Design Quarterly | Winter 2018

Showcasing BC & Alberta’s architects and interior designers

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d e s i g n q ua rt e r ly

Brock Commons Tallwood House Designer Amanda Hamilton | Best Practices | Lighting

winter 2018 Vol. 18 No.3

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in this issue

06 Features 06 Designer Profile

Amanda Hamilton has not only honed her interior design skills but also her business acumen over the past decade.

12 PROJECT Profile

12

The speed and simplicity of Brock Commons Tallwood House showcase mass timber as a practical building material.

16 Best Practices

▶ Designing for Future Mobility ▶ A Case for Integration ▶ Participatory Design

18 Lighting

▶ Dawn of the Planet of the Lights ▶ The LED Revolution ▶ Transformative Urban Lighting

Departments 04 IDA The Function of Beauty ON THE COVER: Brock Commons Tallwood House is the current tallest wood timber tower in the world. Photo: Michael Elkan

04 NEW

S

Combustible Materials in Cladding Design

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

3

from the editor

Making an Impact

winter 2018 Vol. 18 No.3

www.designquarterly.ca PUBLISHER Dan Gnocato dang@mediaedge.ca Managing Editor Cheryl Mah Graphic Design Tang Creative Inc. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jennifer Fix Brittney Hayes Aaron Knorr Jacqui McFarland Ellie Naikan Cristian Suvagau Cole Webber Craig Webber B.C./ALBERTA SALES Dan Gnocato 604.549.4521 ext. 223 PUBLISHED BY

Over the holidays, I dedicated time to cleaning out our storage room. It’s amazing how quickly things can accumulate and then just as quickly be forgotten. Sorting through the boxes, I came across old albums, school mementos and tons of miscellaneous.

Going through old school transcripts and photos reminded me that my daughter will be going to high school soon and then possibly university. (Where does the time go?) As she grows up to be a young woman, I’m passionate about supporting her goals and making sure she is ready for the challenges ahead.

Also passionate about supporting young women is Amanda Hamilton. The Calgary interior designer is making an impact with her thoughtful designs as well as her desire to mentor women and to raise the profile of the interior design profession.

For our feature project, we highlight Brock Commons Tallwood House. While the title of tallest wood tower is impressive, the speed and simplicity of construction is what truly sets the project apart. It showcases mass timber as a practical building material that can be used in all types of buildings.

Inside this issue we also take a look at some industry best practices. With buildings becoming increasingly complex, the need to integrate teams in project delivery is more important than ever. Also the conversation around autonomous vehicles is heating up. Find out how the technology will impact future urban design.

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DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

The purpose of Design Quarterly is to reflect and represent practitioners and professionals in the architectural, interior design and design resource communities throughout British Columbia and Alberta.

DESIGNER PROFILE

Creative Exploration

By Cheryl Mah

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DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

DESIGNER PROFILE

I

In any business, making the right decision is critical to success.

For interior designer Amanda Hamilton, making the decision to switch schools and move to Calgary was the first big one.

“I didn’t really know anything about interior design in high school,” recalls Hamilton, who initially attended the University of Alberta for two years. “Interior design came to me as an epiphany and then everything just fell into place.”

In hindsight, she says, it made sense that she was drawn to interior design. The Edmonton native grew up in a family of educators and displayed an early creative talent with interests ranging from visual arts and music to literature. “It’s a good combination of all the skills I had and looking back, I was very independent growing up and always took a leadership role so the entrepreneurial trait was there.”

Her epiphany in 2002 led her to Mount Royal University where she graduated with her Bachelor of Applied Interior Design. Needing a break after the intense program, she worked at a restaurant for several months before joining McKinley Dang Burkart Design Group (now McKinley Burkart) in 2006.

“I was the first interior designer they hired and I got tons of experience with them doing commercial and residential projects,” says Hamilton, 35.

During that time, she had so many opportunities that she began freelancing which led her to make the decision to strike out on her own, establishing her namesake company Amanda Hamilton Interior Design (AHID) in 2009.

“In the middle of a recession, with no money, I incorporated my company,” she says. “Looking back, it was kind of nuts. It was a steep learning curve but it was magical... having people give us the opportunity to work on projects. We were smoking busy right out of the gates.”

The studio grew quickly, undertaking early on several restaurant projects for hospitality Group933 as well as residential design. Today, the full service interior design studio’s diverse portfolio includes custom home builds, full-scope renovations, multifamily developments and commercial projects — restaurants, retail and health/fitness.

AHID has designed several notable restaurants in the city including Native Tongues, Rodney’s Oyster House and Anejo as well as retailers such as Mariah and Bricks Wine Company. The majority of projects are located in Calgary but they do work in Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina.

“We like anything that is inspiring and challenging. I love getting to know clients, educating them about the design process and bringing their vision to life,” says Hamilton.

“For me, I’m interesting in exploring and pushing boundaries rather than following trends. I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again.

It’s about providing a unique solution for each client.”

As creative director, Hamilton leads the early development of each project and oversees a current staff of four. The studio is based in Calgary with a satellite office in Vancouver, which opened in early 2017. The decision to branch out to Vancouver was

personal as well as to expand opportunities to help offset market downturns in Calgary.

“I love a good challenge. I love travelling and I love Vancouver — always felt like a second home. It was an opportunity to expand our business and for me to be near the water,” says Hamilton about the decision, explaining she grew up sailing in the San Juan Islands with her grandparents.

The studio has a few residential and commercial projects on the go in the Vancouver area as it works to establish itself in the marketplace. In Calgary, the economic downturn over the last couple of years has impacted projects but despite the challenge, Hamilton says the studio has been able to maintain a steady volume.

“Clients are there but more cautious with their money,” she says, noting at any given time the studio could have 25 projects on the go.

Currently, a residence in Mount Royal has Hamilton excited because “the client allowed us to take risks in her home and I think it will be one of our best homes — eclectic, stunning, beautiful. We had so much fun with her furniture package.”

A recent commercial project was Bread & Circus on 17 Avenue S.W., a small casual neighbourhood pasta joint inspired by the friendly trattorias of Rome. “When it comes to commercial design, we generally like projects that aren’t over designed and feel authentic,” she says.

Over the past decade, Hamilton has not only honed her interior design skills but also her business acumen. She has expanded her business ventures into an accessories collection and more recently, she launched The Loft — a

“I love getting to know clients, educating them about the design process...”

