Niagara Regional Headquarters

The new building creates an urban street presence at a suburban intersection.

The tight budget and schedule requirements of a Design Build contract, combined with the sustainable agenda of a LEED® municipal client set this project apart from others of similar scope and scale. The four-storey office building is an extension to the existing Thorold City Hall, and consolidates operational services for the Niagara Region. (more…)

Careful design delivers high quality work space on large scale

The building is arranged in two parallel, four-storey wings, offset from one another and oriented with their long sides facing due south to take maximum advantage of solar exposure.

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This new 51,100 m2 head office building, located on a 9.9 hectare site, represents a major initiative in Loblaw’s ongoing commitment to the environment and its employees. The client’s objective was to provide a high quality work environment, one that would embody and reflect the company’s own philosophy of sourcing with integrity, making positive differences in the community and in the way we operate culturally, socially and environmentally at work and at home. (more…)

Sustainable shelter

considering the need for both human and animal interaction with the building introduced an extra level of design complexity

Design strives for LEED Gold in harsh climate

Built to handle more than 10,000 animals annually, this 4,000 sq.m sustainable shelter facility is located on a wooded lot that extends deep into the neighbouring community. The goal was to develop a building form and architectural character that would allow it to sit unobtrusively in its forest setting.
The design challenges were heightened by Winnipeg’s extreme climate, which includes hot summers and the third coldest winters of any major city in the world. (more…)

Integrated design delivers Ontario’s first LEED Platinum

The north elevation. All windows are operable for natural ventilation.

The new Restoration Services Centre is located on the Toronto Conservation Authority’s ‘Living City Campus’ in Vaughan ON, home of the newly created secretariat of the World Green Building Council. The new structure symbolizes the TCRA’s commitment to energy efficiency and excellence in environmental design, within its broader mandate of environmental restoration and conservation in the Toronto region. (more…)

Space efficiency and student ideas remake college

The gymnasium extension with reuse of an existing handicap ramp. The design maximizes space efficiency for the most minimal footprint – a basic of green building – and economized on the construction budget.

In 2003, the Collège Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes was both celebrating its 50th anniversary and facing major difficulties: its location between two highly competitive private schools, a series of problems related to poor building maintenance, bad use of space, and unattractive settings threatened its viability. In order to fulfill its mission, the college needed to attract a new clientele and increase its enrollment from 600 to 950. (more…)

Trail breaker a LEED Silver first

The school is remarkable for its quality of light, with large areas of south facing glazing bringing high levels of daylight into classroom areas

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Empowered by the client’s mandate to build a “green” school, the design team pushed the envelope well beyond energy-efficient design, and set out to create a healthy, user-friendly learning environment that effectively facilitates the learning process in the true spirit of sustainability - all within the standard budget for school construction. (more…)

New facility re-energizes established community

The design provides the lightest possible structural system and optimizes north views of the park and mountains beyond

Filled with an abundance of natural light, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation Killarney Community Pool engages the surrounding public spaces, bringing a new intensity to an important civic facility. (more…)