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High Density Higher Learning Downtown Setting Requires Creative Responses to Growth Constraints
November, 2007
By Barbara Carss
Business students at the University of Ottawa can find a case study for maximizing the value of a scarce commodity by looking at their impressive new academic quarters in the Desmarais Building. The 12-storey, 226,000-square-foot building, which opened at the beginning of the school year in September, responds to the challenges and opportunities of the University's compact urban setting.
The campus is located in the downtown neighbourhood of Sandy Hill in close proximity to the central business district, notable government buildings and landmarks such as the historic Byward Market and the Rideau Canal. Academic, administrative and residence buildings are situated within the conventional downtown street grid and interspersed with other private and public land holdings.
"The University of Ottawa needs expansion room and, quite honestly, there isn't a lot of opportunity for that," observes Georges Bédard the Ottawa City Councillor who represents the area. "The University is very constrained in that many of its buildings are heritage buildings so it can't knock them down, and it is located in the middle of a residential community that is very intent on keeping its character."
A triangular former parking lot surrounded on all sides by heavily trafficked streets might not fulfill the more traditional notion of peaceful campus ambience, but University administrators saw it as a promising site that could also serve as a symbolic gateway to the campus. The Desmarais Building sits on approximately 1.4 acres at the juncture of three commercial arterials: Laurier Avenue, an east-west street crossing through Ottawa's central core; Nicholas Street, a major downtown off-ramp from the cross-city expressway; and the Waller Street transitway, one of the busiest routes of the bus rapid transit system, bringing approximately 2,000 city buses past the building every day.
"It's the first public building that you see on campus, and it is a building that is seen from a lot of roadways. We designed this building to be seen from the car as well as by the pedestrian," says Jason Moriyama, the design architect, a partner with Moriyama and Teshima Architects. "We also tried to tie into the urban context."
The architects aimed to reanimate a marginal site, create linkages with both the low-rise heritage streetscape and larger scale development of the surrounding vicinity, and get the best return on investment. A four-storey podium with an atrium facing onto Laurier Avenue and Nicholas Street provides a welcoming, accessible street-level presence on the same scale as other campus buildings, while the tower rising from the west side of the block curves in alignment with the adjacent Tabaret Hall and matches the height of taller commercial buildings nearby. A precast concrete cladding with limestone accents was chosen to evoke other heritage limestone buildings on campus.
The configuration allows for effective coverage of an atypical site. A second 10-storey tower will curve out to the north in a planned future phase of the development. "The University's intention is to maximize the allowable density and inherent value of the land," Moriyama says.
FLEXIBLE SPACE FOR MULTIDISCPLINARY PURSUITS
Observers see spinoff design benefits in the interior space. "In place of linear, long corridors, there are curves, creating a warm and cozy environment," says Mario Bouchard, Director, Physical Resources Service, for University of Ottawa.
Named for its major patron and University of Ottawa alumnus, Paul G. Desmarais - who contributed $15 million toward the building's $80-million capital costs - the Desmarais Building is home to the Telfer School of Management and several departments of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Both faculties encompass multidisciplinary academic pursuits and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, and the new building is meant to facilitate this approach to learning.
Gathering space and optimal use of natural light are defining elements of the podium levels. The ground floor is largely devoted to seven lecture theatres with a total capacity for 710 people, while the entire second floor is reserved for student uses including seminar and study rooms, computer labs, a research library, lounges and club rooms. Staircases connect other spaces for study or casual meetings from floor to floor throughout the four levels of the podium.
"The open feature stairs are to make vertical circulation as easy as possible within the building. It encourages people to take the stairs instead of the elevators." Moriyama explains. "We wanted to bring students together in public, open space. We also tried to put the students front and centre, as opposed to putting them into the interior space that had no windows."
Advanced communications technology supports internet access and video conferencing capability in the lecture theatres and other assembly spaces. "The common areas are all equipped with wireless access so students can sit with their laptops and work individually or in groups," Bouchard adds.
Green and energy-efficient features include radiant flooring, low-flush toilets and waterless urinals. Heat recovery units in the mechanical rooms capture and recirculate waste heat. This - in combination with Heat Mirror argon-filled triple glazing in Fulton's Arctic thermally broken frames to form a high-performance outer skin on the building - eliminates the need for perimeter heating in the tower.
"We didn't go for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, but we did our own evaluation and we feel we meet many of those standards," Bouchard reports.
RENEWAL AND EXPANSION PLANS
The opening of the Desmarais Building also opens the way for a five-year $150-million facilities renewal and expansion program at University of Ottawa, which will begin in early 2008 when renovators move into the space that the Telfer School of Management recently vacated in historic Vanier Hall. "Following this, there will be a domino effect as space is vacated," Bouchard says.
Other aspects of the program include a new student centre and amphitheatre to be constructed adjacent to Vanier Hall, an addition to Fauteux Hall, which houses the Faculty of Law, and extensive renovations of the University's 130-year-old heritage building at 100 Laurier Avenue. Significant capital investment is also slated for the University's most recent acquisition - a nearby site, known as 200 Lees Avenue, formerly owned by Algonquin College.
Purchase of the property was something of a coup for the University. "That campus is probably the last large piece of land that is available in the area for development," Councillor Bédard says.
However, it's not without complications. It was once a rail corridor and industrial site, and has a legacy of contamination. Existing buildings, which total approximately 230,000 square feet, can be straightforwardly renovated, but environmental remediation will be required before any new construction can occur.
"It has been covered with good soil and we can maintain the existing activity. There are just some restrictions in what we can do in the future," Bouchard says. The University received $1 million in the 2007 Ontario budget to help cover cleanup costs, as part of the provincial government's $11-million special budget allocation for brownfield redevelopment.
PLANNING PARTNERS
The University is also a participant with community stakeholders and other landowners, including the City of Ottawa, the National Capital Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, in a major municipal planning exercise for redevelopment of an area known as the Nicholas-Mann Gateway, which separates the downtown and Lees Avenue campuses. Ottawa's cross-city expressway, the Queensway, and the largely vacant lands in the Nicholas-Mann Gateway planning area currently pose an obstacle between the two sites.
"The University has to somehow link the downtown campus and the [former] Algonquin campus and, in between, are lands that are not its own," Bédard says. "What's there now is a large waste of downtown land because it is used as a sort of spaghetti network of ramps for the Queensway, and we can't afford to waste land like that."
Earlier this year, the University received municipal planning approval for other growth and development plans in addition to the 5-year facilities renewal and expansion program. The new King Edward precinct plan allows for higher density development along King Edward Avenue, a commercial street traversing the downtown campus, while ensuring the University will preserve heritage buildings and maintain the residential nature of other parts of the campus.
"For the last 10 or 15 years it was stalled in terms of redevelopment because we were busy elsewhere," Bouchard says. "We are at the beginning of a plan to do something better and more lively with King Edward. We want to get some University-related activity that would gain from having an address on the street."
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