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

7

DESIGNER PROFILE

Above: Bread & Circus Right: Stanley Park residence

unique space that doubles as a designer showroom and an inviting place for design workshops, seminars and private functions. She is also finalizing the launch of a new ecommerce business which should be live in early 2018.

“My new word for 2018 is going to be no,” she says with a laugh before sharing she is able to balance her busy workload because her hobby and passion is business development.

“It’s really about managing your time and being efficient.”

She credits success so far to wordof-mouth and a strong social media presence.

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DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

“We’ve always been leaders — early adopters of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. I’ve changed our website four times,” says Hamilton. “It’s about always evolving.

Change is my constant.”

Hamilton is also passionate about raising the profile of the interior design industry and supporting career development of young women. She is often a speaker at events and actively mentors young entrepreneurs and emerging interior designers. In 2017, she received a Stevie Award for Women in Business, an international award honouring top female entrepreneurs.

“We have a responsibility to educate people about interior design. I didn’t want to be a teacher growing up but now I am — within my own industry. I want to be that force that really educates the general public about the profession and inspires up and coming designers,” says Hamilton, who is NCIDQ certified and a LEED Accredited Professional.

Hamilton is a mentor with the Harry G. Schaefer Mentorship Program at Mount Royal University and is the current chair of the World of Choices committee for Junior Achievement of Southern Alberta. She is also a member of the Alberta Association of Architects, Interior Designers of Alberta and the Interior Designers of Canada.

A challenge for the profession, says Hamilton is “how can we help people understand what a professional interior designer does?” Interior design requires specific schooling and demanding formal training in a variety of technical subjects but often that is not understood or respected. She raises the dilemma of how television shows have increased the popularity of interior design, while also doing a “disservice to the profession” by giving the public false expectations.

“I feel we still have to fight in our industry to prove ourselves — our worth to clients and even to other professionals. An architect is not better than an interior designer or vice versa,” she says. “We’ve lost jobs before to an architect when it’s clearly an interior design project. The interior scope is actually more work and more specifications than the exterior, but we don’t get the same respect as architects.”

Her advice for someone contemplating a career in interior design?

“You have to be passionate about it. It’s not glamourous. It’s incredibly technical and very competitive to get into so be well prepared to commit four years,” she says.

Outside of work, Hamilton finds time to read, travel and exercise.

She recently picked up rock climbing in the gym and is writing a book (slowly). She lives in Calgary with her husband where they enjoy food and wine with friends. DQ

Project Profile

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Project Profile

Extraordinarily Ordinary Achievement Brock Commons Tallwood House is remarkable for its height and construction.

Photos by Michael Elkan

a

At 18 storeys and 53 metres in height, Brock Commons Tallwood House is currently the world’s tallest mass timber tower. Located on the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus in Vancouver, the 404-bed student residence building officially opened in July of 2017.

The Brock Commons residence is the first mass wood, steel and concrete hybrid project taller than 14 storeys in the world. The 162,000 square foot building has a concrete podium and two concrete cores, with 17 storeys of crosslaminated-timber floors supported on glue-laminated wood columns. The podium level is wrapped with curtain wall glazing and glass spandrel panels.

While the title of tallest wood tower is an impressive achievement, the speed and simplicity of construction of Brock Commons is what truly sets it apart — showcasing mass timber as a practical building material.

Designed by Acton Ostry Architects, the innovative project is the first completed in Canada under the 2013 Tall Wood Building Demonstration Project Initiative sponsored by Natural Resources Canada. The challenge and objective from the outset was to have Brock Commons be a model for future mass wood buildings that are quick, clean and cost effective to construct and which maximize carbon sequestering and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cities.

Extraordinary for its height, the building is also extraordinary for the speed at which its structure of glue laminated timber, cross laminated timber (CLT), and prefabricated facade went up in only 66 days. The average speed of the mass timber erection and envelope installation was two floors per week. This included the columns and CLT panels, encapsulation of the wood components with gypsum board, the pouring of a concrete topping and installation of the envelope panels. The mass wood structure and facade was completed four months ahead of schedule. Total construction time was 18 months.

Pursuing LEED Gold certification, the building uses 2,233 cubic metres of timber that stores an impressive 1,753 metric tons of carbon dioxide and avoids production of 679 metric tons of GHG emissions. It is also the first building in B.C. to be built to the new National Building Code of Canada 2015 seismic requirements.

To make the building possible, the B.C. provincial government issued a sitespecific regulation that allowed Brock Commons to use mass timber in a high-rise application. Obtaining approval to build the project was the biggest challenge.

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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Project Profile

...the wood structure was not exposed to achieve an economical structural solution...

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DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

“Key to receiving approvals and realizing economic viability for the timber tower was a ‘keep it simple’ design approach that makes the building appear ordinary —extraordinarily ordinary — through the encapsulation of the wood structure with gypsum board,” says Russell Acton, principal of Acton Ostry Architects.

The rectilinear slab-form reflects the massing and character of existing Modernist buildings on the UBC campus. The facade is made up of prefabricated panels with pre-installed windows. There are four distinct L-shaped corner panels with cornerwrapping windows. A high-pressure laminate cladding, consisting of 70 per cent wood fibres and thermosetting resins, creates a pattern of alternating light wood and charcoalcoloured vertical striations. A metal cornice crowns the building.

Social and study spaces are located at the ground floor level and at the uppermost floor where the glulam column structure has been left exposed. An extensive CLT canopy runs the length of the curtain wall base, revealing the warm wood finishes of the amenity spaces within.

The elevator lobbies at the student living levels are clad with the same material used at the exterior. Hallway finishes feature natural wood doors and a palette of rich umber and ochre carpet and paint accents. The 305 studio and quad-unit interiors, offering spectacular west coast ocean and mountain views, are spare and simple with bright white finishes and warmly-hued carpet and countertops.

Brock Commons is the latest addition to other wood structure buildings on the campus, which include the AMS Student Nest, the Engineering Student Centre, the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability, the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility and the Earth Sciences building.

“Wood is increasingly recognized as an important, innovative and safe building material choice. This new tall wood building reflects UBC’s leadership in sustainable construction and our commitment to providing our students with more on-campus housing,” says UBC president Santa J. Ono. Aside from providing much needed student residence spaces, Brock Commons will serve as a

“living laboratory” for interdisciplinary research and educational projects undertaken by UBC faculty, staff and students.

