Building February March 2011

TOWERS on the

RISE Plus: Apartment renewal The politics of planning PR lessons for builders

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Building.indb 2 BEL475_Building Magazine.indd 1

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Volume 61 Number 1

february/march 2011

Editor

Peter Sobchak Legal Editor

Jeffrey W. Lem Contributors

Brian Burton, Stephen Carpenter, David Lasker, Karolina Olechnowicz, David G. Reiner, Circulation Manager

Beata Olechnowicz Tel: (416) 442-5600 ext 3543 Reader Services

Liz Callaghan Advertising Sales

Greg Paliouras Tel: (416) 510-6808 Email: gpaliouras@Building.ca Senior Publisher

Tom Arkell Vice President, Publishing Business Information Group (BIG) President, Business Information Group (BIG)

Bruce Creighton Building magazine is published by BIG Magazines LP, a division of Glacier BIG Holdings Company Ltd. 12 Concord Place, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M3C 4J2 Tel: (416) 510-6780 Fax: (416) 510-5140 E-mail: info@building.ca Website: www.building.ca SUBSCRIPTION RATE: Canada: 1 year, $29.95; 2 years, $51.95; 3 years, $63.95 (including H.S.T.) U.S.: 1 year, $37.95 (U.S. funds) Elsewhere: 1 year, $44.95 (U.S. funds).

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Alex Papanou

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Features 9. Your Legal Duty / New developments in the obligation to consult First Nations should remind developers that failure to do so could add confusion, time and money. By Jeffrey W. Lem and David G. Reiner 11. Can’t Buy Me Love (Or Editorial) / Your first PR 101 lesson: what makes it different than advertising. By David Lasker 12. The Politics of Planning / How should elected officials, planners and citizens build cities together? Building sits down with municipal politicians from three Canadian cities to find out.

16. Ready for Its Close-Up / After years of managing a world-class festival scattered

NEWSSTAND: For information on Building on newsstands in Canada, call 905-619-6565

across the entire city, the Toronto International Film Festival finally has a dedicated complex that is both a combined cultural institution/residential tower and a shrine to the art. By Peter Sobchak

Building is indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index

by Micromedia ProQuest Company, Toronto (www.micromedia.com) and National Archive Publishing Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan (www.napubco.com).

20. At the Centre of Business / Shedding some light on Toronto’s overlooked financial district, the Bay Adelaide Centre is good for business. By Karolina Olechnowicz

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If you do not wish to be included, please e-mail or write to us.

Building is published six times a year. Printed in Canada. The content of this ­publication is the property of Building and cannot be reproduced without permission from the publisher.

22. Skin Deep / Overcladding science has moved forward, and may be a solution our geriatric residential towers are in desperate need of if they are to remain liveable. By Brian Burton

25. Right at Home / A university campus art gallery expansion in a small Midwestern

state capital shows what can be achieved when the mandate is to show honest, appropriate respect for the local character. By Peter Sobchak

H.S.T. #890939689RT0001 ISSN 1185-3654 (Print) ISSN 1923-3361 (Online)

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Cover: Bay Adelaide Centre, Toronto, by WZMH Architects. © Tom Arban.

Above images courtesy of: Tom Arban, Ivan Saleff.

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editor’s notes

Look up On a blustery, bone-chilling day in late November I, along with dozens of others, signed my name to a bright green I-beam on a construction site in downtown Toronto. Later that day, the I-beam in question was hoisted 26 storeys and affixed into position atop the PwC Tower. This ceremony, hosted by British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, marked both the completion and initiation of significant phases in the development of Southcore Financial Centre (SFC) with this toppingoff, and a groundbreaking event for a second office building — the 30-storey Bremner Tower — and the 45-storey Delta Toronto hotel right next door.

During this event I couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly the downtown core, particularly the sections south of Union Station, has been filling up with new developments. What was for years a derelict quadrant of once-abandoned rail lands and parking lots is being built upon faster than you can say the word “in-fill.” Standing at the base of the SFC, the new Telus House tower (Building, August/September 2010) is on the east side of the street, a gaping hole and an army of construction vehicles has replaced a parking lot to the south, and Concord Adex Developments’ CityPlace behemoth is still growing not far down the road. Elsewhere in the city, high-rise towers are popping up like mushrooms, such as Brookfield Properties’ Bay Adelaide Centre (covered in this issue) and, of course, a forest of condos.

Downtown Toronto is characterized by its tall buildings. It in fact has the second largest number of tall buildings in North

America. So while it is great that developers want to build here, it’s even better that the city is taking a good hard look at what this will mean to its livability. Around the time construction on the PwC Tower was nearing an end, the City of Toronto released the findings of the “Tall Buildings, Inviting Change in Downtown Toronto” study. Authored by Urban Strategies Inc. and Hariri Pontarini Architects, it creates a vision for tall buildings in the downtown by identifying which streets they should be located on and the height ranges and built form typologies that these tall buildings should adhere to in order to enhance the pedestrian environment; minimize shadowing of sidewalks, parks and public squares; protect landmark views and heritage resources and improve the quality of life (access to natural light, sky views and privacy) for people living and working in the core.

These study findings — especially after a round of community consultations take place this spring — should be of considerable interest to any major city in Canada facing changes in development patterns as people continue to flock downtown.

Tall buildings, if only by virtue of being tall, stand out in a crowd. Yet in time they inevitably become the crowd, and for this reason they must be closely scrutinized, for their multidimensional impact on the built environment — as large-scale sculptural object, powerful urban intervention, complex interior spaces, and individualized structure — is a long lasting one.

Something I was reminded of as I watched my signature being added to one of them.

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Peter Sobchak

Building welcomes your opinions.

E-mail your comments to editor@building.ca

WATCH A look at four exciting projects (all videos courtesy of Popstream): • the New Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, by Diamond and Schmitt Architects; • Minnesota Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects; • the ambitious retrofit and modernization of 222 Jarvis Street in Toronto by WZMH Architects; • the Jean Canfield Government of Canada Building in Charlottetown, P.E.I., a joint venture between HOK and PEI-based architects Bergmark Guimond Hammarlund Jones.

ATTEND Dollars to $ense Energy Management Workshops / March 8-9 / Kingston, Ont. Low-Energy Landscapes: Teaching and Learning with Low-Energy Buildings and Landscapes / March 28 / Vancouver Brownfields 2011 / April 3-5 / Philadelphia

Life after the back cover... what’s on BUILDING.CA Building.indb 4

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upfront

Infrastructure Ontario and Ontario Realty Corporation to merge

TORONTO—The Province of Ontario is proposing to merge two government agencies into a single organization that would save Ontarians an estimated $5 million annually. The move results from the government’s proclaimed commitment to reduce the number of agencies by five per cent (Ontario has more than 250 government agencies, some over a century old), and is intended to reduce waste, eliminate duplication and result in stronger oversight, transparency and accountability.

The government will introduce legislation that, if passed, would result in the consolidation of Infrastructure Ontario and the Ontario Realty Corporation into one agency responsible for: developing, approving and managing provincial infrastructure projects; providing infrastructure-related loans to various public sector clients, such as municipalities; managing the province’s real estate services and transactions; and overseeing the government’s accommodation needs and maintaining government properties and assets, including land and buildings.

Since 2005, Infrastructure Ontario has brought to market 52 infrastructure projects worth more than $21 billion, and includes 35 hospital projects, plus justice, transportation, and green infrastructure projects. The Ontario Realty Corporation currently manages one of the largest real estate portfolios in Canada, consisting of about 6,000 buildings and structures, and more than 80,000 acres of land in Ontario.

Winnipeg approves plans for new $190-million Blue Bombers stadium

WINNIPEG—A new 33,000-seat football stadium in Winnipeg cleared its final hurdle on December 15 when city council approved a plan to build the $190-million facility with taxpayer money. But the anticipated new home for the Canadian Football League Winnipeg Blue Bombers has created controversy. The project comes at a time when the city is struggling to meet its road repair budget and the Manitoba government, which is putting up most of the money, is in the midst of five consecutive deficit years.

The stadium is already under construction at the University of Manitoba in the city’s south end and is due to open in the spring of 2012. It will replace the 55-yearold Canad Inns Stadium west of downtown, which officials say would need millions of dollars in maintenance to keep operating.

The new stadium originally was supposed to cost $115 million and be funded primarily by real estate developer David Asper, who would in turn take ownership of the community-owned team. But as projected costs rose, Asper and the two levels of government disagreed over who would put up the extra cash.

Asper was soon out of the equation, and the province, the city, the Bombers and the University of Manitoba rushed to put a new deal together before December 15, the day when

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upfront construction costs guaranteed by contractors were set to expire.

The result was a flurry of meetings and quick approvals that left city politicians feeling that the public was being left out of a secretive deal.

The agreement calls for the Manitoba government and the City of Winnipeg to pay for the stadium up front, then have the community-owned team repay $85 million over 44 years. The team has required taxpayer bailouts in the past, but feels it will be a money-maker in the new stadium thanks to luxury boxes, naming rights and other items. Premier Greg Selinger has said the government will recoup the rest of the money through taxes generated by the sale of the old stadium site and development of now-empty commercial land around it.

Residential values expected to climb further in 2011

KELOWNA, B.C.—Although improved economic fundamentals will have a positive impact on Canadian housing markets moving forward, the forecast for residential real estate sales remains static in most major centres in 2011, according to a report released by RE/MAX. The RE/MAX Housing Market Outlook 2011, examining trends and developments in 26 major centres across the country, found that home-buying activity in 2010 fell short of 2009 levels. Housing values, however, continued to climb, with virtually all areas reporting an upswing in average price, ranging from just under one per cent to 15 per cent this year.

