Diamond & Schmitt Architects
The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) is so young that the number of its alumni just recently surpassed the size of its staff. Located in Oshawa, Ontario—less than an hour’s drive northeast of Toronto—the new campus opened its doors in 2003. Its current enrollment of 4,300 students participates in more than 30 degree programs.
While the school and its primary facilities are new, its 42-acre campus is grafted onto the north side of a previously existing institution—Durham College. The two complexes couldn’t be more different. Durham is housed in a sprawling, architecturally undistinguished series of 1960s-era low-rise structures whose spaces are almost exclusively oriented toward seemingly endless interior corridors.
An initial campus master plan by Toronto-based The Planning Partnership provided the starting point for nearby Diamond + Schmitt Architects’ designs. The 121-person firm, with principal Donald Schmitt in charge, designed not only each of the eight new buildings, of which four have been built and two are under construction, but also the innovative environmental systems that they share. The master plan places six similarly detailed academic buildings around three sides of a new green quadrangle. On the open, west side of the quad, a brick colonnade provides a covered path between a parking lot and the old Durham College structures, while extending views from the commons to naturalistic outdoor space to the west. That landscape is more rugged than the quad’s manicured lawn and includes the project’s stormwater-management pond. Two new buildings are still rising on the natural landscape’s north edge, to the west of the quad itself; these house specialized facilities for engineering and the Automotive Centre of Excellence.
Fast track hardly seems adequate to describe the pace of the project’s progression. The architects were retained in 2002, and the initial 125,000 square feet of classrooms and labs was delivered in September 2003. Another 220,000 square feet of class space and the library were completed by the start of the next academic year. The current campus totals 450,000 square feet. Some 200,000 square feet are now under construction as Phase 4, with the master plan accommodating a total of 900,000 square feet, the extra 450,000 of which will comprise two future buildings.
By the time the master plan is completed in 2010, UOIT expects to have the equivalent of 6,500 full-time students (as defined by number of class hours taught) participating in its degree programs. Due to the part-time status of many of the students, the campus may actually host as many as 15,000 individuals by that date. The institution’s marketing plan positions it as a leading center for education and research—its expressed goal is to be recognized as the “MIT of the North.” An essential part of this strategy is to make the UOIT the “greenest” campus in Canada. “The university has a passion for high energy efficiency systems,” says UOIT director of special projects Bruce Bunker. LEED Gold is the target for all new buildings, but that’s just the starting point. Whenever possible, this goal is achieved by making sustainable design evident in public spaces, not just behind the scenes, providing visible lessons for students and faculty. Additional goals include a reduction of overall operating costs by 15 percent, energy efficiency of 50 percent less than the Model National Energy Code, implementation of water-conservation strategies, and advanced stormwater management.
The university’s seven different colleges front the commons—science, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, nuclear engineering, business and information technology, justice, and education. Each building is clad in a regularized bay system composed of brick and glass, with copper and cedar accents. The repetitive nature of the façades reflects the modularity of the interior spaces, which allow for changes in program requirements over time. The standout is the library— whose glass façade is punctuated by a circular reading room that metaphorically evokes Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Each structure is enclosed in a high-performance exterior envelope utilizing R8 glazing, R25 walls, and R35 roofs. Highly efficient mechanical systems supplement the other green strategies, including atriums in each academic building that serve as return-air plenums and draw daylight into the surrounding common spaces. Of the atriums, architect Don Schmitt says, “The infrastructural necessities became the opportunities for social spaces and educational exchange with the campus design itself.” Flexibility is facilitated by flat-plate concrete construction with raised access flooring for ready relocation of power, data, and mechanical ventilation. Faculty offices, lounges, study areas, and even lecture halls and labs can be swapped without major structural or mechanical revisions to the base buildings.
The central quadrangle is named Polansky Commons for the university’s founding president. Conceived primarily as a gathering space of trees, lawn, and water, its greensward sits atop North America’s second largest geothermal heating and cooling system. The Borehole Thermal Energy System (BTES) comprises some 392 thermal wells that extend 656 feet into the earth and provides 2,000 tons of sustainable heating and cooling for the heat pump system that serves each campus building.
Stormwater management, water conservation, and landscaping were developed as individual pieces of a single design. Seventy percent of the campus’ roof area is vegetated. These green roofs provide surplus water to a 250,000-liter underground storage facility that provides irrigation for campus plantings. Newly created wetlands filter runoff before returning it to the local watershed. Bioswales reduce the apparent size of the extensive parking lots while filtering stormwater and routing it to the retention pond. A terraced linear wetland runs parallel to the colonnade. This fabricated landscape exposes the water-purification process—as water captured in cisterns from the buildings is slowly returned to the retention pond to the west.
