Fissure:
Sudbury, Ontario is located upon one of Canada's most precious resources-the Canadian Shield. The Canadian Shield is rife with natural resources. Rich in valued minerals, and blanketed with boreal forest, the shield is an abundant trove of natural resources. Founded as a logging town, and subsequently transitioning into a mining centre, Sudbury has a long history linked to the extraction of natural resources from the Canadian Shield This history gives Sudbury a deep physical and sociological relationship to the shield. Mining activity can require blasting deep underground, causing significant seismic activity within the area. These violent eruptions cause the earth to shift and crack, allowing access to the precious minerals within the Canadian Shield.
Fissure is derived from the physical relationship Sudbury has with the Canadian
Shield. The building from its inception was envisioned as a solid volume that has been cracked to reveal its interior-the concept being that within a seemingly impenetrable material there lies something delicate and beautiful waiting to be discovered.
Important to our design was that the building incorporate materials found within the Canadian Shield. The driving concept is directly linked to the Canadian Shield and Sudbury's history as a resource town. For the exterior skin, there are two systems being utilized. The ''Fissures'' are double-skin glazing walls. The ''Rock'' utilizes slag a by-product of the nickel refining process. Introducing a new stage to the process, the slag is further refined to craft cladding panels for the solid, ‘heavy' exterior. The rich interior is a warm inviting ‘forest', flooded with light and highlighted with wood.
Fissure's programming is focused on the formation and exchange of ideas. The perimeter spaces of the building are places where ideas are conceived, developed, and executed. The interstitial and interior spaces within the building are where ideas are exchanged. From formal critiques to informal conversations, these spaces have been designed to provide opportunities for a variety of exchange.
A building for architectural studies should strive to present an example of what is possible in the field of architecture. It should provide students an opportunity to study numerous aspects of design within their own scholastic environment. It should inspire students to breach and explore new frontiers of building design. It should respond to local and regional context. It should be filled with spaces that invite collaboration, and allow for reflection. It should be a building that exemplifies the cultural, technological, and psychological aspects of architecture.
(Competitor's text)
18 scanned / 12 viewable
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