Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/124234
13-03-06 1:56 PM Norr Ltd. "It's a very identifiable colour palette." The architects aimed for similarities across all the sites, not only in colour but also in form. The detachments and regional headquarters feature entrances that are welcoming, where LOCATION 16 communities across Ontario OWNER Ontario Provincial Police 13-03-20 3:44 PM owners' representative Infrastructure Ontario; Shield Infrastructure Partnership developer Hochtief PPP Solutions North America; Concert Real Estate Corp. compliance consultantS CS&P Architects; Rebanks Pepper Littlewood Architects; Morrison Hershfield ARCHITECTure & interior design Norr Ltd. Perkins + Will Canada Inc. prime contractor Bird Design-Build Ltd. general contractor partners Frecon Construction Ltd., Tom Jones Corporation, Collaborative Structures Limited, Cy Rheault Construction Ltd. structural/geotechnical inspecting & Testing exp Global Inc. MECHANICAL CONSULTANT MCW Group environmental consultant MMM Group facility management Honeywell Ltd. leed Consultant Opresnik Engineering Consultants Inc. durable Buildings consultant Zec Consulting building code, life safety & fire protection consultant Sereca Larden Muniak Consulting Inc. TOTAL PROJECT COST $548.5 million over 30 years OPP Modernization Project p70-73OPP modernization.indd 73 members of the public feel comfortable and safe. It's a slightly different story for the FIUs. According to Chan, these forensics centres had to be "almost impenetrable. You have evidence in criminal cases stored there." The buildings had to blend into the communities. So Norr and Perkins+Will crafted a design that gives FIUs the air of a welcoming fortress. The black and white colour scheme didn't work for every building. In Peterborough, for example, the FIU was to be built beside an existing detachment that was brown and red. Rather than impose a new black and white building there, the team amended the colours to blend better with the older building. Every property had peculiarities. The team had to shift various elements of the construction to suit individual sites. Sometimes that meant rearranging an entryway or changing the size of a stormwater management pond. The ponds are meant to help the OPP attain the LEED Silver standard for its new buildings. The construction team also installed highefficiency HVAC systems with heat recovery capabilities. The regional headquarters in Orillia is situated on a hill. That called for a soil-retention solution that was unique to the site, says Helen He, project manager at exp. Global. The Smiths Falls building is a hybrid; FIU on one side, regional headquarters on the other. The construction team had to consider ways in which each side operated, and incorporate the two, sometimes contrary applications, into a single entity. The FIU needed to be extremely secure and hygienic, with few entrances. The headquarters needed to be welcoming, designed for efficiency. Controlled connections between the two sides, plus a shared reception area, helped combine the FIU and command centre functions into a cohesive whole. Despite the challenges of working with unique sites and associated requirements, "the drive was to standardize as much as possible," Chan says. This isn't simply a matter of efficient construction, it has a lot to do with helping police officers work efficiently, too. "If someone working at Peterborough has to travel to Chatham, they can walk in and know where everything is." Form must follow function with these facilities, Chan explains. Interiors are designed to ensure witnesses never come into contact with evidence, for instance. Windows provide plenty of natural light, but they don't open. Instead, a Roto-Vent is used to pull fresh air inside. Constructed of steel, each new structure is designed to operate as a refuge following any sort of disaster in the communities. Concrete was ill-suited because the curing time would have been much longer in the North, where winter temperatures are well below freezing for most of the season. On a project of this scale, "your schedule is fixed, so you do everything possible to work quickly," Chan says. The buildings feature a progressive collapse-resistant design. The foundations incorporate typical edge beams, but some of the buildings in the North required deeper footings, because the frost levels are deeper. The exteriors consist of coloured concrete block and tempered, laminated glass, ensuring security, while allowing the maximum amount of natural light to penetrate the offices, training facilities, reconfigurable boardrooms, public spaces and other inside areas. The buildings sport exterior-grade laminate with wood grain, which provide a sense of natural warmth at the entryways. Combined with a bold black metal fascia, the wood-like soffit suggests durability and strength. Interiors differ, depending on the building type. Vinyl flooring and carpeting greet visitors in the detachments and regional headquarters. "The detachments are the faces of the police in the community, so they had to be welcoming," Chan says. The FIUs have epoxy flooring in the laboratories, where cleanliness is paramount. Each FIU lab has its own air-handling system, and the labs are pressurized such that the air inside can't escape into other areas of the building – a necessary measure to maintain investigative integrity. Even though standardization and economies of scale helped the construction team meet the client's timeline and budget (all of the new buildings were finished by November 2012), the people involved point out that at the end of the day, this was no cookie-cutter effort. "There are no real short cuts you can take," Chan says, explaining that ultimately, the team couldn't just impose its designs the same way everywhere. Instead, the companies had to think creatively and adjust their systems accordingly. "That's where the effort was the biggest. The only way to solve it is to put your heads together." That collaboration may be the most significant triumph of the project. According to Zister, "Everyone really worked as a team. We put our minds together to figure things out." n april 2013 /73 13-04-05 2:17 PM