PROJECT Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, Saint Peters Bay, PEI

ARCHITECTS Baird Sampson Neuert architects, part of the WF Group with SableARC Studio 

TEXT David Sisam

PHOTOS Brad McCloskey

Building on a reputation for delivering environmentally progressive institutional buildings, Toronto-based Baird Sampson Neuert (BSN) has once again designed a notable academic building with ambitious sustainability goals. This time, the project, completed with SableARC Studio, is situated on Prince Edward Island, a small province with a remarkable history of initiatives to combat the threatening consequences of climate change.

The Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation (CCCCA) is a 30-minute drive across the eastern tip of the Island from Spry Point, the site for the 1976 Ark, an experimental built demonstration of a self-sustaining house and ecological research centre by architects David Bergmark and Ole Hammarlund. That landmark project from 50 years back—officially opened by no less than Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau—was built under the auspices of the US-based New Alchemy Institute, with funding from the federal government and land from the province. The Ark was the first in a long series of environmental initiatives on PEI: in 1981, the Wind Energy Institute of Canada was established in North Cape, where there is a Research and Development Park testing a great variety of experimental wind turbines. By 2018, 23 percent of the electrical energy on PEI was supplied by wind turbines. In 1999, the Island Waste Management Corporation was created. Its Waste Watch program has converted 65 percent of the Island’s waste to compost or recycling. From 2019 to 2023, the Green Party formed the Official Opposition in the PEI legislature—for the first time in the history of any Green Party in Canada. 

These bursts of environmental consciousness are not surprising on a small island with no oil and gas reserves, a fast-eroding shoreline, limited space for landfill, and other vulnerabilities to climate change, including the effects of sea level rise. These vulnerabilities became clearly evident in 2022, with the widespread damage of post-tropical storm Fiona. The storm destroyed 40 percent of the island’s forests, and coastline erosion was in many cases measured in metres.

In 2019, the province’s track record of environmental initiatives continued when the federal government, along with the province and the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), announced combined funding for the new Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation (CCCCA) at UPEI. The CCCCA is located remotely from the main UPEI campus in Charlottetown and overlooks the Village
of Saint Peter’s Bay (pop. 231).

Program and Built Form

The rather heroic presence of the CCCCA takes its position on a ridge above the picturesque village, on land donated by three families. It is a location that in previous generations might have been occupied by a grand mansion or a church. In effect, it symbolizes the necessary effort that will be required to counter the real threats posed by climate change.

Innovation is also evident in the Centre’s program, which accommodates the internationally recognized UPEI Climate Research Laboratory, as well as other teaching and living spaces. Its unique 24-hour live/learn/research programme includes teaching, research, maker and social spaces that extend across the ground level, and compact accommodation for twenty-one residents on the upper levels. 

The entrance to the Centre is a double-height space with a view through to a grass forecourt, which hosts a drone launching pad and a solar array. At the east and west ends, a drone port/workshop, art gallery, and resource room/kitchen break free of the bar to further define the forecourt. The drone port/workshop takes advantage of the site’s topography to allow a greater volume for the space. The teaching and research spaces all have abundant natural light, and faculty offices border a 57-car parking lot on the north side.

As a living laboratory and educational destination, the building enables world-class sustainability-focused research, as well as immersive experiential learning for graduate and undergraduate students. The Centre specializes in coastal climate science, precision agriculture, and climate adaptation research. Its location gives researchers and students access to nearby wetlands, forests, and coastal habitats, as well as facilitating the monitoring of PEI’s shoreline by drone.

The CCCCA doubles as a community hub, hosting workshops and public meetings with local residents, including the neighbouring Abegweit First Nation, and engaging the local community with significant global climate change research.

Headwinds

When the project was awarded to BSN in association with SableARC Studio, immediate headwinds were encountered. Essentially, there was that all-too-familiar problem of too much program for too little money, and too little time. Within a fast-track 21-month design and construction schedule, the architects had to reprogram the facility from its initial 4,180 square metres to 3,530 square metres to meet budget limitations. Even then, the building and its ground source geothermal system were realized for $295 per square foot—a remarkable feat given the sustainability achieve­ment of the project. Significant site costs were required to service the lot and to provide onsite capacity for firefighting, including water storage, booster pumps and back-up emergency power systems. In an additional set of challenges, the project was designed and built during the peak of Covid pandemic lockdowns, a period of significant material price escalation.