Lower inventory levels in many markets offset the effects of diminished demand, propping-up price in almost every instance. Kitchener-Waterloo, Quebec City, and St. John’s saw the greatest increases in average price in 2010, while Eastern Canadian markets including Hamilton-Burlington, Sudbury, Windsor, Moncton and Prince Edward Island were the only markets that bucked the downward trending in home sales in 2010.

“Looking forward, we see steady improvement in provincial and local economies - which will bode well for housing markets across the board,” says Elton Ash, Regional Executive Vice President, RE/MAX of Western Canada.

“The relentless drive in the market reminiscent of years past will be gone and instead, we can expect to see more normal, balanced market conditions, with buyers maintaining a slight edge.”

Greater stability is expected to characterize the markets in 2011, with Canadian housing sales predicted to mirror 2010 levels at 441,000, while average price is forecast to escalate three per cent to $350,000 by year-end 2011.

Markets in British Columbia are forecast to lead the country in terms of percentage increases in sales activity in 2011, with Greater Vancouver expected to climb 10 per cent, followed

by Victoria at eight per cent and Kelowna at six per cent. After a prolonged period of economic hardship, Windsor is once again on track for growth, with residential home sales predicted to climb five per cent.

Almost all markets are reporting an anticipated increase

in housing values next year, with St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador in front with an estimated eight per cent hike in average price in 2011. The value of homes in Greater Vancouver, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, London-St. Thomas, Ottawa, Sudbury and Greater Montréal is also predicted to climb five per cent.

In the meantime, a number of factors will continue to support sustained sales and price growth in the months and years ahead: • Land scarcity, intensification, urban renewal, infill and renovation will continue to drive up values—regardless of supply and demand—in major metropolitan areas. The Canadian housing stock is ever-evolving, particularly in the central core of each city. With average price pushing closer to or well past the $300,000 mark in the vast majority of major centres, and affordability of single-family homes diminishing, the demand for attainable product will rise in tandem, bolstering the growing condominium segment in the years ahead.

• The upper-end of the market continues to be a strong indication of the overall health of Canada’s housing sector.

Typically the first segment to soften in a downturn, luxury homes posted record sales activity in 2010, and demand is expected to remain solid in 2011. Strong sales in the highend will continue to prop up average prices.

• Immigration will remain a serious force stimulating demand, particularly given the penchant for homeownership among today’s new Canadians. While the formation of new households used to take an average of five years, a growing number of newcomers arrive skilled, financially secure, and ready to make their home-buying moves. It is estimated that Canada will average 250,000 new immigrants annually.

• In the year ahead, federal, provincial and local stimulus in the form of continued infrastructure spending and capital projects will be a considerable boon to economic stability and employment, providing consumers the confidence to move forward with real estate purchases.

• Volatility in the money markets will continue to drive buyers to the tangibility of homeownership, both as a reliable long-term investment and a form of shelter, particularly given low vacancy rates and a lack of new rental construction in a number of major centres.

Apartment vacancy rate decreased, building construction stalls

OTTAWA—Vacancy rates in apartment buildings across the country are at near-record lows, but expensive land and high construction costs are keeping developers from building new inventory, says the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). New buildings would likely fill quickly, but developers have opted to put up condos instead because they provide a better short-term return. Further deterring development are interest rates so low that it is cheaper to buy an existing building with CMHC insurance than to arrange financing to build a new one.

The average rental apartment vacancy rate in Canada’s

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upfront 35 major centres decreased slightly to 2.6 per cent in October 2010, from 2.8 per cent in October 2009, according to the fall Rental Market Survey.

“The economic recovery that has taken place over the past year has boosted demand for both rental and ownership housing,” said Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “High levels of immigration have supported demand for rental housing, thus pushing the vacancy rate lower. In addition, improving economic conditions have likely boosted household formation which, in turn, has added to the demand for rental housing. These two factors combined, have put downward pressure on the vacancy rate.”

The results of CMHC’s fall survey reveal that, in October 2010, the major centres with the lowest vacancy rates were in Winnipeg (0.8 per cent), Regina, Kingston and Québec (one per cent each). At a provincial level, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador posted the lowest vacancy rates at 0.9 per cent and one per cent, respectively.

The survey reveals that the major centres with the highest vacancy rates were Windsor (10.9 per cent), Abbotsford (6.5 per cent), Saint John (5.1 per cent), and London (five per cent). On a provincial basis, the highest vacancy rates were in Alberta (4.6 per cent) and New Brunswick (4.5 per cent).

The Canadian average two-bedroom rent was up from $836 in 2009 to $860 in 2010. The highest average monthly rents were in Vancouver ($1,195), Toronto ($1,123), Calgary ($1,069), Ottawa-Gatineau (Ontario part, $1,048), Victoria ($1,024), and Edmonton ($1,015). Of all the major centres, only these six had average rents at or above $1,000. The lowest average monthly rents for two-bedroom apartments in new and existing structures were in Trois-Rivières ($533), Saguenay ($535), and Sherbrooke ($566).

Year-over-year comparisons of average rents can be slightly misleading because rents in newly built structures tend to be higher than in existing buildings. By excluding new structures and focussing on structures existing in both the October 2009 and October 2010 surveys, this provides a better indication of actual rent increases paid by tenants.

Overall, the average rent for two-bedroom apartments in existing structures across Canada’s 35 major centres increased 2.4 per cent between October 2009 and October 2010, a similar pace of rent increase to what was observed between October 2008 and October 2009 (2.3 per cent).

CMHC’s fall Rental Market Survey also found that the rental apartment availability rate in Canada’s 35 major centres was 3.8 per cent in October 2010, down from 4.1 per cent in October 2009. A rental unit is considered available if the unit is vacant (physically unoccupied and ready for immediate rental), or if the existing tenant has given or received notice to move and a new tenant has not signed a lease. Availability rates were highest in Windsor (12.5 per cent), Abbottsford (7.7 per cent), London (7.4 per cent) and Hamilton (6.8 per cent). The lowest availability rates were in Québec (1.2 per cent), Winnipeg and St. John’s (1.4 per cent), and Regina (1.5 per cent).

Canadian Construction Association applauds the Government of Canada on their commitment to stimulus measures

OTTAWA—The Canadian Construction Association (CCA) is pleased the Government of Canada has announced an extension of the infrastructure stimulus programs by a full construction season to October 31, 2011. “We applaud the federal government for implementing the stimulus program at a time of economic uncertainty. The stimulus was needed and went a long way to keeping Canada afloat during the recession. Governments at all levels have done an excellent job in rolling out these projects,” said Michael Atkinson, president of the CCA. Canada’s construction industry employs close to 1.2 million men and women, and accounts for approximately seven per cent of Canada’s annual GDP. It buys goods and services in every region of the country and in every sector of the economy.

Significant increase in construction activity produces thousands of spin-off jobs in other sectors - steel, engineering, forestry, autos, banking, and retail - which is why it remains the barometer of economic health.

The CCA believes funding for infrastructure offered the greatest return for the government dollar in terms of both job creation and net economic benefit. Continued investment in public infrastructure will ensure Canada remains competitive, increases its productivity, and provides the standard of living Canadians have become accustomed to.

“The federal government has recognized the importance of infrastructure and maintained its investment in development and renewal. They have clearly listened to stakeholders and provincial and municipal governments. We appreciate their efforts to be reasonable, fair and flexible in dealing with the extension of projects,” said Atkinson

Enermodal Engineering joins the MMM Group

KITCHENER, Ont.—Enermodal Engineering has joined the MMM Group to form Canada’s largest consulting firm in the fields of sustainability and building commissioning. “There is a real demand in the building sector for MMM’s and Enermodal services, from master planning to green buildings to commissioning,” says Bruce Bodden, president and CEO of MMM Group. “Enermodal is the leading player in green buildings in Canada. This move enhances our ability to offer our clients the full range of services and solutions demanded by the modern market: low-energy and low-impact buildings, communities and infrastructure.”

Established 30 years ago, today Enermodal has a staff of over 100 people and for two years running, Enermodal has been named one of North America’s fastest growing A/E firms. MMM Group was founded in 1952 and has a current staff complement of 2,000. Enermodal and MMM Group are already working together on two of the largest P3 projects in Canada.

“We’ve always respected MMM as one of Canada’s engineering leaders and we have had a very successful relationship on many green projects—we like the way that MMM has always been willing to lead the way in better engineering practise on building february/march 2011

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upfront green buildings. We are excited to leverage our shared resources and building expertise to offer more services to a broader range of clients and locations,” says Stephen Carpenter, president of Enermodal Engineering. Stephen will continue as president of Enermodal which will maintain the current office locations, its name, green mission and current service offerings.

Bentall Kennedy launches new real estate investment management platform

TORONTO—Bentall LP and Kennedy Associates Real Estate Counsel, LP have merged to form Bentall Kennedy to serve the interests of more than 400 clients across 130 million square feet of office, retail, industrial, residential and hotel properties totalling $23 billion throughout Canada and the U.S. “This is a significant milestone for both Bentall and Kennedy. It is the culmination of a strategic partnership between the two firms that began in 2006. It strengthens Bentall Kennedy’s capabilities in cross-border investment and provides clients with access to a wide range of North American opportunities and products,” says Gary Whitelaw, CEO of the Bentall Kennedy group of companies.

“We have a great deal of alignment between the two organizations culturally, including our uncompromising fiduciary orientation and our commitment to responsible property investing,” says Michael McKee, CEO, Bentall Kennedy US. “Coming together in this way makes a lot of sense for us and the clients we serve.” Bentall Kennedy is privately owned by senior management and two of North America’s largest institutional investors, SITQ (a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec) and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC).

