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FEBRUARY 2015 | 55 McMaster Health Campus RENDERING COURTESY McMASTER UNIVERSITY McMaster Health Campus by ANGELA ALTASS M cMaster Health Campus is a new six-storey, 189,983-square-foot faci lity located across the street from Hamilton City Hall in Ontario. "The building contains portions of McMaster University's health-care teaching facilities, a maternity clinic, family health clinic and Hamilton Public Health," says David Clusiau, senior principal, architectural design, NORR Limited. "These elements are deliber- ately brought together in an integrated manner to support the innovative interdisciplinary team-based environ- ment that is the hallmark of the world renowned Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine." The construction of the health cam- pus brings another branch of McMaster University into the City of Hamilton's downtown core, says Bill Clark, director of operations, for the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. "We have a small campus building downtown where we house continuing education but this is the first structure that we've actually built downtown," notes Clark. "I think it is good for the city that the University is branching away from the main campus and into the city core. It will bring some revital- ization to the city along with the many other projects downtown. There's a lot of new construction, such as condomini- ums and new hotel projects, and we feel that we're part of a revitalization of the downtown core." The campus will mark one of the first times that McMaster University has con- structed a facility shared with non-aca- demic functions and Clark emphasizes that there is a strong sense of linkage between the University and the City that makes it possible. "The City needed a place for its Public Health Department so moving them in with a fairly sizable family health clinic will be good," says Clark. "They need examination rooms for some of their services and the building will also house an X-ray clinic. Any of the services that both the city Public Health Department and a family health unit need will be there so it works out really well for both the City and the University." Funded by McMaster University, the City of Hamilton and the Province of Ontario, as well as some private dona- tions, the $84-million building will be home to the University's family health clinic during the day Monday to Friday, while public health will use the facility mainly in the evenings. "We are only building the one big clinic, with 48 examination rooms, and it's being used by the McMaster fam- ily health practice and public health so we're basically sharing the examination rooms," says Clark. When it came to construction, an extremely cold winter of 2013/2014 affected the schedule and completion date of the project. "The weather last winter was extremely cold and that impacted the schedule. We were sup- posed to be finished in November and we're probably three months behind. It was brutally cold with record-breaking temperatures in the city," says Clark. The building was merely a shell when the temperature plummeted so low on some days that people were unable to work outside. "It didn't snow a lot but it was cold," recalls Clark. "With the winds whis- tling down the main thoroughfares and the building being located on a corner from which you can see the lake, it was extremely cold any time there was a north wind." Despite the weather, construction of the building has been a relatively smooth process, says Clark. "The build- ing has gone up very well," he explains. "There haven't been any major changes or cost implications due to any unknown surprises . . . it has actually worked out very well." One of the main features of the new building is an events space that can hold up to 282 people. "The events space pro- trudes to the south of the building and faces directly across from city hall," says Clark. "It will be a really wonderful space that we feel will be well used by the com- munity as well as by the University." Community groups will also be able to rent the events space, which can be set up as an auditorium and has movable seats that fold into the wall. A glass atrium on the southwest cor- ner invites people in from the street. "The atrium is lovely," says Clark. "There is a water feature there that goes from the top to the bottom of the building and within that area there is a sand- stone column that is a major feature of the building." While the nature of the contents of the building involved a high level of public interaction and presence, the tight urban site required a multi-storey solution, says Clusiau. "The building design addresses this challenge by extending the ground plane and public realm up the building through a cascading series of public spaces that lead visitors all the way to the top of the building," says Clusiau. "This public sys- tem includes a two-storey glass lobby that fronts onto a landscaped public entry plaza and extends up via a amphi- theatre and staircase to a two-storey public atrium on the second floor, which in turn flows outside to the first of five landscaped exterior roof terraces." An open stair within the skylight atrium leads up to the third floor clinic waiting area that looks over a second terrace garden. "This continues up through the building interconnecting staff lounges and terraces culminating in a top floor scholars lounge and ter- race," says Clusiau. "These external and internal amenity spaces take advantage of the views of the waterfront, down- town core, city hall and escarpment that surround the site, and feature a mate- rial pallet of stone and wood as well as fountains and planting features that link these elevated spaces back to the land- scaped entry plaza." The design includes an interesting aspect regarding the stairs in the building. "Where the stairs go from the first floor to the second floor, we've actually split the stairs in two and provided a set of bleachers where people can sit, eat their lunch and just generally watch the world go by," says Clark. "We think the bleachers will be well used. We expect that people will be sitting there every day, whether it's the summer and they are enjoying the fact that the building is air-conditioned or it's the wintertime and they are looking out the window. It will almost be like sitting outside but it's temperature controlled." The University is aiming for LEED Silver certification and the building is tied in with Hamilton Community Energy – a power plant provides heat and cooling to the downtown core so the building doesn't have any boilers or air conditioning units. The University expects to start mov- ing people into the building in March. "That will be quite the process," says Clark. "There are some 450 staff mem- bers from four or five different locations that have to be moved in along with people from the City of Hamilton Public Health Department." Describing the building as "abso- lutely beautiful," Clark says he hopes that it will be something that McMaster University and the City of Hamilton will be proud of for many years. A LOCATION 100 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario OWNER McMaster University ARCHITECT/STRUCTURAL/ MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL/ INTERIOR DESIGN CONSULTANT NORR Limited GENERAL CONTRACTOR Ball Construction Ltd. LEED CONSULTANT CFMS-West Consulting Inc. TOTAL AREA 189,983 square feet TOTAL COST $84 million

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