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.

WINNER OF THE 2024 RAIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AWARD

Patkau Design Lab is the research and fabrication wing of Patkau Architects. More than simply a workshop, it engages in speculative experiments that test the potential of new ways of working with common materials. Through iterative development, attention to detail, and a refined aesthetic, this experimental work has evolved into fully realized furniture pieces, pavilions, and building elements.

The lab believes that understanding material, force, and form at a deep level is essential for architectural innovation. ​Its inaugural project, Winnipeg Skating Shelters, was inspired by the way a small plastic satchel, made of two flat sheets, expands when gently squeezed into an appealing volumetric form. The lab simulated this deformation with sheets of plywood, then expanded the exercise with multiple sheets to create larger volumes and more sophisticated compound curving surfaces.

Turning to more robust materials, the lab began applying the same techniques to thin sheets of stainless steel, eventually developing the OneFold sculptures (winner of the RAIC Innovation Award, 2015). These self-structuring vaults were derived from a bending process that the lab had to invent, because no available steel worker believed it could be done. The technique was evolved to create Cocoons, a series of steel pavilions for the Comme des Garçons store in Tokyo’s Ginza district.

The challenge of shipping the Cocoons led to the insight that a single straight seam-line could be found in what was otherwise a compound curving surface. This led the team to study warped surfaces composed of rule lines, similar to the curves formed by straight lines in DNA’s double-helix structure. They found that these rule lines could be rendered in standard timber units to create exceptional forms. These materialized in the design proposal for Daegu Gosan Public Library, the petal-like walls of the Temple of Light in Kootenay Bay, BC (2018), and the tree canopy-inspired ceiling of Arbour House, in Victoria, BC (2024).

Further experimentation stemming from the Winnipeg Skating Shelters resulted in Twist Chair, which appears as a single bent piece of plywood, but is in fact two nested pieces to give the construction hidden structural depth. Attempts to hybridize Twist Chair with Onefold resulted in the Spingfold Chair, whose sweeping curves result from the spring-like elastic deformation of the steel. The discovery that this chair was difficult to manufacture led to the idea to surround the steel with leather, and then to the embedding of metal anchors within formed and laminated leather—the basis for the Joey Stool.

While pursuing its research, Patkau Design Lab has made numerous efforts to open its methodologies and perspectives to the public, students, and practitioners. This outreach has included articles, lectures, presentations, workshops, and the book Material Operations (Princeton Architectural Press, 2017), which chronicle their thinking and processes. The intent is for this outreach to be generative, providing tools and inspiration for others to find their own innovations. 

Jury Comment :: Patkau Design Lab is a Canadian architectural practice that has developed a system of enquiry over years of research, affirming the value of curiosity, close observation of materials, and imagination. They articulate their principles and position relative to the profession, situating themselves within the discipline with rigour and a critical awareness of the development of current types and methods of innovation and their implications. Their work challenges Canadian architecture and modernism through material explorations and formal innovations.

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A study, conducted by Toronto Metropolitan University in collaboration with The Daniels Corporation, Entro, LeMay and MASSIVart found an increase in placemaking interventions in public and private spaces produces positive impacts. 

According to the study, when placemaking interventions are introduced; increased time spent can result in more sales or productive use of a site; increased self-congruity strengthens brand awareness and attachment; increasing the shareability of the placemaking experience can result in higher traffic to your destination.

The study measured responses from 586 respondents after they were presented with one version of a site. The sites included the following: office spaces, public plazas, retail stores, transit stations, and condo buildings.

The baseline version was a direct model of the site as it appears in public, while the enhanced version included enhanced signage and wayfinding, public art installations, or spatial rearrangements.

Researchers found placemaking initiatives produced a 53% increase in positive perceptions for all of the enhanced environments, compared to the baseline. The study further states that individuals also felt the environments were more inviting, beautiful, stimulating, and comfortable, with the research showing a 63% increase in positive feelings towards the locations.

Another important result of the study is the 77% increased likelihood for individuals to recommend the site to friends, family, acquaintances, and a 74% increased likelihood for visitors to share more information about the location that has placemaking interventions.

“With the general feelings toward the site being more beautiful, stimulating, safer, and friendlier and the increased likelihood for sharing their experiences, researchers also saw a 50% increase in time spent in the locations. Additional time spent can result in increased sales, productive use of space, and overall social and environmental benefits,” says the researchers.

Researchers also noticed a 53% increase in self-congruity when participants engaged with sites with placemaking initiatives. Self-congruity happens when an individual connects their self identity with a brand’s identity.

The synthesis of self identity and brand identity can also solidify brand allegiance – resulting in behaviours like frequent purchases, dedication to community activities, and thoughtful interactions with the environment. The study proves that effective co-design stimulates the targeted communities so that they can relate, participate, and establish a profound connection with the space and its intention.

“When engaged with any of the enhanced sites – transit stations, condo buildings, retail stores, and office spaces – the individual’s behaviour was positively influenced by placemaking interventions,” says the researchers. “Placemaking interventions can significantly affect your targeted communities and result in desired outcomes, such as increased sales, stronger connections, increased interactions, community engagement, brand loyalty, increased traffic, and positive awareness.”

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Human Space presents a new project that will research, propose and test new ideas aimed at developing accessible strategies for federally-owned heritage properties.

The two-and-a-half-year project will be funded by the Accessibility Standards Canada’s Advancing Accessibility Standards Research Program. The project will involve examining national and global precedents and guidelines; a series of hybrid on-site workshops with individuals who experience an array of physical barriers – including users of mobility devices, persons hard of hearing or deaf, persons with low vision or blind, neurodiverse individuals, older adults, children and their attendants or caregivers – to develop a deep understanding of a broad spectrum of experiences.

