SHAWN MOSS
CANADIAN ARCHITECT 10/21
35
FIELD TEST A NEW BUILDING AT CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY’S LOYOLA CAMPUS IS DESIGNED TO TEST BUILDING ENVELOPE COMPONENTS IN YEAR-ROUND, OUTDOOR CONDITIONS.
Future Buildings Laboratory, Concordia University, Loyola Campus, Montreal, Quebec ARCHITECT Smith Vigeant architectes TEXT Shawn Moss PROJECT
CA Oct 21.indd 35
As an architect working for Concordia University’s facilities management department, my projects include the renovation of classrooms or offices where our department, along with external professionals, are the experts. In the case of a recent project though, the architects were the learners. Concordia University’s newest—and smallest—pavilion, designed by Smith Vigeant architectes, may look like a building. But this research facility is essentially an instrument designed to test building envelopes and efficiency under real-weather operating conditions. The pavilion was created for the University’s Centre for Zero Energy Building Studies (CZEBS), part of the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science’s Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering department, and was informed by the CZEBS’s researchers. That group is directed by one of the world’s foremost experts in solar buildings, Dr. Andreas Athienitis; the construction project was led by Dr. Hua Ge, an expert in field-testing building envelopes. The pavilion is designed, among other things, to test building-integrated photovoltaics, motorized shading devices, hybrid renewables, urban wind energy, and smart nanogrids. It brings these technologies out of the lab, and into the field, allowing researchers and students to experiment with these technologies and serving as a demonstration of what is possible as we develop advanced concepts for carbon-neutral buildings.
2021-09-17 7:59 AM
