Award

D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 4 | 65 Innovation Arena – University of Waterloo P H OTO G R A P H Y CO U RT E S Y U N I V ER S I T Y O F WAT ER LO O INNOVATION ARENA – UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO by ROBIN BRUNET T he Innovation Arena is the lat- est collaboration space from the University of Waterloo. Located on the Health Sciences Campus in down- town Kitchener, its 90,000 square feet of workspaces and labs are intended to streamline commercialization, fast- track entrepreneurs, and drive Canada's next wave of economic growth. In terms of its design, Diamond Schmitt Architects fully modernized and converted an existing storage facility (originally the Ontario Seed Warehouse, built in 1964). This was no small feat; made of concrete, the windowless building was considered an eyesore. The revamped facility is also vitally important to the City of Kitchener, which invested $8.5 million into the $35-million project. Adrien Côté, executive director at Velocity (Waterloo's signature entrepreneur- ship program) regards Innovation Arena not only as Velocity's new home but also a facility that "will expand our growing health technology start- up and scale-up ecosystem, both locally and provincially." In order to guide Diamond Schmitt's work, Côté and his col- leagues spent a month developing a 'needs' list based on lessons learned from their support of 400 start- ups. This enabled the architects to translate innovation, acceleration, and meaningful community engagement into architectural expressions that reflect these objectives, while meeting the university's sustainability goals. Michael Szabo, principal at Diamond Schmitt, says, "Our approach was to upgrade this rudi- mentary structure and turn it into a high-performing building by insulat- ing it to a high level, providing triple glazing, and then cladding it with a masonry brick that is a contemporary interpretation of the original context in which it sits." Rob Hunsperger, senior director, planning, design, and construc- tion at the University of Waterloo, says there were numerous advan- tages to revamping the old warehouse rather than building fresh. "Tearing it down would have created a substan- tial embodied carbon footprint and would have been expensive, given that the floors and other components were incredibly thick," he says. Since drawings for the facility no longer existed, substantial drilling and coring was undertaken to understand the structure. "A lot of the preloaded slabs were also deformed, so we had to level them off," Hunsperger says. Diamond Schmitt's design activates the building via a dynamic sawtooth LOCATION 280 Joseph St., Kitchener, Ontario OWNER /DEVELOPER University of Waterloo ARCHITECT Diamond Schmitt Architects GENER AL CONTR ACTOR Melloul-Blamey Construction STRUCTUR AL CONSULTANT RJC Engineers MECHANICAL /ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT Smith + Anderson AUDIO VISUAL CONSULTANT Design Electronics L ANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Shift Landscape Architect TOTAL SIZE 90,000 square feet TOTAL COST $35 million

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