The sharp contrast with the earlier Durham College is—perhaps unintentionally—part of the public demonstration. Not only are the facilities for UOIT more self-evidently “green,” they’re just decent design. And that’s a lesson worth repeating as often as possible.Edward Keegan
PROJECT University of Ontario Institute of Technology
LOCATION Oshawa, Ontario
CLIENT University of Ontario
ARCHITECT Diamond + Schmitt Architects, Toronto—Donald Schmitt (principal in charge)
ENGINEERS Yolles Partnership (structural); Keen Engineering (mechanical); Carinci Burt Rogers (electrical); Totten Sims Hubicki (civil)
LANDSCAPE DESIGNER Du Toit Allsopp Hillier
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER EllisDon Corp.
CONSULTANTS Vermeulens Cost Consultants (cost); Leber Rubes (code); Aercoustics (acoustics); Van Velzen Radchenko (food services); Engineering Harmonics (A/V); BA Group (traffic); RWDI (wind)
PHOTOGRAPHERS Steven Evans; Tom Arban
COST Withheld
SQUARE FOOTAGE AND COMPLETION DATES
General Academic Building, 124,000 s.f., September 2003
Science Building, 104,000 s.f., September 2004
School of Business and Information Technology, 100,000 s.f., September 2004
School of Mechanical Engineering, 110,000 s.f., in design
School of Justice and Education, 95,000 s.f., in design
School of Manufacturing Engineering, 45,000 s.f., August 2006
Automotive Centre of Excellence, 50,000 s.f., scheduled 2009
Library, 73,000 s.f., September 2004 Student Services Building, 100,000 s.f., in design
Cogeneration Building, 11,000 s.f., in design
PRODUCT SPECS
CURTAIN WALL LOCATION A1, A2, and A3 curtain walls
PRODUCT 7500 Series framing
MANUFACTURER Kawneer
WEBSITEwww.kawneer.com
LOCATION A1, A2, and A3 glazing
PRODUCT Heat Mirror TC88
MANUFACTURER Southwall Technologies
WEBSITEwww.southwall.com
LOCATION A9 curtain walls
PRODUCT Spandrel glass
MANUFACTURER Tagg Industries
LOCATION A9 curtain walls
PRODUCT Sealed units
MANUFACTURER Vision Glass
WEBSITEwww.visionglass.com
LOCATION A9 curtain walls
PRODUCT Series 1600 framing
MANUFACTURER Kawneer
WEBSITEwww.kawneer.com
LOCATION A1, A2, and A3 glazing
PRODUCT Heat Mirror TC88
MANUFACTURER Southwall Technologies
WEBSITEwww.southwall.com
EXTERIOR FINISHES LOCATION A9 soffit
PRODUCT Wood soffit
MANUFACTURER Continental Cabinet Co.
WEBSITEwww.continentalcabinet.com
LOCATION A1, A2, and A9 exterior brick
PRODUCT Red flashed smooth bricks
MANUFACTURER Redcliff Pressed Brick Division, I-XL
WEBSITEwww.ixlbrick.com
LOCATION A3 and A9 exterior
PRODUCT Copper
MANUFACTURER Semple Gooder
WEBSITEwww.semplegooder.com
PRODUCT Insulation
MANUFACTURER Roxul
WEBSITEwww.roxul.com
LOCATION A1 and A2
PRODUCT Demi fin sun-control device
MANUFACTURER C/S Group
WEBSITEwww.c-sgroup.com
LOCATION Library rotunda
PRODUCT Sunscreen
MANUFACTURER Modern Railings and Metalcraft
LOCATION A9 exterior
PRODUCT Insulclad doors
MANUFACTURER Kawneer
WEBSITEwww.kawneer.com
FLOORING LOCATION A2 atrium
PRODUCT RWC200
MANUFACTURER ASP Access Floors
WEBSITEwww.aspmaxcess.com
LOCATION A2 atrium
PRODUCT Wood slats
MANUFACTURER A&K Millwork
WEBSITEwww.akmillwork.com
LOCATION A2 atrium
PRODUCT Entropy carpet tiles
MANUFACTURER InferfaceFLOR
WEBSITEwww.interfaceflor.com
PRODUCT Taqpisom Series 2 & 4 carpet
MANUFACTURER Enia Carpets
WEBSITEwww.eniacarpets.com
LOCATION A2 study room
PRODUCT Engineered wood flooring
MANUFACTURER TEKA
WEBSITEwww.tekaparquet.com
LOCATION Library round reading room
PRODUCT Resilient baseboard
MANUFACTURER Johnsonite
WEBSITEwww.johnsonite.com
LOCATION A9
PRODUCT 4800 dual-channel aluminum prewired raceway
MANUFACTURER Wiremold
WEBSITEwww.wiremold.com
LOCATION A9 manufacturing lab
PRODUCT Norament 926xi rubber flooring
MANUFACTURER Freudenberg Building Systems
WEBSITEwww.nora-rubber-flooring.com
LOCATION A9 prototype lab
PRODUCT Electrostatic dissipative floor
MANUFACTURER Freudenberg Building Systems
WEBSITEwww.nora-rubber-flooring.com
LOCATION A9 prototype lab
PRODUCT Norament 928 AL
MANUFACTURER Freudenberg Building Systems
WEBSITEwww.nora-rubber-flooring.com
LOCATION Library round room
PRODUCT Steel staircase
MANUFACTURER Metro Custom Steel
CEILING LOCATION A2 study room
PRODUCT Ultima #1912 ceiling tiles
MANUFACTURER Armstrong
WEBSITEwww.armstrong.com
FURNITURE LOCATION A1 and A2 study room
PRODUCT Study desks and tables
MANUFACTURER Continental Cabinet Co.
