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Architects: Hariri Pontarini Architects
- Area: 10684 m²
- Year: 2021
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Lead Architects: Siamak Hariri, Doron Meinhard, Ladan Niknam
Text description provided by the architects. The design competition for Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business called for a landmark building at a high-profile campus crossroads. The school sought to express its core values of creativity, connection, and innovation in built form and to create a place that welcomes and inspires students and staff. The design response is a beacon of visual interest that holds a tree-lined view that extends from the Rideau River to Carleton’s entry plaza and transit hub.
The principal design concept is an inviting curving form, a gentle arc expressed both externally and internally to convey an embrace as one enters and feels the energy of the entire school wrapped around you. Radiating from the skylit atrium, the central space of gathering is legible and on display. The ground floor houses a café and opens dramatically with a winding feature stair to upper levels where glass-lined classrooms and break-out spaces provide technology-enabled learning and collaboration opportunities beyond the classroom.
The exterior is unified with bold, vertical precast fins that wrap the six-story structure to reduce solar heat gain and accentuate its curved form. Exposed concrete floors withstand high-traffic use and are an economizing move that blends with the design aesthetic to contrast a variety of natural materials such as locally sourced stone and oak. In a climate of long winters, the structure conveys a comfortable, light-filled space and sits above the nexus of the campus pedestrian tunnel system.
Sustainable design is embedded in every facet of this hybrid building. The podium is constructed with in-situ concrete to resolve the transfers required over the tunnel system and between the ground and the second floor. The long spans required in the large classrooms were resolved by using BubbleDeck in the slabs. This innovative method achieved a two-way slab that spans over 12 meters (40ft) in length. A total of 11,300 bubbles, each a 25cm (10-inch) hollow ball of recycled plastic, was laid in the form around which concrete was poured. This displaced nearly 223 tonnes of concrete or equivalent to 100 kg of concrete per every kilogram of recycled plastic. The structure then switches from concrete to structural steel in the upper floors to make it lighter still. This allows the column grid for the office floor plates to be significantly narrower, freeing up critical program space. In order to secure the foundation to bedrock, the depth required presented an opportunity to locate the mechanical systems in the basement rather than the penthouse. With the majority of the population and program area located on the lower floors, this reduced the ductwork required with a predicted energy savings of 13 percent.
The Nicol Building aspires to create both presence, intimacy, and a sense of belonging. The ground floor hive encourages collaboration through flexible configuration. The adjacent Innovation Hub - a startup incubator for hackathons and pitchfests, the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, and Student Resource Centre are designed to break down silos, foster cross-disciplinary interaction, and strengthen industry partnerships, all of which are reinforced by the building’s embracing form.
