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august 2015 | 53 Collingwood school Morven Campus photography courtesy kmbr architects planners inc. Collingwood School Morven Campus by natalie bruckner-menchelli A s you enter the sweeping driveway of Collingwood School's Morven Campus, which runs in a U-shape around a centre field and encourages the eyes to naturally follow the gently curved L-shaped two-storey structure, it is hard to imagine that a few years ago a very dif- ferent building stood on this land. Nestled at the base of B.C.'s Grouse Mount ain in West Vancouver, the school, home to more than 600 grade 8 to 12 students, has undergone a dras- tic 48,000-square-foot renovation and a 85,000-square-foot extension, com- pletely transforming its look and feel. The design concept changed early on as a result of foresight on the part of the architect. "When we hired KMBR as architects, the original plan was to knock down the old part of the school, but in their submission KMBR said they were experts in keeping schools open. Suddenly a light- bulb went off in my head and I realized we were building in the wrong place; the nat- ural direction of the building should face the mountains," explains Bob Corbett, deputy headmaster. "Once we got going we recognized the need to do something with the older school and so while we were building the extension, we decided to renovate the original building too," he adds. Sitting on five acres of land posed a challenge as did the school's location in an existing neighbourhood. "Most sec- ondary schools sit on a 10-acre piece of land. The school is surrounded by single- family residences to the east, south and north, and because of West Vancouver bylaws we couldn't do anything before 7.30 a.m. or after 5.30 p.m. This meant our pours had to be smaller to ensure the finishers were off the site in time," explains Harp Hoonjan, project manager at Platinum Projects. Then there was the issue of deal- ing with transportation as the school remained open during construction. "We decided to create an internal loop road with Bunt & Associates Engineering, the traffic engineers. Then we went through the challenges of dealing with the neighbourhood. We wanted to build this school without going through any kind of a rezoning process and at the time the District of West Vancouver was updating its rezoning bylaws so we had to collaborate closely with the district to ensure we built the school we wanted," adds Hoonjan. KMBR's Gregg Brown agrees, adding, "The three biggest design challenges for us were maximizing the building area and volume in the context of very restrictive zoning for the site, meshing the new construction with the existing, and working within an extremely tight site that had to stay fully operational during construction." Building materials were chosen that would not only complement the existing structure and the surrounding land- scape, but that would stand the test of time. Clad in grey German panel, con- crete and cedar panelling offers a warm and welcoming nature to the building while wrap-around glazing maximizes light penetration into this predomi- nantly north facing structure. The school's striking entrance fea- tures an overhang that sits on tapered timber columns and cedar soffits mak- ing the space open and inviting. Step inside and this feeling continues with more cedar, warm tones and an atrium that stretches up two storeys and pro- vides clean sightlines from one side of the building to the other. "We wanted a gathering space in the atrium so we put the cafeteria in there as well as all of our lockers, which are shorter in height to create openness. This allows as much natural light to flow through the building and frees up our hallways," says Corbett. A Squamish Nation hand-carved totem pole wel- comes visitors in and three live trees bring a sense of the outside in. To the left of the atrium is an expanse of windows with seating that overlooks the 17,000-square-foot gymnasium. To create additional height in the gym the floor was dropped down by half a storey resulting in a 28-foot-high ceiling. Acoustical panels and two sets of double-glazed windows help contain the sound while Rubberized vinyl floor- ing was chosen for its lifecycle benefits. "You can have 400 kids in that common space and there's minimal noise," says Corbett. The gym features an operable wall and curtain so the space can be split into three sized gym. "It's not just a gym, it's a town hall," says Corbett. "We wanted a sense that activity was always public; so the huge windows that over- look the gym tie it together with the rest of the building." A grand staircase, which features a massive information screen where live games can be streamed, leads you up to a skywalk connecting the original struc- ture with the extension. To the right is the academic seniors wing with 17 class- rooms. "We've made the classrooms smaller, with the smallest being 320 square feet and the largest at 525 square feet. All the classes in the new wing have windows looking into them from the cor- ridor to encourage the feeling of trans- parency," says Corbett. "The interior was designed with an abundance of glass to foster a sense of school community and to make learning visible," says Brown. In addition, all the classrooms are designed to have two or three uses. Walk along the "streets of learning" hall- ways, and natural daylight streams into every part of the building. To the left of the staircase, in the middle of the school and almost floating on a semi circle above the atrium is the library. The goal was to keep the library in the centre of the school. Within the library are two classroom and access to a cable grid that stands above the 3,600-square-foot black box theatre. "All the chairs in the theatre are modular like Lego pieces, so you can build your seat- ing plan according to your needs," says Corbett. "We have no catwalks, instead the cable grid means we can take an entire class onto the grid and have them play with lights, and they are completely safe," says Corbett. Further along the west wing you enter into the original school building and the home of the middle school. While the original Glenmore wing was bulldozed, the school built in 1990 has been entirely renovated over the course of two-and-a- half summers. The architects were able to use the existing woodframe building and open it up to blend naturally with the new cedar and concrete interior. Throughout the entire building Acumen Engineering, the electrical con- sultants, installed an efficient motion detector lighting system. "The system turns lights off when there is enough light coming in," explains Hoonjan. Perhaps one of the most unusual aspects of Collingwood is its two-level underground parking. "Again it is credit to the board for approving that. It meant we could take all of the parking off of the surface and we have a total of around 150 parking stalls," says Hoonjan. While the construction obviously posed many logist ical challenges, Corbett says that only three days of school were missed at the beginning of the academic years. "In every way we wanted to break the regular parameters that stop people from doing things. The entire process is something the entire team can be proud of," says Corbett. A Location 70 Morven Drive, West Vancouver, B.C. owner/DeveLoper Collingwood School Society project Manager Platinum Projects architect KMBR Architects Planners Inc. construction Manager Heatherbrae Builders Co. Inc. structuraL consuLtant Bush, Bohlman & Partners LLP MechanicaL consuLtant Rocky Point Engineering eLectricaL consuLtant Acumen Engineering transportation consuLtant Bunt & Associates Engineering Ltd. LanDscape architect PMG Landscape Architects totaL size 48,000 square foot (renovation) 85,000 (extension) totaL cost $25 million 11:30 AM

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