WEBSITEwww.continentalcabinet.com
LOCATION Library main room
PRODUCT Study desks and tables
MANUFACTURER Trend Millwork and Cabinets
WEBSITEwww.trendmillwork.com
LOCATION A2 study room
PRODUCT Edwards 129 Series lounge with Boston arms
MANUFACTURER Nienkamper
WEBSITEwww.nienkamper.com
LOCATION A9 labs
PRODUCT Lab benches
MANUFACTURER CIF Lab Casework Solutions
WEBSITEwww.cifsolutions.com
LOCATION A9 labs
PRODUCT Style 50 extraction arm
MANUFACTURER Alsident System
WEBSITEwww.alsident.com
LOCATION A2 study room
PRODUCT Also 3520 study chair
MANUFACTURER Keilhauer
WEBSITEwww.keilhauer.com
LOCATION A2 atrium and library round reading room
PRODUCT Eglington lounge chair
MANUFACTURER Keilhauer
WEBSITEwww.keilhauer.com
ROOF PRODUCT Green roof
MANUFACTURER Hydrotech Membrane
WEBSITEwww.hydrotechusa.com
STRUCTURE PRODUCT Precast concrete base and coping
MANUFACTURER R&M Precast
LIGHTING LOCATION Throughout
PRODUCT Archetype site lighting
MANUFACTURER Kim Lighting
WEBSITEwww.kimlighting.com
LOCATION A2 atrium
PRODUCT Recessed compact flourescent downlights
MANUFACTURER Lightolier
WEBSITEwww.lightolier.com
LOCATION A9 exterior and colonnade
PRODUCT EOS rectangular wall recessed path lighting
MANUFACTURER Sistemalux
WEBSITEwww.sistemalux.com
LOCATION Colonnade
PRODUCT Petite Nuage wall-mounted lighting
MANUFACTURER Neo-Ray Products
WEBSITEwww.neoray-lighting.com
LOCATION A2 and A3 exterior
PRODUCT Streamline 6010 Series
MANUFACTURER Rebelle Architectural Lighting
WEBSITEwww.rebellelighting.com
LOCATION A3 exterior
PRODUCT Recessed soffit downlights
MANUFACTURER Lightolier
WEBSITEwww.lightolier.com
WINDOWS AND GLAZING LOCATION A2 atrium
PRODUCT Skylight
MANUFACTURER Basic Structure Engineering
INTERIOR FINISHES LOCATION A2 atrium and A3
PRODUCT Wood slats
MANUFACTURER A&K Millwork
WEBSITEwww.akmillwork.com
LOCATION A2 atrium library stair
PRODUCT Glass guards
MANUFACTURER Inkan Ltd.
WEBSITEwww.inkan.on.ca
LOCATION Library
PRODUCT Wood slats
MANUFACTURER Trend Millwork and Cabinets
WEBSITEwww.trendmillwork.com
LOCATION A9 manufacturing lab
PRODUCT Gibena A acoustical panels
MANUFACTURER Ecophon
WEBSITEwww.ecophon.com
SAFETY & SECURITY LOCATION A2 atrium
PRODUCT Glass smoke guards
MANUFACTURER Inkan Ltd.
WEBSITEwww.inkan.on.ca
PLUMBING LOCATION Colonnade
PRODUCT Exterior trench drain grating
MANUFACTURER Quest Steel
