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Setting the Curve in Canada
The Information and Communications Technology Building at the University of Calgary (designed collaboratively by HOK and Stantec Architecture) was featured in the January 2002 issue of Canadian Architect magazine. The project, writes author David Down, "evolved into one of the most significant examples of green institutional building design carried out to date in Canada." One overarching demand by faculty members was an insistence on having operable windows. This desire for access to fresh air meant a conventional mechanical approach could not be used. The resulting system exposes the building's concrete for use as a heat sink, which, through an embedded network of tubing, provides natural cooling by absorbing the heat generated by equipment and people. The system is supplemented by two ventilation stacks that induce convective air movement and provide natural flushing. The decision to expose the concrete led to a natural design strategy of leaving all the building's materials and systems unconcealed. The result is "a carefully designed and technically refined machine for learning, and, as such, fitting as both a metaphor and a home for the faculty it houses."
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