“Our nation’s heritage buildings exist for everyone’s enjoyment, and they provide keys to understanding our history. Therefore, it is essential that we work together to make them accessible to all people, regardless of their disability. Modifying heritage buildings while preserving their historical integrity is difficult work. However, with collective discussion and thought, we will find solutions that will enable access, while also responsibly caring for these important places,” says Human Space Director and Architect, Jesse Klimitz.

Human Space will test the solutions with user groups and develop a publicly available report of the research and findings showing how the conversions can be a practical reality.

Participating organizations will include the KITE Research Institute, Easter Seals Canada, The Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals, Canadian Disability Foundation, Phil Goldsmith Architect and National Trust for Canada to seek and better understand the issues, challenges, and opportunities of improving accessibility within various historic contexts.

“Our search for a sensitive and inclusive approach to Canada’s federal heritage buildings will open these places to many more people, and we know from experience that while it will be appreciated by the disability community, it will also benefit the public at large,” says Klimitz.

The project begins this month with an initial investigation phase including an environmental scan of federally-owned heritage buildings in urban centres and will follow with a national outreach campaign to disability groups, heritage professionals and other interested parties to participate in workshops and sharing of feedback to inform the work. 

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Researchers at X University (formerly Ryerson, renaming in progress) have launched the New Wood Open Architecture (NWOA) Atlas. The atlas is an open platform documenting participation-oriented projects centered on wood tectonics, assemblies, joinery and finishes. The project’s research team included Paul Floerke, Vivian Nyachira Kinuthia, and Michael Plummer. 

“[The projects] meaningfully involve the dweller in the ongoing spatial design, building and maintenance of their dwelling,” says the team of researchers. “Through physical engagement with building with wood, dwellers form a sincere and lasting relationship with their environment, with their home.”

The approach of the NWOA Atlas blends theory and practice. On one hand, it aims at creating common ground; on the other, it considers the practical relevance and specificity of particular construction situations.

According to the research team, the collected projects show how design processes are experienced in their relationships to the human being, showing continuity in basic principles without excluding individuality.

“The descriptions and analyses are partial answers to formulating a better, more humane, more environmentally friendly world,” says the team.

The spoke diagram visualizes the openness of each case study by assigning a point along each spindle, based on how the design addresses various criteria. The inner ring marks low engagement with criterion, while the outer ring marks a high level of engagement.

A gradient between passive and active involvement is divided into primary areas of influence where the inhabitant is involved in the architecture. Active involvement includes a high level of control and influence over the primary architectural aspects of a project; while passive involvement is the base level where the inhabitant has influence over a limited number of architectural elements.

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PROJECT Future Buildings Laboratory, Concordia University, Loyola Campus, Montreal, Quebec

ARCHITECT Smith Vigeant architectes

As an architect working for Concordia University’s facilities management department, my projects include the renovation of classrooms or offices where our department, along with external professionals, are the experts. In the case of a recent project though, the architects were the learners.

Concordia University’s newest—and smallest—pavilion, designed by Smith Vigeant architectes, may look like a building. But this research facility is essentially an instrument designed to test building envelopes and efficiency under real-weather operating conditions.

The pavilion was created for the University’s Centre for Zero Energy Building Studies (CZEBS), part of the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science’s Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering department, and was informed by the CZEBS’s researchers. That group is directed by one of the world’s foremost experts in solar buildings, Dr. Andreas Athienitis; the construction project was led by Dr. Hua Ge, an expert in field-testing building envelopes. The pavilion is designed, among other things, to test building-integrated photovoltaics, motorized shading devices, hybrid renewables, urban wind energy, and smart nanogrids. It brings these technologies out of the lab, and into the field, allowing researchers and students to experiment with these technologies and serving as a demonstration of what is possible as we develop advanced concepts for carbon-neutral buildings.

To perform this kind of research, the house-sized pavilion incorporates large removable sections of exterior wall and roof—approximately 60 percent of its walls, including two corners, can be removed. This allows the performance and efficiency of various wall and roof assemblies to be assessed, along with their effects on occupant comfort in the corresponding enclosed spaces. Sensors embedded at various points throughout the wall composition allow data to be collected. The exterior envelope components will be changed every one or two years, depending on the research. Our research turned up only a single precedent for this unusual program—the Energy Flex House in Denmark by Henning Larsen Architects, which does not have removable walls or roof sections—and seeing it successfully realized required a number of unique details.

The facility is situated on the northern edge of Concordia’s Loyola campus, and is clad in pine to harmonize with a nearby residential neighbourhood. But its appearance will change over time—a portion of the pine-clad wall can be swapped out with any number of envelopes, from a brick cavity wall, to glazing studded with photovoltaics. Vertical steel C-channels frame the openings into which the wall test panels can be inserted, and double as a support for future shading
devices. The channels are aligned with structural columns which are set back from the slab edge to allow wall thicknesses varying from 50 mm to 570 mm to be tested. Earlier in the design process, these openings were thought of as windows or doors which would slide or swing into place. Due to the need to monitor the temperature and humidity performance of the envelopes being tested, however, it was decided to treat the openings as sections of wall, accepting that membranes and caulking will have to be redone with every change in wall composition. The way the building is framed allows for such changes.

The facility faces south to optimize solar exposure, and contains four south-facing bays, each delineating a room within. This configuration can also change, with multiple rooms combining to create larger spaces. The only fixed walls on the interior enclose the mechanical and electrical rooms to the north, providing lateral bracing. Three of the bays are currently enclosed with semi-transparent photovoltaic (STPV) curtain walls developed by CZEBS researchers in collaboration with industry partners. The last bay is enclosed by spandrel panels, with building integrated photovoltaic/thermal collector (BIPV/T) panels installed on the exterior of them—an experiment that aims to recuperate the heat generated in the cavity between the spandrel and BIPV/T panels to pre-heat the fresh air supply.

