbon benchmarks for Part 3 buildings across Ontario. The ongoing study involves stakeholders representing the full spectrum of our industry and included nearly 50 voluntarily submitted project life cycle assessments (LCAs). This intake reveals that LCAs are being conducted across Ontario, and are being performed throughout the design and construction process. The number of respondents familiar with the tools suggests that the market can support this type of analysis.

As part of the study, the City’s team requested an assessment of two active, City-owned projects to understand their embodied carbon and find potential reductions, and to understand how future policies should align with design phases and existing planning submission milestones. Both projects—the Western North York Community Centre and the Toronto Paramedic Services Multifunctional Paramedic Station—are 2021 Canadian Architect Award recipients, and have had embodied carbon and operational performance as key drivers of their designs from the outset. Working directly with the City’s project managers and the architectural teams, Ha/f produced detailed LCAs and reduction recommendations that targeted material specification changes, given that each project is nearing design completion.

The Paramedic Services Multifunctional Paramedic Station’s LCA revealed six main sources of upfront emissions that could be improved upon, without requiring significant redesign or additional construction cost. Given their relative impact, the floor slab insulation, concrete mix, and floor sealant were obvious places to focus. Of note is the project’s CLT roof structure—the use of mass timber has served to reduce the project’s total embodied carbon, resulting in a value of 380 kgCO2e per m2—a figure on the low end of our benchmarking spectrum.

We circled back to the client and architect teams with the suggestions shown in Figure 2. Through straightforward material and specification swaps, the project could avoid upwards of 800 tonnes of CO2e—or roughly 44 years of Canadian per capita emissions. Following a brief review period, the architects responded that 5 of the 6 changes would be implemented, and that initial costing feedback stated the changes were cost negligible. Forty-four years’ worth of emissions avoided through a two-week study reveals, to me, just how simple the first steps towards the radical reductions required of us are, and that substantial reductions are immediately achievable through existing, readily available options.

Mass Timber and the Impact of Biogenic Carbon Sequestration

Building further on last year’s studio, I wanted to broaden Ha/f’s understanding of embodied carbon in contemporary construction through a focus on the “it” material for carbon reductions: mass timber. Given the surge in attention that mass timber has received, this year’s students took on case studies to better understand the promise—and limitations—of this family of materials. How does the embodied carbon footprint of mass timber buildings compare to the largely concrete structures of the previous year’s studio, which averaged 505 kgCO2e/m2? To expand this question across geographies, we assessed the structure, envelope and finishes of mass timber projects from Sweden, the UK, Ontario, Washington, and Oregon, engaging many of the world’s leading mass timber architects in the process.

Initially, the carbon advantages of mass timber were not as evident as expected. This year’s research study set averaged 443 kgCO2e/m2 for new construction, or roughly 90% of last year’s study set. A caveat for this comparison is that the mass timber projects from this year’s study are largely commercial uses, and as a result have far less internal walling, which serves to reduce their totals in comparison to last year’s multi-unit residential buildings. Ultimately, the embodied emissions associated with the extraction, manufacturing, erection, occupation, and ultimately disposal of either building stock are near equal.

However, if carbon storage via biogenic sequestration is taken into account, the net average drops dramatically to 192 kgCO2e/m2—roughly 40% of typical construction. There is currently a lot of debate about how best to account (or whether to account at all) for carbon storage in LCA reporting, due in large part to the complexities of forestry practices around the world, and the unknowns of a building’s ultimate service life. Our studio visited local operations to better understand the seedling-to-sawmill process. This experience prompted the students to investigate the sources of timber across the range of projects, an exercise that enabled a greater appreciation for the impacts of forestry at-large, and a keener sense of the challenges related to the lack of reliable data.

Overall, it became clear that responsibly sourced wood, when accounting for bio-sequestration, can be a low-carbon solution for structure, envelope, and interior finishes. Beyond wood, the re-emergence of less processed, organically based materials also offers promising carbon-storing options for structure, envelope, and finishes.

Envelopes: Embodied Carbon Meets Thermal Performance

Focusing on envelopes, this year’s case studies stood in stark contrast to the highly emissive, thermally low-performing, aluminium-based unitized glazing systems of the multi-residential buildings that we examined last year. The envelopes of this year’s study reveal substantial upfront and operational emission reductions achieved by (a) reducing window-to-wall ratios, and (b) incorporating mass timber into the façades themselves. These savings are further amplified by a whole-life carbon assessment, given the comparatively short lifespan of the unitized systems. Envelopes that achieve high R-values and also serve as carbon sinks offer our profession a promising direction of travel. 

Geography Matters with Mass Timber

In comparison to other materials, the provenance of mass timber has significant and disproportionate impacts on the resulting global warming potential (GWP). Where mass timber supply and manufacturing was regionally abundant, the footprint of the timber was roughly 10-15% less than in projects where the engineered material was sourced trans-continentally or internationally. Of the four Toronto mass timber projects, only one used wood sourced in the province
of Ontario, while all CLT and glulam elements were still imported from either European or western North American sources. 

Beyond the impact of continental transportation, the location of processing is a significant factor in how emissive one product is relative to another. As a result, industry-wide generic Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) can be significantly different to manufacturer-specific EPDs for the same product class. A close examination of EPDs early in a project’s development can help ensure the eventual sourcing of timber that is sustainable, low-impact, and importantly, available. In the case of the Catalyst Building, we had two LCAs to compare: one conducted by the Carbon Leadership Forum in 2019 and ours in 2022. The delta between generic data and that of the eventual supplier resulted in a 40% increase of the project’s total embodied carbon. Variations between manufacturer emissions relate in large part to the carbon intensity of the power grids that their facilities sit upon. A sawmill in Alberta emits roughly eight times that of one in Washington State; as a result, a tree cut in BC feeding into either mill would carry much higher embodied carbon if cut and dried in Alberta. Geography matters.

A Whole-Life Carbon Perspective

Finally, the benefits of mass timber are most significant if we are able to take a whole-life carbon perspective that accounts for upfront material emissions, reduced life-cycle operational emissions, and future disassembly and reuse of structural materials. Marrying the reductions afforded by mass timber’s biogenic storage capacity with high-performing, low-GWP façade systems can result in buildings with significantly reduced footprints upfront, as well as over the life of the project. Whether or not we build in mass timber, we need to take a whole-life carbon view to ensure decisions made to reduce operational emissions are not resulting in significant, unintended upfront emissions.

Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.  

—Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of IPCC working group 2, February 28, 2022.

The time is now. Our entire industry needs to adopt a whole-life approach to the buildings we design. We need to address the magnitude of emissions associated with our daily design and specification decisions. As evident in the examples above, a short investigation into a material class’s provenance could result in the avoidance of several lifetimes’ equivalent of emissions.

Canadian architects, engineers, and planners have a disproportionate responsibility when it comes to addressing climate change, and only by taking a whole life view will we be able to balance reductions in operational emissions with reductions in embodied carbon emissions.

We are here to support your practice, institution, or municipality to take this on. We look forward to discussing this research and its findings with you, at your request.

The Ha/f Research Studio was conducted at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.  It was led by Adjunct Professor Kelly Alvarez Doran, co-founder of Ha/f Climate Design, and Senior Director of Sustainability and Regenerative Design at MASS Design Group.

The project team included graduate students Saqib Mansoor, Bahia Marks, Robert Raynor, Shimin Huang, Jue Wang, Rashmi Sirkar, Ophelia Lau, Huda Alkhatib, Clara Ziada and Natalia Enriquez Goyes.

Project partners from the architectural community included White Arkitekter, Waugh Thistleton, Hawkins/Brown, Lever Architects, Michael Green Architects, Bucholz McEvoy Architects, ZAS, MJMA, Patkau Architects, BDP Quadrangle, and Moriyama & Teshima Architects.

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In 2013, architect Michael Green recorded a TED talk entitled “Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers.” To date, it’s been viewed more than 1.3 million times and translated into 31 languages.

“For many viewers, the idea of a massive building made of wood was a bizarre paradigm shift,” notes blog DesignMilk. “For Green, whose Michael Green Architecture works exclusively with timber buildings, it was another step on the long path towards building a lower-carbon future.”

In the decade since its founding in 2012, MGA | Michael Green Architecture has established itself as an internationally recognized leader in the tall wood movement, and as an expert in advanced wood construction. The firm has garnered four Governor General’s Medals for Architecture and two RAIC Awards for Innovation. Michael Green has spoken at the White House and at the Paris COP21 Climate Summit; Green and principal Natalie Telewiak have also delivered numerous presentations at wood and construction conferences and at universities. Michael Green has authored publications and guidelines to advance the wood construction industry, including the books The Case for Tall Wood Buildings and Tall Wood Buildings, now both in their second editions.

This research has been put into action in MGA’s built projects. When completed, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre (WIDC) in Prince George, B.C., was the tallest modern mass timber building in the world. The facility was conceived to showcase the potential for building mid-rise and high-rise structures using engineered mass timber products. With the exception of a mechanical penthouse, there is no concrete used in the building above the ground floor slab.