REIT ROUND-UP Dundee REIT acquires Realex

TORONTO—Dundee REIT and Realex Properties Corp. have entered into an agreement for Dundee REIT to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Realex Properties Corp. for cash consideration of $154.4 million. Holders of Realex common shares will receive $8.25 per share reflecting an enterprise value of $385 million. Realex owns interests in 24 office and industrial assets in Ontario and Alberta, totalling 1.8 million square feet, and five office properties in Calgary and six office properties in Edmonton, comprising 444,000 and 275,000 square feet, respectively. In addition, the portfolio includes four industrial assets located in smaller Alberta and British Columbia centres and two industrial buildings in Edmonton.

erties in this district, and this building brings the total to 1.3 million square feet of leasable area acquired by Cominar in 2010 for a total of $131.6 million. The REIT now owns a real estate portfolio of 255 properties, consisting of 48 office, 51 retail and 156 industrial and mixed-use buildings that cover a total area of over 20 million square feet in the Greater Québec City, Montréal and Ottawa areas as well as in the Atlantic Provinces.

Killam acquires $7.2-million apartment building

HALIFAX—Killam Properties Inc. has acquired Meadowland Manor, a 105-unit apartment building in St. John’s, Newfoundland, for $7.15 million ($68,100 per suite). This marks the completion of $115.1 million in apartment acquisitions in 2010, in-line with the company’s goal of completing between $100 million and $150 million in acquisitions during the year. Killam’s St. John’s portfolio now totals 689 units, representing 19.7 per cent of the city’s private apartment units, as measured by CMHC. “We have added eight new properties to our apartment portfolio [in 2010], including new buildings in London and Cambridge, Ontario, and established buildings in our core markets of Halifax, Moncton and St. John’s,” said Philip Fraser, Killam’s president and CEO.

NorthWest Healthcare REIT acquires properties in Edmonton and Toronto

TORONTO—NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT has acquired the Hys Centre in Edmonton for $53 million. This Class “A” complex includes a 147,000-sq.-ft. medical office building, 50 residential apartments, a 384-stall pay parking facility, and an underground pedway connected to the large and expanding Royal Alexandra Hospital, Edmonton’s leading surgical hospital. In downtown Toronto, NorthWest has acquired the Dundas-Edward Centre, a 410,000-sq.-ft. two-tower office complex and eight-level parking facility for approximately $103 million. The complex is in close proximity to several hospitals including SickKids, Princess Margaret, Toronto General, and Mount Sinai, and is leased to healthcare tenants such as SickKids, Medisys Diagnostic Imaging, a pharmacy, labs, clinics and numerous specialist physicians and general practitioners.

The Hys Centre will be the REIT’s fourth Edmonton area property and ninth asset in Alberta, while the Dundas-Edward Centre is its twelfth asset in the Greater Toronto Area and twenty-first asset in Ontario. The REIT believes these acquisitions further solidify its position in healthcare real estate and its moniker as “Canada’s Healthcare Landlord”.

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Cominar REIT further expands its Montréal portfolio

QUÉBEC CITY—Cominar REIT, the largest commercial property owner in the Province of Québec, has acquired a 136,000-sq.-ft. office building in the Côte-des-Neiges-NotreDame-de-Grâce district of Montréal in a transaction amounting to $12.2 million. The REIT already owns several other prop-

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legal

BY JEFFREY W. LEM AND DAVID G. REINER

Your Legal Duty New developments in the obligation to consult First Nations should remind developers that failure to do so could add confusion, time and money.

Most readers of Building appreciate that, in Canada, the Crown and all of its agencies have a duty, when making decisions which may adversely impact lands which are subject to the claims of Aboriginal peoples, to first consult with the potentially affected First Nations, and then to reasonably accommodate, where possible, the legitimate concerns of those First Nations. This duty is now statutory, but has its genesis going back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, wherein the British Crown “pledged its honour to the protection of Aboriginal peoples from exploitation”.

The duty to consult arises when the Crown has knowledge, real or constructive, of potential Aboriginal rights or potential Aboriginal title (collectively, “Aboriginal Claims”) and is proposing some course of action which might adversely affect such Aboriginal Claims. These Aboriginal Claims need only be potential, not certain, but they are quite varied in nature, including, without limitation, traditional rights to use land (hunting, trapping, fishing, harvesting, etc.), interests in burial grounds and other cultural sites, treaty rights, land claim agreements, unresolved land claims, reserves, etc.

Although the duty to consult does not actually require the Crown and the affected First Nations to reach consensus (so it falls short of a de facto Aboriginal veto), the consultation must be substantive and conducted in good faith, with a genuine willingness on the part of the Crown to make reasonable accommodations where practicable.

As more lands get developed in Canada, there are correspondingly more obligations to consult with First Nations who may be impacted by Crown decisions to allow development of such lands. However, in two recent 2010 cases, the Supreme Court of Canada has arguably narrowed the scope of the duty even as the number of occasions where such duty to consult and accommodate arises has been and will continue to increase.

In the first such case, Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. v. Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, the Supreme Court analyzed an application of the duty to consult in the context of non-treaty First Nations.

Although a modern case, the true government action giving rise to the current situation actually took place in the 1950s when the Kenney Dam was constructed across the Nechako River to

provide electricity for Alcan (now Rio Tinto Alcan). As part of the arrangements for the dam, Alcan was allowed to sell excess electricity to other industrial clients and to BC Hydro for the provincial grid. In 2007, BC Hydro entered into a long-term bulk purchase agreement with Alcan for future electricity. Eight separate First Nations led by the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council challenged BC Hydro’s right to contract with Alcan for future electricity without first consulting the First Nations who have, for decades leading up to the 2007 contract, suffered because of the damming of the Nechako River.

Greatly paraphrased, the Supreme Court in Rio Tinto Alcan held that: (i) the duty to consult does not apply to past wrongs, including previous breaches of the duty to consult; and (ii) where the lands have long since been altered (rightfully or wrongfully) and the current government initiative does not have any further, marginal impact on any potential Aboriginal Claims, then the current government initiative does not give rise to a new duty to consult and accommodate. In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that the damming of the Nechako River was a long past event and that continuing contracts for electricity did not exacerbate the harm that such damming may already have wrought on the First Nations along the Nacheko River. As such, BC Hydro had no duty to consult the First Nations before contracting for electricity from Rio Tinto Alcan.

In Beckman v. Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation, released just two weeks after Rio Tinto Alcan, the Supreme Court analyzed the duty to consult in the context of existing Aboriginal treaties.

The Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nations had finally reached a binding treaty with the Crown in right of both Canada and Yukon in 1997 after nearly twenty years of negotiations. That treaty expressly provided for a notice and consultation protocol. In exchange for their treaty rights, the Little Salmon/ Carmacks First Nations surrendered their although they Aboriginal title claims, maintained their Aboriginal rights (hunting, trapping and fishing, etc.) over the surrendered lands until the Crown re-granted

Jeffrey W. Lem, B.Comm. (U of T), LL.B. (Osgoode), LL.M. (Osgoode), practises in the areas of commercial real estate and finance with the law firm of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, and has been called to the bar in Ontario, England and Wales. He is an executive member of the Real Property Section of the Ontario Bar Association and is editor-in-chief of the Real Property Reports, published by Carswell Thomson Professional Publishing.

David G. Reiner, B.Comm. (Concordia), LL.B. (Osgoode) is an associate practising in the area of commercial real estate at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP and is called to the Bar in Ontario.

This article provides general information only and is not intended to provide specific legal advice.

Readers should not act or rely on information in this article without seeking specific legal advice on their particular fact situations. building february/march 2011

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BY JEFFREY W. LEM AND DAVID G. REINER

such surrendered lands to other owners (which re-granting was contemplated by the treaty). When the Crown eventually re-issued a patent over a small part of the formerly disputed (but now voluntarily surrendered) lands, the Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nations alleged that the government should have first consulted with and accommodated the First Nations before so doing because the re-grant (to a local farmer) would prejudice their hunting, trapping and fishing privileges.

Like in Rio Tinto Alcan, the Supreme Court in Little Salmon/ Carmacks was unanimous in finding that the Crown had satisfactorily upheld its duty to consult, but unlike in Rio Tinto Alcan, the Supreme Court in Little Salmon/Carmacks seemed divided as to the reasons. The majority of the judges concurred with each other in finding that the duty to consult exists even if there is a comprehensive treaty governing the rights and remedies of the affected First Nations, concluding that the duty to consult is constitutionally entrenched and cannot be contracted out of via treaty. However this group of judges then noted that, on the facts, compliance with the notice and hearing protocols contemplated in the treaty fully discharged the common law duty to consult.

Two other Supreme Court judges concurred with each other in separately issued reasons. According to this minority of the judges, the scope of the duty to consult could, in fact, be contractually established by treaty. In fairness, nowhere in their

reasons do they actually conclude that the duty to consult could be contracted out of completely via treaty, but what they do say is that any consultation process contained in a valid and comprehensive treaty would supersede the homologous common law duty that might have applied but for the treaty. Either way, the Crown did not fail its duty to consult in Little Salmon/Carmacks.

Developers and builders not yet persuaded on the importance of the duty to consult or the relevance of such duty to their businesses should think again. While the duty rests solely with the Crown and its various agencies, the duty often (indeed, typically) arises in development projects involving private sector parties.

While the duty itself cannot be downloaded to the private sector, procedural compliance aspects of the duty to consult may ultimately rest with private sector participants as part of the overall allocation of responsibilities in the deal. In any event, litigation over the failure to discharge such duty to consult can only bring delays and additional costs to any given project, even if the duty to consult belonged at all times to the government. Many of the larger deals involving P3 infrastructure, alternative energy, mining and real estate development anywhere on or near lands affected by or subject to Aboriginal Claims now attract some degree of consultation with, and accommodation of, the relevant affected First Nations, and developers and builders who ignore such obligations do so at their own peril. B

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Can’t buy (or editorial) Your first PR 101 lesson: what makes it different than advertising.

By David Lasker It’s a Wild West out there when it comes to public relations for architects, designers, builders, engineers and the other consultants sitting around the boardroom table. If you’re a big bank, big pharma, Coke or gub’mint, armies of primed and pumped PR specialists are waiting in the wings to help you.