A steel structure on the roof was built to support future photovoltaic panels, and equipped with masts that will host a weather station and wind turbine. The roof slopes at 45° on the south side to maximize solar exposure. A shallower 14° incline on the north side facilitates rooftop access, and allows for double height spaces within. Those double-height spaces are capped with a skylight, in order for researchers to test and quantify the effects of passive cooling.

Planned additions also include an electrical vehicle (EV) charging station. The building’s large access ramp is equipped with a removable handrail, allowing it to double as a pathway for a small electrical vehicle—so that researchers can test certain aspects of the relationship between building and automobile, such as using the EV as storage for excess electricity generated from photovoltaics or from the wind turbine.

One of the main challenges of the project was to persuade the general contractor and builders that this was not a house, and that it had to be built in ways that were unconventional. Smith Vigeant and our team spent close to a year in design, and conveying design intent to the builders was often an arduous process.

This experimental building was a challenge to design and build—but also a learning process in itself. We believe that our efforts will pay off, and this highly adaptable “building to test buildings” will help shape and improve our future constructed world.

Shawn Moss, LEED AP, is an architect and project manager with Concordia University’s Facilities Management department.

CLIENT Concordia University, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science – Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering | ARCHITECT TEAM Stéphan Vigeant, Cecilia Chen, Roxane Routhier-Audet, Salsabil Maaroufi, Eric Lalonde, Sabrina Charbonneau | STRUCTURAL Poincaré experts-conseils (Paul-Henry Boutros) | MECHANICAL Pageau Morel et associés (Daniel Picard, Marc-Antoine Jean) | ELECTRICAL Pageau Morel et associés (Jérôme Rivard, Abdel Kader) | LANDSCAPE Smith Vigeant architectes | INTERIORS Smith Vigeant architectes | CONTRACTOR Construction Doverco | PROJECT MANAGEMENT Concordia University, Facilities Management | CIVIL FNX-INNOV (Jade Bossé Bélanger) | CODE GLT+ | SIGNAGE SAIC | ACOUSTICS Davidson acoustique & insonorisation | SITE SURVEY Arsenault Lemay arpenteurs-géomètres & FNX-INNOV | DEMOLITION CONTRACTOR Démoliton Panzini | AREA 125 m2 | BUDGET $1.3 M | COMPLETION June 2021

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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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To Canadian Municipalities and Associations of Architects, Engineers, and Planners:

Canada, as well as a growing number of its jurisdictions, has set necessarily ambitious carbon reduction targets as part of an increasingly urgent global bid to achieve climate stability. While the spotlight often falls on the transportation and energy production sectors, 40 percent of global carbon emissions comes from the construction and operation of buildings. We are becoming increasingly aware that a big part of the issue—11 percent of global emissions—comes from the embodied carbon of the materials that go into the new buildings constructed each year.

The AED sector is just starting to understand the immense carbon impact of building materials. To drastically reduce this impact, greater knowledge, and firm embodied carbon benchmarks and targets, must become part of building standards and planning policies that govern construction across Canada.

Last fall, I headed a Masters of Architecture Research Studio at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto that aimed to find some practical, implementable answers. The studio was titled “Towards Half: Climate Positive Design for the GTHA,” and was framed around the basic question: “How do we halve the greenhouse gas emissions of Toronto’s housing stock this decade?” The intention of the studio is to catalyze a conversation around embodied carbon, and to expose students, practices, and policy-makers to the methods available to account for emissions.

To begin answering this question, students were asked to answer “half of what?”—or in other words, what we are currently emitting through the construction sector?  The studio employed a methodology similar to the City of Vancouver’s Policy Research on Reducing the Embodied Emissions of New Buildings in Vancouver. Collaborating with ten architectural practices, the students produced embodied carbon benchmarks for a range of recently completed and in-construction residential projects within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.  Students first translated construction drawings and specifications into detailed digital models of a representative section, then developed a Bill of Quantities of all construction materials from the model. Finally, they used One-Click LCA’s embodied carbon calculation platform to produce a “cradle-to-gate” assessment of each project’s Global Warming Potential (GWP) expressed in kgCO₂e (kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent). The results of these calculations are listed above.

The calculations include each project’s structure, envelope and interior finish. They do not yet include the emissions associated with demolition of previous site buildings, excavation and site works, shoring, MEP systems, millwork, hardware and fixtures, or landscape. As a result, we estimate that these figures represent between 80-90 percent of the project’s total embodied emissions. Total emissions are derived from available manufacturer-provided Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)—which are admittedly relatively limited in the Canadian context to-date. To ensure cross-project comparisons be on equal footing, students used the same EPDs across projects where applicable.

Based on these summary calculations, students then analyzed the primary drivers of each project’s embodied emissions from a design, material selection, and supply-chain perspective. Below is a summary of five common drivers that emerged across the projects, and recommendations for how they could be addressed through local planning / zoning by-laws, building codes, as well as through architectural design and engineering choices.

Driver 1: Carbon-Intensive Structural Systems

Cast-in-place reinforced concrete was the largest driver of emissions across all projects. Low-rise projects that employ wood-frame structures above a concrete foundation have roughly half the embodied footprint of projects that use reinforced concrete for the project’s entire structure. The lowest-carbon mid-rise project employed a steel-and-hollow core structural system, which resulted in dramatic reductions to total volumes of reinforced concrete per square metre.

Recommendation: Incentivize and design lower-carbon structural systems and materials through regional benchmarking and target-setting.

Driver 2: Carbon-Intensive Envelope Systems 

XPS insulation and aluminum-extrusion-based glazing systems carry the highest embodied GWP by volume of all building materials in the study. XPS insulation’s extremely high GWP is attributed to the harmful blowing agents used in its making, which have recently been banned in products sold in Canada. Aluminum’s sourcing and smelting is also extremely energy-intensive, resulting in relatively high embodied emissions compared to other metals. Unitized window-wall systems that employ high volumes of aluminum therefore have higher per-metre emissions than other glazing systems.

