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Tag: 2019 Canadian Green Building Awards

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City of Calgary Composting Facility, Calgary, AB

Technical Award | Stantec

Jury comments: This facility represents a significant milestone on the road to a circular economy, by converting millions of kilograms of domestic organic waste into valuable compost each year. By-products of this process are also re-engineered to create other marketable commodities, while solar panels, rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling and other environmental strategies have helped this project achieve a LEED v4 Gold rating – the first in Canada.

Nearly 60% of single-family household garbage is compostable waste in Calgary. The City wanted to change this. First and largest of its kind in Canada, the Calgary Compost Facility (CCF) diverts 85 millionkilograms of material from landfills annually by converting it into a marketable product—compost. Opportunities to convert other resources that might otherwise have been overlooked also included:

• 100% of the harvested rainwater is used for the composting process or to flush toilets and urinals

• Greywater from the sinks and showers is diverted into the composting process

• Solar energy is captured via an on-site photovolatic solar farm

• Odour control is maintained using recovered wood chips

• Sulfuric acid used to remove ammonia from the exhaust air in the composting process creates hazardous waste, ammonium sulfate. A process was developed to convert this to a neutralized crystallized form, which is used as fertilizer for agriculture.

These innovative strategies were implemented despite a tight construction schedule. Ina visionary move, the CCF designed the adjacent Administration and Education Building to reach new sustainable heights. It is the first building certified under the LEED® v4 Building Design + Construction rating system in Canada, achieving Gold certification.

The Administration and Education Building boasts a high-performance envelope, reducing the amount of energy lost to the outdoors. It also takes advantage of energy-saving technologies such as condensing boilers, exhaust air heat recovery and high efficiency domestic water heaters.

PROJECT CREDITS

  • Client:  City of Calgary Waste and Recycling Services
  • Architect:  Stantec
  • Civil/Electrical/Mechanical/Structural Engineer:  Stantec
  • General Contractor: Chinook Resources Management Group
  • Landscape Architect:  Stantec
  • Commissioning Agent:  WSP
  • Photos:  Ian Grant

PROJECT PERFORMANCE

  • Energy intensity (building and process energy) = 65.3KWhr/m²/year
  • Energy intensity reduction relative to reference building under ASHRAE 90.2 2010 = 39.1%
  • Water consumption from municipal sources = 2,462 litres/occupant/year
  • Reduction in water consumption relative to reference building under LEED = 50.4%

The administration areas are heated with Viessmann Vitodens 200-W condensing boilers.

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Radium Hot Springs Community Hall and Library, Radium Hot Springs, BC

Institutional [Small] Award | Urban Arts Architecture

Jury comments: This community project in a small town in the mountains of British Columbia reimagines the meaning of ‘community investment’. With a community-centred procurement focus, the project was designed to optimize the social and economic benefits for those living and working within a 100-mile radius of the site and, as such, creates a new ‘recipe’ based on the locally-available ingredients of materials, technology and craft skills.    

The village of Radium Hot Springs Is located in the mountainous southeast corner of British Columbia. The new Community Hall and Library occupy a prominent corner in the centre of the village, overlooking the Legends Park kettle hole.

Designed as the “100 mile” building, the project maximizes the use of local materials and trades in the Columbia Valley. The project goals were to: support economic sustainability through a unique project process that would maximize the use of local resources, both material and human; demonstrate the use of renewable resources and innovative replicable building systems; and create a building that would respond to the micro-climate of the site.

Critical to the success of the project was an integrative design process that identified local materials, resources and labour, thereby dramatically reducing the life cycle embodied energy and overall carbon footprint of the development. The design process resulted in a building that maximized the use of local wood fibre, utilizing approximately 288 cubic metres of wood products harvested from woodlots within 50 kilometres of the site and processed at the local Canfor mill just one kilometer away.