The Catalyst Building (completed with architect of record Katerra), constructed out of cross-laminated timber, is pursuing Zero Energy and Zero Carbon certifications, which would make it one of the largest buildings in North America to meet both standards. It’s the first office building in Washington State constructed out of cross-laminated timber (CLT), and a milestone in the advocacy for sustainable office buildings in the United States. Located near a railway and pedestrian bridge, the design demonstrates how a prefabricated mass timber construction approach can address site-specific conditions and limitations through deep integration between construction materials, construction techniques, operational practices and design.

MGA also designed the T3 office building in Minneapolis (with architect of record DLR Group)—the largest modern mass timber building in the United States at the time of its completion. To respond to its site, straddling the Historic Warehouse District and the urban core of downtown Minneapolis, the design marries traditional, industrial proportions with modern materials and detailing.

The firm has its sights set on yet greater heights. In partnership with Gensler, MGA collaborated with Google-affiliate Sidewalk Labs to develop a proof-of-concept for the world’s tallest mass timber building—a 35-storey structure on Toronto’s waterfront.

MGA is currently working on a 23,000-square-metre multi-activity centre in the mining town of Gallivare, Sweden (with architect of record Maf Arkitektkontor), a nine-storey mixed-use mass timber building in France (with architect of record Calq), two multi-residential developments in Victoria, B.C., and, in collaboration with Human Studio, a wood-framed affordable housing development in Prince Rupert, B.C.

MGA’s projects range in scope, size, context, and budget—but all demonstrate an ambition to create sustainable and meaningful spaces constructed of natural materials. In addition to its expertise with wood, MGA’s team has also gained experience in areas such as LEED, Passive House, and net-zero carbon construction.

Social and urban sustainability are also integral to their approach. The Dock Building, located on Jericho Beach in Vancouver, provides support spaces and workshops for a large marina of sailboats, on a very modest budget. The simple design demonstrates that all projects—from working industrial buildings to boutique museums—can and should be realized with grace and architectural dignity.

Ronald McDonald House of British Columbia (completed by MGA; project started at mcfarlane green biggar architecture + design) is a 73-unit residence for out-of-town families with children receiving medical treatment at BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The design ambition was to preserve the nurturing, closely bonded social connections found in the organization’s original 12-family Shaughnessy house. Built with a tilt-up CLT wood structure, the design integrates layered spaces to help families find both solace and community as they go through one of the most significant and challenging moments of life with their severely sick children.

MGA’s signature aesthetic results from reductive design and careful material choices. “We believe that to build for a more sustainable planet, we must use less and waste less,” they write. “That includes building less—and certainly only providing what is needed and nothing more.” They seek sustainable, local sources for their timber and other materials, create buildings that will remain useful and attractive beyond the typical design life, and emphasize passive design in their approach to building performance. 

The firm gives back to the professional community through educational initiatives in timber construction and sustainable practice. In 2014, Michael Green founded the Design Build Research Institute (DBR), an education and research non-profit. DBR provides design-build courses for students of all ages, along with free online education courses to help the public, industry professionals, public policy makers, code authorities, and the development industry understand how to build with mass timber. The firm has cultivated long-standing relationships with policymakers, allowing them to advocate effectively for changes that allow for the more widespread use of advanced timber construction beyond MGA’s own work.

“Rather than shying away from the unknown, we are passionate about pushing past the limits of what industry and the public think is possible for buildings,” writes MGA. “We are leading a revolution in wood that has our network throughout the Pacific Northwest region and across Canada deeply engaged and excited about the future.”

Jury Comments :: MGA | Michael Green Architecture deserves recognition as a leading architectural firm because of their ability to consistently deliver leading-edge timber buildings, carefully designed to a high degree of aesthetics and performance. This firm shows its passion for innovation and sustainability through its many finely crafted wood buildings—and displays its commitment to education through the design-build studio held every year to expose young architects to the design and construction of actual structures.

They have distinguished themselves for their ability to translate focused material research and technical pursuits into a notable and innovative body of work that embodies a deep commitment to sustainability.

MGA has become one of the world’s leading voices on the future of wood design through their advocacy, and in doing so, they carry the banner for Canadian architecture internationally. In this sense, the work of Michael Green Architecture acts as an ambassador for Canadian architecture.

The jurors for this award were Susan Ruptash (FRAIC), André Perrotte (FIRAC), Drew Adams (MRAIC), Marie-Odile Marceau (FIRAC), and Susan Fitzgerald (FRAIC). 

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ARCHITECTS Lemay / Atelier 21

PHOTOS Stéphane Groleau

Since its grand opening on January 16, 1971, the Grand Théâtre de Québec has been a prized cultural icon in Quebec City. The building is admired for its brutalist architecture, by Victor Prus, who designed it as a solid box made of prefabricated concrete panels, with a projecting roofline, sides subtly canted inwards, and transparent base. The architecture is entwined with an integrated artwork—a monumental concrete mural by sculptor Jordi Bonet that covers close to 60 percent of the interior, making it one of the largest sculptures of its kind in the world.

By the turn of the century, moisture had caused the concrete panels’ steel anchors to disintegrate, threatening both the exterior envelope as well as the interior mural, both of which are linked to the structure. The concrete anchors could not be simply removed and replaced. An innovative solution was urgently needed to protect the building’s heritage elements.

To halt the corrosion of the anchors, Lemay and Atelier 21 worked to create a transparent exterior envelope that would fully encapsulate the building—a North American first. The box adapts to the building’s unusual shape, adopting its structural logic and composition in order to quietly surround the original architecture.

Because of the heritage building’s fragility, designing and constructing the envelope was a complex endeavour. The project had to stay open throughout the process: construction noise could not interrupt shows or rehearsals, architectural and technical solutions could not hinder building access, and interior spaces were off-limits. Since the interior mural was connected to the exterior concrete panels, any operation had to have zero impact and vibration on the existing envelope. Coordination with several levels of decision-makers was essential. Weather conditions were also a major challenge: installation of the new envelope was only possible under specific climatic conditions, when it was sufficiently warm and without strong winds. Finally, because the new glass panels needed to be precisely attached to a steel armature, the steel could not be exposed to any significant temperature variation from the moment of its final assembly to the installation of the glass.

The construction systems were almost all custom designed. The delicate steel structure on which the glass rests is the result of intense and sustained teamwork among architects, engineers, construction specialists and manufacturers. The custom fabricated fasteners have a minimal visual impact, with only a small 200 mm x 200 mm aluminum square visible, maintaining the transparency of the new protective layer. The construction system also had to allow for maintenance, which is achieved with a suspended platform inserted in the two-metre void between the existing building and the new envelope.

The construction uses 900 ultra-clear laminated glass panels, each of which weighs a half tonne. They are supported by four fasteners at their corners, composed of two exterior plaques that cinch against the glass, and an intermediate stainless steel component that connects to the new steel structure and allows the panel’s alignment to be adjusted. Positional accuracy within two millimetres was achieved through techniques used for the first time in North America. For instance, two-tonne sand trays were suspended at the bottom of the structure to simulate the weight of the glass plates before they were affixed, allowing for workers to ensure the structure was precisely positioned before attaching the glass. Each time a panel was installed, ballast was removed to maintain the final position of the whole structure.

The secondary, tempered air layer created by the new envelope allows for a low-flow heat recovery system, increasing the building’s energy efficiency. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and energy simulations were undertaken to ensure that the air temperature within the construction void could be maintained at a minimum of five degrees Celsius. The structural elements required additional tests, including testing of the joints between the glass panels, which led to the development of a bespoke silicone joint base.

As we face more challenges related to the preservation of modern heritage, the refurbishment of the Grand Théâtre de Québec provides a set of technical solutions that may be applicable to other projects. Moreover, it models a transdisciplinary approach, in which architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, architectural historians, manufacturers, and other specialists work together to push boundaries and find cost-effective, low-impact tactics. The result is a simple, efficient solution that responds to the particular technical needs and aesthetic expression of Victor Prus and Jordi Bonet’s theatre. The building’s striking brutalist lines and artistic narrative are not only preserved, but are ultimately enhanced by this subtle, functional and environmentally advanced solution.

Jury Comments ::  The Grand Théâtre de Québec demonstrates a host of notable innovations in the spirit of honouring the original Victor Prus building and sensitively protecting the existing degrading structure and Jordi Bonet mural. The new glass casing is quiet and understated, with a technical rigour that speaks to what must have been remarkable teamwork between the architects, engineers, and manufacturers. It skillfully addresses the challenges faced by the concrete façades and unique interior sculptural murals by developing from the exterior a meticulous envelope system and creating an in-between controlled environment. The team’s choices throughout the process demonstrate how intelligent, quiet innovations can significantly extend the life of public buildings for the betterment of the community, climate and environment.

The jurors for this award were Pat Hanson (FRAIC), Michael Green (FRAIC) and Leila Farah.

