Fire forges a new path for Southern Okanagan Secondary

Schooled in the art of patience:

Fire forges a new path for Southern Okanagan Secondary

By Melanie Franner

The $31-million renovation and addition planned for the Southern Okanagan Secondary School held the promise of delivering a first-class facility that would add yet another chapter to the community institution first built in 1948. The latest project was to be the building’s fourth iteration, coming on the heels of additions that were built in 1966, 1977 and 1982. But in the early hours of September 12th, 2011, a fire broke out on the construction site and almost all of the $25 million that had been spent up until that point went up in smoke.

IN THE BLINk OF AN EYE

“We were in the midst of renovating the existing school and building an addition,” explains Mitch Van Aller, director of operations at School District No. 53. “We had torn down one wing and put up a new wing. The new wing was completely finished and had been occupied by the students for only four days when the fire broke out.”

Thankfully, there were no injuries. And although the cause of the fire has still not been determined, work was soon underway to prevent a bad situation from becoming worse.

“The night after the fire, our first mandate became getting the students back into the classrooms as soon as possible,” says Van Aller, who adds that 16 portables were erected on the site within a week to house the grade 10, 11 and 12 students. The grade 8 and 9 students got their assignments initially at the local church but were back in the school two weeks later. “We knew that the funding for the rebuild was going to be there but we had to go through the whole process again with the Ministry. The first time around, it took us five years. But this one went a whole lot faster.”

In the end, the fire resulted in approximately $2 million in damages to the new wing that had just been completed. This wing housed the new gymnasium, change rooms, cafeteria, four science rooms and a science lab. Some 60 per cent of the original school that was undergoing renovations had to be rebuilt, including the library, administration area, home economics centre, counseling centre and the drama centre. All of this came to the tune of finding an additional $21 million.

The B.C. Government was quick to kick in $19.5 million of the extra money needed, while the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional District and Town of Oliver provided another $2.3 million toward the rebuilding of the 397-seat school theatre, which will be jointly operated and maintained by the two entities.

“From that point on, it became a whole team effort to get the rebuild done as quickly as possible,” Van Aller says.

A SECOND OPPORTUNITY

KMBR Architects Planners Inc. was the prime consultant on the initial renovation and new build at the Southern Okanagan Secondary School. The Vancouver-based firm teamed up with Penticton-based Bevanda Architecture Inc.

“The original design was a collaborative process between the two of us,” says Gregg Brown, partner at KMBR Architects Planners. “By the time the second project came around, Bevanda Architecture had been purchased by CEI Architecture Planning Interiors Inc. so we worked with them on that part of the project. (CEI merged with Bevanda in September 2010.) The architects took the unfortunate opportunity afforded them to re-think the original designs.

“At the time of the fire, we were in the process of renovat-

ing the school to accommodate the Neighbourhood Learning Centre, as well as reconfigured program areas for the school,” Brown explains. “In the previous version, this NLC was located in the south wing of the school, but after the fire, we considered whether it needed to have that direct connection to the school. We ended up creating a design that made it a freestanding structure instead. This allowed us to open up what was going to be an almost invisible courtyard and make it more accessible to the community. It really changed the look and feel of the school and made it more appealing.”

Other improvements that occurred in the second round of planning included a more efficient, compact interior design that was achieved by changing the long directions of the classrooms from being parallel to being perpendicular to the corridors, along with creating a better balance between the theatre’s stage/backstage and seating areas.

“We also created a more appropriately sized lobby for the theatre, one that could handle 400 people at intermission,” says Brown, who also notes that the layouts for the library and administration areas were revised slightly, although they remained in the same location as in the original design. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAkES

In order to help speed things along, tenders for the foundation and steel aspects of the rebuild were released almost right away. Work on these is already underway.

“There was an increased level of urgency the second time around,” Brown says. “Before, the existing school was going to remain functional, with the new construction and renovations taking place in phases. Now, the whole project has been fasttracked to get the students out of the portables and back into the facility as soon as possible.”

Currently, the students are scheduled to officially occupy the school in September 2013. The theatre and Neighbourhood Learning Centre have a later occupancy date of December 2013.

The fire put the original occupancy schedule behind by about one year, but it also provided the opportunity to incorporate some innovative changes into the rebuild – changes that are sure to be appreciated by the many generations of students who will eventually walk the halls of the Southern Okanagan Secondary School. b

Vancouver Location

1385 Odlum Drive Vancouver, BC V5L 3M1 Tel (604) 251-3151 Fax (604) 251-6233 Toll Free 1-800-689-1441 Email: vancouver@castertown.com

Calgary Location

#22 5329 – 72 Avenue S.E. Calgary, AB T2C 4X6 Tel (403) 236-0028 Fax (403) 279-8231 Toll Free 1-800-665-1348 Email: calgary@castertown.com

Sammy Tong

Western Region Sales Manager

Mississauga Offi ce Tel: 866-805-7089

Sparks, NV 800-987-9042

Belimo Americas

219-6279 Eagles Drive Vancouver, BC V6T 2K7 Tel: 604-221-6105 Cell: 778-772-6273 sammy.tong@ca.belimo.com www.belimo.ca