But, unfortunately, few PR types are design-literate, so that when design-related firms hire PR companies, including the very expensive, household-name, multinational ones, they often find themselves dictating the press release. Nor do they teach the basic skills of public relations marketing in design school.

So I was delighted when Peter Sobchak invited me to contribute an ongoing column on public relations marketing to Building.

I’m eager to share the lessons of my years in the field. I’m looking forward to the coming months with anticipation and delight as we get better acquainted with one another (don’t be shy about sending your feedback).

Together, the columns will explore three areas: 1) the big picture: how to lose your ego and think like an editor, and what types of pitches appeal to journalists; 2) the details: the building blocks of a media kit, including the press release, backgrounders, images and cutlines, along with tips that you won’t find in Press Releases for Dummies; and 3) how to leverage the cost of a media campaign by repurposing your media kit so that it becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

You’ll enjoy plenty of “juicy bits” along the way in the form of actual case studies for my clients, many of whom will be near and dear to you: Context Development, HOK, IBI Group, Perkins Eastman Black, Teknion, and The Ventin Group, Architects. You will see how these campaigns resulted in press hits in media such as Architectural Record, Canadian Business, Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, Interior Design, Toronto Life, The New York Times and TV and radio.

So. After that lengthy introductory throat-clearing, let’s move on to today’s lesson, which aims to clear up the biggest area of confusion in most people’s minds when they squint hard at their marketing budget and ponder how best to spend it: PR versus advertising. Should you spend your precious marketing shekels for the risky pursuit of PR or the certain payback of advertising?

Hey, did you just do a double-take there? Didn’t I just put down my craft of public relations in favour of Mad Men?

Well, let’s define “public relations.” This is a vast omnibus term for the practice of managing the communication between an organization -- your firm -- and its public -- your clients and potential clients or customers. Public relations is a form of marketing, a trait it shares with advertising. And how do I define marketing? That’s simple: Anything that helps sell your product.

However, while public relations and advertising share common traits, they are also different. Think of public relations as the inverse of advertising. When you buy advertising space, you own and control what goes in that space. You can plan and budget for how much exposure you’ll get, which is a great comfort to the bean counters in an organization.

The downside of advertising is that it lacks credibility because you are tooting your own horn. This is where public relations can give a better bang for the buck, because it gives you exposure in the form of third-party endorsement: a feature story about your new project or product by a respected writer assigned to write the story in a respected journal.

The downside of public relations is that you cannot buy editorial space; you certainly cannot own or control it. In that sense, PR is flaky. I can never promise that I can deliver a certain number of press hits to a client, which upsets the bean counters in an organization.

A PR person can present your product or project in a way that appeals to editors. But, a PR person cannot compel an editor to publish a project. Any PR person who says that they can “place” your story in a magazine or newspaper that isn’t a vanity press (where you buy your way in), is lying. They’re a charlatan. Do a 180 degree and run, don’t walk.

NEXT MONTH: What do editors want?

David Lasker is Associate Editor of Canadian Interiors and Vice President at MarketLink Communications.

He can be reached at dl@linktomarket.com.

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The

oliticsof

lanning

How should elected officials, developers and citizens build cities together?

There are always those who will push for change, and those who will push for the status quo. And that space in between the two is often occupied by the politician, whose job it is to build buy-in among stakeholders on issues that affect a wide array of people, such as city planning. Planning largely involves working with people who possess differing visions of a city’s future, and the manner in which these relationships form often influence the urban form.

Building sat down with three municipal politicians – Councillor Charlie Clark, Ward 6, City of Saskatoon; Alderman Druh Farrell, Ward 7, City of Calgary; and Councillor Adam Vaughan, Ward 20, City of Toronto – to discuss better ways in which those who live in a city and those who build a city can come together, develop a relationship, and find consensus on issues relating to the built environment.

Building: What is/should be the role of elected officials in urban planning?

Charlie Clark: I think the most important role that elected officials should play in urban planning is to help set the overarching principles and framework for planning. In a municipality, a City Council is the only single entity that exists to balance out the different interests of different parts of a community and establish the vision and strategic direction for how to build the City. A City Council is that entity that can determine how to resolve the tensions between the interests of residents, developers, architects, businesses, public institutions, heritage, budgets, social issues, and environmental impacts when it comes to urban planning. Elected Councillors have a unique position to be able

to hear from the full range of interests in a community. On one hand, elected officials can also be champions of good processes to find creative ways to raise the expectations and the outcomes of new planning ideas, by encouraging the different stakeholders to work together and listen to each other and come up with innovative solutions to deal with the tensions or conflicting interests in planning. At other times elected officials need to have the courage to wade through the opinions and make tough decisions as leaders to help a City achieve certain goals if they are what has been committed to the Community, even if there are concerns, such as with group home applications, or the implementation of tougher environmental policies or programs.

At a more specific level, I think elected officials also have a role at times on particular development proposals. There is often debate about how to interpret and implement planning principles and so it is important that elected officials be aware if there are conflicting ideas, hear out the points of view, and help determine the appropriate response. One of the biggest challenges and sometimes failures I see of elected officials is the tendency to be bold or visionary in making general statements about planning goals, but then to lose that vision when it comes to controversial developments because of resistance to change or NIMBY-ism.

This is always a difficult balance for elected municipal leaders.

Druh Farrell: Our job is to provide a long-term vision for the city with guiding principles for urban planning and development. We need guidance and expertise from the planning department, who are often more apt to view decisions with long-term implications in mind. One weakness of being an elected official is that it is tempting to view decisions in electoral increments,

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which can be an enemy to long-term decision making. It always helps if councillors think a bit like planners and act as a bridge between politics and planning. I also think that a good politician shouldn’t shy away from raising eyebrows on occasion.

Adam Vaughan: There are two primary roles. One is a proactive role which is to effectively set the context in collaboration with stakeholders. It is not just about data on a map that defines the height and density or configuration of a building, it is also the way in which buildings have to perform or add to the strength of the neighbourhood, and to consolidate those strengths. What you want to do is effectively, from a cultural, social and economic perspective, map the area in which you have planning authority, and understand it from the eyes of residents, from the eyes of business, from the eyes of property developers and from those responsible for creating public realm, and say “this is what this neighbourhood has the capacity to do and the desire to do, these are the areas that have the best potential for change, to realize those goals, and these are the areas that define the neighbourhood in the current status and are the least desirable to change.”

The second thing is that political leadership is not necessarily about convincing people than an idea is a great idea; it is really about facilitating the growth of a great idea and facilitating the process by which a good idea becomes a great idea. The two jobs are really quite simple – one is proactive and creating context, and the other is reactive and facilitating a process that is constantly aimed at bettering the proposal in relationship to the context that has been established. If you do those two things then you end up with a very strong planning process that creates predictability, which is the most important thing for most real estate developers. It is also predictability beyond the economic perspective; it is predictability from a social perspective from the people impacted by development. When you create that sense of predictability, everything just seems to fall into line. You don’t get wild speculators moving in to try to take advantage of situations; they know that there are certain sets of rules and the projects are formed within that context and adhere to that process of being facilitated and you have a very harmonious project that comes forward, and you get a much better district that is being planned.

B: The other ingredient in the pie is people being affected by urban planning. How much influence should citizens have on it?

CC: Citizens are ultimately the people who are affected by urban planning decisions, so they need to be involved in helping shape planning. I think that Jane Jacobs’ approach to this question was very insightful. Good planning comes from a clear understanding of the real day-to-day life of a community, and input and ideas from the people who make the community come to life. That being said, the more informed the input from citizens the better. Trained planners, developers, and engineers have important technical knowledge of best practices in planning ideas, economic factors, engineering requirements and design standards that are key in good planning.

I think the sweet spot in effective planning processes is to find ways to help citizens get up to speed on some of the best practice thinking in planning and design and to understand some of the wider context of the decisions being made to help inform their thinking and ideas. The challenge is to elevate the discussion past people’s gut reactions to planning proposals or the immediate interests of their street, and engage in real conversations about the real life of a community and what it takes to make it successful. In Saskatoon, the most successful examples I have seen occurred when citizens, planners, developers, and engineers are all at the table together, hearing each other’s ideas and working out solutions that take the different interests into account. The process I was closest to is the Broadway 360 process for developing a land-use, parking, and character-retention plan for one particular district of the City. Now Saskatoon is going through a city-wide process called Saskatoon Speaks to try and establish some overarching principles for the city, and I am hopeful that this exchange of perspectives will help break down some of the polarizations in thinking that exist and help move the City in new directions.

DF: Citizens provide local wisdom that is invaluable to the planning process. It’s important when consulting with the public to seek out a variety of perspectives from environmental groups, ethnic groups, youth, seniors, planning professionals, as well as the community associations. I like to challenge my constituents to look at the long-term implications of a decision, as well as what is good for the city as a whole rather than simply their own neighbourhood. I find that if we ask the big questions first, the issue of NIMBY dissipates somewhat, and citizens become problem solvers.

AV: You cannot do planning without talking to the people affected. It would be almost insane to even try. When you engage the public and enrol them into the process at the start, you create a conversation about change. If you ignore them until the very end, what you usually get is an oppositional position about a fear of change because it does not make sense to them and they have not been part of it; they do not understand where it is rooted, they do not understand why it has developed the way that it has.

