Work on Land

As the page on "Life Ashore" suggests, I am working in an office like many others and on a number of projects at the moment.  All are exciting in their own way, but this one for the University of Alberta is special in many ways.  When I was the University Architect and Senior Planner for the University, I could see the potential of this building that had started life in 1922 as the University's Medical School.  After World War II, the end wings were extended in 1946 and '47.  In 1951, there was an addition that started to turn the "U" shaped building into an "E".  That addition was only 1 story at the time.  Then in 1958, a major (and unsympathetic) addition was added that filled up the middle leg of the "E" and closed the open ends with a 7 storey addition.  So the entire thing looks like this:



The result is a very difficult building.  It is huge at roughly 355,000 square feet and  difficult to move around within.  The two courtyards are simply light wells at the moment and often cars are parked inside them.

The idea was to consolidate the building into an easily understood one that would become the University's administration building.  Our approach is to take out the middle wing and make the entire interior an atrium-like space.  The issue is that it would be long and narrow, but since we would be taking out some area from the centre wing, we would replace that within one side of the atrium, so here are images of how it has turned out:

Exterior from the south



Interior from the west end of the atrium



View looking at the east end infill space

Looking the other way (toward the west)