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photos: doug little photography / courtesy royal canadian mint Royal Canadian Mint Expansion by Peter Caulfield he Royal Canadian Mint, which makes the coins we use for many commercial transactions, has two locations, Ottawa and Winnipeg. The Winnipeg Mint is located, not, as one might expect, in Manitoba capital's business district, but in the middle of a grassy 20-acre field on the eastern outskirts of the city. With evergreens at the front of the building, two large drainage ponds on the north side and few other buildings in the immediate vicinity, the setting is pleasantly rural, with nothing to suggest the activity taking place inside the Mint. Since it went into production in 1975, one of the Winnipeg Mint's businesses has been the production of coins and ready-to-strike blanks for other countries. Today it has about 30 foreign customers for the multi-ply plated-steel coins the Mint produces. In order to win a greater share of that business, the Mint has recently completed a 70,000-square-foot addition to the original 180,000 square-foot building. Alex Reeves, communications manager at Royal Canadian Mint, says the addition will boost its annual T Royal Canadian Mint Expansion p60-63Royal Can Mint.indd 61 capacity for producing blanks by 50 per cent, from two billion to three billion pieces. The new facility contains a coin blank manufacturing line and a Centre of Excellence for research and development. Steve Johnson, project manager with general contractor PCL Constructors Canada Inc., says construction of the addition started in October 2011 and substantial completion was reached by the end of May 2013. "It was an aggressive schedule with tight timelines," says Johnson. IBI Group of Toronto was the architect and engineering consultant on the project. Associate Mark Auger says the Mint is recognized around the world for its coin making expertise. "Because officials from many countries will visit the facility, it needed to have a worldclass image," says Auger. Auger adds that IBI took care to keep the physical appearance of the expansion close to the original building. "This meant matching the outer precast surface with the granular pattern on the original building, setting false reveal lines to correspond with the original precast cladding break lines and carrying the window pattern, colour and trim into the expansion," he says. At the same time, the design had to meet insulating targets established by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). "The exterior wall of the original building is built of precast cladding installed in three sections, with a 15-foot-tall section on the bottom and two smaller sections on top," says Auger. "Inside the cladding are separate components containing the insulation, vapour barrier and an interior block wall. With the expansion, these components are installed as one october 2013    /61 13-09-13 4:01 PM

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