INTERNATIONAL // CHECK OUT OUR NEW SECTION>> NEW VOICES Volume 143 · Issue 3 • September 23, 2009
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HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL
Christian Hapgood / The Brunswickan
Christian Hapgood / The Brunswickan
Doug Estey / The Brunswickan
This past wekeend saw the annual Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival take Fredericton by storm. Music lovers young and old came out to party and enjoy the many varieties of music on offer. Above, from left to right: Kevin Shider of funk band Original P, Canadian chantreuse Jill Barber, and Tim Baker of Hey Rosetta!
A peek inside the Currie Center Lee Larrett The Brunswickan The summer months are a busy time for construction, and the site of UNB’s new Currie Center was no exception. The $50 million facility is just reinforcing bars and concrete right now, but the target for completion in 2010 is quickly approaching and the building is taking shape. Terry Haggerty, dean of Kinesiology, is excited for the new center to be completed. He detailed what the students can expect to see inside once the doors finally open.
“There are interior decorators [involved] so it’s not going to be red and black inside, we’ll get some nice earth tones, greens and browns, tiles and wood. It’s going to have wood trusses in the roof rather than steel... it won’t look like a Walmart, a block structure.” The architectural firms involved are also responsible for the modern design, Haggerty said. The firms involved are B+H, one of Canada’s largest and longest established architectural firms based out of Toronto; Sasaki, another large firm based out of Boston and ADI, an Atlantic Canadian architectural and engineering firm with a head office in Fredericton. In front of the center will be green
space and to the side of the center will be space for parking. The center itself will be built into the hill. The bottom level will have a main door leading out to the green space and a new Beaverbrook St. entrance to campus. The second main door will lead out from the top level at the side of the building as an easy link to campus walkways. The whole front face of the building will be glass, so many rooms and exercise areas will take advantage of the view to the river valley. The top level will house a performance gymnasium that seats 1,500 in a U shape, not in bleachers but in comfortable seats similar to lecture hall seating.
“When it’s used as a gym it’s a gym, but when it’s not a gym it won’t look like one,” Haggerty said. He explained that the room is meant to be flexible; it can serve as a performance gym, practice gym, a hall for convocation, or a large lecture hall if a major speaker comes to UNB. The basketball standards are portable and the score clock is a large digital display that can project either a score clock or video feed. There is a staging area at one end of the gym. When the divider is open it can serve as the stage for convocation, and when the divider is closed it can be an exercise room for pilates or a one on one training area for athletes and coaches.
When the bleachers roll away there is room enough for two practice courts, which gives athletics teams the space they need for practice so that other gymnasiums can be used solely for intramurals. On the same level there will be a commons area with a nutrition cafe, a balcony, and a lots of seating. It’s meant to be a hub of activity and a meeting place for students. The next level down houses a fitness and cardio area overlooking the river valley. Haggerty estimates that the space for the fitness area is five times the
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