CLT has been a game changer for tall wood buildings and while interest continues to grow, the adoption of mass wood in the building industry is still in its infancy and will require time to achieve comparable resolution of design, construction and cost optimizations that have evolved over decades for concrete and steel.

“To be truly environmentally meaningful, mass wood structures must be incorporated into buildings of all types and sizes, from the audacious to the everyday — whether the wood is exposed or not,” says Acton.

For Brock Commons, the wood structure was not exposed to achieve an economical structural solution, resulting in significant cost savings as well as increasing fire protection and acoustic performance.

While a groundbreaking project, a key design driver for Brock Commons was to employ tried and tested solutions that are commonly available and code compliant. The result is a building design that is

Project Profile

“Brock Commons aspires to be a game-changer for the future...”

simple to replicate, cost-efficient due to shortened timelines and environmentally desirable. With some modifications it could be used for commercial, residential and other applications. The overall simplicity of the design is broadly touted as being central to the project’s success.

“We pushed ourselves relentlessly over months of work with the design team and the CLT manufacturer to simplify the structure — think LEGO,” says Paul Fast, founder of Fast+Epp. “The building blends the simplicity and modularity of LEGO with the concrete-like strength of cross laminated timber to help ensure structural efficiency which in the past has been one of the major barriers to 14

DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

building tall with wood. Our solutions effectively address that concern.”

Fire safety is the other major and common barrier when considering tall wood construction. A number of solutions have been built into Brock Commons to address concerns such as an automatic sprinkler system with a back-up water supply and highly compartmentalized residence units that limit the potential spread of fire. The units are designed with a two-hour fire separation.

Acton stresses for mass wood buildings to become a genuine option and preferred choice for owners, architects, developers and builders, they must be affordable to design and to build.

“Brock Commons aspires to be a game-changer for the future when tall, mass wood buildings will be an economical, preferred choice for developers and builders,” he says.

“It will be the continued evolution of simple, straightforward, extraordinarily ordinary mass wood buildings, such as Brock Commons, that will be the foundation upon which mass wood will make a genuine and meaningful contribution to the future sustainability of our cities.”

The project is earning worldwide attention and recently earned international accolades, winning the prestigious Award for Construction Innovation at the Structural Awards 2017, where the world’s top structural engineering projects are recognized.

Brock Commons was designed

by Acton Ostry Architects with Architekten Hermann Kaufmann of Austria as tall wood advisors, Fast + Epp as structural engineers and GHL Consultants Ltd. as fire science and building code consultant. The project development manager was UBC Properties Trust and construction management was by Urban One Builders. DQ

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best practices

DESIGNING FOR MOBILITY

When

the

first

auto-

mobiles appeared on city streets at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were something of a curiosity among the pedestrians, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and electric trolleys. But within just a few decades, roadway design and urban form had been almost completely transformed 16

DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

to accommodate the new “horseless carriages.” The car had radically changed the way we inhabit and design our cities and regions, for better and for worse — a reminder that an incremental evolution in mobility technology can have a profound impact on built form and how we live in cities for generations to come.

Today, we are on the threshold of a similar transformational change in the way we move and live in urban areas. The advent of self-driving vehicles and other disruptors are now underway, ushering in one of the biggest changes to cities that we will see in our lifetime. Given that the infrastructure projects we

Photo courtesy: Perkins+Will

Autonomous vehicles and the future of urban design

By Aaron Knorr

best practices

are planning, designing and building today will be around for the next 50 to 100 years, it is critical that we consider how these disruptive technologies will impact urban design.

Current Trends When will we begin to see self-driving vehicles on our city streets? The short answer is that we are starting to see them today. All of the largest automobile and technology companies are collectively spending billions of dollars to perfect and pioneer this technology on urban roadways, with prototype vehicles currently being tested in many cities. Projections suggest that self-driving cars may entirely displace our current humandriven fleet within the next three or four decades — well within the time horizon of the infrastructure projects and transportation plans being developed today.

The impact of self-driving vehicles will be amplified by other technologically-driven changes that we are already experiencing within the transportation industry. Mobile phones, apps and the vast communication network that supports their use are making mobility an increasingly on-demand service. This access to networked mobility options is in turn making it more convenient and affordable for many people to access mobility services on an as-needed basis instead of through ownership.

This is seen most clearly in the emergence and growing use of car sharing, bike sharing, and ride hailing services in many cities. We have also seen an accelerated shift towards cleaner forms of mobility, with a focus on electrification and active modes of transport. Many countries are now planning to phase out the internal combustion engine over the next 20 years.

Design Opportunities How will these changes interact with cities and the way we get around in the future? Proactive planning, engineering and design will be essential to ensuring the most beneficial outcomes for cities. The most impactful design opportunities will come from a relatively simple, people-first approach: focusing on how we move people, not just vehicles; finding ways to create social space instead of storing cars; giving people choice and promoting healthy lifestyles; and prioritizing modes that result in a cleaner and more sustainable environment.

Reduced parking requirements The average car today sits unused 95 per cent of the time, demanding an enormous amount of urban space to store vehicles that sit idle.

With a shift to increasingly shared and autonomous forms of mobility, the amount of parking required will decrease dramatically, creating an opportunity to recapture current parking space for other more valuable uses. By limiting the amount of parking we are building today, and utilizing existing parking space more efficiently, it is possible to dedicate more urban space for housing, public space and recreational opportunities.

Reimagining roadways City streets serve a broad range of functions, with the vast majority dedicated to moving single-occupancy automobiles. If street space is reallocated to instead support the most efficient transportation modes available, streets can be reprogrammed to carry more people per hour while using less overall space. This shift reprioritizes the focus to moving people instead of simply

We are at an exciting moment in the history of transportation and urbanism.

vehicles. Many existing laneways or underutilized streets, for example, could be re-imagined as green corridors, linear parks, and corridors for active transportation modes.

Reinforcing public transportation Public transit plays an essential role in freeing up roadway capacity, providing mobility options and reducing the environmental impacts of transportation. With a shift to automated mobility, the provision of high-quality and high-capacity transit will only become more important. Transit and active transportation modes will continue to be able to move a far greater number of people in a more space efficient manner than individual vehicles, be they human operated or automated or shared. Shared, selfdriving vehicles could also be used to augment transit by providing a critical solution to the “first and last

mile” problem — efficiently shuttling commuters between transit hubs and their destinations.

We are at an exciting moment in the history of transportation and urbanism. The opportunities, and risks, for building livable future cities are transformational. But the possibilities highlighted here are by no means a foregone conclusion.