CLIENT Grand Théâtre de Québec | ARCHITECT TEAM Lemay—Eric Pelletier, Gabriel Tessier, Sarah Perron Desrochers, Amélie Turgeon, Olivier Boilard. Atelier 21—Christian Bernard, Mathieu Turgeon, Antoine Carrier, Jacques Berrigan, André Dagenais, Élie D. Carrier, Marc Leblond. | STRUCTURAL/CIVIL WSP (Olivier Marquis) | GLASS/FIXTURE DESIGN ELEMA consultants (Félix Bédard) | MATERIALS SIMCO | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL WSP (Jean Gariépy) | CONTRACTOR Pomerleau (Sébastien Couillard) | STEEL STRUCTURE Métal-Presto (Claude Roseberry) | GLASS MANUFACTURER Viterie Laberge (Jean-François Berthiaume) | LIGHTING Lemay / Atelier 21 + Guy Simard architecte | LANDSCAPE Lemay / Atelier 21

The post RAIC Innovation in Architecture Award Winner: Grand Théâtre de Québec, Quebec City, Quebec appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Like many architects, we have begun to pay much closer attention to the embodied carbon associated with the materials we are specifying. All other things being equal, selecting a material with a lower global warming potential (GWP) is preferable. However, at this early stage, not many of us have a strong intuitive sense of how meaningful various GWP values might be. For instance, is 223 kgCO2e/m2 of insulation good or bad?

To present GWP values in a relatable way, we performed a study to compare the embodied carbon values for 11 commonly used types of insulation. The insulation products considered include two brands of standard XPS, two brands of next-generation XPS, polyiso, spray foam, EPS, stone wool, GPS, fibreglass batts, and blown cellulose.

Insulation is somewhat unique among building materials in that one of the primary reasons it is incorporated in buildings—to reduce energy flow through the building envelope—directly impacts the building’s operational emissions.

In our study, we contrive a familiar scenario: a homeowner with an uninsulated bearing masonry house wishes to add insulation to reduce their energy costs and increase comfort in the home. Specifically, they would like to increase the effective R-value of their home from its current performance of R4_IMP to a value more in line with the current building code, R24_IMP.

We calculate the embodied carbon associated with the amount of each type of insulation required to achieve that level of thermal resistance. We then calculate the quantity of emissions that is avoided each year the house is operated with the higher level of insulation (due to the reduction in heating energy needed to maintain the internal temperature of the house).

The conclusion of our study is a payback analysis that expresses the relationship between the emissions associated with the production of each insulation and the emissions avoided each year due to the presence of the insulation. Said another way, we identify how long it takes for the operational savings (reduced operational emissions) to exceed the investment (embodied carbon) in the insulation.

We assumed the house was heated with natural gas for our baseline scenario. We also contemplated an alternative scenario where the house was upgraded to a heat pump. The relative performance of each insulation does not change in the heat pump scenario. However, the operational emissions resulting from the heat pump are much lower than with gas heating. As such, the notional payback periods are significantly longer in the heat pump scenario (though the total carbon emissions in any period of time would be lower).

The findings of this analysis are illustrated in the three graphs above.  Several conclusions bear mentioning:

1
The operational emissions associated with natural gas heating are approximately 12 times greater than for electric heat pump heating. This translates into much shorter payback periods for the insulation materials considered.

2
XPS is an outlier in this selection of materials, with a GWP 15 to 20 times greater than the other materials. In the electric heat pump scenario, it is not reasonable to expect the operational carbon savings to ever outweigh the embodied carbon of the material itself.

3
One of the next-gen XPS products in our analysis has a much lower GWP than either brand of traditional XPS considered. However, it is still twice as high as the other non-XPS products considered in the study.

4
Blown cellulose insulation has the lowest GWP value of the group, as might be expected given the relatively low amount of processing involved in producing the material. That said, it needs to be contained in a wall cavity or similar container, and therefore might not be applicable in as many situations as the other board and batt products considered.

5
Polyiso, EPS, stone wool, and GPS are all board or semi-rigid batt products, and all have GWPs that are significantly lower than XPS. In situations where blown cellulose insulation is not a suitable choice, these products—stone wool and GPS in particular—offer considerable flexibility in terms of suitable installations, along with quite good embodied carbon values.

It is our hope that this analysis provides a somewhat more intuitive sense of scale for the embodied carbon quantities of these materials. The study also underscores the significant differences in operational emissions resulting from gas versus electric heat pump systems.

The Effect of Varying Levels of Insulation on Total Carbon

After examining the relationship between embodied carbon and operational carbon savings over time for a given quantity of insulation (R20_IMP), we thought it would be interesting to also look at the effect of varying levels of insulation.

In this second analysis, we work with the same 11 insulation materials we looked at in the first analysis. We set a 30-year service life for the materials, and we make a few assumptions about the building the insulation is being applied to. Specifically, the building is in Toronto, Ontario; its interior will be maintained at 20°C (giving 93 kKh per year); and it is being heated with natural gas (0.183 kgCO2e/kWh).

We then look at the two component aspects of total carbon: the operational value and the embodied value.

For this analysis, we define “operational carbon” as the amount of emissions produced by the heating plant to maintain the interior temperature of 20°C for 30 years, at each specified level of insulation.

We start the analysis at R1_IMP and look at each integer value up to R40_IMP. (Note that the type of insulation is irrelevant to this part of the analysis, as the heat flow through the hypothetical envelope is a function of the R-value, regardless of the insulation used to achieve the given level of resistance.)

Chart 3, above, shows the operational carbon values for R1_IMP to R40_IMP. From the shape of the curve, we see that adding insulation provides diminishing returns as the R-values increase. The carbon value drops by 50% from R1_IMP to R2_IMP, as doubling the resistance halves the heat flow through the assembly. By contrast, the energy savings (and carbon reduction) from R39_IMP to R40_IMP is only 2.5%.

The second piece of the puzzle is the embodied carbon value.  Chart 4, below, shows the 11 materials and the embodied carbon values for 1m² of each, for thicknesses delivering R1_IMP up to R40_IMP.

The relationship between thickness of insulation and R-value is linear—e.g. R20_IMP of EPS is 20 times thicker than R1_IMP of EPS—and the chart reflects this. The steepness of each line is a reflection of the GWP of each material, where a higher GWP gives a steeper line.

What we’re calling “total carbon” is simply the addition of these two charts. By adding the embodied values to the operational carbon values, we get Chart 5.

This produces an interesting effect—an optimization function. At lower levels of insulation, the operational savings of small amounts of additional insulation tend to drive the curve. As the levels of insulation get higher, the marginal savings accrued by each additional R-value diminish, but the embodied carbon value increases linearly. The result is that at some point for each material, the amount of embodied carbon being added outweighs the operational savings that results, producing an inflection point on the chart, where the curve flattens and begins to bend upwards. As the operational savings are consistent for all of the materials, the specific inflection point for each material is determined by that material’s GWP value. Higher GWP values result in inflection points at a lower R-values.

Observations:

1
The total value of emissions indicated on the y-axis is the truly important piece of information in this analysis. Choosing an insulation material that will result in the lowest total carbon output while meeting the requirements of the application is the appropriate objective.

2
The 30-year service life considered is an arbitrary value. If a shorter service life were considered, the total carbon values would be lower, and the inflection points would happen at lower R-values (as the total operational emissions considered would be lower, giving more weight to the embodied emissions). The converse is true for considerations of service life periods longer than 30 years.

3
Three of the four XPS materials considered produce inflection points (or total carbon minimums) at insulation levels below current OBC (SB-12) code requirements for walls above grade in new home construction. It would be desirable to select a material with a lower total carbon value at the code-required level of insulation.

4
All of the non-XPS materials show values for total carbon that are still declining at R40_IMP levels of insulation. These materials do have inflection points; however, they occur at higher R-values that are not typical in construction. (For instance, the inflection point for polyiso is ~R65_IMP. The inflection point for blown cellulose would be closer to ~R160_IMP.)

5
This analysis considered natural gas as the fuel source for heating. If we consider an electric heat pump connected to the Ontario grid as the fuel source (see Chart 6) the effect of operational carbon on the shape of the graph reduces dramatically, and the curves more closely resemble those describing the embodied carbon values for each material (i.e. Chart 4.) At KPMB LAB, we strongly endorse the electrification of buildings as a critical strategy for mitigating climate change. The heat pump heating scenario is the desired condition for all buildings and should inform material selection. In all heating system scenarios, our analysis emphasizes the importance of selecting the material with the lowest GWP that meets the requirements of the specific application.

Geoffrey Turnbull, Jonathan Graham, David Constable and Sahana Dharmaraj are part of KPMB LAB, a research group within Toronto-based architecture firm KPMB. For source material related to this research, visit KPMB.com/lab.

Contributors:
Geoffrey Turnbull
OAA, LEED AP, CPHD
DIRECTOR OF INNOVATION

Jonathan Graham
SUSTAINABILITY ANALYST

David Constable
OAA, LEED AP, CPHD
PRINCIPAL

Sahana Dharmaraj
LEED Green Associate
INTERN ARCHITECT

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It has been nearly a year since most people have gone into the office. Boxing Day deals were not the same without the crowds, and meeting at the coffee shop is out. For those craving face-to-face interactions, the return to a more normal world appears to be on the horizon. But in the post-pandemic era, there will be adjustments on how comfortable humans feel in larger gatherings. While there is a desire to return to the way it was, the pandemic will permanently impact our behaviour.