Charlie Clark is a second-term City Councillor for Ward 6, a historic core district of Saskatoon. Charlie is originally from British Columbia, and fell in love with a girl from Saskatoon, and then with the City. He is a father of three, has a BED from UofT and a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from York University. Charlie has worked as a mediator, adult educator, and consultant in community economic development and sustainability initiatives. As a City Councillor, Charlie is always interested in the question of how to achieve more fun and more coherency in the quest to make healthier communities. building february/march 2011

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At every step of the way, my office makes sure that the planning department, the developer and the residents are on equal footing and are treating each other as equals, and are bringing to the table different degrees of expertise, but expertise nonetheless. The lived experience of the neighbourhood is critically important to the future success of any proposal. You need to know how that neighbourhood responds to the characteristics of a particular development site, and if you engage people early enough you can learn from them and improve your process and your project by working with them in a collaborative effort. Some would call it transparent and accountable planning processes; it is a community-driven process because ultimately the community is going to have to live with the result.

B: Who is most capable of making these important decisions?

DF: The vision and principles should be set by Council with input from the public and guidance from administration. Big decisions need more public input at the beginning of the process, as well as feedback throughout. Day-to-day decisions should be made by the responsible City departments, but also with regular contact and feedback from the public, without completely bogging down the planning process. Taking the time to educate councillors on city-building will help create advocates.

AV: [Citizens] may not have expertise with credentials attached to it, but they know the way a local park is used, the way lanes are used, what happens when snow falls in a neighbourhood, and they know what happened the last time an event like this moved through the community. It is amazing the number of times they will identify an underground water source on that site and you have to be careful. They know the history of the neighbourhood and they can measure change, its catalysts, and also what are the road blocks that have prevented things from moving forward. Fundamentally, it is that organic expertise that comes from having lived in the built environment for the years that they have collectively, and from a different perspective; they can look at a building or a project and evaluate it from a perspective that a professional visitor to the community with all the schooling in the world does not pick up. That lived experience is a really big factor in how you absorb new projects into a neighbourhood, especially if you are doing intensification.

B: Intensification is a hot-button topic. A lot of residential associations are vocal in their oppositions to it, but it is an important long-term plan for the health of the city. How do you bridge NIMBY-ism with what really needs to be done no matter how uncomfortable it is?

AV: There are two types of politics, and it is not left-right or downtown-suburbs; it is politicians who can say “yes,” and politicians who can say “no.” There are a lot of politicians who make a career out of saying “no.” It is much harder to say “yes” because there are risks. It is easy to say “no, it is a bad idea” and it rarely happens and you get proven wrong, but if you say yes to an idea and it is a disaster then you will live with it forever. The art of

politics and the art of city building to me is a positive thing, and it is one that requires you to say yes, and to nurture the opposition and to understand what their worries are and to address them wholeheartedly, and to move the project into that sweet spot where “yes” make sense. If you do not start from the position of saying “I am in favour of this because” and instead you say “these are the issues and this is what we have to get to, and this is the conversation that we are going to have, and I will facilitate that conversation” then the neighbourhood eventually says yes; not because they are convinced it is a great project – I have never built one yet – but they are convinced that it is an attempt to deal with the dynamics that need fixing in the neighbourhood. It generates either wealth, opportunity, space, a response, or it starts to condition a street or a neighbourhood in such a way that the positive change you want in that neighbourhood – as again, you have identified through the contextual process – is now possible, and is now starting to materialize.

If every single component of change is seen as a building block towards that better neighbourhood and that more invigorated or vital neighbourhood, people can start to play with the development in a way that is positive, as opposed to simply saying “no, it is too tall.” How is it too tall? Why is it too tall? Where could that height be better positioned? What could that height generate that would mitigate the negative impacts that you perceive as coming from that space? All these things start to build not just a consensus, but a positive response to an opportunity. NIMBYism is there if people feel like the only way they can have a say is to stop something and then try to restart the process. That is a very exhaustive methodology, and it is extraordinarily expensive and, in the end, counterproductive because the city has to change and intensification is a good value. Most people sign onto it in a principle, but fear it as a practice. You have got to make the practice respond to a different set of contexts in order to become a better process; that is a very philosophical way of explaining it, but on a very simplistic level, saying “no” does not stop anything, it just does not create positive change. Saying “yes” does not solve everything, but it is an attempt, and you can learn from these attempts and get better the next time.

Druh Farrell, now in her fourth term as Alderman for Ward 7, brings a dynamic and constructive approach to her role on City Council. Druh introduced Calgary’s first Urban Design Panel, and spearheaded leading-edge initiatives such as sustainable Transit Oriented Development, the award-winning East Village and Centre City Plans, as well as the Calgary Heritage Strategy. She encourages constructive discussion with Ward 7 residents, and is a vocal champion for increased citizen participation in the processes and debates that are shaping the future of Calgary.

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B: How can/should we make citizens more involved in city building?

DF: In Calgary, we have a very powerful and diverse group of citizens called CivicCamp that formed a couple of years ago, based loosely on the Thousand Friends of Oregon. This group has been a driving factor in moving Calgary forward in a more progressive way. The realization that they could influence decisions in a profound and constructive way through raising awareness and unified action has spurred the hunger for even more involvement.

B: Whom do decision makers go to for important city building ideas?

CC: Here I think it is important that there be sharing of ideas across communities and across regions, and that consultants and planning experts play a key role. Sometimes communities can get caught in a rut wanting to solve each new problem the way they have solved them for years. Cities are facing real challenges today regarding social inequality, unmanageable sprawl, segregation of neighbourhoods, crumbling infrastructure, inefficient single use suburban neighbourhoods designed too much for cars, unhealthy citizens and so on. These challenges require cities to incorporate different thinking than what has been used since the 1950s in planning. The exchange of ideas happening today around smart growth, walkable cities, creative cities, smart cities, resilient cities, sustainable cities is an important one and I think that any given city benefits from being a part of it.

DF: I find that our citizens have an amazing amount of knowledge of innovative ideas from around the world, so I would start there. I’m a big fan of the planning profession and look to other cities, private sector, professionals within the City administration department -- this is why it is so important to work with local, national and international planners so there is sharing of ideas and information.

AV: The neighbourhood. You start with people whose lives are being impacted, and you say “here is a site that is about to change” or “here is a site that we think should change” and “what do you think?” When you start the conversation that way and identify the areas as either areas of change or stability, and you come to an agreement that this area should change or is about to change and that change is effectively inevitable, people start having a discussion rather than simply trying to say yes or not to it. It is like trying to stop the aging process; the city is growing, the city will continue to grow, and the city must continue to grow if it is going to be healthy and a vital place. The issue is, do you want to try to shape that growth, or do you want to try to pretend you can stop it? The shaping of the growth is a reality-based politic. To pretend that you can stop it is fantasy. The challenge in all of these discussions is to engage people in the creative process of city building, and not simply engage them in the process of managing the transaction of adding and building to the city.

B: I will use a word touched on quite a bit in this conversation – consensus. How can we build a better process of consensus?

DF: Consensus is good to strive for but sometimes difficult to achieve. It is critical that stakeholders understand when they can have influence, and that they are given opportunities to impact decisions at key points. It has been my experience, when talking about transformative changes to how we do things, that we give the public enough time to work through the ideas while being respectful of their time. Councillors ultimately need to know when they have gathered enough information and make the best decisions possible.

AV: Although developers draw the development on the back of a napkin to understand whether to purchase a site or not, I think the important thing is to get a blank piece of paper in front of as many people as soon as possible. If you start with as blank a slate as possible, consensus is much easier to organize. When you start with well-rendered buildings and defined programs and rationale around heights and design data, you are selling people a solution to a problem that they may not think exists. On the other hand, if you come to them with an opportunity and a blank piece of paper and ask them to contribute to the configuration of that site, they have nothing to be opposed to. No one is opposed to redevelopment per se unless it is on a heritage site, in which case you may have an argument. If you come in and say “I have just bought this, and I am kind of interested in doing some residential units here, but I want to know what you think about what they should look like and how they should fit in,” you are not asking them “do you like this, yes or no?” you are saying “what do you want?” When everyone is coming to the table saying “what do you want?” very quickly it turns around to “what do you need?” In having that flip, you have already created the environment in which consensus almost emerges without even trying, and that is the critical thing. If you come with too baked a cake, no one is going to be happy, and even you as the developer will be unhappy as you will see this perfectly baked cake being carved up. Start early, put all the ingredients on the table. Before you decide to bake a cake, look at what else you might be able to bake with the same stuff and see if you can’t feed more people with your ideas. If B you can do that, the consensus emerges.

Adam Vaughan is serving his second term as the City Councillor for Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina.

In his first term on council, Adam achieved success on several important initiatives including building more family-sized housing, and developing innovative approaches to creating new affordable housing and arts space.

Vaughan’s approach to development and community engagement is reforming the City’s planning process. Vaughan has also been leading the change on the local parks portfolio in Ward 20 with residents taking the lead on parks revitalization, governance and programming.

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Ready for its close-up After years of managing a world-class festival scattered across the entire city, the Toronto International Film Festival finally has a dedicated complex that is both a combined cultural institution/ residential tower and a shrine to the art.

By Peter Sobchak Photography by Tom Arban Images by Maris Mezulis

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, a standard tool in a director’s arsenal when the stars of his film made their first appearances on screen, particularly his leading ladies, was to frame them in a full-body shot first, no matter what was going on in that scene, before moving to close-ups and dialogue scenes. This exhibited the Hollywood icon to an audience in all her sumptuous glory and allowed them to linger on her famous attributes. Directors such as Billy Wilder and Howard Hawks used this device to great success, for example Lauren Bacall’s grand entrance in Hawks’ 1944 film To Have and Have Not. This framing device also led future film theorists such as Laura Mulvey to coin the phrase

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Left: view of main lobby and box office. This page: The TIFF Bell Lightbox fills a vacant urban site with a combined fivestorey cultural institution and a 42-storey tower.

“the gaze,” since the actress’ entrance is usually preceded by the leading man’s astonished initial gawk, as Humphrey Bogart did in the previous example.

The idea of framing devices is not unique to the film industry, and in fact finds regular use in the realm of architecture, as well.