The structure comprises dowel laminated timber (DLT) panels combined with glulam posts and beams. DLT is a mass timber structural panel constructed of standard dimensional lumber, friction-fit together with hardwood dowels, not requiring the use of nails, screws, or adhesives.

This combination results in a structural system with a high potential for demountability, adaptability and reuse. Much of the material fabrication was carried out locally, including the panels which  were prefabricated off-site in Golden, 60 kilometres north of Radium, and transported to the site in a choreographed sequence to maximize efficiency. The cladding was milled by a local mill and charred in Brisco, eight kilometres from the site.

The building is organized and oriented to maximize passive strategies with a long linear form on the east-west axis, permitting natural daylighting and cross ventilation. Strategically located roof overhangs control solar exposure.

Window locations are carefully calibrated to capture the views of the mountains and connect to the park while maintaining less than 40% window-to-wall ratio for energy efficiency.

PROJECT CREDITS

  • Client:  Village of Radium Hot Springs
  • Architect:  Urban Arts Architecture
  • Civil Engineer:  Core Group Consultants
  • Electrical Engineer:  Applied Engineering Solutions
  • Mechanical Engineering:  Rocky Point Engineering Ltd.
  • Structural Engineer: Equilibrium Canada
  • General Contractor:  Ken Willimont
  • Landscape Architect:  Hapa Collaborative
  • Photos:  Dave Best

PROJECT PERFORMANCE

  • Energy intensity (building and process energy) = 274 KWhr/m²/year
  • Energy intensity reduction relative to reference building = 36%
  • Regional materials (800km radius) by value = 80%

Lighting and acoustic panels are built into the roof panels. Uponor supplied PEX piping for the heating system consisting of air-source heat pumps and high-efficiency Viessmann Vitodens 200-W boilers.

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Wellington Building Rehabilitation, Ottawa, ON

Existing Building Upgrade Award | NORR Architects and Engineers

Jury comments: Now widely acknowledged as one of the cornerstones of a sustainable built environment, the renovation and repurposing of existing buildings conserves embodied energy, supports social sustainability and cultural continuity. This project carefully and cleverly reconciles the competing challenges of seismic upgrading of the structure, updating of building services and infrastructure and the constraints of heritage conservation.

This project transforms an insurance office building, consisting of a historic 1927 Beaux Arts landmark and a 1959 addition, into facilities for the House of Commons. The program includes parliamentary offices, multipurpose rooms, library of parliament facilities, cafeteria, ground floor retail space, security processing, as well as two levels of underground support facilities.

The transformation involved stripping the building back to its internal structural frame work, a complete building system replacement, seismic upgrades, heritage restoration, the insertion of a new more robust structural core and new multi-storey spaces.

The project achieved a four Green Globes rating through the preservation of the building core and shell, the reuse of the copper roof, stone and other materials, connection to the district energy plant, solar panels for domestic water pre-heating, heat recovery units, reduced water requirements, a rainwater cistern, a green roof, and room sensors to regulate temperature and light levels. 

A sky-lit atrium brings natural daylight into the upper floors of the building reducing artificial lighting needs. A living wall biofilter provides a natural aesthetic, dampens noise, and cleans and humidifies the air in the ground floor lobby.

The repurposing of existing building stock rather than discarding and building new reflects the priorities of the federal government. The challenge was to rehabilitate the building in a manner that would ensure another 90 years of life while respecting its heritage aspects. While the existing material pallet of stone and bronze has stood up well over time, the mechanical, electrical systems, and exterior windows needed complete replacement and the seismic performance needed significant upgrading.