Over the past year, people have adjusted to plexiglass barriers and taped-up floors directing physical distancing Businesses, performers, and retailers have found innovative ways to reach their respective audiences in a memorable way. From innovative technologies allowing a shopper to try on clothing at home via computer, to immersive musical experiences providing the audience with a theatre-like feel, businesses and artists found creative ways to connect and stay relevant.

As companies grapple with a safe return to the office, and theatres ready for a return to live performances, there are many opportunities to continue to find creative solutions while helping people feel comfortable.

But some obvious solutions for physical distancing can have a significant impact on acoustics. The following are some key acoustics considerations when redesigning spaces to accommodate safety guidelines:

Offices: Spreading Out Has Its Challenges

The pandemic will change office space for the better. Many are predicting either the death of the office, or a return to more traditional closed private offices. It is more likely that a hybrid work model will emerge, where employees will have the ability to work from home but can return to the office when they crave social interaction or need to collaborate. Some offices are moving towards an extensive use of collaboration spaces, and creating unique neighborhoods and experiences for employees. Enclosed spaces are being planned to be larger in order to offer more space and flexibility.

• Large open spaces with mainly collaboration spaces

Open space can pose acoustical challenges due to noise transfer. Sound isolation will be required to ensure the privacy of meeting rooms and collaboration spaces, even with video conferencing. Collaboration areas need to be designed with a different lens. They might consist of a long table so people can spread out, or an open space with separate informal meeting areas on the side with plush chairs and coffee tables. Acoustical absorption and separation can be introduced through traditional surface treatments and furniture selection, use of living walls, and other elements, such as open tall bookshelves to create separation and change the texture. This should help preserve the environment and control the acoustics in open space, while minimizing the impact on the privacy of the meeting rooms.

• Hybrid

Hybrid spaces accommodate fewer people at one time, as employees rotate between home and office, or some opt to permanently work from home while others opt to be in the office. In this model, the pressure will be on the room acoustic design and ensuring there is adequate acoustic absorption to minimize the build-up of sound as collaboration happens in person and virtually. Virtual collaboration may not always occur over headsets, so it may require focus on both acoustical absorption and privacy.

Retail: Distance Customers in a Distinct Way

Before the pandemic, some retail brands like the Samsung Store and Canada Goose started to be more focused on customer experience. This translated into larger open spaces with less display and inventory. From a post-pandemic design perspective, shoppers will be more spaced apart and retailers will need to control the number of people in the store. Borrowing from museum exhibition space design, experiential stores provide an opportunity to learn about the merchandise. There are many opportunities to innovate in this space. Acoustically, these types of experiences can be challenging to deliver, with different zones within an open space. This requires attention to the acoustical design within the architecture, and may also rely on audio-video design to aid in crafting a soundscape.

Performing Arts Centres

• Don’t Remove Seats

Theatre audience seating is designed to provide nine to ten square feet per patron—with much less than six feet of distance between them. Removing seats may seem obvious, but seats play a major role in the acoustical design. People in seats absorb sound and, in a theatre, plush seating can absorb sound at similar levels to people in hard seating. Leave the seating in place, but block off sections to seat people further apart to avoid damaging the acoustics.

During Super Bowl 2021, the crowd size was deceiving. Among the vaccinated healthcare workers in attendance were more than 30,000 fan cut-outs to create the illusion of a packed stadium. This is one example of a creative alternative to removing seats, maintaining social distance and preserving the softness for acoustics.

It may be tempting to change plush seating to a more easily sanitized surface. But plush materials absorb sound. If a facility opts to use non-porous materials, the design will need to incorporate other creative solutions to bring back some acoustic absorption to the space.

• Make Broadcasts an Immersive Experience

Performing arts centres and theatres thrive on gathering, but pivoted to the next best available format. Even when the audience returns, there is still an opportunity to find creative ways to emulate the concert experience. By streaming binaural sound, the listener experiences a 3D stereo sensation. Viewers could purchase seats but experience the show remotely. Pre-designed binaural microphones at each seat level and streamed to the patron’s headphones would allow them to experience sound as if they were sitting in particular seats. Adding visual element options for a virtual reality (VR) experience would further enhance the experience.

All Venues

• Consider the Air Flow and Exchange

Increasing the amount of fresh air coming into a building is one way to help prevent the indoor spread of the virus. But in many office buildings, shopping malls or theatres, opening a window is not possible. And open windows create external noise sources which can distract and impede communication. Consider the air flow and exchange within the facility. However, realize that this can pose noise issues as HVAC systems will need to allow for much higher ventilation rates and could lead to noisier air flow. To mitigate this, there must be slower air movement which is quieter and provides good return for energy management and patron comfort.

• Incorporate Soundscaping

Soundscaping involves intentionally crafting the acoustic environment to enhance an experience. To create different areas within an open office area, soundscape design could be used to reinforce each area. A wellness area could have a soundscape that involves calming sounds such as running water, or birds. In retail, it can be used to create or simulate different experiences. In performing arts, it can be used to create immersive environments. This emerging area will be key to creating unique acoustic experiences within retail or any experiential area. Soundscape design will ultimately rely on strong integration of architectural, A/V and acoustical designs of a space.

• Weigh the Pros and Cons of Plexiglass Barriers

In a retail environment, while plexiglass barriers are used to protect the employees and customers, they can impede speech intelligibility and often require everyone to talk louder, creating a louder overall environment.

In an office, plexiglass barriers are an advantage for privacy by creating greater separation. However, combined with a speakerphone or open microphone, these barriers may have some negative impact due to the hard reflecting surface that could reduce speech intelligibility.

For a performing arts centre, using a plexiglass divider between musicians could have a significant effect on being able to hear each other and playing in ensemble. It could make things even louder for the wind players, with the trapped sound built-up in their area.

At some point, COVID-19 will be behind us, but behaviour will be changed forever. Two things we learned during the pandemic is how quickly things can change and how, when faced with challenges, we can innovate and do new things. There is an opportunity now to think big and bold, and not be held back by old habits. This is a time to innovate and design not only for our current needs, but with an eye on the future and a willingness to adapt and change. It means if there is a similar situation, facilities are not only designed to help reduce the spread, but can still create memorable experiences for patrons.

Steve Titus is President & CEO of Aercoustics Engineering.

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Any infection control strategy can be compared to Swiss cheese. A single strategy is like a single barrier, full of holes. A number of slices of defences adds up towards a near blockage of transmission – they all need to be taken together. We will focus here on updating the language based on newer and more accurate science, and on adding Measurement, Ventilation and Filtration to the solutions that architects and engineers can play a role in implementing.

We have gone through a year of life with Covid-19, yet the pandemic appears to be only worsening. Worldwide deaths have exceeded two million, and few countries seem to have it under control. New variants are proving more transmissible, and are spreading faster than vaccination campaigns. Part of the reason for Ontario’s prolonged agony and tragedy is that we continue to treat Covid—now known to be an airborne pathogen—with the lesser precautions appropriate to droplet transmission.

At the most reductive level, architects design “volumes of air” that we live and work in. The purpose of this article is to appeal to Canadian architects and engineers to consider how architectural and engineering interventions can reduce the transmission of Covid, most notably through improved ventilation, filtration and airflow design. In effect, interventions like ventilation and filtration are the equivalent of providing PPE for physical spaces—and are especially important for places like classrooms and long term care facilities, where consistent physical distancing and mask-wearing are not always possible.

Thousands of experts in epidemiology, medicine, aerobiology, engineering and infection control have been urging Governments and the WHO to update their guidance and leadership (WHO has recently updated their guidance for LTC spaces here). As per a recent open letter from the Ontario Nurses’ Association:

…the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) recognized on November 4, 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by fine aerosols, as well as larger respiratory droplets. PHAC’s position was updated to be consistent with an earlier change made by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on October 5, 2020, which recognized that COVID-19 can be spread by airborne transmission, through exposure to virus in small droplets and particles that can linger in the air for minutes to hours. As well, the World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its guidance to include transmission via aerosols.

Public Health Ontario (PHO) and other provincial governments need to reconsider their stance on airborne transmission. A number of recent studies, including this review article from the Journal of Hospital Infection, unpack the issue and provide clear guidance as we move into a second year of lockdowns and restrictions on social activities.

Part of the conclusion of the Journal of Hospital Infection’s article states:

What does [treating SarsCov2 as airborne] mean for infection control practitioners in healthcare, as well as the general population? Aside from the obvious benefits of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the existing evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant engineering controls targeting airborne transmission as part of an overall strategy to limit the infection risk indoors. These would include sufficient and effective ventilation, possibly enhanced by particle filtration and air disinfection; and the avoidance of systems that recirculate or mix air. Opening windows, subject to thermal comfort and security, provides more than a gesture towards reducing the risk of infection from lingering viral particles. Measures to control overcrowding in both healthcare and confined indoor environments in the community, including public transport, are also relevant. There exist a range of cost-effective measures aimed at diluting infectious airborne particles in homes and hospitals that are easily implemented, without major renovation or expenditure. These will serve to protect all of us as we seek the evidence required to further reduce the risk from Covid-19 over the coming months and years. It is time to discard the myths and rewrite the science of viral transmission.