But it perhaps finds no more appropriate a place than in the Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower at the corner of King and John Streets in downtown Toronto. Here, Bruce Kuwabara and the rest of the team at KPMB have created a place where the cinema of life becomes enmeshed in the life of cinema, an appropriate response to the new home of the second most important film festival in the world, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

KPMB’s task with this project was to separate yet combine two distinct programmatic elements. The Bell Lightbox is a five-storey podium building understood as horizontal spaces facing King Street, while a 42-storey condominium point tower, set back on John Street, creates drama on a traditionally low section of the skyline. The transition between the two occurs where the roof of the Lightbox meets the base of the Tower, and the two elements of this hybrid concept formally relate in the proportions of the volumes, common materials, and detailing.

The 547,000-sq.-ft. podium is where the action is, and presents itself, as Kuwabara describes it, as a composition of projecting volumes and surfaces contained within a continuous loop of movement that begins with a large-scale street level canopy that projects over the King Street entrance and defines a deep, generous arcade, then wraps around the corner to John Street and rises to the upper levels to culminate at a stepped roof.

Made of concrete, the canopy is punctuated with cast glass oculi that borrow light sources from the street to create a spotlight effect.

Inside the Lightbox, a palace of cinema is achieved without falling into the trap of a pastiche of easy signifiers, such as an array

of antique movie posters, props or other obvious kitsch. Instead, the design acts as a framework for human action in which the solidity of architecture and the ephemerality of the medium of film are fused. The flexible plan is based on the notion of a floating grid of concrete boxes, similar to the tradition of industrial loft buildings. Within this framework, the volumes of the cinema theatres and spaces for gathering, display and production are arranged to promote movement and visual connectivity. As visitors navigate the building, they become actors within their own and other visitors’ personal movies. This is, after all, a house for watching, and when visitors are not watching a movie, they are watching each other. Action is presented on platforms, walkways, between pillars, on transparent escalators and stairs, and through a myriad of other framing devices.

Project Team Architect:

KPMB -- Bruce Kuwabara (design partner), Shirley Blumberg (partner-in-charge), Luigi LaRocca (senior associate); Matthew Wilson (project architect) Jablonsky, Ast and Partner Structural: Mechanical/Electrical: SNC Lavalin - LKM Life Safety: Leber Rubes Inc. Landscape Consultants: NAK Design Group Cost Consultant: Helyar & Associates Acoustical: Aercoustics Engineering Ltd. Westbury National Show Systems & Azcar Audio Visual: Technologies Peter Smith Architect Inc. Theatre Consultant: Wind Study: RWDI Engineering Transportation: Marshall Macklin Monaghan Foodservice: Kaizen Foodservice Planning and Design Inc Lighting: Pivotal Lighting Affiliated Engineers Security: Mulvey and Banani IT: Ehvert Engineering Signage: Gottschalk + Ash

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Above: The form and expression of the Festival Centre condominium tower creates a clean, contemporary figure with an illuminated light box at its top.

Below: A King Street view of the Lightbox at night. Below right: Canteen, the street level restaurant at the corner at King and John Streets operated by Oliver Bonacini.

The need to keep people moving is not just to fuel our voyeuristic impulses. For two weeks a year this building pulses with a population of film festival patrons that swells to over ten times the normal amount. Managing lines was an important consideration for the design team. The main entrance is a lightfilled three-storey central atrium, through which crowds are lead directly to the main escalator, ramps and stairs which together act as interior streets along which patrons are oriented, and weave a fluid sequence of movement to the cinemas above.

The five cinemas themselves, ranging from 80 to 550 seats, are rendered as little black zinc-clad buildings within the building.

Their interiors are as dark, unadorned and enclosed as possible in order to ensure nothing will disrupt the viewer’s attention on the screen. Compared to the designs of modern day movie theatres, with carpets that look like a casino floor, stairway lighting that remains on throughout the entire movie, and a cacophony of concession stands right outside the door, these spaces are sanctuaries for true cinephiles.

Elsewhere in the building, the cinema’s master control booth is housed in a red cube (one of the only splashes of colour in the main area) with a large glass window that both overlooks and can be viewed from the central atrium. On the fourth and fifth levels administrative and production spaces, a library, gallery and archives are organized around a second, light-filled atrium.

Canteen, a restaurant operated by Oliver Bonacini, occupies the first two levels of the corner at King and John, and at street level is wrapped by an outdoor café terrace.

The second level houses the Luma café and Blackberry Lounge (Blackberry bought not only naming rights to the lounge but also have exclusive use of a boardroom next to the TIFF offices, where they hold sales meetings and product demos).

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And finally, the podium culminates in the monumentallyscaled stepped roof. Inspired by the stepped roof of the Villa Malaparte in Capri featured in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 film Contempt, this major new outdoor public space encapsulates the fusion of architecture and film.

In true cinematic fashion, the Lightbox is not just a collection of pretty pictures. It also has a compelling story for how it came to be. Founded in 1976, the Toronto International Film Festival Group is a not-for-profit arts organization that started as the little-festival-that-could and grown to have an annual economic impact of more than $67 million for the City of Toronto. For 28 years it operated its programs from a circuit of 200 venues throughout the city, but realized a few years ago that it had maxed out the ability to continue to evolve its programs, which sparked an initiative to create a dedicated headquarters and theatre complex. To realize this vision, TIFF and The Daniels Corporation formed the King and John Festival Corporation client group, and the project was “green lit” (to use filmmaking parlance) by the act of one of Canada’s favourite exports to Hollywood, producer/director Ivan Reitman (of Ghostbusters fame), who donated a prime undeveloped site in the heart of Toronto’s downtown entertainment district that used to be a family-owned car wash.

In many films, this is where the scene fades to black and the end credits begin to roll. But the mission of the TIFF Bell Lightbox to be a formal destination for individuals engaged with and passionate about film has just begun. To paraphrase Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson in Wilder’s 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, the Lightbox is “ready for its close-up.”

Centre: Patrons’ first view of the interior include the box office and theatre control box, which overlooks the main lobby. Above: Extended sequences of horizontal montages of clear, fritted and translucent glass panels animate the upper surfaces. Below: a model of the Lightbox roof, suggestive of the Villa Malaparte roof in Capri.

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Below: Similar in scale to the surrounding bank towers, the 51-storey Bay Adelaide Centrecredit is the first phase of a three tower complex. Right: The tower is a glass prism clad in clear glass and spandrel panels with ceramic frit.

At the centre

Shedding some light on Toronto’s overlooked financial district, the Bay Adelaide Centre is good for business.

of business

By Karolina Olechnowicz Photos by Tom Arban

While emerging developments in Toronto’s downtown core were continuing to reshape and redefine its distinct skyline, the financial district sat forgotten and untouched. The city’s financial hub had not seen a new development in the last 17 years – until the summer of 2009 when the Bay Adelaide Centre was completed at 333 Bay Street. The goal of developer, Brookfield Properties Corporation, was to provide a flexible, efficient and cost effective space to meet the needs of a variety of business clients.

The Bay Adelaide Centre sits at the axis of business and represents the finest in commercial real estate in Toronto. The tower contains 1.16 million square feet of rentable class-AAA office space, or between 23,700 and 25,200 square feet per floor.

Floors 12 to 51 contain eight column-free corner offices with nine-foot ceilings.

The 51-storey tower, designed by WZMH Architects, also marked the first building in the area to achieve a LEED-CS (Core

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and Shell) Gold certification. Environmental consideration was taken from the very construction of the tower with the implementation of sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environment quality.

“Bay Adelaide Centre stands as a symbol of the future of green building, and will no doubt become synonymous with forward-thinking building design,” said Richard B. Clark, CEO, Brookfield Properties. Other LEED measures taken include the collection of storm-water run off for re-use, abundant natural light in workspaces and tenant-triggered controls on lighting and HVAC, set up on a zone-by-zone basis.

The tower is the first phase of three buildings to be erected in the area occupying two city blocks, with an urban plaza at its centre.

This modernistic building is set back from the street to respect the datum created by the cornice lines of historic buildings along the street known as the “Bay Street Canyon.” Contributing to the canyon, the re-constructed façades of the National Building at 347 Bay Street, built in 1926 and designed by Chapman and Oxley, was seamlessly integrated into the design of the new tower, and stretches to the 12th floor of the northeast corner of the new crystal clear glass office tower.

Strategies have also been implemented in the design to provide a more secure working environment. Exit stairs have been made more than 20 per cent wider than required by the Ontario Building Code and the first 11 floors have been enhanced with safety glass. Tenant amenities include an on-site securitycontrolled loading facility, four levels of underground, secured parking and on-site management with 24/7 building access and security system monitoring.

The highly transparent main lobby with walls clad in classic Statuario marble and Makore wood faces the corner of Bay and Adelaide Streets and extends 28 feet from floor to ceiling, maximizing natural light intake. The lobby also features a light installation by world-renowned artist James Turrell, his first permanent public art project in Canada. At night the lobby acts as a shining beacon at the corner of Bay and Adelaide Streets.

At the foot of the tower lies an urban plaza named in honour of Brookfield Properties’ Chairman Gordon E. Arnell. The Arnell Plaza is a half-acre of landscaped gardens, Gingko trees, benches and manicured flowerbeds.

Location:

333 Bay Street, Toronto

Client name:

Brookfield Properties

Architects:

WZMH Architects

Structural Engineer:

Halcrow Yolles

Mechanical Engineer:

The Mitchell Partnership Inc.

Electrical Engineer:

Mulvey+Banani International Inc.

Landscape Architect:

Dillon Consulting

Below the tower in the concourse there is approximately 40,000 square feet of rental space of shops and a food court.

The concourse also completes the north/south link of the PATH underground pedestrian walkway bridging the gap between Union Station and the Eaton Centre.

