Award

the trees and planting, the project also includes two water features – one in the courtyard and one that stretches from the main entrance towards the adjacent intersection leading to the rest of Western's campus, he says. The third element – light – was harnessed with the use of glass, the siting of the building and the central courtyard. Light fills into all the areas, including images courtesy Ivey Business School at Western University the classrooms. In that respect the school differentiates itself Location from Ivey's previous building, which had poor lighting and 1255 Western Road, London, Ontario some of its classrooms in the basement, says Hariri. Owner/Developer "This is certainly one of the most complex buildings I have Western University worked on," says Neb Erakovic, a principal with Yolles, who Architect compares the school to a finely-tuned musical instrument. Hariri Pontarini Architects Not the least of those challenges was designing the Construction Manager support system for the jewel box. That support is provided by EllisDon Corporation four 1,400-mm-tall steel beams at the second-floor level that Structural Consultant cantilever six metres to connect to the 5.5-metre-wide, twoYolles, a CH2M Hill Company. storey rigid frame box to make a total horizontal cantilever Mechanical/Electrical/ Lighting Consultant of 11.5 metres. Four two-storey Vierendeel moment frames Smith + Andersen were connected to the tops of the beams to resist the effect of Landscape Architect overturning forces from the cantilever, he explains. Janet Rosenberg + Associates Just as complex as the design of the box was the actual Total Building Area assembly, a task that was temporarily halted by a massive 270,000 square feet snowstorm that hit the London area in late 2010. "It was the Total Project Cost worst snowstorm in 20 years," says David Rock, EllisDon $110 million project manager. Total Construction Cost $100 million A week later a second snowstorm of equal intensity swept through the Sarnia area and closed down Highway 82/    october 2013 p80-83Ivey_Churchill.indd 82 402, delaying the delivery of steel from the Sarnia-area steel fabricator. "With the Christmas slowdown we basically lost four weeks of work." For Rock, one of the most memorable and satisfying events of the entire project was the day the box was finished. But then the entire project was memorable, albeit one filled with challenges and learning curves. "This is a beautiful and breathtaking building," says Rock, adding that delivering it on schedule wasn't an easy process. "The challenge was to complete a process, which normally takes four years, with design and construction, into two years." There were also a number of special details most of the trades were unfamiliar with. Those details include the 13-mm-wide "shadow lines" between various components. An example of a shadow line is the apparent void between a steel beam and a wall. There is a connection, but because that connection is hidden the beam "seems to be floating in mid-air." Close co-operation between the Hariri Pontarini and the EllisDon project teams, which basically performed as one entity, kept the project on track. By mid-March 2011 the first of a series of phased occupancies got underway and by mid-August the "milestone" move-in by Ivey staff had been achieved. "Our close collaboration with EllisDon on the project really helped move things along," says Hariri, in summing up the project. "We were working on a tight timeline and it took a truly heroic effort to bring everything together on time and on budget. It's a true testament to the quality and professionalism of EllisDon and the whole team, and our working relationship with everyone." "The project has been a tremendous success – students, faculty, staff and our alumni community are thrilled with the design, the respect and detail given to the learning environment," says the university's John Irwin. n Ivey Business School – Western University 13-09-13 4:10 PM

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