Sustainability

Because of the Centre’s research mandate, for the architects it was a given that the CCCCA building would need to showcase the best in sustainability practices. Implementing a carbon sequestering design approach, the structure primarily consists of conventional wood stick construction with occasional use of glulam beams and steel columns. The exterior walls are made up of prefabricated, thermally broken wall panels and locally harvested wood cladding. Triple-glazed and operable Passive House certified windows provide daylighting, views and natural ventilation for all regularly occupied spaces within the building. The Centre is sited to address the grass forecourt, maximizing views, access to daylight and microclimate conditions. The Centre achieves the CaGBC Zero Carbon Performance Standard, based on an all-electric design approach which includes a ground-source geothermal heating and cooling system, coupled with 100 KW of onsite solar panels, and a low-voltage power distribution system for lighting and electric vehicle charging.

The Achilles heel in the sustainability profile of the CCCCA doesn’t have anything to do with its architecture, but rather with its location and car dependency. While its live/learn program is intended to help address this, the Centre is located 51 kilometres from the main UPEI campus and over 10 kilometres from the nearest grocery store. Recognizing the problem of distance, UPEI has made arrangements with the provincial bus service to allow opportunities for daily trips between the Centre and the main campus on its regular route, and provides subsidies for students to use the service. Resident students typically carpool for grocery store outings.

What if?

There were several sustainability initiatives proposed by the design team that were not possible to implement due to the budget constraints. These included green roofs, permeable paving for the entry drive and parking lot, as well as brise-soleils for the art gallery/multi-use gathering space and drone port/workshop. A proposed second-floor rooftop terrace was a casualty of value engineering during the construction management delivery process.

When asked what would have been different if the project had a larger budget and a more forgiving timeline, principal Jon Neuert of BSN allowed that the community space would have been more developed, and that the built form would have been more granular in nature, as is typical in BSN’s portfolio of university academic and residence projects. This finer grain would also allow the built form to be more attuned to the village of Saint Peter’s Bay, with its array of small buildings and church spires, while at the same time maintaining its strong presence atop the ridge.

Notwithstanding these ‘what ifs’ and other built form options, the CCCCA as constructed is a remarkable achievement, and provides UPEI and its students a fertile setting for teaching, research, community activities and living accommodation. The client and the architects have done more with less—economy of means, generosity of ends—reflecting the Island’s tradition of punching above its weight in its efforts to tackle the threatening consequences of climate change.

David Sisam is Principal Emeritus of Montgomery Sisam Architects. He and his family have a summer place near Malpeque on the north shore of PEI.

CLIENT University of Prince Edward Island | ARCHITECT TEAM BSN—Jon Neuert (FRAIC), Luke Cho, Dat Pham, Mehdi Latifian, Clare Commins, Jesse Dormody. SableARC—Bill Saul, Jodi Crompton, Robert Haggis | STRUCTURAL SCL Engineering | MECHANICAL MCA Consultants | ELECTRICAL Richardson | LANDSCAPE Vollick McKee Petersmann | INTERIORS SableARC  Studio | CONTRACTOR Bird Construction | CAGBC NZB SHADOW REVIEW LMMW Group Ltd. | AREA 3,600 m2 | BUDGET $11.4M building / $12.4M with site servicing & improvements | COMPLETION May 2022

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 109.6 kWh/m2/year | EMBODIED CARBON 60-YEAR LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS (PROJECTED) 204.7 kgCO2e/m2 (59% below CaGBC NZB v3 threshold) 

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of Means, Generosity of Ends: Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, Saint Peter’s Bay, PEI appeared first on Canadian Architect.

On Thursday, August 29, the Green Gables Heritage Place Visitor Centre in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, celebrates its grand opening. Dignitaries including Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan will be in attendance for the event, which has a theme of Friendship and Connection.

