Award

A PR IL 2019 | 55 Air Canada's Hangar 5 RENDERING COURTESY HATCH Air Canada's Hangar 5 by LAURA WALKER W hile Air Canada's Hangar 5 project at Toronto Pearson International Airport is hailed by the company as the largest free- standing hangar facility in North America, it is the building's "people efficiency" that marks it as the new crown jewel of Air Canada's facilities. "The sheer size of the building allows us to bring together multiple business units in a cohesive design, that is highly efficient," says Brad Warren of Air Canada. Toronto has turned into the hub for Air Canada with 250 departures per day and regularly sees upwards of 65 aircraft on-station overnight. Hangar 5, an integrated operations and maintenance centre, was built in response to this increased growth of Air Canada and the Toronto airport itself. "We needed to build for capacity, but also needed to grow in a differ- ent location in Toronto to be able to handle the growth of Terminal 3 and the growth of the main Terminal 1," explains Warren. Hangar 5 has the capacity for five aircrafts, including three wide-body jets and two narrow-body jets, and will enable Air Canada's fleet growth into the future. "The design is state-of-the- art and quite unique," adds Warren. The hangar is bordered by three towers of three floors each and connect- ing corridors. "It's an attractive building intended to tie in with the surround- ing facilities, featuring siding, glass, and materials that are generally environ- mentally friendly and energy efficient," explains John Moschini of Hatch. The building's first floor and the second floor have direct access to the hangar facility. "You can walk out onto the mezzanine and onto the hangar floor," says Warren, noting that each tower also has a stairway to access the floor below it to make it convenient for people to move through different sec- tions of the building. The building will be functional for everything from airplane maintenance to corporate administration, staff training, and pilot briefings. "We real- ized during the design process that we could generate higher efficiency in the building by adding more people, more workspace, and more collaboration within the facility," says Warren. Hangar 5 includes a wide range of spaces, including a 150-person audi- torium that can be transformed into smaller meeting rooms with the help of bi-folds, training rooms, numerous offices, open-concept work areas to facilitate collaboration between related business units, a large and modern caf- eteria, a gym and locker rooms, as well as a high-density storage area featur- ing a "state-of-the-art racking system, made by Montel Inc.," explains Warren. The 40-foot wide corridors that connect the three towers feature tran- sient seating to provide comfortable work spaces for those on the go. "It's a beautiful space with lots of glass that looks out onto Airport Road," says Warren, noting that many of the building's offices and meeting rooms, meanwhile, look out directly onto the hangar floor. In addition to "people efficiency," Hangar 5 also has a number of features to boost energy efficiency. "There's an automated building control system that manages light, heating, and cool- ing," explains Moschini. "Lighting is controlled to only operate when people are using rooms, there are sensors that minimize light to required levels and respond to ambient lighting to ensure power consumption is managed as effi- ciently as possible." Among the most intriguing energy-saving and space-saving char- acteristics of Hangar 5 is the facility's high-efficiency hangar door design. "The door features an iris, which is an aperture that allows part of the air- craft fuselage to protrude outside the hangar with the remainder of the air- craft inside the hangar when the door is closed," according to a spokesper- son at Ledcor Construction. "The iris optimizes the use of space by allowing placement of a third wide body aircraft in the facility and increases the build- ing's overall energy efficiency." Once the airplane is in position on the hangar floor, the facility's design will provide performance and

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