Recommendation: Incentivize the development of lower-carbon envelope systems and follow the AIA’s Large Firm Roundtable’s advice to “avoid foam, especially XPS.”

Driver 3: Floor Area Below Grade 

Foundation works, underground parking structures, and below-grade floor area have disproportionate impacts on a project’s embodied carbon. For mid-rise and high-rise structures, between 20 to 50 percent of each project’s total volume of concrete was below grade. The exception was 22 Trolley Crescent: due to site constraints, there is no floor area permitted below grade. As a result, the project’s embodied carbon is 25 percent lower than the next building with a reinforced concrete structure. 2803 Dundas Street West—the building with the second highest measure of embodied carbon per unit of volume—has 50 percent of its concrete below grade, as a result of offering two floors of below-ground parking built within challenging groundwater conditions. 

Recommendation: Reduce/limit on-site parking requirements or allowances, review how sub-grade floor area is accounted for in coverage calculations, and incentivize the reduction of sub-surface floor area.

Driver 4: Parking’s Dimensional Impact On Structural Grids

The spacing requirements of parking produces a structural grid that is often out of alignment with that of a typical residential floor plate. Projects that employ transfer slabs or structures to mediate these alignments have higher embodied carbon as a result. 38 Cameron Street’s one-metre-deep transfer slab is a significant contributor to the project’s total footprint. 

Recommendation: Review minimum parking space requirements against typical residential structural bays.

Driver 5: Step-Backs And Transfer Beams

Zoning step-back requirements and “angular planes” result in more complicated structures to accommodate different floor plate configurations on upper floors—particular in mid-rise projects. 

Recommendation: Review embodied carbon impact of step-backs and weigh against other impacts.

Overall, the most effective way to address all of the above drivers and guide the dramatic reductions required of Canada’s construction sector would be to set clear embodied carbon targets for future construction in each jurisdiction and region. This approach could learn from the embodied carbon policies recently established by the City of Vancouver, the first of their kind in the world. By setting embodied carbon limits for new construction based on a 2018 benchmarking study, Vancouver aims to promote the use of lower-carbon materials in new construction, to support the education of trades to use lower-carbon materials in construction, and to align low-carbon policy with their planning regulations.

We would love to support a similar approach in your municipality, region, or office. We look forward to discussing this research and its findings with you in greater detail, at your request.

The Towards Half Research Studio was conducted at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. It was led by Visiting Professor Kelly Alvarez Doran, OAA, MRAIC.

The project team included graduate students Amaka Amadi, Ryan Bruer, Juliette Cook, Ivana Luk, James Noh, Rubab Ravzi, Julie-Anne Starling, and Neil Vas.

Project partners from the architectural community included Batay-Csorba Architects, LGA Architectural Partners, Kohn Partnership Architects Inc., Superkül, BDP Quadrangle, Saucier + Perrotte Architectes, Teeple Architects, Diamond Schmitt, B+H Architects, and KPMB Architects.

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The CCA is launching a collaborative, multidisciplinary research project that explores the intersectional dimensions of digital design. The project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities Initiative.

The Digital Now will focus on how digital design intersects with the simultaneous relations between race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality. The project will bring together a multidisciplinary team of scholars, curators, practitioners, and technologists to question the ways in which digital architectural production and social identity formation are intertwined.

“Intersectionality entails a way of seeing and navigating a world with differential forms of justice. Pioneered by intellectuals and activists in the 1970s, from Kimberlé Crenshaw to the Combahee River Collective, it is rooted in gendered and racialized experiences of capitalism,” says the CCA.

The CCA invites participants that can collectively assemble an intersectional discourse on digital design in our contemporary moment that attends to racialized, classed, and other justice-driven dimensions.

This project will build on the CCA’s commitment to a conception of architecture that exceeds a singular paradigm, and that rather places emphasis on a broad conception of design that privileges its complex social milieu.

The team’s collective work will focus on and interrogate digital design using methods and concepts from intersectional theory and practice. Participants could imagine digital architectural practices in relation to past and present conceptions of labour, equitable and sustainable infrastructures, or racial justice across an array of geographies.

The CCA is seeking team members interested in studying digital architectural praxis through in-depth research, whether reliant on fieldwork, archives, or other sites of investigation. Sharing expertise and creative practices, a final group of eight participants will be guided by a multidisciplinary ethos of collaboration and mutual support.

This team will be expected to co-create a collective project that furthers the scope of how intersectionality articulates architecture as a broad field of practice, scholarship, and public concern that has both historically responded and will in the future respond to evolving definitions and manifestations of the digital.

The collaborative and multidisciplinary research project, directed by the CCA, is open to researchers and cultural producers at all career levels, including doctoral students. Those interested should submit their proposal in English or French through the CCA’s application portal by 14 September 2020.

The Digital Now will unfold in two phases. First, the CCA will invite sixteen shortlisted applicants to participate in a multi-day Mellon Seminar, which will take place in Montreal in late fall 2020 (pending COVID-19-related restrictions).

Seminar participants will share their individual projects in order to set the terms of the project and establish a common state of the field. All sixteen shortlisted applicants will receive a stipend to attend the CCA-Mellon Seminar.
Following a peer-review process, eight applicants will be selected to return for the second phase of the project and participate in the Mellon Multidisciplinary Research Project.

The eight selected Mellon Researchers will reconvene in early winter 2021 to begin their eighteen-month engagement with the Mellon Research Project on The Digital Now and will continue the work through the spring of 2022. Each Mellon Researcher will receive a grant to support their research and participation in three multi-day Mellon workshops and seminars.