The centre was designed by Root Architecture, for a property that is become one of the most visited federal parks in Canada, and is especially popular with Japanese tourists. The book Anne of Green Gables is required reading in public schools in Japan. Nearly 10,000 Japanese tourists visit the Cavendish site each year, which features a reproduction of Green Gables, the house described in the novel.

A 2015 study revealed the need for more exhibit space and enhanced amenities on site to tell the story of the fictional child heroine, Anne, and her creator, author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Root Architecture was hired to design all three phases of the expansion. The second phase, which is now complete, includes an exhibit hall, gift shop,  new ticket and information areas, offices, and new washrooms and lobby.

The centre forms a gentle arc to offer dramatic views of Green Gables House, and is respectful of the scale and vernacular on site. The design is inspired by local farm buildings. It frames a new “farm yard”, a courtyard that will host outdoor dining, local performances, and weddings.

Phase one of the addition uses traditional timber framing, while phase two uses mass timber framing, combined with nail-laminated timber (NLT) decking.

The building is pursuing LEED Gold certification, with a particular emphasis on the use of local materials. The building will be completely powered by renewable energy, and targets an overall heating and cooling reduction of 41 percent.

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The postcard view of Canada’s Atlantic coast is dotted with small, colourful clapboard houses sitting by the ocean. But in some parts of the Atlantic, that’s starting to change, with a growing appetite for contemporary design, and a contingent of architects ready to deliver it.

“When the Halifax Central Library opened, it changed many people’s perceptions about what a modern building could bring to the city,” says Rayleen Hill, of RHAD Architects. The opening of the library in 2014 coincided with a real estate boom in the city: construction has been on the rise, with a record number of housing starts in 2018.

There’s a sense of economic optimism that’s unusual for the fiscally conservative city. It’s anchored, perhaps, in the thriving Irving shipyard, which secured a $25-billion package for building federal combat vessels in 2011, and earlier this year was part of a team selected to design and construct another $60 billion of military ships.

“When I first arrived in Halifax 25 years ago, there were massive parking lots in the city,” recalls Susan Fitzgerald, of FBM Architecture & Interior Design. “Now, new communities are being created on those sites.”

One of the most visible development projects is Queen’s Marque, a set of residential midrises on the downtown waterfront by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple and FBM that includes public areas. There’s also anticipation building around the municipality’s plan to replace the Cogswell Interchange—a concrete snarl that caps the north end of downtown—with a pedestrian-oriented district centred on parks, plazas and a transit hub.

Affordability is increasingly an issue, and developers are responding in projects such as Midtown North, which includes a significant component of below-market-value rentals. The five-acre parcel, designed by FBM, weaves together a mix of building types and scales, and includes a plaza for weekend markets. RHAD is designing a 30-unit affordable housing project in Bridgewater, a community just outside the city that recently won a $5-million pot in the federal Smart Cities Challenge. Bridgewater’s proposal intends to lift residents out of energy poverty, including through providing better housing that reduces energy expenses.

The Nova Scotia coast is also upgrading its tourism infrastructure, in both public venues and private enterprises. Among the rising stars are the globally acclaimed Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs golf courses, which have transformed the landscape and economy of a former mining community. FBM has contributed handsome structures to each.

A side-effect of tourism is an uptick in residential projects. “We’ve seen a lot of clients from overseas or out west who have become enamoured with the Nova Scotian landscape and have purchased waterfront properties around the province,” says Rayleen Hill. “Some lived or went to university here, others have vacationed here, and now want to build a summer home where they can eventually retire.”

In neighbouring New Brunswick, there is a similar boom in the vacation home market—even though the provincial government is in a non-building phase of austerity. “We recently did an audit of our commissions, and found 85 percent of our clients are from out-of-province,” says Stephen Kopp of Saint John-based Acre Architects, a draw that he attributes in part to the attractiveness of the Bay of Fundy coastline. Kopp also notes that there has been a drift of people from the suburbs back into the city core. In line with the trend, one of their current projects is a six-storey, Passive House-standard multi-unit residential build. “This will be a big statement locally to show how high sustainability standards and high design ambitions can work together,” he says.

