Shawenjigewining Hall, Ontario spa and pool building project, Canadian architecture images
6 September 2024
Architecture: Montgomery Sisam Architects
Location: Ontario, Canada
Shawenjigewining Hall, Canada
Over the past few years, hybrid learning has become the new norm, and as students balance remote and in-person learning methods, higher education institutions have identified a need for the campus spaces that promote socializing, bolster well-being within student communities, and elevate their on-campus experience.
Located in north Oshawa, ON, the new Shawenjigewining Hall at Ontario Tech University is a recently completed (110 000 sq. ft.) addition to the campus designed to create the sense of gravity and community, and contribute to a richer user experience.
With architectural design by Montgomery Sisam Architects in joint venture with Architecture Counsel, the campus facility serves as a mixed-use student hub and houses a series of unique spaces for student support, peer tutoring and counseling, student-run societies and clubs, a range of study and lounge areas, research labs, classrooms, faculty offices, and food services, and features out-of-the-box thinking:
• The building incorporates different types of spaces — both active and quiet options — all designed to cater to a variety of student needs and build an environment that makes it worthwhile to complement the hybrid learning.
• The new campus facility accommodates the school’s Faculty of Health Sciences and features tech-enhanced student classrooms and lounge areas. Due to the faculty’s focus on technology and engineering, mobile lectures were created to facilitate easy movement for the professors within the classrooms.
• With the idea of wellness at the centre of the design, the architectural teams maximized daylight and created a visual connection within the building. The building’s facade is designed to facilitate passive lighting, shading, and heating, and to optimize the quantity and quality of the sun coming, and to help draw the light deeper into the building core, four concrete panel types were arranged differently on each side of the building in deference to the solar path, the cardinal direction and the unique sun conditions it experiences throughout the day. Additionally, the program spaces were distributed within the campus building according to their individual daylighting needs.
• The project takes a sustainable design approach and is designed to minimize energy consumption requirements, as well as the consumption of high carbon fuel sources, to reduce embodied carbon emissions, and to integrate opportunities for natural lighting, shading, heating and renewable energy generation.
• Some of its sustainable design features include a high-performance building envelope, a 30% window-to-wall ratio, high-efficiency systems for artificial heating and cooling, and the use of LED fixtures and a heat recovery chiller to generate heat by connecting to the neighbouring geothermal field.
• The name Shawenjigewining, meaning a place of kindness and friendship, comes from a vision received during the sacred sweat lodge ceremony. A plaque with the building’s name, its meaning, and the image of a deer, which came during the vision and is Shawenjigewining Hall’s visual identity, is displayed in the front foyer of the building.
• The building also offers a home away from home for Indigenous students, as well as a space for all students to connect and learn from Indigenous culture and resources, and includes an Indigenous space Mukwa’s Den.
• The design features integration and a blend of manmade and natural products where concrete is paired with local limestone. This creates a play between the two and gives the building a simple yet elegant look and feel.
Design: Montgomery Sisam Architects – https://www.montgomerysisam.com/
Ontario Tech University Shawenjigewining Hall, Canada images / information received 060924
Location: Ontario, Canada
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