Architects and engineers can and should take a leading role, since our self-regulating professions are committed to serving the public interest. When we are made aware of how the spaces we design can influence the transmission of SarsCov2, we are obliged to act on that information by providing both leadership and solutions.

Architects and allied professionals can readily obtain the tools needed to assess and mitigate transmission of Covid through Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) measuring, ventilation, filtration and controls. We can—and have—taken a leading role in advising our Provincial government on how the transmission of Covid must be addressed in the design and retrofit of long-term care and healthcare environments. We must also do the same concerning schools, MURBs and other residences. The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers has taken just this kind of leadership with their recent public statement.

It reads, in part:

OSPE believes that airborne transmission is one of the main reasons why we are seeing so many outbreaks in schools and long-term care facilities across the province. With outdoor temperatures dropping, many of these buildings have shut themselves off from fresh air that would have helped get rid of these COVID aerosol particles. Instead, many of these buildings have closed HVAC systems that recirculate the same, potentially infected, air.

While we could get right into the weeds with science and guidance, I would first point the reader to (1) four (2) critically (3) important (4) resources that support the argument that we need to declare SarsCov2 as an airborne pathogen, which can be reviewed in full when time permits.

It should be noted that none of these recommendations negate or supercede any other public health directives or measures, but rather enhance these with ventilation considerations. SarsCov2 transmission risks can be mapped on a matrix of measures, with increasing/decreasing risk according to the measures taken. Ventilation is one of these considerations. This is most easily described by the British Medical Journal’s image below [adapted with icons from The Noun Project]:

As lawyer Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston notes:

[The historical] discussion of “close contact” primarily driving infection led to the six feet that we have seen today called a “safe distance.” It was indirectly supported by a few early studies where people tried to colonize bacteria from sneezes, but could not do so outside this “close contact” distance, although studies concluding the contrary seemed to be ignored.

Overall, despite the strong evidence to the contrary, the myth that respiratory illnesses are transmitted by respiratory droplets which are ejected from sick people and land on recipients has persisted, despite not being conclusively proven by any study.

That said, most transmission of course does occur within closer quarters, as [Charles V.] Chapin correctly identified in his 1910 book—but this is explained by higher concentrations of aerosols at those distances, and does not limit the transmission to droplets.

As the Journal of Hospital Infection article summarizes:

There is little, if any, direct evidence for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 via any specific pathway. This statement applies to fomites and direct contact just as much as for large droplets and smaller airborne particles. It is notable that transmission through large droplets has never been directly demonstrated for any respiratory virus infection.

Moreover, in seeking to limit the transmission of Covid and future viruses, the precautionary principle dictates that we should consider coronaviruses as airborne unless proven otherwise. For architects and engineers, air quality is within our bailiwick, and we need to pay attention to airflow, volumes, airtightness, ventilation and filtration for a whole host of reasons—including, urgently, the current pandemic emergency.

Thermal Energy Design and Air Quality in Buildings

Since the 1970s, demands for energy efficiency—and now, net-zero and zero-carbon emission design—have sought to control heat loss through a range of envelope and ventilation strategies. The first approach consisted of making airtight buildings, which limited heat loss, but then led to a buildup of CO2, indoor air pollutants and humidity, also known as Sick Building Syndrome (SBS).

The second step, in the 1980s was to introduce controlled ventilation systems, often with heat recovery (HRV/ERV). In larger buildings Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems (DOAS) usually included heat recovery cores and filters. This resulted in indoor air being purged of CO2, achieving a balanced humidity (30-50% RH) and having reduced levels of pollens and other pollutants. MERV and HEPA filters further reduced pollutants, including mould and viruses.

While HRVs are now mandatory in new construction, most homes predating 2017 (including my own) do not have these systems. Incidentally, the onset of SBS begins at 800ppm of CO2 as measured in indoor spaces. Health Canada has suggested an upper limit of 1,000ppm, however the best practice is to aim for the closest approximation of outdoor air concentrations (~450ppm) with integral heat-recovery to limit energy waste.

The problem of Legacy Buildings 

New buildings are easy—we can design a ventilation strategy with filtration and heat recovery, and we can measure its performance through real-time CO2 levels and other indicators. But with existing building stock, we may not even have a ventilation system in place. Since we have inherited a wide range of buildings from every era of design and engineering, we must also have a strategy for determining and then addressing air quality issues in our legacy buildings—whether they be homes, schools, offices or healthcare spaces. We propose the framework of Measure, Ventilate and Filter, in that order.

Here is one example: As I write this, my own office measures 1445ppm of CO2. That corresponds to a re-breathed fraction of air of roughly 2.7%. I can see that the outdoor air’s CO2 levels are currently at 501ppm. My goal should be to get my office air as close as possible to the outdoor levels, but I would be happy with around 700ppm of CO2. Whoever built this place did not even put a ventilation fan in the bathroom, or the kitchen! So I open a window, and within 10 minutes, the monitor on my desk drops down to 1053ppm – better. If the CO2 does not lower, this could be due to airflow. For example, if air from a higher occupancy area in the house is now equalizing through the room I am in, I may be inadvertently exposing myself—now sitting in the pathway of this exciting airflow—to a higher level of risk. Smoke pencils and other tools can highlight airflow in these cases, which is why it is important to work with professionals whenever possible—and especially when the concern is a space for a group, care home, healthcare or other public occupancy.

But now it is getting cold in my office—should I crank my thermostat to bring it up to a comfortable level? I could, but I am only occupying one room in my house, so I can close my door, put on a sweater and toque, and switch on the radiant ceramic heater beside my workstation. As my Aranet4 CO2 monitor updates itself every  five minutes, I can adjust the window from wide open to about 1/2″—which over time it seems is enough to keep this one room of the house under 1,000 ppm of CO2—not the best, but pretty decent for this older house.

Fresh air, check. Thermal comfort, check. Now, while I am isolated at home and at zero risk of receiving Covid-19 from any office colleagues, it would be foolish to leave my window wide open for disease prevention. But I think sharper and design faster when my mind is as clear as the air that I breathe, so simply put, I prefer it this way. (Numerous studies indicate cognitive impairment correlated to rising CO2.)

Optimal CO2 Levels

• 420ppm – Fresh outdoor air
• 420-800ppm – optimal air quality indoors
• 1000ppm – brain cognitive function decreases by 15%
• 1400ppm – brain cognitive function decreases by 50%

The next step would be to improve my whole building-level filtration by checking to see that my furnace filter has a new minimum-level MERV or HEPA filter installed. Ideally, if I shared my office with anyone else, I would also be masking, distancing and filtering local air with a portable unit, such as the JASPR HEPA device I have been testing.

At home, my localized HEPA filter has its own PM2.5 monitor, which in the image above just spiked because we were cooking. When this happens, the ECM motor will quickly ramp up to top speed to clear the air of these particulates within about 10 minutes.

But what if I am in a shared office? How can I work safely with others in the same room? What about higher-risk, longer-duration indoor activities, such as lunchrooms in a hospital (unmasked, talking), or classrooms in a school? The same principles apply: measure first, then ventilate (checking airflow where possible), then filter–centrally and locally.

These measures should be taken in addition to recommended public health measures. Measuring, ventilation, and filtering solutions can be scaled to commercial indoor environments and classrooms, following Health Canada guidelines for unit types and observing airflows so as to limit lateral mixing.

Measure First

While I am not recommending architects step outside of their area of expertise, anyone (including architects) can educate themselves on IAQ/EAQ and purchase measuring devices to test their own homes, and potentially their clients’ homes, and then share the results with their professional engineering colleagues to help develop solutions with them—just as we do in our professional practice. People produce CO2 when they exhale, and CO2 can be accurately measured with a low-cost sensor.

For about $300, a portable CO2 monitor provides an instant readout of CO2 in any space, be it a bus, car, school, hospital, classroom or bedroom. I like the Aranet4 because after calibration, it has low power draw, samples every 5 minutes and is essentially always on. It logs data on a smartphone app via bluetooth or wireless.

There is a wide range of consumer- and professional-grade air quality measuring systems in the marketplace. At home, I also use a building-integrated device called Airthings that provides data on CO2, temperature, humidity, radon, PM2.5 and barometric pressure that feeds into a dashboard app.

As a best practice, the renovated OAA headquarters in Toronto is using the Airthings system, which verifies that CO2 levels are always within accepted norms. The building’s deep energy retrofit incorporated a 100% fresh air system with filtration and heat recovery. This system even uncovered an issue with low humidity (20%) that would not have been discovered otherwise, and that is subsequently being addressed.

In all new commercial projects, we ask our M&E consultants to control DOAS and ERV/HRV units by CO2 sensors—which adds a marginal increase in cost, but provides significant benefits and additional energy savings when spaces have low or zero occupancy and CO2 is not produced in the spaces.