For more information, visit: https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/73585/the-digital-now-architecture-and-intersectionality 

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As a response to COVID-19, Toronto- and Boston-based LuxMea Studio has developed a 3D-printed mask adapted to individual facial profiles.

LuxMea studio has been working on mass customizable products for the two years with Autodesk research residency and doctors from the Massachusetts General Hospital. The chief medical officer from Massachusetts’ Steward Health Care is currently the trial user of this mask, and has started ordering more for protection.

The team is raising funds to start production of the masks through a Kickstarter campaign.

The customization process takes place through an online platform that walks users through a series of facial measurements. These are used to generate a bespoke mask model, using AI and generative design. LuxMea is partnering with 3D-manufacturer Shapeways, who will 3D print each mask in New York City and deliver it to customers’ doors.

The mask is reusable, washable and comes with replaceable filters. Because of its customized fit, masks can be made for children as well as adults, and sits comfortably while minimizing air leakage. Fashion-forward possibilities include customized colours and graphics.

“The 3D printed mask validates the future of production,” writes Luxmea, who envisages the potential for 3D printing technology to create mass-customized products in many spheres. “The production line operates efficiently with minimum material and energy waste. It is also an example of how 3D Printers can be used as an alternative production power to remedy an urgent situation.”

To back the Kickstarter campaign and pre-order a 3D-printed mask, visit this site.

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PROJECT University of Lethbridge—Science Commons, Lethbridge, Alberta

ARCHITECTS KPMB Architects / Stantec Architecture, Architects in Association

TEXT Matt Knapik

PHOTOS Adrien Williams

This fall, the Science Commons at the University of Lethbridge opened its doors to a new generation of researchers, students and staff. The result of an extensive six-year process with KPMB Architects and Stantec, the 38,400-square-metre, $219-million facility presents an ambitious new vision for cross-disciplinary university research in Canada, and a prominent new face for the University of Lethbridge.

The Science Commons is sited at the north end of Arthur Erickson’s iconic University Hall, which has kept pensive watch over Alberta’s Old Man River Valley for the past half century. The new building sets out its own formal agenda—there is little deference here to University Hall’s massing or materiality, and no trace of Erickson’s dogmatic fidelity to the prairie datum. Instead, the Commons carries bold lines across its prominent mass, drawing new relationships both to its neighbour and to the rolling coulees. Taken together, it’s tempting to see the two buildings not just as different ideas, but as altogether separate architectural species.

Drawing on Moriyama & Teshima Architects’ 2012 Master Plan for the University of Lethbridge, Science Commons is sited to create a defining edge and pedestrian link along the north line of the campus. It closes an important loop around the University’s lower Coulee Quad, reaffirming the long-term viability of University Hall. The building mass deviates somewhat from the Master Plan’s scheme, finding a more privileged position on an outcrop along the escarpment. The architecture takes good advantage of this position, delivering long views into the campus green and the river valley below.

In Erickson’s University Hall, the floor plates are sunk into the coulee topography, presenting an inherent challenge to campus expansion. Even in Erickson’s original master plan, the primary growth strategy simply saw another thousand-foot building placed in the adjacent coulee. Instead, in subsequent decades, buildings linking to University Hall’s southern end had to find ways of descending to Erickson’s elevation. In this regard, Science Commons has achieved a successful internal choreography that eluded the University’s previous expansions. Tall interior volumes, terraced floors, and well-articulated stairways invite the rolling landscape up into the building, providing a natural circulation logic.

Within this system, two key gestures complete the campus link. On the west end of the building, a slim and elegant bridge gathers pedestrians from the campus above. To the east, a low, Miesian mass provides a distinct and understated connection to University Hall, a mediating force between the two architectures. The building’s south edge has awakened the University’s Coulee Quad, which should instigate further review of the potentials of this remnant outdoor space. Proper attention from a landscape architect could unearth the space’s emerging presence and unique landscape character, inviting it more fully into the social life of the campus.

The Science Commons is wrapped in a double-skin facade, joining Manitoba Hydro Place in a lineage of sustainable building collaborations by KPMB and German sustainability consultant Transsolar. The exterior wall is populated exclusively by remotely actuated windows, while the interior includes user-operated windows, offering a balance of agency and performance. On the building’s south face, the two layers peel away from each other to produce a compelling winter garden that students can pass through and inhabit. This space alone has twelve modes of operation—and along with the rest of the complex building skin—will become “better tuned” and “better played” as an instrument over time, according to the designers.

There is a significant question posed by this lineage of work: does it pay off to build a building-around-a-building? From the perspective of energy performance and environmental comfort, the current case studies are looking positive for large-scale scenarios. Manitoba Hydro Place, for example, has performed beyond its stated targets. It will take time and careful study of each individual project to provide a better answer, but we likely will see more of this solution on institutional buildings in the coming years.

The Science Commons is flanked by two outdoor “porches”—a quaint term given the tremendous scale of the spaces. One is essentially the building’s forecourt, inviting visitors from the main parking lot. The other is a grand outdoor gathering space. Its carefully crafted microclimate creates a moment of refuge overlooking the valley—an improved take on the bare and windswept tunnel-effect present at University Hall’s outdoor plaza.

The aptly named Science Commons aims to build bridges between the sciences and the community by producing transparent spaces for collaboration and informal gathering. This agenda is a key driver of the plan, which is organized as a series of nested social units.

At the largest scale, four large blocks pinwheel around a full-height atrium. As described by project co-lead Bruce Kuwabara, this well-appointed space is “the piazza to Erickson’s thousand-foot street; a destination at the end of a long filmic procession through the prairie.” The atrium serves as building hub, event space, and anteroom to the main lecture theatre; it will undoubtedly become a campus-wide focal point.