Throughout the Atlantic coast, climate change has been palpable: there’s been major flooding in New Brunswick, Arctic sea ice blowing down the coast of Newfoundland, and invasive species like European Green Crab coming up regularly in fishing nets. Perhaps as a result, private house clients, universities and specific municipalities seem interested in building with sustainability in mind. But government policy and regulations have to catch up.

The potential exists for the buildings sector to make a significant impact: the relatively moderate climate of Newfoundland, for instance, means that geothermal fields are remarkably effective. “You can run almost 100 percent of a building’s heating and cooling on geothermal,” says Jeremy Bryant of St. John’s-based Lat49, who notes a short payback time of five to six years.

Of the Atlantic provinces, Newfoundland’s economy is struggling the most, as it continues to recover from the fallout of the oil and gas price crash several years ago. The capital-poor provincial government has relied on P3s as a way to finance major projects, including the $120-million Corner Brook hospital, a mental health facility in St. John’s, and a number of long-term care facilities.

“We’ve done several long-term care homes in the past, but now, we don’t even get looked at unless we’re linked to an outside firm,” says Richard Symonds of Lat49, who is concerned that the province lacks understanding of the full implications of using this type of procurement. With only 35 local members across Newfoundland and Labrador, notes Symonds, the architecture community has little influence with government officials. The situation may be somewhat different in the Maritime provinces. Says Susan Fitzgerald of Halifax-based FBM, “I actually see a growing desire to work with local firms with their deep local knowledge—especially as Atlantic architects receive more press and win national and international accolades.”

Still, Newfoundland and Labrador’s architects do what they can, particularly in advocating for architecture. The developments at Fogo Island continue to have a positive impact for design culture, with the international draw of the Fogo Island Inn bringing attention to the transformative potential of architecture. With the help of Canada Council grants, the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Architects runs an annual architecture week and hosts lectures throughout the year.

As in Saskatchewan, there’s the sense that a local design school would be of help in bolstering the status of architecture in the province—perhaps an outpost of Dalhousie University’s School of Architecture. Architect Chris Woodford, of Newfoundland-based Woodford Sheppard, says that design throughout the Atlantic would also be well-served by closer links between the architects in its different provinces. “It’s cheaper for me to fly to London, England, than to St. John, New Brunswick,” he says. “There’s good design happening in various pockets in the region, but it’s difficult for me to even see architectural work designed by my peers in other Atlantic provinces. It’s also difficult to collaborate and to work in different cities, because of the physical obstacles of getting around.”

Regional connections may be strengthened by the advent of Building Equality in Architecture Atlantic (BEAA), an offshoot of Toronto-based organization BEAT, which supports diversity in the profession. With the launch of a PEI chapter in June, BEAA now has a presence in each of the Atlantic provinces. This fall, they’re planning a regional retreat in New Brunswick, and hoping to make it an annual event.

“Despite our small number of registered architects in Atlantic Canada—and with even fewer women architects—there is a palpable feeling of growth and progress with the launch of BEAA,” says Monica Adair of Acre Architects, who spearheaded the initiative. “A shared dedication to the larger mission of helping shape our profession to be more diverse is resulting in a more connected ecosystem. This is vital especially for the smaller provinces, where the architect is not always top of mind, and where we must together address our value in society.” It may be just the kind of energy that’s needed to build a stronger culture of architecture within the region.

This article is part of our State of the Nation series covering Canadian architecture region by region.

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TEXT John Leroux

Prince Edward Island’ s two most iconic works of modern architecture couldn’t be more different. But at this moment, the brutalist stone-clad Confederation Centre of the Arts in downtown Charlottetown and the earthy wood-framed PEI Ark at Spry Point are intimately connected. The Confederation Centre is currently hosting an exceptional exhibition revisiting the Ark—a mid-1970s bioshelter, and one of Canada’ s most admirable exercises in fusing visionary environmental stewardship with viable building and living practices.

Both the Confederation Centre and the Ark were lauded projects at their respective openings. Their differences in sensibility show how far social and political attitudes had shifted in the decade between the heady days leading up to Canada’ s Centennial, and the mid-1970s, when environmental awareness and the aftershocks of the energy crisis were paramount.

