Skip to main content

Mohawk College will have one of the region’s first net-zero energy institutional buildings

A new 96,000-sf building designed by B+H Architects and mcCallumSather will provide students of Ontario’s Mohawk College with solar-powered state-of-the-art labs, workshops, open study spaces, and a lecture theater when construction completes in 2018.

The Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation will become one of the first net-zero energy institutional buildings in the region. The architects worked with manufacturers and building scientists to develop a new curtain wall system that incorporates isolation gaskets in order to achieve the energy conservation targets. This new curtain wall system has an effective R20 thermal performance.

Rendering courtesy of B+H + mcCallumSather.

The new building will be powered by solar panel “wings” on top of the four-story structuure. “We really wanted to elevate the concept of capturing the sun’s energy and making it a design feature as opposed to a series of panels that are going on the roof,” says Joanne McCallem, Director and Co-Founder of mcCallumSather. These solar wings become the most distinctive aspect of the design.

Inside of the building, a large atria flows into modular classrooms that are organized around a central common area. The layout encourages social learning. The architects want the design to make people aware of the energy they use and force them to change their habits. For example, visitors will not be able to leave their laptop plugged in for hours on end throughout the day.

Rendering courtesy of B+H + mcCallumSather.

The Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation is expected to be ready for students for the fall 2018 term.

Rendering courtesy of B+H + mcCallumSather.

Interesting read originally from BDC Network

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AAMA releases new document on aluminum fenestration and energy efficiency

The American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) recently released a new white paper that discusses the use of aluminum in high-performing building enclosures. AMC-2-26, “Aluminum in High-Performing Building Enclosures,” is now available in the AAMA online store as a complimentary download. “This white paper was needed in order to educate and inform the marketplace about the energy advantages of using aluminum fenestration,” said Elizabeth Cotton (Kawneer), chair of the AMC Marketing Committee. “With today's technology, these products can achieve current and foreseeable stringent codes requirements in an efficient and innovative manner, as well as achieving credits through green building certification programs.” The document addresses aluminum extrusions used in the manufacture of entrances, storefront framing, curtain walls, windows and skylight fenestration systems. Aluminum products can be sustainable due to the recyclability of aluminum that helps conserve energy ...
Post a Comment
Read more

WeWork takes on a construction management app provider

WeWork, the New York-based urban workspace designer and redeveloper that’s one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., has acquired Fieldlens, a six-year-old producer of construction management applications that allow for more efficient on-site communications. Most construction projects “are broken social networks,” says Doug Chambers, Fieldlens’ founder. His company’s app helps make a jobsite environment more like Facebook or a social feed, where everyone on site is communicating in real time, all the time. An example Chambers gives is a project manager who is walking a site, and using the app on his smartphone to send observations, pictures, confirmations, and directives to other crew members. Chambers says that on one jobsite in Buffalo, N.Y., the Fieldlens app is facilitating 1,000 interactions per day, on average, among the 80 to 100 workers on site. “Fieldlens lets people get back to work,” and not get bogged down on a lot of administrative and paperwork duties, says Cha...
Post a Comment
Read more

ABC's Construction Backlog Indicator rebounds in 2017

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) recently reported that its Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) rose to 9 months during the first quarter of 2017, up 8.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2016.  CBI is up by 0.4 months, or 4 percent, on a year-over-year basis. “This was a terrific report,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “For the first time in the series’ history, every category—firm size, industry and region—registered quarterly growth in CBI. Among the big winners were firms in the western United States and those with annual revenues between $30 million and $50 million per annum" Highlights by Region Surging financial markets helped support activity in financial centers like New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Expanding cyber-security and life sciences activity supported markets as geographically diverse as Washington/Baltimore; Austin, Texas; Silicon Valley, Calif., and Seattle.  Though backlog is slightly lower in the South on a year-over-year basis, ...
Post a Comment
Read more