It will take city builders in all areas of expertise working together and focusing on key principles to realize the best solutions. Perhaps our great-grandchildren will look back in 100 years and reflect on how decisions made today contributed to making our future cities safer, healthier, happier, and more sustainable places in which to live. DQ Aaron Knorr is a senior architect and urban besigner at Perkins+Will in Vancouver. Contact him at aaron. knorr@perkinswill.com Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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best practices

A Case for Integration

by Craig Webber and Cole Webber

The last half century has seen an explosion of productivity in all sectors. Manufacturing, auto, and energy have all used improvements in technology and a holistic examination of their process to deliver better for cheaper. Yet one industry is absent. Since 1964, the construction industry has decreased in productivity. Why? Buildings are more complicated. There are more regulations to accommodate. But these trends also face the auto industry, and they have delivered massive gains. If we built cars like we built buildings, you probably could not afford to drive one. Buildings are a universal human need. We live in one, work in one, and chances are you’re reading this in one right now. How can we deliver this need to everyone, better and cheaper? What is it about our industry that has led us astray?

Collaboration versus Integration Buildings are complicated, and they’ve been growing more so. They involve the coordination of a vast array of experts and systems. Putting all of these pieces together represents a significant risk. All of the design features and systems need to fit together. In traditional delivery, the owners work with designers, who hand off the design to be built by a separate construction team made up of dozens of 18

DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

best practices

independent sub-contractors. More recently, in response to increasing costs and risk, owners have shifted risk and responsibility for both design and construction to collaborative teams using design-build and P3 delivery models.

Yet it is clear these processes, which help to improve the constructability of designs, have not produced the monumental gains the industry needs to achieve — just to keep pace with the world. Transferring problems does not ensure creative solutions. Could it be that how we design needs to change as well? Do we need to find a new place to start?

Both our models create a purposeful separation to control costs through competitive bidding. Only the location of the separation has been changed. This is causing much of the loss, not because we don’t have people who are capable of designing and building, but because they don’t understand clearly enough what they need to be aiming for.

What can be learned from other industries? One difference is they are more highly integrated. They manage design, research and development, fabrication, and even their integrated supply chains. We see a new model emerging: IPD (Integrated Project Delivery). It strives to integrate the team with an owner to target unique solutions.

An integrated team builds bridges across some of the fractured barriers of the industry. Whereas collaboration can be selective, integration is holistic. It involves bringing everyone together from the start to solve problems. How does this change the way a team functions?

We interviewed owners and tradespeople delivering an IPD project to gain their perspective on how it has impacted their roles. Ed Wanke,

from Muth Electric commented “[the process] allows us to be more creative in meeting the owner’s needs, because we better understand the actual goals of the owner.”

Defining Value How does integration allow value to be more clearly defined? We are lagging behind not because we do not have people who can solve problems in their specialty fields, but because they go about solving their standard problems in isolation. To deliver optimal solutions, we need to consider problems more broadly.

Owner of MPM Project Management, Sheldon Fall, the owner’s representative on the IPD project, commented on the volume of ideas contributed by the team. The main difference,” he said, “was that we could evaluate quickly with everybody what solutions were practical, and worked with each other. This led to new innovation — new ideas that had never been tried before — but we had the ability to evaluate them quickly together.”

On the project, the specialists started by tackling their isolated

problems. The engineers on the project began attacking the building’s energy efficiency, shaving off percentage points as they were used to. Only the annual energy budget of the building was $1.2 million, compared to $25 million for personnel. If the team could suggest an innovative way to improve the efficiency of the operations of the building by just 10 per cent, that would save over twice the entire annual energy budget.

In one of their first working sessions, the team built mockups to examine the operational efficiency of the building with the staff of the facility. As Wanke commented, “during one of our first meetings we examined how the design would affect [the staff ’s] work, and we redesigned the entire shape of the building.”

We have always had good problem solvers. The real problem is the division of the industry, the fact that everyone has gone off to solve their own problems. Full integration, not selective or additive, but between everyone, allows clear goals to be set on what problems need to be solved — on where is the actual value.

Process versus Practice The IPD process may sound easy, but its practice is more challenging. Achieving clear and shared goals which target actual value goes beyond mere collaboration. It demands, on everyone’s part, flexibility, a new culture, and a set of skills not often prized in the individual and specialized silos of the industry. As Fall described, “the IPD process is a lot more work, especially for the client. It is demanding, it requires research, thinking, and lots more time. But seeing the gains grow in front of you is very rewarding… and a hell of a lot of fun.” DQ Cole Webber is a college student with interest and experience in LEAN construction processes gained as a student participating in the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education’s School Bundle Project.

Craig Webber, an architect with Group2 Architecture Interior Design Ltd., has directly participated in six IPD projects. He is a board member of the IPD Alliance and chairs their Research and Performance Committee.

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Best practices

Participatory Design Engaging as if towns and cities are for everyone

By Jennifer Fix

Simple design intervention that provides dedicated pedestrian space while maintaining the eclectic, DIY character of Main Street.

Who is the city for? If the answer is “everyone”, then our city shaping processes must involve the meaningful participation of people from all walks of life. While public engagement is becoming increasingly adept at reaching greater numbers of people during urban design processes, many voices continue to be under-represented.

Low attendance at public events by indigenous peoples, people of colour and other minority groups is often interpreted as a sign of consent or apathy. As such, designs are developed, adopted and implemented without the participation of many of the people who will be affected by them.

There is another way. Local governments across Canada are progressively adopting engagement strategies, policies and protocols that require robust participation.

Rather than viewing engagement as a mandatory box to tick, municipalities and their partners are recognizing that residents have a right to be involved in the urban design processes that impact their lives.

In addition to engaging because we “ought to”, there are other reasons to engage residents in design processes. At Dialog, we have learned about these imperatives through our work in communities of all shapes and sizes.

Engagement makes designs better by drawing on the inherent wisdom residing in communities.

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Best practices

In every urban design process, there is an incredible amount of nuance with which to grapple, and residents are often best placed to educate designers about design context and aspirations.

We learned this lesson in the coastal town of Tofino, where we were engaged by the District to develop an urban design vision for the revitalization of their Main Street. When we started the project, Main Street was overrun with parked vehicles, and lacked separate continuous pedestrian spaces. Our knee jerk reaction was to propose high quality sidewalks and displace a significant amount of the on-street parking.

