Lighting the community: this luminous centre carefully responds to the topography, climate and the needs of the community.The new Community Centre at Gleneagles, a suburb of West Vancouver, combines a familiar mix of social and recreational activities on a site that was created as a result of the realignment re·a·lign tr.v. re·a·ligned, re·a·lign·ing, re·a·ligns 1. To put back into proper order or alignment. 2. To make new groupings of or working arrangements between. of a main road. On a long strip of land that was formerly the old road, the building faces the new road and an existing electrical substation An electrical substation is a subsidiary station of an electricity generation, transmission and distribution system where voltage is transformed from high to low or the reverse using transformers. to the east and backs onto the local golf course to the west. The response of the architects was to plan a linear barn-like shed under a sweeping timber roof, and to use the 1.5m slope on the site to create two ground levels and a three-storey building that accommodated both the large volumes and smaller spaces required. A new courtyard and the main entrance, which front the road, bring visitors into the middle level of the building. In addition to the entrance hall and reception area, a community living room includes a cafe, meeting room and lounge together with administrative offices and a childcare centre. The cafe and lounge overlook the largest space in the building, a gymnasium used for both sporting and social events, which opens to a paved terrace on the west side. While such large multi-purpose areas are often anonymous internalized rooms, this main hall is an elegant and lofty space, clearly visible at the heart of the building and with views out to the lower terrace which has been cut into a landscaped bank at the lower edge of the site. High up under the sloping roof, exercise rooms are located in a glass enclosed attic that overlooks the main hall. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A stair slices through the building to give the childcare centre a discrete space In topology and related fields of mathematics, a discrete space is a particularly simple example of a topological space or similar structure, one in which the points are "isolated" from each other in a certain sense. , and to separate the gymnasium from a second community room at the lower level that is used for a variety of activities--receptions, children's programmes and adult education classes. The slope of the site makes it possible to tuck lockers and service spaces into the dark areas of the lower level plan alongside the gymnasium, and this subterranean world also extends beyond the building to the north to form a series of studio workshops that open onto an outdoor work court. The form of the building is a simple extrusion constructed with a series of parallel reinforced concrete reinforced concrete Concrete in which steel is embedded in such a manner that the two materials act together in resisting forces. The reinforcing steel—rods, bars, or mesh—absorbs the tensile, shear, and sometimes the compressive stresses in a concrete walls under an oversailing heavy timber roof. The architects speak of how the design of this centre, with its large volumes and modest budget, led them to look to the construction industry for inspiration. By using tilt-up concrete panels for the tall spine walls, they were able to capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. a familiar and inexpensive construction system that is widely used and consequently thoroughly tested in North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . However, at the same time, they chose to investigate the potential of the thermal mass Thermal mass, in the most general sense, is any mass that absorbs and holds heat. In the architectural sense, it is any mass that absorbs and stores heat during sunny periods when the heat is not desirable in the living space of a building, and then releases the heat during that concrete offers to condition the environment. Working closely with the engineers and subcontractors they were able to design structural panels that, in addition to creating the building envelope A building envelope is the separation between the interior and the exterior environments of a building. It serves as the outer shell to protect the indoor environment as well as to facilitate its climate control. , also provide radiant heating radiant heating: see heating. radiant heating Heating system in which heat is transmitted by radiation from a heated surface. Radiant heating systems usually employ either electric-resistance wiring or hot-water heating pipes, which may embedded in and cooling. Each 12in (30mm) thick sandwich consists of an inner layer of concrete with water pipes embedded in the panel, insulation and an outer layer of concrete that provides the external finish. The thermal energy thermal energy Internal energy of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium (see thermodynamics) by virtue of its temperature. A hot body has more thermal energy than a similar cold body, but a large tub of cold water may have more thermal energy than a cup of boiling required to charge this system is supplied by water-to-water heat pumps via a ground source heat exchanger heat exchanger Any of several devices that transfer heat from a hot to a cold fluid. In many engineering applications, one fluid needs to be heated and another cooled, a requirement economically accomplished by a heat exchanger. , which maintains the concrete walls at a constant 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius)--moves that create a high performance building envelope. The system utilizes geothermal energy geothermal energy: see energy, sources of. geothermal energy Power obtained by using heat from the Earth's interior. Most geothermal resources are in regions of active volcanism. via a network of coils buried five feet below the surface of the new car park that serves the building. The curving metal clad roof has a simple but elegant structure of deep curving laminated timber beams, which are braced and supported on either side of the gymnasium by tubular steel V-shaped columns. Pallet-like prefabricated pre·fab·ri·cate tr.v. pre·fab·ri·cat·ed, pre·fab·ri·cat·ing, pre·fab·ri·cates 1. To manufacture (a building or section of a building, for example) in advance, especially in standard sections that can be easily shipped and trays of rough-sawn heavy timber span between the main beams to form the roof deck. All of this structure has been carefully designed and is exposed internally--a move that creates an overriding sense of order and legibility that offsets the building's programmatic complexity. It also introduces an emphatic rationalism that recalls some of the vernacular buildings--barns and large sheds--that were traditionally built within this region and contrasts with the more fragmented and episodic structures in some of the Patkaus' earlier work. Externally, the sweeping roof extends beyond the face of the building to create overhangs that help to prevent glare and shelter the external wall from both sun and rain. Without gutters, these overhangs are also designed to discharge rainwater into rock piles that have been created as an integral part of the new landscape on the site and into a linear pool in the entrance courtyard. This stepped pool of flowing water and the extended roof also help to mask both the noise and the view of passing traffic and the transformers in the electrical substation opposite. Patkau Architects have been preoccupied with the linear organization of spaces since their competition-winning scheme for the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery (CCGG) is a public art gallery located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The CCGG is a national gallery exhibiting Canadian silica artwork, including ceramic, glass and enamel work. (AR August 1995) and have continued to explore this strategy through their designs for Strawberry Vale School (AR August 1997), the Agosta House and in their competition-winning scheme for La Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec that is now under construction in Montreal. It is an interest that has enabled them to continue to develop the potential of movement and in particular consider the path as an experiential device. Here the path is generous and has been almost transformed into a series of terraced platforms that allow people using the building to meander meander Extreme U-bend in a stream, usually occurring in a series, that is caused by flow characteristics of the water. Meanders form in stream-deposited sediments and may stack up upstream of an obstruction, resulting in a gooseneck or extremely bowed meander. across the site while being made continually aware of the nature of the ground and the surrounding natural landscape of which this building already seems to be an integral part. |
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