Two years after it opened, the University of Ottawa’s prow-shaped Faculty of Social Sciences building is riding a crest of design and engineering approval.
The highly visible tower was named top institutional building in this month’s Ontario Concrete Awards for its combination of traditional, cast-in-place floors and sturdy sheer walls, which allowed a narrow footprint and floor and ceiling heights that match the adjoining Vanier Hall.
Wedged into a sliver of space on the western boundary of the downtown campus, the 15-storey, glass-shrouded structure presents a cool, ordered face to the Rideau Canal and Nicholas Street and a more playful aspect to the east, where a square, multifloor bump-out over the entrance houses a theatre and multi-use hall.
Six-floor ‘living wall’ was billed as the highest of its type in North America.
Distinctive even among the bold exteriors of recent U of O structures, the building has quickly become a landmark. But its interior features, and particularly a six-storey “living wall” of greenery, are also drawing notice.
The wall, meant to purify air returning to the ventilation system to be recirculated, won an Award of Excellence in November at a Green Roofs for Healthy Cities conference.
Also in November, the building received the Interior Wood Design Award from the Ontario Wood Works! program of the Canadian Wood Council. Wood products are found throughout the building, and cherrywood slatted screens line an atrium that connects it with Vanier Hall.
Wood is used prominently in building’s high-traffic areas.
Other Ottawa wood-award winners were the Richcraft Recreational Complex in Kanata (Green Building Design) and Lansdowne Park (Institutional-Commercial Wood Design over $10 million).
The U of O’s 272,000-square-foot social sciences building brought the faculty’s 10,000 students, 260 professors and 100 staff under one roof for the first time. It was designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects of Toronto and KWC Architects of Ottawa.
The two firms are also guiding the $190-million restoration of the Government Conference Centre on Confederation Square that once was Ottawa’s central train station, while Diamond Schmitt principal Don Schmitt is project architect for a major overhaul of the National Arts Centre that will include a new entrance and glass facade on Elgin Street.
