2020 CANADIAN CONSULTING ENGINEERING AWARDS
TREE FOR LIFE AWARD & AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
BUILDINGS
Building NX
Morrison Hershfield
“This really showcases the forefront of engineering in making existing building stock sustainable to meet Canada’s carbon reduction targets. These are the buildings of the future.” –Jury 22
www.canadianconsultingengineer.com
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The transformation of the aging Building NX at Toronto’s Humber College is the first retrofit in Canada to achieve Zero-Carbon Building Design certification from the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and is currently on track to achieve the first Passive House (PH) EnerPHit certification for a non-residential building in Canada. A full building envelope retrofit, a solar photovoltaic system and energyefficient upgrades to heating, cooling and lighting systems, all undertaken while the building remained fully occupied, have turned it into one of the most energy-efficient buildings anywhere in North America. Morrison Hershfield provided structural, electrical and mechanical engineering, building envelope, PH and code consulting for the project. Passive design strategies Previously, Building NX suffered a number of systematic failures, such
A Building Envelope Commissioning (BECx) program was implemented, including whole building air leakage testing.
as air infiltration, water penetration, condensation and temperature fluctuations. Passive design strategies for the building enclosure were maximized to significantly reduce the heating and cooling required. These focused on the airtightness and thermal continuity of the building envelope, which now features an ultra-high-performance skin, engineered transitions for greater air control to mitigate thermal bridging (especially at wall-to-window, wall-to-wall and wall-to-roof points), high-performance triple glazing in PH-certified window frames and curtain walls, excavation to install exterior
October/November 2020
2020-10-05 9:16 AM