This development adds to the roster of landmark assets of Brookfield Properties including the Brookfield Place in Toronto, World Financial Center in Manhattan, Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles, Bankers Hall in Calgary and others in 12 North B American cities.

Above: The 1926 National Building was integrated into the design of the new tower. Below: A light installation by James Turrell faces Adelaide Street and animates the lobby at night. Below right: The glazing is supported by four-sided structural silicone within a channel surround.

Interior Designer Base Building: WZMH Architects Contractor:

EllisDon Corporation

Lighting Artist:

James Turrell

Budget:

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Skin Deep

In European cities such as London (pictured), the concept of overcladding is now well-established as a means of regenerating older buildings and effectively extending service life. (Photos courtesy of Graeme Stewart of E.R.A. Architects)

By Brian Burton

Overcladding science has moved forward, and may be a solution our geriatric residential towers are in desperate need of if they are to remain livable.

Most mid- or high-rise façades constructed in the 1960s and 1970s in the Québec City - Windsor corridor (estimated at over 100,000 buildings) were fabricated in an era when energy performance was of little concern. In many cases deferred maintenance and general wear and tear some 40 to 50 years later have resulted in a situation where the buildings are rapidly approaching the end of their effective service life.

Which is why the concept of overcladding has come into sharp focus. “Overcladding” refers to the installation of lightweight rainscreen cladding materials and related systems over the existing façade of older buildings, thereby providing structural remediation, improve energy efficiency, and enhancements to the indoor environment. In many European nations the concept of overcladding is already well established as a means of regenerating older buildings and effectively extending their life.

Provided an existing building is structurally sound -- or can be made so -- overcladding can serve to maintain the existing façade in such a way that the “regenerated” building’s life expectancy and operational efficiency is comparable to that of an entirely new building. A wide variety of overcladding solutions exist that offer an equally wide variety of life expectancies, performance and aesthetic properties.

The existing condition of candidate buildings must be established by an initial conditional assessment to determine feasible strategies and associated costs and, if necessary defects must be addressed.

Toronto’s “Tower Renewal Project” (TRP) Over 30 per cent of residents in the GTA live in high-rise buildings over eight stories in height, and at the present time most of these structures use more resources than necessary and account

“The retrofit projects envisioned by Tower Renewal are comprehensive and large scale, likely costing several million dollars per building. Since most of the buildings in question are in the hands of private sector persons, these projects must be demonstrated to be advantageous (to building owners) if they are to be undertaken voluntarily. A critical obstacle is financing, as it is unlikely that such major projects can be undertaken in the normal course of business.”

• City of Toronto’s Tower Renewal Financing Options Report http://www.toronto.ca/city_manager/pdf/tr_financing_options_report.pdf

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Advantages of overcladding systems

• The work can be carried out while the building is still in use with minimal impact on occupancy or disruption to the building façade.

• Improves energy efficiency, thermal performance and air tightness.

• Optimizes use of thermal mass and enables transfer of the dew point outside the structural wall element.

• Increases the life expectancy of the building, renews aging façades and improves appearance of the structure.

• Lowers maintenance costs and allows upgrading of services.

• Improves air quality, sound insulation and general comfort levels.

• Helps eliminate condensation and mould problems.

• Viewed as more financially and ecologically reasonable than demolition and reconstruction.

• Retrofits eventually pay for themselves as a result of savings produced by resource efficiency improvements.

• It will also lead to a tremendous amount of job creation opportunities and significant overall economic stimulus.

for nearly half of the energy demand in the GTA. In addition many of them are approaching the end of their effective service life and require major repairs and upgrades.

However they are a valuable resource and were the focus of a long term study entitled Tower Renewal Guidelines for the Comprehensive Retrofit of Multi-Unit Residential Buildings in Cold Climates, prepared by professor Ted Kesik and architect Ivan Saleff from the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. The report concluded that these buildings represented costeffective candidates for retrofit strategies because their solid exterior masonry walls offered an excellent substrate to support overcladding systems and determined that when combined with other energy saving measures, it would be possible to substantially reduce the energy requirements of these buildings.

It comes as no surprise that one of the primary concerns regarding overcladding is costs and financing mechanisms. There are some incentives in place and funding mechanisms have been studied, however it is generally acknowledged that the relatively high cost of revitalization in today’s economic environment is an impediment to moving forward.

In Europe experience has shown that as the building ages its ability to generate revenue gradually decreases, while at the same time the cost of maintenance and repair rises, as will the cost of energy and the rate of inflation. In other words, if the issue of “shelf life” is not addressed, these buildings will eventually become a major expense and/or liability and the prospect of demolition and replacement will become the only viable alternative.

Four funding mechanisms A review of the literature of funding methodologies utilized in the United States reveals four interesting mechanisms for raising capital to regenerate building assets.

The first funding mechanism has seen 17 states adopt legislation

for what is known as Property Assessed Clean Energy Programs (PACE). For example California passed legislation regarding reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that allows local governments to fund “upfront” costs associated with undertaking energy efficient measures and then collect on such expenditures through special property tax assessments. This is based on the principle that property values increase $20 for every $1 in annual energy savings.

The second mechanism involves what is known as Tariffed Instalment Payments where funds to finance energy efficiency upgrades are repaid using a periodic utility bill assessment. This is a very complex mechanism funded by electric and natural gas utilities. Typically this mechanism is used in tandem with other rebates and grants. This mechanism is still in the pilot stage although three or four States have programs up and running.

A third mechanism involves State Revolving Funds where bonds are secured by pooling municipal assets and selling them on the capital market. For the most part this mechanism has been used to fund improvements to fund clean water infrastructure initiatives.

The fourth mechanism involves subsidies such as loan programs, rebates, and tax incentives. There are over 1,000 rebate and grant programs operating in the U.S. and one in Canada that is administered by the Office of Energy Efficiency - Natural Resources Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities - Municipal Building Retrofit Guide.

The Appendix of the City of Toronto’s Tower Renewal Financing Options report discusses the economics of retrofitting, emphasizes the impact of interest rates and describes what is known as “hurdle rates” whereby building owners will often set a minimum level of return on investment.

According to financial experts these hurdle rates are a form of discipline that helps to ensure that funds are available for good projects over the long term, rather than being spent on projects that may be considered mediocre but still happen to be the best available at a given time. Depending on the mix of cash, debt and interest rates it is normally set at 15 per cent rate of return.

Interestingly, actual surveys of building owners relating to retrofits and energy efficiency measures shows that half of the respondents would not consider a retrofit project with a payback period longer than three years. This means that for a typical energy-related upgrade that has a 15 year life the equity hurdle rate is over 35 per cent. The survey respondents also said the longest payback they would accept was 10 years, even if the upgrades were significant.

Current status of the Tower Renewal Program This past summer the Toronto City Council passed a formal resolution covering 12 key points with regard to their intention to proceed with financing and implementation of tower renewals. They established an upset limit of $2 billion for TRPs and mentioned that the concept “could be employed in cities across the country.”

Although there are over 1,800 residential towers in the GTA, they have only targeted approximately 800 “archetypical buildings” at this stage. At the same time they accepted the findings of the Financing Options report and have indicated that they intend to proceed in 2011.

City Council has accepted the recommendations and related engineering reports and instructed city staff to create a Tower Renewal Corporation and proceed with financing options that give the City building february/march 2011

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Overcladding Fast Facts

• Over 30 per cent of all Canadians live in some form of “multi-unit” building that was built before 1970. This means that before the end of this decade these structures will be 50 years old.

• Overcladding remediation projects represent a building science challenge of the highest order and require a considerable amount of planning and logistics.

• Comprehensive overcladding projects demand expertise from at least 12 different professional disciplines and typically require over 30,000 person hours of effort to complete.

• No single approach, system or design strategy can be applied to all structures. Each building must be inspected, assessed and evaluated separately. If necessary they must also be repaired.

• These existing units represent an incredibly vast store of “embedded” energy and capital. If we were to start over again from scratch today, it would cost about six times as much to construct this building stock as it did 40 or 50 years ago.

• In comparison the cost to overclad a single unit ranges between $25,000 and $50,000. This cost is approximately the same as was spent to construct the building in 1960s.

• The structural elements, if properly protected by replaceable façades, could remain stable for hundreds of years.

• These buildings are also located in “clusters” and a tremendous amount of energy is saved because residents are close to stores, public transit, and other amenities.

• Many European nations that suffered serious damage to their housing stock in WW II and rebuilt quickly, have already successfully retrofitted apartment blocks and demonstrated the feasibility of overcladding technologies and are approximately 12 to 16 years ahead of us in this specialty.

• Overcladding expertise is “exportable” and has the potential to create a tremendous number of job opportunities and would also create significant overall economic stimulus. authority to add any defaults owing a status of a “priority lien.”

In addition the city has instructed senior staff to: • Undertake a public relations campaign regarding the economic and social benefits of tower renewals; • Establish a “preferred supplier list” to promote local procurement of goods and services; • Develop training and employment strategies to support the project; • Encourage applicants to utilize all existing financial incentive programs; • Ensure that no rental increases above guidelines result and that these initiatives will contribute to the creation of “affordable housing” in the GTA; • Modify zoning and bylaws to facilitate tower renewals and mandate that full scale Technical Audits will be required for buildings under consideration

Working together with the firm that produced the Financial Options report, the City has developed what they believe will be an attractive financing strategy that will be focused entirely on tower renewal projects. With the creation of a new Tower Renewal Corporation the building owners would be able to enter into long-term contracts that would see the Corporation provide the services to implement and maintain tower retrofits for the duration of the contract.

The contract would include a clause that gives the fees “priority lien status” to secure the city’s investment (similar to what occurs if a property owner does not pay his water bill. Typically the unpaid amount is added to the property tax bill. In the event the owner fails to remit the fees for implementing renewal projects these would be added to the property tax bill). In the event of a bankruptcy, sale of the property or default on payment, the city has the means to receive the funds that may be outstanding.