To keep it simple, we can look to CO2 as a proxy gas for a wide range of other issues: from the risk of indoor airborne infection, to air changes per hour, to occupancy, to ‘Rebreathed Air Correlations’ (chart below). We can also use CO2 levels as a general indicator of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). The closer indoor air comes to outdoor levels of CO2, typically the lower the TVOC, radon and PM2.5 levels.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1600-0668.2003.00189.x and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12950586/

Ventilation and filtration

Once we have measured the quality of indoor air in a given space, thus establishing a baseline to improve upon, then we can undertake a range of strategies for mitigating air quality issues. Many of these can also reduce the transmission and persistence of the SarsCov2 virus in airborne aerosols and droplets. Post-intervention follow-up with subsequent measurements can confirm whether our strategy has been effective. To simplify even further, many HEPA units even have displays built in with IAQ metrics of one form or another. Public Health Ontario has also issued guidelines or portable ventilation units.

In order to assure proper air changes for a specific occupancy, professionals can refer to their own guidance documents, but Public Health Canada’s recent guide on indoor ventilation during the pandemic can be a starting place.

While measuring CO2 can help describe the difference between indoor and outdoor air quality, it can similarly provide a benchmark for Air Changes per Hour (ACH). An ACH of 3 is recommended at a minimum to help reduce SarsCov2 transmission, with an ACH of 6 being recommended for congregate environments such as long-term care homes, schools and healthcare environments.

Educate, Measure, Ventilate and Filter

Architects are at the front end of the design, renovation and remediation of almost every public building. To that end, we urgently need to consider IAQ measures in the design of buildings—both in terms of the materials we use, the envelopes we design, but also the measurement and control of air in the systems that we coordinate through our professional engineer colleagues. Accepting the correct terminology and definitions of Airborne Transmission of SarsCov2 is a critical first step in identifying causes and developing solutions.

We can then proceed with three critical steps in using design to improve air quality and decrease the risk of transmission of coronavirus in buildings:

1. Measure: It is now easier than ever to measure humidity, CO2, PM2.5 and radon, and subsequently to design systems that bring air quality to be within the range of accepted values, as provided by public health agencies and professional standards.
2. Ventilation (with heat recovery where possible): As professionals trained in the science of thermodynamics, we are also obliged to consider the public health benefits of not only energy performance and carbon mitigation, but also Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Any building with a properly designed air tight envelope and heat recovery system will also bring the benefits of a draft-free and healthy home. This comes with co-benefits of increased durability, balanced humidity and lower operating costs.
3. Filtration:In instances where there is inadequate capacity for improved ventilation, a strategy of filtering recirculated indoor air should be taken as a less effective but nevertheless important way to improve IAQ and remove infectious airborne particles. Filtration can be central (ie. furnace and/or HRV filters) and local (room by room). Filtration can be thought of like PPE for buildings. We can work to develop solutions to isolate airborne transmission by use of filters, with or without ventilation strategies, even though ventilation is of greater importance.

Architects are developing expertise in physical design for distancing, and the design of ever more airtight structures with complementary natural and mechanical ventilation strategies for 100 percent fresh air. In tandem, we can also learn to measure IAQ with a range of readily available devices, and we can test spaces to see whether the buildings we have designed are within the suggested ranges of these measures. Where IAQ can be improved, we can recommend a strategy of ventilation and filtration together with our engineering consultants. We can also provide guidance and leadership to our provincial governments, in instances where well-considered measurement, ventilation and filtration strategies should be implemented in a systemic manner.

This article was adapted and excerpted from a blog post by architect Andy Thomson, which can be found in its full version here. Andy Thomson was a former HRAI-certified HVAC/HRV designer/installer and trained as a R2000 program delivery agent, and has personally installed and balanced thousands of HRVs and performed as many blower-door tests. Since that time, he has been involved in IAQ research & measurement for clients with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities) and in the review and testing of IAQ measuring & monitoring equipment. As a member of the OAA Building Committee, he was responsible for the installation of the Airthings system at the OAA HQ, which Thomson Architecture uses on most of its projects.

Disclaimer: Thomson Architecture, Inc. has used reasonable efforts to provide accurate and current information in this article, but we cannot accept any liability for the content and we make no warranty or representation of any kind concerning the accuracy or suitability of the information contained on this website for any purpose. We also provide links to other websites as a convenience but not as an endorsement. You should never rely on, or take, or fail to take any action, based upon the information on this website alone without independent verification. Readers should obtain appropriate legal and technical advice. The information presented here is for educational and information purposes only, which you may use at your own risk.

References:

1. WHO Adequate Ventilation revised January 8, 2021 (page 7): https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/338481/WHO-2019-nCoV-IPC_long_term_care-2021.1-eng.pdf
2. https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(21)00007-4/fulltext
3. https://ricochet.media/en/3423/there-is-still-time-to-address-aerosol-transmission-of-covid-19
4. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fB5pysccOHvxphpTmCG_TGdytavMmc1cUumn8m0pwzo/edit
5. https://ospe.on.ca/featured/engineers-call-on-ontario-to-refocus-efforts-on-the-airborne-transmission-of-covid-19/
6. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/guidance-documents/guide-indoor-ventilation-covid-19-pandemic.html
7. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/programs/consultation-residential-indoor-air-quality-guidelines-carbon-dioxide/document.html
8. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
9. CSA Z317.2:19, Special requirements for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in health care facilities
10. CSA Z8002:19, Operation and maintenance of health care facilities
11. http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ltc/docs/home_design_manual.pdf
12. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/27662232/4892924.pdf?sequence=1
13. Australia infographics on the Anatomy of outbreaks (closed, indoors, airborne transmission) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-25/covid-19-spread-through-australia-over-year/13078574?nw=0
14. Open letter from ONA, January 25, 2021: https://www.ona.org/news-posts/open-letter-airborne/
15. VIDEO: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-to-protect-yourself-from-the-new-coronavirus-strains
16. Re-useable PPE: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/elastomeric-respirators-strategy/index.html
17. Calculating Viral Risk as a function of CO2: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12950586/
18. ABC Radio Australia, the ‘A’ word: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/mornings/kim-prather-covid-aerosols/13135544
19. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
20. https://www.toronto.com/news-story/10313852–evidence-is-now-overwhelming-3-things-to-know-about-airborne-covid-19/
21. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/10/carbon-dioxide-device-coronavirus/
22. https://youtu.be/OQ6DhgwgtGw Interview w. Dr. Joseph Allen of the Harvard School of Public Health on Healthy Buildings, IAQ, Covid, etc.
23. WHO (finally) has updated their guidance to include ventilation: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/339857

The post What every architect needs to know about air and SarsCov2 appeared first on Canadian Architect.

As part of pandemic control measures, museums and galleries in many parts of Canada have been closed, partially opened, and closed again over the past year. Public art and architecture assume a fresh importance: it’s often the only real-life art we can get.

This makes Bortolotto’s recently renovated Rosalie Sharp Pavilion especially welcome. A stainless-steel scrim, intricately perforated with a lace-like pattern, wraps this Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCADU) building in downtown Toronto. The undulating metal sparkles in the sun, peeling upwards and outwards at its edges.

The laser-cut pattern is a map of Toronto’s artistic communities, with McCaul and Dundas—the location of OCADU, as well as the Art Gallery of Ontario—at its centre. Circles indicate art galleries and design studios; dark checks denote zones of public art; and chevron perforations highlight areas where artist communities are concentrated. “The data is meant to describe the city as influenced spatially by the production of art and design,” says principal Tania Bortolotto.

The pattern was carefully calibrated so that the scrim would provide the appropriate amount of solar shading for the interior. Manufacturing was a further challenge: the studio’s Grasshopper-generated parametric designs needed to be translated into CATIA, and numerous details added to accommodate for the practicalities of fabrication. The design also addresses a variety of technical issues, from wind to snow. Heated wires along the top prevent icicle formation, snow guards are positioned behind the scrim, and a gutter is concealed along its lower edge.

The curving lines of the installed panels echo the undulating façade of Frank Gehry’s neighbouring AGO renovation. And fittingly, Bortolotto’s intervention has a similar ethos of using an artistic approach to mark an art institution.

But instead of conceiving the scrim as a stand-alone piece of art, Bortolotto has made it part of the building, and part of the city. The intersection is a happy tangle of traffic lights, streetcar cables, electrical wires, and light standards. None of this is photoshopped out of the architect’s images of the project. It’s all part of the urban life that marks the building, and that feeds the artistic communities that thrive in Toronto.

The post Screen Art: Rosalie Sharp Pavilion, OCADU, Toronto, Ontario appeared first on Canadian Architect.

TEXT Eric A. Charron and Randy Van Straaten

Heritage masonry buildings make up a large portion of Canada’s urban structures—from the historic warehouses in the downtowns of thriving cities to the shops that line small-town main streets and squares. Late 19th- and early 20th-century construction provides warm, inviting, comfortably human-scaled settings that plunge us back into history and tell our collective stories. Not only are these structures significant assets to our physical environment and culture, but their robust assembly and appealing character make them adaptable to new uses.