Fortunately, we first talked to the community. We created a film to capture stories and perspectives through interviews with local people, ranging from long-time residents and business-owners to members from First Nation communities living on nearby islands. From that process, we learned that our thinking on high quality sidewalks was well off base. Residents cherished the rustic, eclectic character of Main Street, which they felt represented their fishing and artistic roots. As such, through consultation with residents, we proposed painted pedestrian strips rather than urban sidewalks, and DIY seating in areas where people could take in views of the ocean.

As for the parking issue, we learned from the neighbouring First Nation communities that their members use Main Street to park their vehicles, which they access after arriving by boat. When we proposed reducing the number of parking spots, we heard from them that they had been “parking their canoes there for thousands of years”, and they had every intention to continue parking as they saw necessary. Our design response was to improve the safety of pedestrian spaces, without reducing

the existing parking. There was no way we could have arrived at this outcome without the insights and perspectives shared by locals. They made the plan more relevant, and they made it better.

Engagement makes designs more implementable, by building support and champions within communities.

Design processes can be divisive, particularly ones that involve change within mature neighbourhoods.

However if residents are meaningfully involved in a design process, they are more likely to support the outcome, even if they don’t agree with all facets of it.

We were reminded of the importance of engagement during the creation of the City of Abbotsford’s new Official Community Plan. A planning and design process for its entire city, the new OCP would provide direction on the type and location of all future growth for next 20 years or so.

In a largely car-dependent suburban city where residents value quiet, low-density, single-detached residential neighbourhoods, we were expecting resistance to best practices around growth management, including limiting outward expansion, establishing transit-friendly densities, and promoting infill development. Working with our client at city hall, we recognized the importance of a far-reaching, educational engagement process.

Through the life of the project, we saw more than 7,700 individual interactions with residents, including over 3,500 survey responses, 3,100 visitors to our travelling engagement booth, 850 attendees at a pop-up park, and hundreds of other participants in stakeholder meetings and other events. We worked iteratively with the community in every step of the process, from visioning to the final drafting of the plan. We listened, educated, explored trade-offs and

connected dots between community aspirations and touch choices around densification.

In the end, during the final public hearing, we were inspired to see members of the community line up to speak to council to offer their support for the bold new plan. Speakers ranged from a family doctor who felt that this plan would improve the health of Abbotsford citizens, to a group of young microbrewery entrepreneurs who felt that this plan would enable their downtown business to thrive.

We would not have heard from these supporters at the end of the process, had we not heard from them — and listened to them — early in the process. It made adoption of the plan easy, and it’s now paving the way for smoother implementation. DQ Jennifer Fix is associate, senior urban planner at Dialog in Vancouver.

Her work has been recognized with planning excellence awards from the Canadian Institute of Planners, Union of BC Municipalities, and Planning Institute of BC.

Dialog interviews Lewis George, owner of the The House of Himwitsa, a lodge and art gallery on Main.

...if residents are meaningfully involved in a design process, they are more likely to support the outcome...

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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lighting

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE LIGHTS

By Cristian Suvagau longer ‘just on the horizon’, solid state lighting, together with solid state controls, offer a whole new world of options; a new dawn, if you will.

Alluding,

with

poetic

license to the 20th Century Fox’s 2014 movie, “Dawn of the planet of the apes”, we can imagine that, when seen from space, the Earth has become a “planet of lights.”

However, this article is not specifically about light pollution, but about understanding how new technologies will allow us to control lights to suit our own needs.

These days, any conversation about lighting, between practitioners or simple users quickly leads to a conversation about LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). The technological 22

DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

leap to LED semiconductors is often compared to the 19th century technological leap when incandescent lamps replaced gaslight. Both are revolutions that changed our world and how we live.

LEDs are changing people’s mindset about lighting (increased efficiency, new form factors) but mostly about controls. Wired or wireless but for sure digital, controls can now co-exist in synergy with the LEDs and be the motor — not an afterthought — of the lighting design, adapting dynamically for convenience.

Today’s digital control systems include sensors, dimmers, switches, internet connections and data management. Their continued miniaturization is making them more available, affordable and more suitable for integration into a building’s luminaires and infrastructure. This is a very different scenario than what is possible for legacy lighting systems like fluorescents where controlling these sources is both challenging and cumbersome.

These days, lighting design is not just about Lumens and Watts. It is about safety, comfort, convenience, affordability, health and profit. No

Big data analytics The paradigm change that advanced/connected lighting control introduces is the ability to continuously monitor, measure and verify lighting use. This provides feedback data about the day-to-day behaviour of the lighting system and presents it, using visual analytics to help customers make smart choices about their power usage. Besides the obvious benefit of energy management there are also other non-energy benefits that save operational dollars like improving janitorial scheduling, meeting room assessment or work desk assignment for telecommuting businesses.

Demand response is another benefit for both utilities (looking to lower unnecessary power consumption at peak times) and for customers (looking for financial gain by avoiding consumption during peak times). With shrinking budgets for lighting retrofits it could well be that at the end of the day, data management will pay for the proliferation of advanced lighting controls. The case needs to be made however, that LED lighting systems should be installed in concert with advanced lighting control systems in order to take full advantage of what LED technology has to offer.

White tuning The circadian rhythm, our body’s internal ‘clock’, closely follows our planet’s dawn-day-dusk, and night cycles. It is strongly believed that long-term disruption to this cycle can have significant side effects.

lighting

LEDs with advanced controls are capable of mimicking this daily cycle, bringing indoors the cues that are essential for healthy circadian rhythms. The correlated colour temperature (CCT) of white-tunable LEDs can be adjusted from a reddish light (~2500 K) to a blueish light (~6000K) and its luminance can be adjusted from bright to dim.

Tuning a light’s spectral colour and intensity in order to suit the space or time of day conditions could lead to improved health and productivity at home, school, work and in care centres and hospitals.

Visible improvement of patients’ sleep patterns are mentioned in case studies from extended care homes using dynamic whitetunable lighting to attempt to entrain the circadian system by replicating the levels of lighting produced by the sun throughout the day (less intense, redder light in the morning and evening and brighter, bluer light midday). Unlike people in hospital-like quarters, students in elementary or secondary schools are less at risk of circadian disruption. Instead of replicating outdoor lighting conditions in school studies, lighting was changed to produce certain responses from the students. Under bright bluish light, cortisol and alertness levels are higher; this can result in greater focus. Conversely under warm reddish light, melatonin is high and alertness is lower. The resulting less stressful student mindset might be ideal for group work and creative projects. Teachers could decide, based on the learning material, which lighting mode to use in order to achieve the best type of learning conditions.