The “back to the land” movement of the 1970s and its DIY attitude of building simply, using local technologies, helped make the Ark a focus of national attention. Officially opened in 1976, the Ark was the brainchild of the New England-based New Alchemy Institute, an ecological research centre. Its design was shaped by Solsearch Architects (now BGHJ Architects) a partnership of young architects David Bergmark, FRAIC and Ole Hammarlund, both of whom moved to PEI from the northeastern United States to work on the project. Bergmark and Hammarlund saw the Ark as “ an early exploration in weaving together the sun, wind, biology and architecture for the benefit of humanity.”

The Ark was constructed of 2×6 wood studs, and clad in local wood and inexpensive (but resilient) acrylic glazing. It was an integrated ecological design that was part food-producing greenhouse, part aquaculture fish farm, and part autonomous family home. The whole was wrapped in a simple, yet sophisticated, systems-based structure. Exposed mechanical and plumbing runs, a rock-filled heat sink, and early solar collector panels proudly lined the building, while the dining room overlooked the greenhouse interior through a generous clerestory. It acted as an experimental living laboratory, welcoming visitors with open arms.

The building was so successful in embodying the 1970s zeitgeist that Prime Minister Trudeau attended the opening, famously landing in a helicopter before addressing the gathered crowd. Unreservedly connecting this project on the periphery of North America to a new path forward for the planet, Trudeau said: “ More than one hundred years ago, the idea of Confederation was developed here, and now I like to think that this Island, which has shown hospitality to this political idea which created Canada, is now providing hospitality to a new commitment: a commitment that environmentalists refer to—and I think it’ s a beautiful phrase—as ‘living lightly on the earth’.”

Over the ensuing decades, the project’ s reception shifted from enthusiasm and inspiration to neglect and abandonment. It was unceremoniously demolished 16 years ago. But through reconsideration and this incisive exhibition, it matters once again—perhaps even more than ever.

Through this exhibition, the Confederation Centre’s art gallery is lovingly transformed into a reliquary of lost space and memory, curated by Steven Mannell, FRAIC, professor of architecture and the director of the College of Sustainability at Dalhousie University. Marking the Ark’ s 40th anniversary, the exhibition includes photographs, models, framed magazine features, and a video featuring the Solsearch duo as they rebuild a period model of the Ark. Suites of hand-drafted ink drawings line the meandering walls, ranging from evocative sketches (with pitchforks on the back of pickup trucks) and early building sections, to more technical final plans.

Bounding the exhibition are large-scale blowups of section drawings—showing in no uncertain terms the intertwining of living and working space, mechanical systems, and architectural intention, all deferring to solar orientation and efficiency. In the present era of computer graphics and photorealistic excess, the architects’ hand-crafted graphic materials slow you down as an observer. They also take you right into the core of the Ark idea, evoking Bergmark and Hammarlund’ s personal vision of this particular place, with the history and ecological spirit of the time. A playful sense of whimsy is also evidenced in the gallery itself, with cylindrical fish tanks swimming with life in a side room, and a full-scale mock-up of the greenhouse and its sloping glazed roof in part of the main space.

Above all, Living Lightly on the Earth’s power is in gathering memories; particularly visual memories of those who conceived and built the Ark, and the families who lived in it for the first few years. Equally poignant are the people and events captured on film, such as the video of the Trudeau opening ceremony, and photo stills of an older local woman who sang to the Prime Minister with her hair still in a hairnet and curlers. Bergmark recalls, “she didn’t want to ruin her hair for the evening reception later on.”

The memory of a compelling idea can transcend loss, and the pursuit of integrity and humanity in our environment is a battle too important to be left on an archival shelf. In this moment when we stand at an environmental crossroads, this exhibition reminds us how a bold vision of community stewardship, combined with sustainable architectural and technological practices, can make a difference. As Bergmark reflected, “ The greatest impact wasn’t the Ark Project itself—it was the dialogue the Ark continues to inspire in our lives and work.”

John Leroux is an architect, historian and writer based in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Living Lightly on the Earth: Building an Ark for Prince Edward Island, 1974-76 is on view at the Confederation Centre of the Arts until April 30, 2017. An accompanying book, published by Dalhousie Architectural Press, is forthcoming

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