To enable this mechanism to function the province will have to make a change to Ontario Regulation 504/6 so that the City can use priority lien status to safeguard their investment and permit the City to add unpaid fees to the property tax bill.

In all, the planning, technical issues, funding mechanisms and other requirements are in place, and the city is ready to move forward. But obviously there is one critical question on everyone’s mind at this stage: will the building owners buy in?

B Brian Burton is the Marketing Manager for Kleinfeldt Consultants Ltd., a regular columnist for Glass Canada, CWDMA and Glass Art Magazines, and is currently serving on the CSA’s Fenestration Installation Technician Certification Programs Personnel Committee.

He can be reached at bburton@kcl.ca or www.kcl.ca

A critical obstacle to overcladding is financing, as it is unlikely that such major projects can be undertaken in the normal course of business by most building owners. Shown are conceptual before-and-after renderings of an overclad retrofit of a high-rise building published in the Tower Renewal Guidelines. (Courtesy of Robert Wright, Ted Kesik and Ivan Saleff)

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Right at home

A university campus art gallery expansion in a small Midwestern state capital shows what can be achieved when the mandate is to show honest, appropriate respect for the local character.

By Peter Sobchak Good art can be found anywhere. It doesn’t have to belong only to glitzy metropolitan centres. And the structures that house this art don’t have to be the flamboyant architectural icons these major metropolitan centres are striving to outdo each other with. In fact, inserting a Bilbao-effect gallery into a certain small town or city may be downright inappropriate.

Such is the case with Madison, Wisconsin. The third-largest city in the state with the lowest population in the U.S., Madison embodies that charming small Midwestern town vibe, with a building stock characterized by honest, earthen materials – stone, brick, wood – dominated only by the State Legislature building at one end of town, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus at the other.

This is where the Chazen Museum of Art, which is home to a collection of more than 19,000 works, is currently undergoing a US$43 million expansion.

Designed

by Machado and Silvetti Associates, the expansion will add 22,500

square feet of new gallery space to the 90,000-square-foot facility, including two distinct galleries for temporary exhibitions, but will also pay homage to the Museum’s original building designed by Chicago architect Harry Weese. The two structures, connected via a gallery bridge, will frame a section of a new north-south pedestrian mall running through the heart of the University’s east campus, strengthening the Museum’s role as an important regional art museum.

The selection of Boston-based Machado and Silvetti (with Continuum Architects + Planners of Milwaukee as the architect of record) by the Museum’s board is not surprising. Their work does not espouse any signature style, but instead they are known for their acute sensitivity to and careful integration of the client’s aspirations, the project’s programmatic requirements, and the nature and character of the place for which a proposal is designed. In

this case, a clear deference of aesthetic to the original 1970 Weese–designed building was a primary requirement by the board.

The new building will connect to the Museum with a third-floor bridge gallery that echoes the stonework and strong lines of the existing architecture, creating a contiguous façade as well as a unified interior gallery plan. Weese was an exponent of the period’s classical approach, and the addition reflects elements of his original design with a limestone-clad exterior and copper roof and trim that mimic the aesthetics and materials of the existing building’s façade. The new exterior stoneblock pattern gradually evolves from a flat form and finish to a fluted, curved shape that wraps around the new building. A floor-to-ceiling glass mezzanine at the north side of the bridge gallery will provide a dramatic view that will extend from the new Museum plaza to Lake Mendota.

B

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VP Buildings: A World Leader In Steel Systems Construction

Expertise built on experience VP Buildings specializes in the computer-aided design of pre-engineered steel systems construction for low-rise, nonresidential buildings. Working closely with architects, engineers, and contractors, we offer buildings that combine extraordinary esthetic appeal with optimum functionality. For examples, visit our Hall of Fame.

Steel systems construction can be used for a wide variety of buildings, including: Agricultural facilities, Auto dealerships, Aviation, Houses of worship, Office complexes, Public buildings, Retail stores, Schools, and Warehouses.

With advanced construction methods, we can incorporate glass, brick, stone, or pre-cast concrete for special purpose or distinctive appeal.

World leader in steel systems construction VP Buildings is a world leader in the pre-engineered steel systems construction industry, each year manufacturing approximately 6,000 buildings ranging from 1,200 square feet to more than one million square feet under roof. With headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, we operate six strategically located manufacturing and service centers from coast to coast. Our network of more than 1,000 independent Authorized VP Builders offers state-of-the-art design/build services in local communities across the United States and Canada, as well as throughout Central and South America, Europe, and Asia.

Products pre-engineered to fit your needs Our steel systems construction products include frames, roofs, walls, and panels, as well as finishes and accessories. All are precisely manufactured to meet or exceed the highest standards of testing and certification. Using our proprietary, state-ofthe-art VP Command computer system, an Authorized Builder designs your project’s systems and components to meet your exact specifications. The pre-engineered materials are then delivered to the construction site ready to be assembled using high-strength, bolted connections.

For a final touch, you can create just the look you want for your building with an exterior of glass, masonry, metal, stone or numerous other cladding materials.

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Triple M Housing Ltd. Triple M Housing is one of Canada’s leading privately owned construction companies.

Headquartered in Lethbridge, Alberta, the company conducts business throughout Western Canada and the Northwest United States. It is engaged in every aspect of the modular construction industry, including the design, construction and marketing of townhouses, condominiums, apartment buildings, hotels, steel and wood frame manufactured homes, high quality residential modular houses, resort cottages, portable offices and bunkhouses.

This year will mark Triple M Housing’s 30th anniversary.

The Company was the first Canadian factory homebuilder to produce and market modular homes in Western Canada and in 1996 became the first modular construction company in North America to be ISO certified. Triple M Housing has built and sold over 14,000 homes and has received industry recognition for innovative product development and has gained a reputation for unrivaled quality.

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In 2009 Triple M Housing completed construction of a new 144,000 sq.ft. manufacturing plant and now operates out of a state of the art facility that is equipped with the most advanced construction machinery currently available. At peak production Triple M Housing employs 500 workers and can produce up to 1,500 units per year running only one shift. Through its retail network the Company markets two brands of homes, the T and M Series, and directly markets its wood construction capability to Developers and Building Contractors.

Triple M Housing built its first hotel in 2003 and first four story apartment building in 2006. With the increased production capacity of the new factory, they are now aggressively marketing innovative advantages to commercial and residential Developers in need of a reliable quality builder for hotel, condo and townhouse projects. One of the many innovative building solutions they offer Developers is an advanced wood web trussed floor system that enables stacking of units with added strength, insulation and sound absorption qualities.

Triple M Housing is committed to the future and will continue to invest the necessary resources to ensure that it builds on its reputation as a company that delivers constructive solutions.

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viewpoint

BY STEPHEN CARPENTER, PEng

There has long been a debate about whether today’s green buildings really save energy, particularly when compared with their existing building counterparts. Enermodal has conducted several LEED- Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (EB:O&M) feasibility studies for some existing office buildings, and compared the energy use of six existing facilities which achieved an Energy Star score of 70 or higher (meaning they are better than 70 per cent of North America’s buildings) with six LEED- New Construction (NC) and three LEED- Core and Shell (CS) certified buildings. The result was that the LEED certified new buildings performed better than even high performing existing buildings. Another lesson learned was that LEED-CS and NC buildings performed fairly comparably, highlighting the importance of base building systems like HVAC and lighting compared with tenant fit up items such as plug loads or appliances.

Energy Star is a database of the energy use of thousands of North American buildings, sorted by type. Buildings looking to qualify for LEED-EB:O&M certification must first prove they are in the top 30 per cent of North American buildings in terms of energy use by achieving an Energy Star score of 69 or higher. During an EB:O&M feasibility study, Enermodal performs a normalized energy analysis for the building using the Energy Star Portfolio Manager. This interactive energy management tool allows owners and facility managers to calculate normalized energy consumption across their entire portfolio or for an individual building. Portfolio Manager can help owners and facility managers set investment priorities, identify under-performing buildings, identify high performance buildings that are LEED-EB:O&M candidates, and verify the effectiveness of implemented efficiency retrofits.

How do you normalize a building’s energy performance?

The most basic way to compare a buildings’ energy performance is to divide the total energy consumed by the building’s area (ekWh/ square metre). However, more information is needed to create an accurate picture of how buildings in an organization’s portfolio are actually performing. This additional information includes the following: • location

• weather conditions

• type of building uses

• unconventional energy/process loads

• office equipment/ electronics

• occupancy density and hours of operation

• ventilation rates

• building energy systems

As the graph comparing Enermodal’s LEED NC/CS projects with EB:O&M feasibility study shows, even high performing existing

Photo credit:

The numbers are in: how do LEED-NC buildings compare to LEED-EB:O&M

buildings achieving an average normalized Energy Star rating of the 75th percentile did not achieve the energy efficiency of new green buildings. It should be noted that EB:O&M improvements like re-commissioning have not been performed on the existing buildings which would improve building energy performance over time, although likely not to the level of the new buildings.

NC versus CS An increasing number of building owners want to LEED certify their new construction projects, and some tenants are requesting green features in their space. However, in many cases, building owners are not responsible for fitting-out the interior space, and they do not know if their tenants (or future tenants) are interested in making this commitment. Fortunately, there is a certification that addresses this situation. LEED-CS essentially takes the tenant requirements from LEED-NC and either makes them less stringent or eliminates them altogether, while the requirements for the base building (and space that is fit-up by the owner) remain the same.

Many in the green building design community have wondered how LEED-CS buildings compare with LEED-NC in terms of energy usage. While the graph above only has a sample size of three LEED-CS certified buildings, it does show that these buildings performed similarly to their NC counterparts. This finding highlights the importance of base building improvements to HVAC and envelope relative to the tenant fit-up, such as lighting and appliances.

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