While heritage masonry structures are typically energy inefficient, it is unrealistic and undesirable to replace these time-tested buildings with new net-zero ones. Hence, the deep energy retrofitting of heritage masonry buildings is a key part of achieving a zero-carbon, energy-neutral future while maintaining our cultural and architectural heritage.

The addition of interior thermal insulation to solid masonry walls is a common consideration for heritage retrofits. Best-practice solutions presented in this article are informed by research and feedback from the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) Sustainable Built Environments Committee (SBEC), along with lessons learned from building science specialists and heritage consultants.

The Basics and Risks of Retrofitting Old Masonry Buildings

Reducing heat loss in older buildings is a key component of meeting energy efficiency targets such as Passive House and TEDI requirements. The most effective way to reduce heat loss is through upgrading the glazing systems by replacing or refurbishing windows with thermally broken framing, highly insulated glazing units, and weatherstripping repair. The second biggest item is to air-seal the building enclosure. Assuming glazing systems and air infiltration have been addressed, the next priority is to insulate the walls to reduce heating demand.

From a moisture management perspective, the best way to insulate a building is from the exterior, enclosing the structural walls within the thermal envelope. The structure will be heated as part of the interior conditioned space, where it will be kept warm and dry. But while wrapping the exterior is preferable from a building science perspective, it is not often viable from an aesthetic perspective or possibly due to access challenges. Additionally, conservation groups and associations tasked with advocating for heritage sites simply will not let masonry, which gives many buildings their heritage character, be covered up.

If we cannot wrap the exterior, the other logical place to insulate is from the inside. In doing so, one must consider how a significant reduction in heat loss can be achieved without creating decay or mould issues.

Moisture Control in Mass Masonry Walls

Excessive moisture is the main cause of decay and mould in wall systems. In older masonry buildings, wall thickness was commonly used to limit the risk of rainwater entry. Heavy masonry walls use hygric mass to control wetting by absorbing, storing, and drying rainwater. Thinner walls control rainwater entry through the use of less porous, denser masonry materials. The porosity of masonry, the mortar properties, and the presence of voids in the wall system all play a role in the control of rainwater. The balance of wetting and drying, as well as material vulnerability, dictates the susceptibility to decay in a particular exposure or environment.

Freeze-thaw is a major decay mechanism for masonry walls in cold climates. For decay to occur during freezing, masonry materials must reach a minimal critical degree of water saturation. Decay accelerates at higher moisture levels. Generally, masonry walls must be quite damp and exposed to multiple freeze-thaw cycles before damage occurs. So as long as the brick does not get damp, there is no problem. There are plenty of buildings with highly vulnerable masonry that have endured well, with limited moisture exposure.

Heavy masonry walls get colder when insulated on the interior. These walls also typically get damper, as there is less heat flowing outward through the wall for drying. This is why walls may be more vulnerable to freeze-thaw decay as a result of interior wall insulation retrofits.

The Three Ds

Many good measures for limiting risk of freeze-thaw decay and other moisture problems are derived from knowing the Dos and Don’ts of the 3 Ds: deflection, drainage, and drying.

Deflection

1. DO minimize rainwater exposure. Use large overhanging cornices. Slope window sills with back and end dams. Repair masonry and repoint failing mortar joints. Design effective drip edges, parapets and flashings to drain/shed away from the wall.

2. DON’T allow grades and paving finishes to collect water near the base of a masonry wall. Slope grades away from the building. Where possible, do not extend masonry all the way to grade, as moisture and salts will work their way into the wall assembly.

Drainage

3. DO drain walls and soils adjacent to the foundation. Install weeping tiles and drainage mats on foundation walls. Ensure internal wall drains are working. Include scuppers in roof designs.

Drying

4. DON’T use coatings or sealants that restrict drying. Masonry and mortar are porous materials intended to breathe. Painting a masonry wall will not inherently harm or damage the masonry, but the paint layer must be maintained to limit rainwater entry and to continue to allow for outward drying of the wall. When the paint layer begins to fail, the wall will be exposed to moisture, adding to the risk of deterioration.

5. DON’T allow vacated or mothballed heritage masonry buildings that are intended for future use to be left unheated. A cold, unheated wall will often accelerate the rate of deterioration of a mass masonry assembly and frost-heave often occurs.

Air Leakage and Water Vapour Diffusion

Further design considerations related to vapour and air wetting include the following:

6. DO limit cold-weather mechanical pressurization of the building with humid air. Pressurization of the building during the winter can drive humid indoor air through the exterior wall assembly, resulting in excessive wetting and the risk of freeze-thaw damage, frost accumulation, and mould growth. Mechanical systems should be designed to a neutral or slightly negative indoor pressure under all schedules of operation.

7. DO control interior humidity levels in winter. Although moisture flow through vapour diffusion tends to be minimal, poor vapour control can result in mould growth at high humidity surfaces within the wall assembly.  Retrofit designs should include adequate vapour control suited for their exterior and interior climates.

8. DON’T place a poorly installed air or vapour barrier on the inside of a masonry wall assembly. Polyethylene membranes (PE) have very low vapour and air permeance, but are difficult to air seal at the complex interfaces with the wall, including at floor joints and at the intersection with columns. Holes in the PE can carry moisture into the wall via air leakage. Ensure continuity of the air barrier in detail design and installation, and confirm through fog and/or whole building airtightness testing and inspection.

Risk Assessment Approach

Considering the general measures for moisture control in masonry walls, the following steps are recommended for assessing the risk of insulation retrofit approaches:

9. DON’T devise a solution without first looking at the condition of the building you are dealing with. Look for evidence of where water may be getting into the wall, such as areas of decay and staining. Check near the ground for spalled material and soft, sandy mortar. Verify the condition of walls not typically exposed to rainwater, such as the backside of exposed parapet walls—if they are in poor shape, water is getting in somewhere.

10. DON’T assume all wall exposures experience the same amount of wetting. Different wall exposures can be subjected to varying degrees of wetting. Examine the surrounding built environment and microclimate for possible effects of sun and wind drying, driving rain, and water shedding from other structures.

11. DON’T assume that all heritage masonry walls need to be exhaustively tested and analyzed. The value of the heritage asset should inform the decay risk assessment effort and expense—for instance, different levels of investment should be put into a monumental public landmark versus a single-family home. If hygrothermal analysis is being considered for the project, it will entail determining project-specific masonry properties along with creating invasive openings to confirm assemblies and conditions. Hygrothermal properties of the sampled materials are measured and used to predict conditions that may result from proposed interior insulation retrofit designs.  These conditions are compared to measured critical saturation levels during freezing condition to assess decay risk.

12. DON’T choose a repointing mortar that is incompatible with surrounding materials. Never use a high-strength mortar in a wall with original soft and flexible lime-based mortar or brick. Portland cement is strong and stiff rather than soft and flexible; mortar joints are supposed to accommodate movements and be sacrificial by design. Any replacement masonry or mortar should bond well with the adjacent materials and replicate similar performance under a range of weather conditions. Lab testing of mortars and masonry samples should be conducted to determine the most appropriate replacement materials.

13. DON’T devise an interior insulation strategy for a multi-wythe masonry building without first knowing where (and whether) the wall should be insulated. Every building is unique, and modifications over a structure’s lifecycle may have resulted in changes to the original construction. Retrofitting on the inside may create unforeseen expansion and contraction forces on a seasonal basis. If the masonry wall does not have control joints, it could create cracks and fissures on its own due to these forces.  It is important to analyze the potential for expansion and contraction that may result from an interior insulation strategy.   

14. DON’T insulate a mass masonry foundation below-grade from the interior without knowing the drainage capacity of the exterior soils. Conduct field inspections and geotechnical analysis to determine the soil drainage capacity. Check the basement walls for moisture; verify if the mortar is soft and sandy, or if the brick near the floor is crumbling. If these conditions are detected, insulate on the outside of the wall below-grade over a consolidated masonry render and waterproofing membrane. Sealing the interior of a damp foundation wall with insulation will make the wall colder and reduce its ability to dry from the inside. Leaving a cold wall exposed to exterior groundwater and freeze-thaw will gradually deteriorate the mortar and risk structural failure over time, or at a minimum may shift and crack the masonry assembly, thus allowing more moisture to enter the wall.

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to insulate the interior of many heritage masonry buildings without an increased risk of decay. The catch is that it must be done very carefully and only after examining the existing structure and building assembly thoroughly.

With any interior retrofit approach, each building must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and carefully considered for the correct retrofit. Heritage consultants, structural engineers, and building science specialists should always play a part in this process to ensure that each made-to-order solution will extend the useful life and reduce the energy dependency of our historical building stock.

Eric A. Charron (M.Arch., OAA) is an architect with Diamond Schmitt Architects and has been a member of the OAA’s Sustainable Built Environments Committee (SBEC). Dr. Randy Van Straaten (Ph.D., P.Eng.) is a sustainability and building science educator at Fanshawe College and provides building science consulting on a wide range of projects.

The post Technical: Retrofitting Heritage Masonry Buildings appeared first on Canadian Architect.

