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OCTOBER 2015 | 75 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering – University of Alberta RENDERING COURTESY DIALOG Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering – University of Alberta by GODFREY BUDD O ne of the most surprising things, at least from a design and construction standpoint, about a new 14-storey office tower at the University of Alberta, now the tallest building on campus, is that it was built where it was. The Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering – Donadeo ICE for short – is located on a sliver of land barely 30-metres wide between a four-storey parkade and another engineering build- ing, which is eight-storeys high. The new building makes practical use of a con- fined space and is expected to improve the engineering faculty in several ways. "The Donadeo ICE represents an addi- tional 26,360 square metres of dedicated office space for the faculty of engineering. It will house about 1,700 people – profes- sors, graduate students and University employees whose work supports engi- neering teaching and research," says Donna Clare, an architect at DIALOG. Besides enabling the University's engineering faculty to accommodate more students and expand educational and research facilities, the addition of the Donadeo ICE helps rationalize the University's complex of engineering buildings and their uses. The engineering faculty will con- vert offices in its existing buildings into research labs and teaching facilities, allowing the four main existing engi- neering buildings to augment their focus on teaching and research. "This will uti- lize the major research buildings for their most valuable function. The approach is very cost effective as the Donadeo ICE will be used for personnel, as essentially an office building, and will have a lower cost per square metre in comparison to a mixed-use research and teaching labora- tory building," Clare says. The Donadeo ICE is designed to pro- vide its occupants with plenty of access to sunlight, views of the adjacent river valley, campus and its skyline. "It is also influenced by the site. As the building rises, the floors of the ICE cantilever out over the existing buildings to provide a more efficient floor plate for the devel- opment of office space," Clare says. She adds that the relationship between the Centre's interior and exterior is an important aspect of the design. The Donadeo ICE opens at its corners and across the length of the facade to reveal the interior life of the building. "Meeting spaces and circulation animate the facade. The detailing and interplay of materi- als enrich the facade and respond to the existing vocabulary of the University cam- pus and the adjacent Chemical Materials Engineering Building (CMEB) in particu- lar," says Clare. The exterior features bands of glass, metal panelling and Ductal concrete designed to create a dynamic and engaging interplay across the face of the building. "These forms symbolize the integrated nature of the University cam- pus with many disciplines and voices interacting, collaborating and coming together to learn from one another," Clare explains. With the offices of the four main teaching and research buildings now under one roof within the Donadeo ICE, professors and graduate students from all engineering disciplines will now occupy the same building. The layout of the Donadeo ICE is designed to foster interdisciplinary work and innovative engineering and scholarship. "A cul- tural shift will occur as they connect more frequently with one another. The eighth f loor, called the Fred Pheasey Engineering Commons, is a focal point of the building where professors and students from all disciplines can gather to exchange ideas," Clare says. The structure of the Donadeo includes concrete pile foundations, concrete pile caps and wall supports, slab-on-grade, structural steel framing and concrete slabs on metal decks. Brick, metal clad- ding, curtain wall glazing and membrane roofing comprise the key exterior ele- ments of the envelope. All curtain wall is triple glazed and has a combination of fibre-reinforced Ductal precast concrete and metal cladding that was post-applied to the exterior of the unitized curtain wall and designed to give it texture and a unique look. The project is on track to obtain LEED Gold certification. The tight dimensions of the site for the new building imposed some special design considerations. "Technical chal- lenges included selecting column loca- tions and bay sizes so that the foundations for the new building could be threaded through the constraints at the site, pro- viding joins between the new building and the existing buildings to allow for relative movements between the new and existing construction under lateral wind and earthquake loads, and difficult foundation conditions that required the installation of large diameter belled piles through a sand layer surface to the dense sand or clay till-bearing layer with large piling rigs," says Jim Montgomery, a struc- tural engineer at DIALOG. Existing underground mechanical and electrical services, a service corri- dor and adjacent building foundations were among those constraints. Various design solutions were implemented. One entailed reducing the number of columns by using long structural spans. In another, floor slabs cantilevered out from the perimeter columns towards the existing buildings, "leaving room for the foundations to be installed using large piling rigs," Montgomery says. Also, the use of structural steel, not concrete, helped reduce the weight of the building and save on foundation costs. The mechanical system is chilled beam throughout the building and includes a Konvekta heat recovery sys- tem. "The proprietary system has been in use in Europe for about 15 years. Payback has been calculated at two- and-a-half years," says Grahame Morris, a principal at MCW Hemisphere Ltd. Energ y consumption should be reduced and convenience added with the new building's addressable lighting con- trol system. Interior modifications can be accommodated by simply re-program- ming. "If you move the walls, you just need to re-program the control modules," says Charlie Wilson, project manager for elec- trical design at MCW Hemisphere. The tight confines of the site involved extensive use of cranes. "Proximity to adjacent buildings required that the crane contractor bring two large crawler cranes onto the site to access and load the upper floors with glazing," says Mike Pereversoff, site superinten- dent with EllisDon Construction. A single tower LTR crawler crane was used from the basement of the structure to complete the framing and the instal- lation of the mechanical equipment on the eighth floor. "The installations had to be sequenced for this during the assembling of the structure otherwise it would have been nearly impossible to install after the floors were decked and concrete placed," Pereversoff says. The glazing and cladding contrac- tors had to use numerous swing stages and compact lifting cranes to access difficult elevations and install the unit- ized panels of glazing. "The mechanical equipment had to be installed during the assembly of the tower as it would not have been possible once the floors above were installed and the mezzanine panels were placed," he concludes. A LOCATION 9211 116th Street NW, Edmonton, Alberta OWNER/DEVELOPER University of Alberta ARCHITECT/ STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT DIALOG GENERAL CONTRACTOR EllisDon Construction MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT MCW Hemisphere Ltd. TOTAL SIZE 305,000 square feet TOTAL COST $40 million

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