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A PR IL 2017 | 67 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY CROSSIRON MILLS and employing parametric design tools to balance the necessary structural rigidity with the desired esthetic. "The curved slopes and overhangs of the roof create interesting loading concentrations, impacting both the snow and wind patterns in the surrounding area. The curved roof also presented constructability challenges due both to the length of the spans and the double-curvature of the members," he adds. "Ledcor and Metal-Fab worked closely with the design team, to review construction procedures and help minimize the visible connections to ensure the design intent was met." While the structural engineers and designers were puzzling over the light-filled rotunda that would house the new food hall, other members of the team, such as SMP Engineering's Steven Holland, worked with some 25 individual food tenants to ready their shops, almost all of whom had their own corporate design teams. Working out a collective base-building plan, while orchestrating all these different individual tenants was akin, as Holland laughs, to "herding cats." "We were the base-building engineering consultants; but in dealing with a food client, individual tenants will usually hire their own corporate design team; we have to work with all these different individual teams – not to mention co-ordinating all the timelines. It's not like the usual case in a mall, where you have one new tenant at a time opening a store; here you have 25 different tenants all opening at the same time. So it can be enormously complicated." In modern large building construction, energy efficiency is paramount, but not all buildings are required to meet LEED Silver certification. But the renovation afforded the team the opportunity to go after the certification. "All the systems provided in the new food court were implemented with a goal of effective functional performance using high-efficiency equipment for excellent life-cycle operating costs," says Lewis Clarke of Smith + Andersen. Interestingly, "While The CrossIron Mills food hall is inside the LEED boundary, the tenant kitchens are not," he explains; adding that, "there were synergies in providing 130 percent of the required ventilation to the occupied area, as we were able to transfer that additional air to food court tenants, to contain cooking odours, provide a portion of make-up air to kitchen hoods and target a LEED credit." The net result is a new food hall and shopping destination that lives up to the developer's original ideas. As Lenzin says: "What I like about the design, and what I feel speaks to the project's success, is that it's a modern update to what a food hall can be. I think we've helped to create an open space that evokes a combination of a community kitchen and a living room: where people can get together and hang out, tell stories and have something to eat. I hope people like it." A CrossIron Mills LOCATION QE2 and Hwy 566, Rocky View County, Alberta OWNER/DEVELOPER Ivanhoé Cambridge ARCHITECT/ STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT DIALOG DESIGN ARCHITECT JPRA Design GENERAL CONTRACTOR Ledcor Construction Limited MECHANICAL CONSULTANT Smith + Andersen ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT SMP Engineering TOTAL SIZE (RENOVATION) 106,068 square feet TOTAL COST $64 million

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