PROJECT CREDITS

  • Client  Public Services and Procurement
  • Architect  NORR Architects and Engineers
  • Heritage Architect  FGMDA
  • Structural Engineer  Adjelelan Allen Rubeli
  • Mechanical/Electrical Engineer: NORR Architects and Engineers
  • General Contractor:  Ellis Don Corp
  • Photos:  Doublespace Photography

PROJECT PERFORMANCE

  • Energy intensity (building and process energy) =  213 KWhr/m²/year
  • Energy intensity reduction relative to reference building under ASHRAE 90.1 2007 = 34%
  • Water consumption from municipal sources = 5,458litres/occupant/year
  • Reduction in water consumption relative to reference building under LEED = 64%
  • Recycled material content by value = 20%
  • Regional materials (800km radius) by value = 20+%
  • Construction waste diverted from landfill = 87%

Viessmann supplied solar hot water roof panels. The atrium links the reconstructed 1927 and 1959 lobbies to the spaces above via escalators and a sculptural stair. The Nedlaw living wall biofilter is 8.9 m wide x 4.4 m high and removes VOCs from the atrium area, creating 4,000 cubic feet of virtual outside air per minute. Uponor radiant heating systems are used in selected perimeter floor areas. 

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The Duke, Vancouver, BC

Residential [Large] AWARD | Acton Ostry Architects Inc.

Jury comments: An innovative approach to high density urban  living that takes advantage of Vancouver’s relatively mild climate to incorporate a courtyard typology to optimize the use of available site area. The project configuration promotes casual encounters and social interaction between residents and includes an accessible roof, with play space for children, raised planters for community gardening and a dog-walking area, providing a level of amenity that is rare if not unprecedented in a rental building.

Completed in March 2018, The Duke is a LEED Gold target, rental residential project designed under the City of Vancouver Rental 100 Secured Market Rental Housing Policy, which allows height and density limits in strategic locations in the city to be rezoned in exchange for provision of 100% rental housing.

Located near a busy transit-oriented node in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, the 15,260 m2, 14-storey, mixed-use project includes 201 rental units, with a small ground floor retail component, all compactly contained in an open-air atrium court building typology that is new to Vancouver.

In contrast to a traditional design approach that would typically feature a double-loaded corridor with units along both sides, the floor plan for The Duke instead features a single-loaded corridor with living units pushed to the outer edge of the site to create a central void space. Such a strategy substantially increases the number of units that can be accommodated on the site by maximizing the overall density within a prescribed 14-storey height limit.

A traditional double-loaded corridor approach would have made the project economically unviable as a rental property; whereas the strategic decision to push the units to the site perimeter made the development viable for rental housing.

The central void is transformed into a soaring, open-air circulation atrium over which a translucent Teflon canopy shields the space from the elements. The rental units are arranged around the perimeter of the trapezoidal-shaped site. This outdoor circulation space enables occupants to step out into a well-lit, weather protected environment designed to provide opportunities for residents to interact, even if only for a brief moment. An array of multi-coloured front doors further animates the central atrium space.

PROJECT PERFORMANCE

Performance metrics for the LEED certification are:

• Operating Energy: 32% reduction in energy cost relative to an ASHRAE 90.1- 2007 Baseline

• Water Consumption: 37% reduction compared to reference building

• Recycled Materials: 21% by cost

• Regional Materials: 33% by cost

• Waste Diversion: 87% of demolition and construction waste diverted from the landfill

PROJECT CREDITS

  • Client:  Edgar Development Corp
  • Architect:  Acton Ostry Architects Inc.
  • Structural Engineer:   RJC Engineers
  • Mechanical Engineer:  Rocky Point Engineering Ltd.
  • Electrical Engineer:  MCW Consultants
  • LEED Consultant:The Integral Group
  • Building Envelope Consultant:  Morrison Hershfield Ltd.
  • Building Code Consultant:  Thorson McAuley Certified Professionals
  • Acoustics Consultant:  RWDI
  • Landscape Architect:  Durante Kreuk Landscape Architects
  • Interior Design:  Bob’s Your Uncle Design Inc.
  • Construction Management: Ventana Construction Corporation
  • Photos:  Michael Elkan Photography

One bedroom and studio apartments. Units are open in plan for maximum daylighting. Thermal batt/acoustic insulation by Owens Corning.

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