Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/137453
Many of the studios for arts and crafts have unfinished walls. The interior for some of these and the industrial rooms, as well as for the kiln, clays storage, and woodworking, is concrete masonry and unit block-wall construction. The 20 music practice studios have more finished interiors, with drywall, acoustic ceilings and independently-sprung hardwood floors. To further diminish potential echo effects, studios have asymmetric dimensions, with no two walls running parallel. The building's exterior cladding is designed to reflect the activities within studios and other workspaces. For the music studios, the exterior cladding is phenolic-based simulated wood panel. "I needed to design the building from the inside out," says Nyhoff. "It was imperative that we created spaces to serve the needs and the functions of the arts-user first. Each space was designed to meet these needs, then arranged and located to create ideal adjacencies with a goal of an orderly and efficient building plan with a clear way-finding strategy. In this process, the exterior of the building became a true and direct expression of the function of the spaces within," Nyhoff says. Clerestory windows, which light the art studios, allow for more wall space for hanging paintings on the inside – and affect the external appearance of the CASA . Also, polycarbonate panels on walls opposite the clerestory windows help propagate light around the interior. In a way, perhaps, the mix of materials used to build the CASA reflects the diversity of arts and crafts – some with a decidedly industrial aspect – that the new centre is designed to foster. The main floor has cast-in-place concrete while the second floor's ceiling and supports feature glulam columns and beams. "The concrete, all the structure and the wood are exposed on the second floor," says Sharon Dawson, project manager with Dawson Wallace. Staging for part of the building was tight, as its perimeter coincided with property lines on two sides. "The sidewalk on the east side had to be re-routed for the two-year construction period," Dawson says. CASA Community Arts Centre p44-47CASA Lethbridge.indd 47 Also, some of the equipment had special ventilation requirements, including the kiln, which can hit temperatures of 1426 degrees Celsius. Much of the HVAC design had to reflect this range of requirements, says Chris Saunders, managing principal for western Canada at Hidi Rae Consulting Engineers Inc. The CASA has two air-handling units, a high-efficiency condensing boiler for the whole building and floor slabs in the corridor areas that are in-slab heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. "The glass is five-metres tall on the main floor. The heat in the slab in winter would offset the temperature in the lower third of the space. It's a comfort thing," Saunders says. n LOCATION 230 – 8th Street South, Lethbridge, Alberta OWNER/DEVELOPER City of Lethbridge ARCHITECT Ferrari Westwood Babits Architects ASSOCIATE ARCHITECT Nyhoff Architecture GENERAL CONTRACTOR Dawson Wallace STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd. MECHANICAL CONSULTANT Hidi Rae Consulting Engineers Inc. ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT SMP Engineering TOTAL AREA 45,000 square feet TOTAL PROJECT COST $20.7 million june 2013 /47 13-05-30 2:09 PM