Visible Light Communication Artificial lighting is required when performing visual tasks in nondaylight conditions, so most interior spaces contain permanently fixed light fixtures. The regularity of fixture spacing often makes it suitable for the integration between lighting fixtures and the IT network. Nothing exemplifies this better than VLC (Visual Light Communication) technology, which is a true symbiosis between illumination and communication, where lighting and data services share a common platform. VLC uses the lighting system as an essential component in the development of connectivity and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Turning on and off thousands of times per second, LED sources operate at very high frequencies. These frequencies relate closely to the wavelengths of light that are visible to humans. We see this light as being continuously ‘on’, when in fact, it is not. Being digital, LED sources with their very high operating frequencies can be used to optically receive and transmit data. This is different than transmitting data wirelessly by radio or when using permanently fixed wires and optical cables. With LEDs, data transmission can occur wirelessly, anywhere there is an LED light fixture. Also data intensity of the visible spectrum is about 103 larger than for wireless radio applications.

By injecting the “zero-one” data bits over the light modulation of LEDs it is possible to achieve illumination and data transfer simultaneously. In this way, both interior lighting of a room and data transfer can be achieved without the need of an additional communication system.

Some of the early VLC applications can be now seen in the retail sector.

Combining LED fixtures enabled with indoor location technology and smart phone/ tablet apps, retailers can identify the location of shoppers and provide messages relevant to each store visit like food recipes for browsed ingredients or coupons for similar products. Similarly, museums can provide an added experience to patrons by downloading additional text, audio or video information when visitors are near selected exhibits.

Closing thoughts In a not-so distant future LED lights will form parts of complex communication networks where sensors and controls join forces to maximize safety, comfort, convenience, affordability, health and profit, resulting in such features as interior lights that brighten or dim when someone enters the building, or road lights that brighten when a fire engine approaches and dim to reduce stray light pollution. DQ

VLC uses the lighting system as an essential component in the development of connectivity…

Cristian Suvagau is team lead, conservation & energy management engineering at BC Hydro.

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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lighting

The LED Revolution Integrated LED lighting is the future

By Brittney Hayes

Gem Waterfall 3 light chandelier using integrated LED modules in blown glass pendants by Hammerton Studio.

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Lighting trends are constantly changing, but something that isn’t going away is LED technology, so here are some quick facts to help choose the right fixture for your next project.

Although it feels like LED is a recent development, it has actually been around for quite a long time.

The red LED diode was discovered first, back in the 60s, and the green shortly thereafter, but it was the invention of the blue LED in 1992

that finally allowed us to begin incorporating it into products like televisions and electronic devices.

When LED first hit the consumer market, it was in those bright and very blue Christmas ‘icicle’ lights.

Before the technology could be applied to the residential lighting market, a solution had to be found to make the LED more tolerable, as well as dimmable. When looking at an LED diode, there is a yellow dot, but that is not actually the light source, it

is a coating of yellow phosphor over the blue diode. The thickness and strength of the phosphor coating is what determines the colour temperature: a very thin layer will give cool whites and a very thick layer will give warm yellows and burnt oranges.

The lighting industry is most excited about LED as it allows the design of fixtures to be smaller, more appealing to the consumer and more energy efficient. Building codes are being updated to include stricter

lighting

regulations on energy consumption, to the extent that some cities and municipalities are passing codes that require all new-build lighting to be LED. The 100, 75 and 60 watt lamps are banned from use and this is only the beginning, soon medium based sockets in general will be a thing of the past.

Traditional incandescent lighting uses resistors to allow the metal filaments to build up heat to the point that they glow burning hot. To do this, they require a lot of electricity (wattage). LED uses semi-conductors so they conduct electricity instead of resisting it, and therefore require much less energy to produce light. They also emit less heat by using what is called a ‘heat sink’ to help dissipate the heat, usually hidden behind the LED board.

Currently, an LED light source can be incorporated into lighting fixtures in one of two ways: with aftermarket LED lamps or by choosing fixtures that use ‘integrated LED’, where the light source is built right into the fixture. LED lamps come in just about every type from mediumbase PARs and A19s (usual screw-in lamps) to tiny bi-pins for use in lowvoltage pendants. They can range in colour temperatures from a warm 2700K to a bright white 5000K and beyond. They are energy efficient and are rated to last much longer than incandescent lamps (25,000 hours versus 2,500). Manufacturers are learning how to incorporate LED diodes into lamps in the most incredible ways — everything from vintage squirrel-cage Edison-style lamps to fluorescent plumen-style lamps in LED versions.

However, it is integrated LED that is truly the future of LED

lighting. Building the LED right into the fixture allows for two things: assured energy efficiency (as there is no way to change out the lamp to a higher wattage) and freedom of design. Modern, contemporary styles are leaning towards integrated LED because they can create sleek, minimalist lines and designs by using LED tape light. Traditional and vintage styles are starting to use integrated LED by building around small modules and LED boards that can be recessed into the fixture.

Currently there are two types of integrated LED lighting: AC LED and DC LED. AC electricity is what runs in every electrical grid in North America and powers homes and buildings. DC electricity is what is used in smaller electronics that sometimes require battery power, like laptops and video game consoles. DC LED requires a driver to convert the AC electricity to DC, and this driver is usually located in the canopy, or is sometimes hidden in the body of the fixture. Often DC LED is low voltage as well, so it will require a transformer in addition to the driver, to convert the 120V electricity to 12V. AC LED is both driverless and is 120V, so there is no need for a transformer. It is the most revolutionary LED technology we have to date and allows for smaller canopies and backplates, easier install and slimmer profiles. It is dimmable, available in a myriad of colour temperatures and boasts a CRI of 90+ in most applications. AC LED is being incorporated into commercial, institutional, as well as residential lighting applications.

The elimination of remote components and advances in the technology has brought the price level down to

Moondew outdoor wall sconce using integrated LED boards for both up and down light by Kuzco Lighting.

be on par with incandescent fixtures using after-market lamps. Most importantly, integrated LED fixtures are rated to last for 15 to 20 years, so just like any other large appliance in the home, maintenance is almost non-existent.

