Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/607779
DECEMBER 2015 | 57 Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence – York University PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY GILLAM GROUP INC. Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence – York University by YVAN MARSTON P roducing engineers who are broad thinkers takes a unique space, a building that serves as a vibrant example of the possibilities of the profes- sion. From its Penrose-pattern inspired mosaic of triangular panels and win- dows that make up its distinctive clad- ding, to its concrete-crushing three-sto- rey highbay test lab, York University's Bergeron Centre hit all the marks as it welcomed three cohorts of engineering students to its brand new curvilinear halls this September. The new home for the Lassonde School of Engineering is a five-storey, 170,000-square-foot facility whose ovoid shape and distinctive exterior has earned it the nickname "the cloud." Set on the site of a former parking lot in the south- western section of the suburban campus, the building sits adjacent to Stong Pond, where its unique shape is designed to evoke equal parts cloud and rock. From the initial design briefing ses- sions with the faculty, the team at ZAS Architects + Interiors proposed these two notions as a means of expressing both the solid grounding offered by a good education (the rock) with the ever- changing adaptability of the renais- sance engineers the school is dedicated to producing (the cloud). The form of the building offers a solid oblong block whose glazed ground floor makes its panel-clad upper levels appear to float above the concrete court- yard and sloping green roofs that wrap around its base. But getting a sense of the centre's scale can be fleeting. The elabo- rate triangular aluminum panel system is arranged in a way that tricks the eye. Inspired by the Penrose tiling patterns invented by mathematician and physicist Sir Roger Penrose, the facade employs three repeating triangles to create a non- periodic pattern. "When you focus on a specific part of the facade, you can discern a pattern. But you quickly lose that pattern as the larger field of the facade enters your vision," says project architect Costas Catsaros. Repeating only three triangle shapes but arranging them differently was one trick, but some of the panels are also finished in a dichroic - or colour-shift- ing - paint so that depending on the time of day some may appear green or blue. Others are finished with silver or two shades of grey, and then there are the 200 triangular windows arranged in spoke-like clusters. "We sought to create a scale-less, shifting vision for the building, but a rational and repeatable system was nec- essary for the execution," says Catsaros, explaining that using a building infor- mation modeling (BIM) system was fundamental to allowing the team to develop the idea technically. That it was developed in virtual space is a key feature of the building explains Richard Francki, York Universit y's assistant VP of campus services. "And that includes the structure, the facade, the mechanical systems, electrical sys- tems as well as ducting and ventilation. Everything was designed in a BIM model so that the building could be optimized." The information for the framing sys- tems used to seat the 200 triangular windows into the cladding's structural frame, for example, was taken from the BIM model and sent to a manufacturer in Calgary. When the large spoke-like metal frames, approximately 15-feet long and 10-feet wide, were delivered on site, they were lifted and slipped onto the building structure with only five millimetres of tolerance. LOCATION 11 Arboretum Lane, York University, Toronto, Ontario OWNER York University ARCHITECT ZAS Architects + Interiors CONSTRUCTION MANAGERS Laing O'Rourke / Gillam Group STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL/CIVIL CONSULTANT ARUP STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT (FOR CLADDING STRUCTURE) Blackwell Structural Engineers LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Scott Torrance Landscape Architect TOTAL SIZE 170,000 square feet TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST $85 million