NEWS RAIC REPORT Main Street Design Challenge launched to foster innovation in Urban Design By Tanner Morton, Communications Coordinator A new Canada-wide design challenge launched on June 3, 2020 to generate responsible, sustainable, and resilient design solutions to be implemented during COVID-19 recovery, and post-pandemic, on affected main streets across the country. The Main Street Design Challenge (MSDC), developed by the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), invites all Canadian resi-
CPCI RELEASES NEW EPDS FOR WALL PANELS AND STRUCTURAL PRECAST CONCRETE
1
dents interested in place-making and design to develop solutions to help build the resiliency of main streets across the country. The Challenge demonstrates how thoughtful and innovative design plays a key role in the revitalization of main streets, including kickstarting the economy, fostering vibrant, liveable, and healthy communities, increasing public safety, reducing social isolation, and restoring the public’s confidence to return to streets and public spaces. An online portal opened for submissions on June 22, 2020—with deadlines for the dif-
ferent cycles of the competition. All submissions meeting the project guidelines will be published online on a rolling basis in a free, open-access Main Street Design Playbook on October 5, 2020—recognized across the globe as World Architecture Day. The Main Street Design Challenge is an initiative of Bring Back Main Street a nationally coordinated research and action campaign by the CUI to ensure the people, businesses, and organizations that recognize the main streets of cities and towns across Canada as a vital heart of their community.
The Canadian Precast Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI) has released new environmental product declarations (EPD) for Architectural and Insulated Wall Panels and for Structural Precast Concrete Products. The new EPDs allow architects, engineers, building owners, and other specifiers to better understand the environmental impacts of precast and prestressed concrete products. The industry-wide EPDs, jointly released by the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI) and the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI), are issued within clearly defined product groups based on the precast concrete Product Category Rules (PCR).
The EPDs were independently prepared by Athena Sustainable Materials Institute in accordance with ISO 14025 and ISO 21930; the Product Category Rules for Preparing an Environmental Product Declaration for Precast Concrete (UN CPC 3755). They were also independently verified by ASTM International (in accordance with ISO 14025) and by ndustrial Ecology Consultants (in accordance with ISO 14025 and the Product Category Rules). Get your copies at https://www.cpci.ca/en/resources/technical_publications/ and scroll down to the Sustainability section.
2
EVOLVE1 RECEIVES MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC’S SUSTAINABLE BUILDING OF THE YEAR AWARD evolv1 is the first office building in Canada to receive the Zero Carbon Building-Design Certification from the Canada Green Building Council. According to the CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Building Standard, the certification means the project modelled a zero-carbon balance for future operations, incorporated an efficient energy and ventilation system to meet a defined threshold for thermal energy intensity, and designed onsite renewable energy systems capable of providing a minimum of 5% of building energy consumption.
6
SABMag - SPRING/SUMMER 2020
The building was designed to not just maximize energy efficiency, but to produce 108% of its energy needs. As part of this mandate, all components needed to be energy-efficient, including the HVAC system. Mitsubishi Electric Heating and Cooling was selected to supply 100% of the heating and cooling to the office building. Specifically, Mitsubishi Electric’s City Multi Water-Source VRF Heat Recovery System was chosen because it not only regulates the flow of refrigerant to the fan coils, but it also changes the water flow rate to minimize the pumping energy.
The Mitsubishi Electric heat pump system is also very quiet, and is a great solution for office, commercial, education and residential applications. Thirty-six outdoor units and 148 indoor units were used in the 104,000 square foot building. On February 14, 2020, a tour was given to Terada-san, President and CEO, of Mitsubishi Electric Sales Canada Inc. along with Dermot McMorrow, VP and GM, Syed Abid, Commercial Sales Manager and Tova Davidson, Executive Director of Sustainable Waterloo. Adrian Conrad, Chief Operation Officer of the Cora Group hosted the tour. The Cora Group was awarded Mitsubishi Electric’s Sustainable Building of the Year Award. Congratulations to the Cora Group for their success in sustainable building development. 1.Terada-san, President and CEO, of Mitsubishi Electric Sales Canada Inc. presents Mitsubishi Electric’s Sustainable Building of the Year Award to Adrian Conrad, Chief Operation Officer of the Cora Group. 2.The evolv1 building.