Integrated LED lighting has come a long way, with many styles like chandeliers, flush mounts, wall sconces, outdoor lighting and exterior bollards. Available in warm colours with soft finishes, integrated LED will create a comfortable, well-lit and environmentally friendly space for clients. DQ Brittney Hayes has been a lighting manufacturer’s representative with Nuvo Sales Group for eight years, and four of those years have been spent working directly with the design community on residential, commercial, and institutional projects all across western Canada. She specializes in training architects, engineers and designers on new and emerging lighting technologies. www.nuvosales.com Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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Lighting

Transformative Urban Lighting When Beauty Becomes a Necessity

By Ellie Naikan

Illumination of Queen Elizabeth Theatre for ‘ Drum Calling Festival ’ as part of Canada 150 Celebration.

A dynamic sound and light installation.

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DESIGN QUARTERLY | Winter 2018

With the rapid change of cities, days and nights have different functions more than before. Today, 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66 per cent by 2050, according to a UN report. Mega-cities — those with more than 10 million people — are increasing in number, and rural populations are expected to decrease as urban populations continue to grow.

This demographic change has led to a change in urban life after dark, driven by rising 24/7 economies. The streets and exterior public spaces don’t serve only to bring pedestrians or vehicles safely from point A to B. They have become the unseen mesh that connects cultures, groups and individuals together. With most people spending the majority of their time in enclosed spaces during the day, life after dark in public places may be their only encounter with open spaces in a city.

Lighting should reinforce urban design so a city can function after dark as well as by day. The majority of city planners currently focus on their designs for daytime use, with the nighttime function and lighting of building facades, streets, public spaces, transportation, and landscapes often neglected.

Whereas city life may be vibrant by day, by night it transforms to dark or over-lit streets, alleys, and plazas; the commercial buildings change to cold

Lighting

masses of steel, stone and glass. The colours and textures of the city fade away with peculiar shapes and shadows rising from the darkness.

We are not able to build new cities, however we have the opportunity to rebuild our cities. It is tremendously important to address the night life in our urban centres, and skilled illumination is one of the main pillars for contributing to this context.

One of the biggest issues in modern city night life is isolation — a lack of community and sense of belonging. The ability to walk on your own through the city at night, yet not feel alone is the result of successful lighting design in urban settings. The beauty of illuminated architecture, streets and structures accompanies you. The high quality lighting design of public spaces offers places for individuals to connect, walk around and maintain healthy lifestyles, or relax and recharge.

Creating holistic lighting designs for vitality and inclusivity at night is the key. Illumination should be designed for people and not for vehicles alone. A vibrant city encourages people to get out of their cars and walk or cycle. What pedestrians see and where they look are completely different from motorists’ perspectives, and lighting should serve the purpose of making public spaces more attractive to pedestrians.

The concept of ‘brighter is better’ also needs to be challenged; instead, designers can think about the skilled use of contrast at night.

Uniform lighting can be replaced by carefully curated lightscapes that utilize a combination of ambient lighting, focal points and colorful accents. And many overhead lighting concepts can be transformed to enveloping lighting concepts by

lighting from above, underneath, and all around us.

Although restrictions in energy codes and concerns about light pollution are important considerations for designing sustainably and responsibly, immense changes in LED technology and lighting controls open new possibilities for illuminating our cities with no compromise on the quality and beauty of our urban night life. New technology for smart cities has also revolutionized urban lighting design to another degree. It can change urban lighting from ambient to dynamic, from dynamic to responsive and from responsive to interactive now, providing endless possibilities to integrate lighting into the entire urban structure of cities at night.

Studies have proven the healing power of art and beauty. The brain connects art and beauty to emotional and hormonal changes, which result in reduced stress and anxiety. By using light as a medium for creating beauty and art, public spaces and structures are elevated into mesmerizing and healing environments for the public.

One-size-fits-all lighting solutions need to be exchanged with concepts that celebrate diversity in lighting

our public spaces. As developers, architects and city planners start to re-evaluate how spaces are experienced at night, the role of lighting designers becomes more critical in rebuilding the urban night life.

Light has the ability to connect individuals and cultures together.

We see examples of this during the Christmas season when light is used as a respite from the long, dark nights of winter, and to set the mood for holiday festivities. There are also illumination festivals, such as the Festival of Lights in Lyon in winter and the Celebration of Light in Vancouver in summer, where the powerful medium of light brings communities together.

Imagine how beautiful would it be if your night walk on the streets or in public spaces brings you the feeling of walking in a gallery of skillfully illuminated pieces that only reveal themselves in the dark. Lighting has become the element that connects cities with citizens now. DQ

Lighting design for Telus Garden in Vancouver B.C.

Internationally recognized for her award-winning lighting design, Ellie Niakan (CLD, LC) brings more than 17 years of experience to Integral Group in Vancouver, where she leads the Integral Light Studio.

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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ida

The Function of Beauty

By Jacqui McFarland

It typically goes something like this: You’ve been hired to create a design that truly sets your client apart — to inspire their workforce, attract top talent, intrigue clients, entice new customers and perpetuate success. Excited and inspired, you throw your heart and soul into a design solution that is novel, authentic, meets functional needs, and yes the budget.

Then the project goes to tender. Its novelty is perceived as being difficult to achieve, and consequently, expensive. It then suffers the dreaded fate of ‘value engineering’ — a term similar to ‘Friendly Fire’: something horrific made to sound completely reasonable.

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The design is then reduced to a safe solution that meets less nuanced targets.

This was a not-so-recent occurrence of mine, triggering a two-year pursuit in understanding the function of beauty. When did beauty fall from grace? When did it become perceived as frivolous, expensive and ultimately expendable as a design consideration?

Is it even valuable? Is it universal?

And if so, how does one achieve it?

In Plato’s time, almost 2,400 years ago, beauty was one of the three highest virtues, known as an ‘eternal verity’ along with truth and goodness. It was an ideal that pushed us to higher aspirations, let alone basic

civility. It was equated with love as a necessary quality for perpetuating attraction, for forming bonds outside of ourselves and developing compassion for the welfare of others.

Vitruvius, as we learned in Design 101, declared that successful architecture consists of three qualities: firmitas (it will stand up), utilitas (meet functional needs), and venustas, (first equated with ‘beauty’, then ‘delight’, and most recently, ‘love’.) This is the architecture that is still standing, blows our mind, and incites us to expend hard earned savings to visit. These are the places which remind us that the human potential is staggering, and

Fernie night sky by Christopher Drebnisky.

ida

when encouraged, we are capable of creating places that inspire, ignite, and enlighten.

