Gleneagles Community Centre in West Vancouver, British Columbia by Patkau Architects Inc.

Article source: Patkau Architects Inc.

The Gleneagles Community Centre is located on a small, gently sloping site adjacent to a public golf course. The program is organized on three levels to minimize the building footprint. By subtly reshaping the cross-sectional topography of the site, the lower level and the intermediate level are both located on grade.

Front View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

• Architect: Patkau Architects Inc.
• Name of Project: Gleneagles Community Centre
• Location: West Vancouver, British Columbia
• Year: 2000-2003
• Client: Corporation of the District of West Vancouver
• Project Team: Omer Arbel, Greg Boothroyd, Joanne Gates, Sa­mantha Hayes, Patrick O’Sullivan, John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, David Shone, Craig Simms
• Consultants: Vaughan Landscape Planning & Design –  landscape architect, Fast & Epp Structural Engineers – structural engineer, Earth Tech Canada Inc. –  mechanical/electrical engineer, Web­ster Engineering Ltd – civil engineer, Gage-Babcock & Associates – code consultant, Susan Morris Specifications – specifications consultant, McSquared System Design Group – audiovisual consultant, Gallop/Varley – signage consultant
• Project Manager: Maurice J. Ouellette Consulting
• Contractor: Country West Construction Ltd.
• Photography: James Dow / Patkau Architects

The intermedi­ate level is accessible from a generous porch along the street and contains a community “liv­ing room,” café, meeting room, administration, and child care facilities. The lower level opens on the opposite side of the building to the covered terraces and courtyard spaces adjacent to the golf course and includes a gymnasium, multipurpose room, arts room, youth room, and outdoor specialty area. The upper level accom­modates fitness facilities.

Front View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

The sectional arrangement of interior spaces activates and energizes the building. The volume of the gymnasium rises through the three levels; walls that separate this volume from adjacent spaces are glazed to facilitate visual connection between the various programs within the building. These simultaneous views of multiple activities animate the interior; the life of the building and the energy of the place are palpable to the community within and without.

Exterior View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

The structural system consists of cast-in-place concrete floor slabs, insulated double-wythe composite tilt-up concrete end walls and a heavy timber roof. This structure is an important component of the interior climate-control system. The structure acts as a huge thermal-storage mass, a giant static heat pump that absorbs, stores, and releases energy to create an extremely stable indoor climate, with constant temperatures inside occupied spaces, regardless of the exterior climate. Radiant heat­ing and cooling in both floors and walls main­tains a set temperature; the concrete surfaces act alternately as emitters or absorbers.

Interior View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

The thermal energy for this system is provided by water-to-water heat pumps via a ground-source heat exchanger under the adjacent permeable parking area. Roof overhangs provide protection from winter rains, shield interiors from excessive local solar loads in summer, and discharge rain water into adjacent landscape swales to permeate back into the natural landscape.

Indoor playground (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Ventilation is accomplished using a displace­ment system. 100% fresh air is tempered and supplied at low velocity at low levels. This air rises, flushing contaminants upward, where it is then captured and exhausted through a heat re­covery ventilator. Since air is not being used as a medium for climate control, opening windows and doors does not affect the performance of the heating and cooling system.

Indoor playground (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

The mechanical system required to accom­plish this is 40% of the capacity of a convention­ally sized HVAC plant, resulting in both smaller mechanical equipment and space require­ments. The specific annual energy consump­tion per unit area (the entire HVAC system uses electrically powered ground-source heat pumps), based on the period of February 2004 to January 2005, was 139 kWh/m2 year. This is less than 40% of 400 kWh/m2 year which is the average annual energy consumption per unit area of a typical commercial building in the same climatic region.

Indoor playground (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Indoor playground (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Interior View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Interior View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Exterior View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Exterior View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Side View (Images Courtesy James Dow / Patkau Architects)

Tags: British Columbia, West Vancouver

Category: Community Centre

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 16th, 2011 at 4:42 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.