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AUGUST 2016 | 79 Nelson Mandela High School PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY BIRD CONSTRUCTION COMPANY Nelson Mandela High School by DAN O'REILLY A long-time vision of a new school to serve several communities in Calgary's far northeast quadrant has now been attained with the completion of the 153,385-square- foot Nelson Mandela High School. Located on a 7.31-acre site adjacent the Genesis Centre – a community recreation centre completed in 2012 – the masonry and metal-panel clad building opens its doors this September after two years of construction by Bird Construction, as part of a design-build project with Gibbs Gage Architects. Other project partners include MMP Structural Engineering, mechanical consultant Remedy Engineering and electrical consultant SMP Engineering. The Bridging Consultants Group, a municipal management consulting firm, worked with the Calgary Board of Education to develop the site layout and floor plans for a RFP. Having done some pre-planning for the CBE sometime before the RFP was issued, Gibbs Gage was familiar with the project, says its design manager, David Wittman. With a large and extensive curriculum including the only aviation program in Alberta, a credentialed culinary program, pre-engineering and fashion design, the 1,500-student capacity core school – with a now underway 300-student expansion – is designed for the community "with innovative features that prepare students for continued education in the post-secondary world." At the same time, the school meets the needs of the diverse cultural community by extending services and learning opportunities with an extensive continuing education program, Wittman says. And that was part of the intricacies of designing Nelson Mandela High School. Schools by their very nature are semi-public buildings, but with areas not always accessible to the public for security reasons. Establishing the careful balance between the public and more restricted sections has been achieved with a double corridor or "T-type" configuration that places the more public areas at the front of the building, or as the architect describes, as "the top of the T." On one side of the main corridor is the technical wing and on the other are the academic spaces. At the junction of the corridors is a central learning commons with large operable glass doors that allow its double-height volume to extend into the main street corridor. Facing the learning commons and functioning as a social space and independent/group learning space, is a staircase. "It provides a central feature which all aspects of the school revolve around and fosters creativity, collaboration and responsibility." A major hallmark of the design and building process was adaptability and long-term planning. For instance, retractable walls were used in the construction of the academic wing classrooms. This allows up to three rooms to be reconfigured into one large room for special projects, team teaching and breakout spaces, says Wittman. As well, an integral component of the design was designating space for a future theatre, gymnasium and classroom expansion. Progress on two of those components didn't take long, he points out. A new two-storey, 13,500-square- foot classroom extension was added to the design partway through the project and construction of the gymnasium will begin in the fall and is expected to be completed for the fall of 2017. There are still plans for the theatre, but funding isn't available yet, says Wittman. Consideration will also be given to the school's electrical requirements once those expansions move forward through measures such as the installation of electrical rough-ins. The information technology systems infrastructure was designed to accommodate future technologies, says Kevin Showalter, associate, SMP Engineering. Nelson Mandela High School is one of the first schools in Alberta to be designed with 100 per cent LED lighting. In addition, daylighting and occupancy control was used to reduce unnecessary energy consumption. For the Calgary Board of Education that means significantly reduced utility and long- term maintenance costs, Showalter says. Showalter adds, "the lighting was carefully selected to suit the program of each space, encourage a safe and effective learning environment, and to complement the architectural vision." Maximizing energy efficiency was also a cornerstone of Remedy Engineering's mechanical design, says Nolan Lamb, a partner with the firm. For example, the ventilation system, which he explains is a 100 per cent outdoor air displacement system, distributes conditioned low velocity air at low levels in the occupied spaces such as classrooms and offices. "This air is at a slightly lower temperature than the ambient temperature in the room and, as such, tends to hug the floor until it comes in contact with a warm object such as a person or a computer. Upon contact the air rises in a plume or column around the person and displaces stale older air up towards the ceiling, ensuring that the freshest air is always in the occupant breathing zone," says Lamb. One of the complications with displacement ventilation is that the grills are located at the lower levels of walls. So, a fair bit of "interdiscipline co-ordination" among the consultants was necessary to ensure there is no conflict with electrical conduits, structural crossbracing and architectural millwork and furniture, says Lamb. For Bird Construction, there were more than a few high jumps to leap in the successful delivery of the school. "As is the case with design build, there were major challenges in constructing the initial portions of the building while the design was still being finalized," says project manager Steven Rupert. The 13,500-square-foot classroom extension, which he describes as "a substantial addition," also increased complexity of completing the core building on time. When it came to the structural design, there was one particular challenge for MMP Engineering: "Stabilizing 10,000-square-feet, 45-foot-high clerestory library/feature concrete stair-steps, separated by 20-foot- high foldable glass doors was quite a challenge," explains Kalpesh Patel, principal at MMP Engineering. Nelson Mandela High School also presented a few large challenges for Ground3 Inc., the landscape architect. Included in that list were poor soil conditions, strong prevailing winds and a LEED landscape certification stipulating no site irrigation, says its principal, Jonathan Sagi. "To create an enduring landscape within these realities we looked at the natural landscape to understand how it thrives and grows in these harsh conditions," Sagi explains. What the architects observed was tree and shrub clusters often occurred where natural drainage patterns allowed the water to pass around the clusters, usually on hill sides and valley bottoms. And that was the genesis of a design approach to create berms, clustered trees and shrub plantings in strategic places to stimulate natural drainage patterns. The end result was greater control of how surface water moved on the site and wind shelter for students and staff, says Sagi. Principal Teresa Martin and her staff have been working hard to prepare for the September 6 opening and have met with all the 1,144 students who so far have registered to attend the high school in the fall. A LOCATION 7762 Saddle Town Circle NE, Calgary, Alberta OWNER/DEVELOPER Calgary Board of Education ARCHITECT Gibbs Gage Architects DESIGN-BUILD CONTRACTOR Bird Construction Company STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT MMP Structural Engineering MECHANICAL CONSULTANT Remedy Engineering ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT SMP Engineering LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Ground3 Inc. TOTAL SIZE 153,385 square feet TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST $38.5 million 9:30 AM 2:26 PM

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