Our notion of beauty began as something that was created through divine inspiration as a mirror of the cosmos, and by the 19th century, digressed to something replicated in a formulaic style — ultimately deserving of its shallow reputation.

It was (and still is) associated with being subjective, a matter of taste, and limited to only those who can afford it. Aware that the term beauty had become diluted, German philosopher Immanuel Kant declared that beauty was better defined as ‘sublime’, and the experience of something is how we come to know it as beautiful.

Synonyms aligned with ‘sublime’ according to the Oxford Dictionary include: exalted, elevated, noble, lofty, awe-inspiring, awesome, majestic, magnificent, imposing, glorious, supreme, grand…

Who doesn’t want to feel that?

We have all experienced this feeling of awe in one form or another, and know full well what happens: we are jolted into the present moment, and our senses are ignited.

We feel smaller in the presence of greatness and have a desperate need to share what we’ve experienced.

(Hence the success of Instagram).

But did you know we also become more compassionate and interested in the fate of others?

Dachner Keltner, Ph.D., and professor of psychology at the University of California Berkley, conducted a series of experiments demonstrating that when participants were exposed to a significant natural phenomena (i.e. a large stand of eucalyptus trees), they were more inclined to help someone in need than their counterparts who were

taken to a bland building. According to Keltner, they also reported feeling less entitled and self-important than the other study participants did.

(Keltner is also a founding director of the Greater Good Science Center, which links empirical evidence to awe and compassion. More robust accounts of their work are found here: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/awe) Awe inspires wonder, which fosters curiousity, which triggers the imagination, which leads to discovery. It is available and affordable to all, particularly when our environment allows us access to nature, and connects us to the larger world with its seasonal changes and rhythms of life. In the built environment, it may mean something as simple as creating a single space of respite affording the best views and offering design features that trigger a sense of ‘wow’.

In fact, the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), in their mission to improve human health and well-being in buildings, recognizes these kinds of spaces as an essential part of influencing positive mental health. Aspects of beauty must be demonstrated in order to achieve WELL Building certification, and include access to nature and inclusion of art.

So let’s take a stand for beauty. Let’s not shortcut Vitruvius’ equation for lasting, classic design and consider only function and integrity as being essential. For the sake of human vitality, be bold and unrelenting in a pursuit for inspired spaces. Defend its value in those value-engineering discussions, so that beauty is considered indispensable for the enrichment of our humanity. DQ

Red Deer College Centre for Health Wellness and Sport, Stantec Architecture Ltd.

Jacqui McFarland, BID, MDes, NCIDQ, is senior associate, interior design at Stantec Architecture.

Winter 2018 | DESIGN QUARTERLY

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news

Combustible Materials in Cladding Design The Grenfell Tower Fire highlights the architect’s responsibility to the public

insulation usually requires full systems fire testing to CAN/ULC S134 Fire Test of Exterior Wall Assemblies.

The AIBC Building Envelope Committee has published a regulatory review article to highlight some of the duties and responsibilities of architects in the design of cladding systems, both for new buildings and for the rehabilitation of existing buildings, following the tragic Grenfell Tower Fire.

According to the committee, defining moments like the Grenfell Tower Fire challenge the profession to reflect on their responsibilities and the regulatory framework that supports the built environment.

Background On June 14, 2017, a fire occurred at the 24 storey, 67 metre high, Grenfell Tower apartment building in London, England. More than 70 people were killed in the building fire, or succumbed to their injuries afterwards. The building was a 1960s built concrete frame structure with concrete spandrel panels. It had recently been re-clad and re-glazed.

According to reports, the fire broke out inside a suite on the fourth floor.

In less than 15 minutes the entire 30

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structure was engaged in fire, both on the exterior and the interior. The Grenfell Tower did not have automatic fire sprinklers. There was only one exit stair for the building, and the doors to access the exit stair were not functioning properly. Fire separations within the building may not have functioned, or were not in place.

Responsibilities The building code Part 3 requirements, which address fire spread in buildings, are a key component of the code’s provisions for life safety.

Architects need to be aware of their responsibility to design exterior envelopes that meet the code’s requirements for the control of fire in and through the cladding system. They also need to be aware that the use of foam plastic insulation both inside the building and within the building envelope is restricted by the code.

Where the insulation, cladding and cladding support includes combustible materials such as foam plastic insulation, special care must be taken to confirm that they meet the requirements of the code. Use of combustible

Building Codes The building codes applicable in the province, the BC Building Code (BCBC), Vancouver’s Building Bylaw (VBBL), and the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC), include measures such as at least two exit systems, as well as automatic fire sprinklers, to prevent the type of outcome experienced at Grenfell Tower for new buildings.

It is important to note however that many older buildings do not have sprinklers. In these instances, recladding and other renovations to these buildings require attention to provisions for the use of combustible materials in non-combustible assemblies.

Architects are responsible for the application of Part 3 of the BCBC, VBBL, and NBCC, and should review Subsections 3.1.5 and 3.1.11.

Particularly relevant are 3.1.5.1., 3.1.5.5. and 3.1.5.12., which deal with the use of combustible materials in cladding system for a building required to be of non-combustible construction.

Subsection 3.1.11., Fire Blocks in Concealed Spaces, is also important to consider. Based on National Research Council (NRC) research, limiting cavities in walls to 25 mm ‎stops the ‘chimney’ effect and limits fire spread risk.

Architect Role in Design and Post Design Phases In addition to the architect’s

responsibility for the design of the building enclosure, including the cladding system, the BCBC and VBBL require field review during construction of Part 3 buildings to verify that the work is constructed substantially as designed.

During construction, owners are often presented with “value engineering” decisions. This is especially prevalent in residential construction and design build projects where costs savings during construction are expected. Changes in envelope materials and assemblies must be rigorously evaluated by the architect (as they would be in the design phase) to confirm that they do not compromise code requirements.

The architect, owner and constructor need to work together to manage changes in the design during construction to avoid non-conforming substitutions of materials and their arrangements on site. The architect’s review of the shop drawings and materials submittals must include verification that the code requirements called for in the design are included in the fabricator’s proposed materials and assemblies.

Once on site, the architect’s review must include verification that the code requirements called for in the design are included in the constructor’s materials and assemblies. This is especially important where combustible materials are being used in noncombustible construction.

For the full article, go to AIBC http://aibc.ca/category/news/aibchappenings/ DQ

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