The four surrounding blocks are divided into “neighbourhoods” with central places for gathering. These neighbourhoods are in turn home to smaller clusters, which provide lab, office and support spaces for groups of students and researchers. Evident care has gone into the scale, arrangement and appointment of these spaces, providing opportunities for collaboration at many scales.

Natural light streams through the building’s skylights and plentiful glass walls. “Science on display” is the repeated chorus, an idea that stemmed from the design team’s first engagement question to its clients: “Why did you choose to become a scientist?” The resulting interior is a celebration of science as a theatre of discovery. There are open views into nearly every laboratory and classroom, interactive displays, and a dedicated learning space for community and K-12 programming. Scientific research and its intriguing paraphernalia are the building’s core seduction, and an important ingredient in the facility’s broader economic agenda. As Alberta premier Jason Kenney noted in his remarks at the building’s grand opening, the facility plays a key role in attracting international talent and securing the province’s long-term prosperity. Walking through large, gleaming labs full of modern instruments, one can feel the weight of this promise. The Science Commons is a bold signal—both of Alberta’s pressing need to reimagine itself and of its enduring optimism and innovation.

KPMB and Stantec have produced a provocative architectural statement next to Lethbridge’s landmark University Hall. While Erickson’s most fervent devotees will likely never fully embrace the new presence, the students, faculty and community that call Science Commons home know full well that they are in possession of one of Canada’s premiere science facilities.

Matt Knapik is a designer and educator based in Calgary. He studied architecture and urban design at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Calgary, where he has taught as a sessional instructor since 2011. He is an Urban Designer at O2 Planning + Design.

CLIENT University of Lethbridge | ARCHITECT TEAM KPMB—Bruce Kuwabara (FRAIC), Mitch Hall (FRAIC), Kael Opie, Nic Green, Lucy Timbers, Amin Monsefi, Andrew Hill. Stantec— Michael Moxam (FRAIC), Stephen Phillips (FRAIC), Justin Saly (MRAIC), Rich Hlava, Trish Piwowar, Dale Bateman, James Strong, Chris Onyszchuk (MRAIC), Ruth Wigglesworth, Bo Kim, May Fung, Mahshid Matin, Wilfred Lach, Tim Lee, Michael Reagan, Matthew Emerson, John Higgins, Peter Eng, Renato Calanog, Dennis Flandez, Russell Flores, Floren Jose, Joan Diaz | STRUCTURAL Entuitive | MECHANICAL SNC-Lavalin | ELECTRICAL SMP Engineering | LANDSCAPE PFS Studio | INTERIORS KPMB Architects / Stantec Architecture, Architects in Association | CIVIL Stantec Consulting | ENERGY/CLIMATE Transsolar Inc. | WIND/MICROCLIMATE/ACOUSTICS RWDI | GREENHOUSE GHE/JGS | LEED Stantec Consulting | VIBRATION NOVUS Environmental | AV/IT The Sextant Group | VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION Soberman Engineering | QUANTITY SURVEYOR Altus Group | GEOTECHNICAL Tetra Tech EBA | VIVARIUM The ElmCos Group | VIVARIUM WALL COVERING Altro Whiterock | CONTRACTOR PCL | AREA 38,400 m² | BUDGET $219 M | COMPLETION August 2019

Energy Use

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 383.2 kWh/m²/year; 51% energy reduction (relative the MNECB) | BENCHMARK (NRCAN, hospitals built after 2010) 666.7 kWh/m²/year | WATER USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 35% water use reduction

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Carleton University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering professor Cynthia Cruickshank, and Burak Gunay, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, have received funds from NRCanada to improve building efficiency, and reduce emissions.

.@Carleton_U is a leader in sustainability & energy efficiency! Thrilled to join Minister @cathmckenna today for @NRCan funding announcements of $3.5M. Congratulations @CarletonU_Eng Profs Cynthia Cruickshank & Burak Gunay for your amazing work on building efficiency! #CUproud pic.twitter.com/7SY6hTioA2

— Benoit-Antoine Bacon (@CU_President) July 26, 2019

Cruickshank has received $5.1 million in funding from the NRCan Energy Innovation Program, and the Ontario Research Fund (ORF), to develop new building envelope technologies that make Canada’s buildings less greenhouse gas intensive.

“Carleton continues to take the lead on advances in sustainable construction,” said Rafik Goubran, vice-president (Research and International). “The Carleton’s Centre for Advanced Building Envelope Research (CU-CABER) research program will foster clean energy innovation and play an important role in developing new solutions leading to more efficient, resilient buildings.”

According to Carleton University, CU-CABER plans to develop approaches to building envelopes that are thinner and cheaper, as well as new methods for renovating existing buildings with fewer cost and less disruption.

“Solutions for existing buildings will play the biggest role in meeting Canada’s climate change goals,” said Cruickshank, professor and director of CU-CABER. “Although Canada will construct nearly four million new homes before 2030, more than 13.7 million homes are already built, and 62 per cent of them were constructed more than 20 years ago, before the National Building Code prescribed requirements for energy efficiency.”

The funding supports the construction of large-scale building envelope test equipment. The equipment includes a two-story guarded hot box with a spray rack capable of testing full-scale residential and building facades, and a materials characterization lab.

With this new infrastructure, researchers will have the ability to study how heat, air and moisture move through materials and highly insulated wall systems, and how these elements contribute to occupant health, comfort and building science risks (i.e. condensation, mold growth and rot).

In a separate grant, Burak Gunay, with fellow researchers Liam O’Brien and Scott Bucking, have received $510,000 from the NRCan Green Infrastructure Fund to develop new data-mining tools that will improve building energy efficiency, occupant comfort, health, and workplace productivity.

According to the University, this project will apply state of the art data mining techniques to analyze operational data sources such as building automation systems, energy meter networks, computerized maintenance management systems and Wi-Fi traffic data.

This data will be used to detect operational abnormalities and sub systems that may not be working correctly.

