Crossroads for Creativity
Throughout its history, the city of Sudbury, Ontario has been a hub for transportation, providing access to the rich natural resources of the Canadian Shield and Boreal Forest. The Northern Ontario School of Architecture, a satellite campus of Laurentian University to be located in Sudbury's historic downtown, will serve as a new type of crossroads: a venue for higher-education in the creative sector. As a crossroads for creativity, the school will contribute to the renewed vitality of the city's historic urban core, will embody a regional presence for the architecture of Northern Ontario, and will respond to the unique challenges of the northern climate as a model of sustainable stewardship.
The renewed vitality of downtown Sudbury will be maximized by a centrally-located campus that serves as both a passage and a destination. An open campus integrated into the existing urban fabric will promote pedestrian friendly spaces that people can use when navigating the downtown. The unique amenities that the school will offer such as the library, café, gallery spaces, assembly hall, and atrium winter gardens will create a destination for students and citizens alike. The openness of the campus signifies the school's role as a meeting place where people from First Nations, Francophone, Anglophone, and other backgrounds can come together to share, benefit from, and stimulate one another's creative energy. This multicultural collaborative will effectively broaden and enhance the problem-solving potential of architectural design as taught at the school and will serve as model to inspire a more multifaceted, multidimensional approach to architecture for the world of the future.
A regional presence for the school will be achieved through a style of architecture employing locally available materials to generate forms that respond to the specific geographic location and functional demands. The use of wood for structural framing throughout the project will promote the renewed appreciation of this material as a sustainable resource. Reclaimed brick will be used for the exterior of the buildings at street level, while panels made of recycled copper will clad the stair towers. The unique forms of the stair tower roofs, arrayed with photovoltaic panels, are angled to optimize the sun's energy for Sudbury's specific northern latitude and also serve as highly visible, iconic landmarks.
Finally, environmental sustainability is imperative for the architects and designers of the twenty-first century and beyond and the NOSOA campus must be a place that not only teaches but also exemplifies creative solutions to environmental challenges. In response to Northern Ontario's climate, the design of the school incorporates four key sustainable strategies: a thermally efficient building envelope, energy-use reduction, renewable energy technologies, and landscape reclamation. The building envelope consists of a double ventilated shell that functions as a controlled thermal buffer. Energy reduction is achieved through natural daylighting, heat recovery, and natural stack-effect ventilation. Rooftop photovoltaics harness renewable solar energy for electricity and hot water. And lastly, exterior downlighting, water-permeable pavers in the plazas, and bioswales to absorb excess stormwater will furhter beautify both the campus and the city.
(Competitor's text)
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