High-rise living in multi-unit residential buildings is, historically speaking, a relatively recent development. Traditional housing typologies—including mid-rise residential buildings in Europe—have benefitted from centuries of incremental improvement, resulting in high levels of liveability. This is particularly true of mid-rises in cities developed before the advent of the automobile, where people are privileged over cars. By contrast, residential high-rises started appearing in Canada only sixty years ago—at the height of the automobile age. With only a few decades to evolve, the typology is still troubled by quality-of-life issues and performance problems.

In Spring 1965—as residential towers started to appear quickly and seemed to be permanently changing the country’s urban centres—Canadian Architect published a half-dozen articles both cautious and hopeful for the future of high-rise housing in Canadian cities.

In High Rise Habitat: The Great Controversy (CA, March 1965), urban planner Albert Rose dissected “the apartment problem” with socioeconomic arguments for and against apartment dwellings. His essay was particularly concerned with the impact of apartment living on family life and social standards. “The phenomenon of metropolitan growth […] has produced a whole new society of apartment dwellers in the mid-1960s,” he wrote. “There are far more households in proportion to the past which are composed of one of several single persons, married or unmarried, but both working in the financial and commercial pursuits of the central city. Many of these are newcomers—from abroad, from smaller urban places, from rural areas. They are the beneficiaries, in Canada, of a relaxing and loosening of social, moral and economic standards and values. Above all, they are the inhabitants of the new high-rise apartment structures in downtown and suburban Toronto and Montreal.”

Such apartments, as a result, were inadequately designed for more established residents—and rarely took the larger city into account. “There has not been enough serious study and competent qualitative research to say very much about the effects, if any, of apartment living upon family life,” noted Rose. “It is clearly not inevitable that apartment buildings be poorly designed, badly planned, crowded on the site, ugly and monotonous. If we are not to duplicate the suburban experience on the vertical, rather than a horizontal scale, there will have to be a great deal more exercise of scruples by architects, planners, developers, and elected councillors than has been our fortune in the first half of the 1960s.”

In a companion article, High Rise Habitat: A Matter of People (CA March 1965), urban planner Margaret Buchinger questioned the affordability of apartments, speculated on the psychological effects on inhabitants, and examined the impact of high-rise housing on neighbourhood culture.

Little has changed since 1965 in regards to “the apartment problem.” And yet, many more Canadians live in high-rise habitats—a number bound to grow with the next wave of post-COVID immigration. This makes it ever more urgent to closely and comprehensively examine the design of multi-unit residential towers.

The pandemic adds to this urgency. With the growth of work-from-home and online schooling, the stakes are raised for housing of all types—but especially for high-rises, whose residents are often from lower-income demographics, with few alternative housing choices.

Presently, it is questionable whether we are adequately designing high-rise units as homes, let alone as work-from-home and learn-from-home spaces. Our technological might makes it possible to grow housing towers like mushrooms, transforming neighbourhoods and skylines in just years. Will the resulting high-rise habitats become a legacy or a liability for succeeding generations? Affordability is perhaps the most pressing issue for Canadians currently trying to rent or buy condo units, but there are also a number of equally important architectural questions about high-rise habitats. Here are a few.

How high is too high?

The Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis, founder of the Ekistics movement, believed that humans should not live higher than treetops, based on our biological heritage. Practically, there are physical and psychological challenges to living in high-rises. Parents can’t supervise their children playing outdoors, so they end up using hallways as playgrounds. Balcony microclimates vary considerably as you ascend a tower, with higher units buffeted by winds that can make these outdoor spaces uninhabitable.

A lack of easy ground access can also present complications in emergency situations. A 2016 Toronto medical study revealed that the higher someone lives in a tower, the lower their chances of surviving cardiac arrest—above the 16th floor, the survival rate is nearly zero. The elderly and tower-dwellers with medical conditions may be in increased danger with the growing frequency of extreme weather events expected from climate change, which could bring prolonged power outages.

Is this housing typology able to keep us healthy? The current generation of high-rise condos is plagued by problems with indoor air quality, daylighting, visual privacy and sound transmission. A CBC news analysis found that COVID-19 is most prevalent in neighbourhoods with higher proportions of multi-unit residences and low-income residents. Outbreaks have led to a need for isolation centres to serve these buildings, since apartment common areas, unit sizes and floorplans are unsuitable for people in quarantine. Most of these environmental issues are related to the poor quality of design and construction that is permitted within our planning framework and building codes—notwithstanding the fact that even minimum requirements are often not properly enforced by municipal authorities.

Last year, we worked with collaborators to develop a Canadian MURB Design Guide, supported by BC Housing and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. It presents research-based solutions to resilience and liveability in high-rise units. But much work remains to be done. First and foremost, the performance gap between the construed and the constructed needs to be closed. This is not possible until building codes and planning guidelines raise their standards, while banning dubious practices such as allowing bedrooms without windows.

How close is too close?

Related to the issue of building height is proximity. In areas where clusters of high-rise buildings have resulted in “spiky” developments—such as at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto—many residents complain about negative impacts on daylight and views. Once-sunny balconies and backyards are now shadowed, and their views of the sky obscured. The “right to light and views” has been embraced in a number of developed nations, but it has never gained traction in Canada. Many foreign planners and architects are shocked by how a country as large and open as Canada does not enshrine solar access rights in its planning framework. Somehow, in the craze to embrace the intensification mantra, the critical factors affecting environmental quality have been discarded.

How dense is too dense? 

Anyone who has used public transit consistently knows the impact of too-dense developments on congestion. Line-ups to subways often extend all the way to the surface in densely developed areas. This is compounded by long wait times for elevators in residential towers. The impacts of intensification on services and infrastructure have never been properly studied. This explains the poor planning-for-growth that can be seen in Canada’s large urban centres, especially in areas dominated by dense high-rise developments.

Who are high-rises for?

In the 1960s, high-rise living was introduced to Canada in the form of 14-to-20-storey concrete apartment towers. The intent was to provide affordable, convenient housing for single people and young families through the early stages of their adult lives. Eventually, families would save their money and purchase a house.

The housing development industry has since claimed that high-rise living addresses all stages of life—but little thought is given to how a 30th-floor-unit can accommodate raising a family, or living alone as a senior with mobility issues. What is glamorous for swinging singles may not be so appealing to young families, the aged and the infirm.

The City of Toronto’s Growing Up Guidelines (2020) identifies some strategies for making high-rise habitats more liveable for families—family units should be lower to the ground and larger, for instance—but without the policy to back it up.   

The communal dimensions of high-rise living—and in particular, the system of by-laws governing condominiums—can also be challenging. Underground parking, hallways, garbage/recycling rooms, laundry facilities, mailrooms, exercise rooms and pools, and common social areas are often governed by majority rules that do not consider minority rights. Smoking—whether it be of cannabis or tobacco—is one of the most contentious issues. Restrictions on how balconies may be occupied and used comes in a close second. Most condo-dwellers are unaware that they are buying into a system of rules that will shape many aspects of their daily routines and habits. The individual freedoms that are enjoyed by freehold house dwellers are not guaranteed within high-rise habitats, and the rules can change depending on who controls the condo board and its agenda.

The future of high-rise habitats

Unfortunately, our large urban centres have been shaped by a scarcity of affordable housing choices, combined with their delivery by a tiny group of developers. Self-determination in housing is only possible for residents of rural areas and small towns—and this proportion of the Canadian population is rapidly shrinking.

It would be an interesting experiment to see what housing type and location people would choose, if availability and affordability were not factors. How many people would choose to live in a downtown high-rise, if they could have a terrace townhouse within walking distance from work? How will people change their housing plans if work-from-home becomes a dominant mode of employment? Is it possible to enjoy the same quality of life in a tower apartment building as in a low- or mid-rise housing development?

These questions are not new. Over half a century ago, this very discussion was taking place among architects and planners, including in the pages of this magazine. But there was little follow-up at that time—likely because high-rise housing was not the dominant typology.

Today, a statistically significant proportion of Canadians live in high-rise habitats. It is now imperative to conduct comparative post-occupancy evaluations for various housing forms, which can inform codes and policies with evidence rather than conjecture. The history of urban development has been to race headlong into the latest fad, often to discover it is dysfunctional. A case in point is the old Regent Park in Toronto—and there is little evidence that the new Regent Park will fare much better.

There is a great deal of basic research that is needed to fill knowledge gaps in the urban planning, infrastructure, architecture, sociology and building science aspects of high-rises. To understand current and future housing needs, we need better and more specific insights into how people actually use spaces. To use and interpret these findings, we need to involve a more diverse group of decision-makers. Structured post-occupancy evaluations and surveys of inhabitants would enable designers and planners to see how new initiatives are impacting the liveability and quality of life offered by high-rises.

As Margaret Buchinger concluded in her 1965 essay, High Rise Habitat: A Matter of People, “The evidence of extensive scientific research into density is the only realistic base from which we can develop an effective and human building policy.” Now, more than ever, these major issues need to be addressed with evidence-based design, if we are to get high-rise habitats right.

Terri Peters is an assistant professor in the Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University.

Ted Kesik is a professor of building science in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.

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