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International Gateway in an Urban Village Multi-Purpose Terminal Anchors Downtown Revitalization
October, 2007
By Susan Maclean
Airy, open, voluminous yet warm and inviting are not the usual adjectives used to describe bus terminals. They are typically designed very functionally to serve as a basic shelter for people eager to be elsewhere. This past June, a spectacular new structure in Windsor, Ontario, replaced that city's tired old bus terminal and raised the bar in providing a welcoming and safe space for Greyhound and City of Windsor bus passengers.
As a catalyst for new development within the city, the Windsor International Transit Terminal is located within the core of Windsor's downtown business district. The downtown bus terminal, shared by Greyhound Lines and Transit Windsor is located at 300 Chatham Street West, just minutes from the Detroit/Windsor international border crossing. This is, in fact, one of the busiest international border crossings along the Canada/USA border.
Hundreds of Transit Windsor buses arrive and depart daily from the Windsor International Transit Terminal including a cross border service between the downtown areas. This exclusive feature to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel provides transportation to a variety of events and venues such as, Comerica Park - home of the Detroit Tigers (MLB), Ford Field - home of the Detroit Lions (NFL), Joe Louis Arena -home of the Red Wings (NHL), and Cobo Hall - host of the Detroit International Auto Show and a variety of other concert and sporting event venues. It is a mode of transportation for the thousands of daily commuters, and Greyhound Lines also offers international transportation services arriving and departing daily
Windsor's City Centre West, Urban Village Guidelines include objectives to build on the rich history of this part of the city's core area as well as take advantage of the beautiful international riverfront. Preferred design should reflect the varied cultural attractions in the area while maintaining a pedestrian oriented "Urban Village" perception where people meet, live, work, shop and play. Locally based architectural and engineering firm Glos Associates Inc. designed the new Windsor International Terminal in keeping with these objectives.
DESIGN FEATURES
The Windsor International Transit Terminal is 50.5 metres long and 26.1 metres wide with a curved roof that reaches 10.65 metres in height. An exposed steel frame supports glass curtain walls in the concourse area.
Design features by architect Jerry Glos include the use of glass curtain walls in the concourse area to provide a visual connection with the bus platforms outside. This allows for increased patron safety and comfort maximizing the use of natural daylight, transparency and view.
The exposed structural roof trusses in the concourse area provide stature to the building that is open and contemporary. The brick façade at the doorways appears to be all that is holding up the ceiling, adding to the sense of a soaring rooftop.
The curved metal roof provides simple, clean lines that appear to cantilever over the building and provide element shelter in the embarking and disembarking areas of the terminal. These lines are also captured and repeated in the design of the bus shelters to provide design uniformity between structures.
Similarly, these lines are reproduced on the building interior furnishings with a rounded ticket counter, again reflecting the curvature of the roof. In-floor hydronic heating provides an increased level of comfort and accelerates floor-drying times during wet exterior conditions.
Helena Ventrella, President of Windsor Helena Ventrella Design Limited, describes the terminal as airy, lofty and sculptural. "The structure seems like a horizontal ribcage enabling the ceiling to float while the expansive glass curtain walls allow light to penetrate the structure and reflect the warm hues within. Light passes through at all different times of the day."
Her firm added the colourful touch to Glos Associates' design, choosing terra cotta as the predominant shade. She came to the project after the budgets had been set and commends Glos Associates' openness to her ideas of colour and finish material selections.
The approximately $7-million project, including land acquisition, was begun in September 2006 and completed on schedule on May 31, 2007. Glos Associates led the project team, providing architectural and engineering services including civil, architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical design as well as on site project management. Also working on the successful construction team were general contractor Gulf Construction of Windsor Inc., AC Metal Fabricating, Coco Concrete, Lekter Mechanical, Primac Masonry, Protrades and D&M Glass.
The tight eight-month timeframe was somewhat of a challenge, admits Mark Beens, Project Manager with Glos Associates. The lease had expired on the old terminal building and the services had to be relocated in June 2007.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES AND BENEFITS
Beens recalls that progress was initially hindered somewhat by some adverse soil conditions discovered on site. In addition to debris from an old building not completely cleared away, some contaminated soil had to be removed.
"Finding the contaminated pockets of soil meant we had to excavate those areas as directed by the on-site environmental inspector, verify site remediation and have contaminated material removed from the site by a licensed waste transporter for disposal in a approved landfill," he says. "All of this took some time due to the process and person involved. It was further complicated in that the contaminated soil was in relatively small pockets requiring excavation and on-site storage until sufficient quantities were assembled to make the trucking economically feasible. Temporary on site storage posed some further coordination issues as to where we were going to put the material and how we were going to contain it so if it rained it wouldn't leach back into the ground."
The project then progressed smoothly at a fast clip, thanks especially to developing the steel shop drawings along with the design drawings.
"We fast-tracked the steel," says Beens. "The steel shop drawings were done before the drawings were tendered. That way the fabrication could start right when the contract was signed and everything could get going before the cold months started in."
A challenge to the design team was to comply with the area's urban village zoning by-law to house all infrastructures within the building and to do so without compromising floor space, function or the visual appearance of the building. A second floor or mezzanine above the ticket counter and washrooms was designed for this purpose. Fortunately, only about one fifth the area of conventional heating and cooling systems was required because the building is connected to Windsor's district energy system.
Supporting the City Centre's rapid revitalization development, Windsor's District Energy System, said to be the first of its kind in North America, supplies both hot water heating and chilled water cooling requirements to The Windsor Art Gallery, Royal Bank Business Centre, Windsor Justice Facility, Casino Windsor and 400 City Hall Square. The district "shared" energy system eliminates the need for bulky heating and cooling systems and frees up valuable floor space. Vibration and noise problems are minimized; stacks and cooling towers are eliminated, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions. District Energy's technology is described as operating on the least costly, most available fuel.
In addition to environmental benefits, it reduces operating and maintenance costs by reducing on- site equipment. There is no natural gas line to the building and the transit terminal's mezzanine floor readily accommodates the two air-handling units and the district energy connections.
CONSTRUCTION LOGISTICS
From Been's project management point of view, the only challenge relating to the district energy aspect was waiting for the small-load heat exchangers, which came from India and took "forever" to come. "Other than that, we just had to tie in at a certain time to make sure we didn't disturb any of the other services that link to the lines. And we had to get it done before it got cold because they wanted to get the building heated for the winter months. Luckily we had a pretty mild winter so we didn't have too much in terms of challenges in keeping the building warm during construction."
The high-efficiency, specialized glass from PPG in Pittsburgh, PA, required some lead time. The roof panels also came from the U.S., arriving from Garland Metals as flat stock more than 24 metres long and then bent on a large bending machine right on site.
"It would have been impossible to get the bent panels on a flat bed and there would have been a problem at the border," Beens explains. "The biggest issue there was trying to coordinate where we were going to find space on the site to bend the panels and then get them hoisted up along with construction of the concrete pavement all around the building for the buses. Trying to schedule that between getting the panels on the roof and getting the pavement put down all at the same time in the winter months was a bit of an issue at times."
That and other issues were adequately resolved and the resulting building is a very eye-catching transit terminal that is attractive during the day and dazzling at night.
"It's a very nice space to be in," Ventrella adds. "It has a very stable feel to it. One can be waiting a long time in a bus terminal, so it's important to make people comfortable."
Architect Jerry Glos adds, "The scale and structure of the building fit well into the urban setting producing an exciting and friendly atmosphere for terminal users as well as the transit employees."
Susan Maclean is the Editor of Building Strategies. The preceding article is reprinted from the Fall 2007 issue.
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