“There is a lot of focus on designing energy efficient buildings, but even well designed buildings can function inefficiently unless further quality assurance measures are taken,” said Gunay. “Without the proper tools it is very difficult for building managers to diagnose problems and correct them. This tool will provide operators with key metrics and insights into building functionality.”

The researchers have already applied the new technology of correcting programming errors in the environmental controls to Carleton’s Canal building, which according to the University, has resulted in saving approximately 30 per cent in office energy use.

Click here to view the full list of funded projects. 

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In 2013, I joined experimental social psychologist Dr. Celeste Alvaro to conduct a post-occupancy study of Bridgepoint Active Healthcare, a complex care hospital in Toronto. This study, the largest of its kind in Canada, was uniquely positioned to look at the psychosocial impacts of design on staff and patients in chronic care and rehabilitation, as Bridgepoint relocated from its old building to a new state-of-the-art facility on an adjacent site.

While most evidence-based design research has focused on readily quantifiable impacts, such as optimized workflows, this study sought to investigate some of the harder-to-measure qualitative aspects of design. We were interested in the effects of design on the psychological well-being of patients—depression, connectedness, mood, stress reduction—as well as looking at health impacts such as pain and mobility.

The hospital’s architects—Stantec Architecture / KPMB Architects (Planning, Design and Compliance Architects) and HDR Architecture / Diamond Schmitt Architects (Design, Build, Finance and Maintain Architects)—aspired to make the 464-bed facility into a new paradigm in patient-centered care for chronic disease and rehabilitation in Canada. The country’s aging population is projected to be living longer with complex and multiple chronic diseases, which means longer-term or recurring relationships with treatment environments. To address this new reality, healthcare facilities will be transitioning from the current model of predominantly acute care (where visits are short and infrequent) to a new model of ongoing care. The social, sensorial and affective qualities of spaces are far more important in this latter type of care—which comes with a captive and aware patient population, prone to depression and boredom.

ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES

The architects’ stated design objectives were used as the focus for the study. These included normalizing and humanizing the hospital environment, connecting it into the local community and Riverdale Park, maximizing daylight and views, and using multiple ancillary spaces as destinations to encourage mobility and social interaction. During preliminary design, the project was presented as a “village of care” , featuring “urban porches” and “sky gardens” that would enhance the quality of life for patients by offering an augmented program of amenity spaces.

The hospital was significantly enlarged from the earlier facility because of a transition from quad and triple rooms to private and semi-private rooms, as well as the addition of physiotherapy spaces, resource rooms, dining spaces, lounges, gardens and retail—all linked through internal “streets” that visually connect to the local context. The study analyzed the character, configuration and impact of these connective and social spaces, as well as evaluating the improved hospital rooms.

While it was expected that these innovations would all be positively received, one of the concerns with the bigger building (now on a greater number of larger floor plates) was that it would create too low a density of occupants per floor—actually diminishing social interaction and mobility rather than enhancing it. There was also concern that the improved quality and privacy of the individual rooms might make patients reclusive, and that the greater quantity, variety and dispersion of social spaces would diminish the intensity experienced in the previous building’s centralized lounges.

SOCIAL SPACE AND MOTIVATION

Our interdisciplinary research team, led by Dr. Alvaro, collected responses from patients and staff both before and after the move to the new Bridgepoint. They used a variety of systemic and unobtrusive methods to gather spontaneous, unsolicited impressions related to comfort, wellness, connectedness and social interaction. Our architectural team, which I led, looked at these reported differences in use and at the perception of space in each building, and cross-referenced this information with comparative architectural data. We considered the densities of patients and staff per floor, quantity and variety of amenity spaces competing for patient use, travel distance to social spaces and elevators, visual interest and porosity of interrelated areas, presence of daylight, and other circulation conditions that could facilitate casual social interface and interaction.

Compared to the former building, the new hospital is twice as large in floor area, offers quadruple the volume of space, and has almost five times the ratio of amenity-to-bed space. The change to private and semi-private rooms and bathrooms—an upgrade that meets con-temporary hospital best practice and accessibility codes, conventions and systems—drove much of this area and volume increase. The increase in amenity space, for its part, was not simply program driven, but came out of the selected plan parti. Site constraints dictated an eleven-storey building while maintaining a relatively compact footprint. Multiple floors were each given their own “neighbourhood” lounge spaces for a much smaller population of patients per floor than the former building. The pinwheel floor plan, organized to provide destinations and views at the end of each corridor, generated a proliferation of common spaces.

As anticipated, we found that these patient floor amenity and lounge spaces were rarely used, despite their abundant daylight and attractive distant views. Instead, patients typically travelled multiple floor levels to gather at a few central building destinations. The most popular areas were the rooftop terrace—an outdoor space with activity, community and spectacular views to the lake and the city—and the ground floor lobby and cafeteria, where patients were more apt to encounter larger groups and could observe the comings and goings of staff and visitors. On average, there was a 23.4 per cent increase in patient motivation to “get out and move around” in the new building versus the old—a key objective for chronic care patients prone to inactivity.

As William Whyte observed in his famous study of public spaces, “what attracts people most, it would appear, is other people.”

More important than the quantity and variety of amenity spaces were the qualities of the internal circulation paths to get to them. On patient floors, circulation was designed to ensure a high level of daylight, as well as syncopated and varied views to the adjacent parks, urban skyline and surrounding neighbourhood, encouraging a sense of orientation. Documented impressions showed that patients enjoyed a greater sense of connectedness to the outside world and interest in moving around the building.

In general, the collected data showed a consistently improved overall reaction to the new building. The average response was 13 per cent more positive compared to the old facility. Patients also perceived their own health as ameliorated, with mental health improvements an average of 6 per cent higher pre- versus post-occupancy. They are also healing significantly more quickly—according to hospital President and CEO Marion Walsh, patient stays are 25 per cent shorter in the new facility.

BEYOND BRIDGEPOINT

Every building is a unique entity, the product of a complex construct of variables. Analytical templates and techniques for eliciting and gauging patient response have the potential for broader adoption—providing a standard for collecting, unbundling, and analyzing the large-order architectural components and conditions that distinguish projects, and understanding their impacts on human feelings and behaviours.

As Canada grapples with a growing need for chronic care and rehab facilities, evidence on the impact of design on psycho-social health will be an extremely valuable tool, eventually leading to new mandated standards and guidelines. Properly implemented, evidence-based guidelines will have the potential to reduce stress and depression, while improving patient outlook, social interaction, and self-efficacy in mobility. These are measurable outcomes that can help reduce patient stays and related healthcare delivery costs. Recent measurement standards for commercial and institutional buildings, like the WELL Building Standard, further attest to the importance of qualitative design. There is a business case for improving the character, beauty and experiential quality of our built environment.

Cheryl Atkinson, OAA, MRAIC is an associate professor at Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science.

This research was funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Partnerships for Health System Improvement (PHSI) grant awarded to Dr. Celeste Alvaro and team via the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research and the Rx&D Health Research Foundation Fostering Innovation in Healthcare Initiative with partnered funding from the Health Capital Investment Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

The full research report, including an overview of the research development and the team, can be found at: www.issuu.com/architectureandhealthresearch.

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SLICK SCIENCE

PROJECT Dubrovsky Molecular Pathology Centre, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec

ARCHITECT NFOE et associés architects

TEXT David Theodore

PHOTOS Stéphane Brügger

Why do we spurn laboratories? Seen as relentlessly technical and constrained projects, laboratory commissions do not have the glamour of museums, libraries or single-family homes. The same disdain goes for hospitals, surprisingly few of which are in architecture history books despite how many there are in our cities. Put together, the hospital laboratory has a dual disadvantage. So why would an architect want to design one?

Maxime Pion, design architect at NFOE architectes et associés in Montreal, has a commonsense answer. “We had a good budget,” says Pion, “and our client, Dr. Alan Spatz, was very open to new ideas.” He’s talking about the Dubrovsky Molecular Pathology Centre, affiliated with the Segal Cancer Unit at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital. The privately funded, 12,000-square-foot facility opened early last year. It provides workspace for 30 doctors-in-training and 30 technicians in a playful and lively design akin to offices for a tech startup: crisp white cabinetry, writable walls and bright colours.

The Centre’s mission is to produce personalized cancer medicine. Doctors send a tissue sample from a cancer patient to the Centre, where researchers then analyze its genetic components: DNA, RNA and proteins. In five to six days, the team can create a profile of the tumour’s genetic mutations at the molecular level, which doctors use to prescribe custom-designed drugs. This personalized treatment, the hospital says, ensures that patients can be spared unhelpful drugs and therapies.

The challenges for NFOE were complex. The building itself gave the architects little to work with. The Centre is on the sixth floor of an existing building, and one-third of the floor area had to be kept free for future facilities. As well, the floors above and below had to remain in operation throughout construction. There is ample floor-to-floor height—almost 4.5 metres—but half of it is needed for a bewildering array of HVAC ducts and equipment.

Pion says that the planning came from a thorough consultation process. NFOE aimed to lay out rooms and machines in a way that would optimize the time required to analyze samples. The tissue samples move through the laboratory stations from tissue preparation to analysis in a sequence that involves as little doubling back as possible.

The arrival from the elevators is rather ordinary. But once the Centre’s users turn left towards the security doors, they are met with a precise and bright environment. The design becomes quite sleek at moments where door and window frames are reduced or eliminated. A pair of full-height pivoting glass doors, for instance, transforms a simple conference room entry point into an event. Both imposing and festive, they allow equally for privacy or parties.

Colour gives two kinds of visual cues to users. First, it identifies different activity zones. An apple green covers the entire kitchen and entrance area. The waiting area sports a large mural with similar bright green tones, while two neighbouring conference rooms share a curved wall with blue murals. Second, when surfaces are opened or cut, they reveal saturated colours. For instance, a corridor bench set deep into an interior wall is painted cadmium red, while cabinets open to reveal cobalt blue interiors. “We had fun with the composition,” says project architect Dominic Daoust. One particular colour choice seems to be working well. Inside the workrooms, the architects used cobalt blue vinyl safety flooring. “Colour on the floor is very efficient,” says Daoust. “It makes the room less cold without adding distraction.”

The design also emphasizes borrowed light and shared views. Where possible, labs have windows to the exterior. Offices facing the street include glass interior walls, allowing natural light to filter in to a connecting corridor. “We tried to give everyone a hint of the weather outside,” adds Daoust. This idea is carried out in a number of design elements; one is an enfilade of glass set into the interior partitions of the administrative offices. Another consists in creating borrowed views from one laboratory into another, sometimes across corridors. These design elements are not readily visible in the plan or in photos, but they affect the quality of the users’ everyday life. Whether in a lab or in an office, all workers have vistas beyond their own workspace.

Note that patients do not visit this part of the hospital; only their tissue samples do. Contrary to popular opinion, the challenge of hospital design is not strictly about patient care, but rather—and often primarily—about providing appropriate settings for hospital workers to do their jobs. A patient may only be in the hospital for a few days; an oncologist might spend her entire career there. For the architects of the Dubrovsky Molecular Pathology Centre, the space’s most important role is not treating patients, but rather supporting the health-care professionals who do. And those professionals are discerning well-educated clients, with an eye for detail and every bit as much design-savvy as high-tech entrepreneurs. Laboratory design might just be more glamorous than we think.

David Theodore is an Assistant Professor at the McGill University School of Architecture.

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