AIA Canada - Navigating Toward Zero: Transforming Community Recreation Facilities for a Sustainable Future
When: Thursday 13 June 2024 @ 12:00 (Eastern Time US and Canada)
Where: Online
CES Credits - Estimated 1.0 LU for AIA Members
Description
Arena and aquatic facilities are often the most recognizable and significant public buildings in many communities. Given their high occupant loads, long operational hours and inherently large volumes, these buildings face significant challenges as our industry accepts the responsibility of steering the built world towards a zero-emissions future. These facilities must also sustain challenging interior environments that require specially treated air, water, and ice—all of which are delivering tightly regulated conditions regardless of exterior temperatures. This presentation will discuss strategies to lower embodied and operational carbon and reduce operational energy in this most essential of community building types. The session will focus on two case studies: the Western North York Community Centre, on track to be one of Canada’s first Net-Zero Energy aquatics-based zero-carbon project, and the King Township Recreation Centre, which is the first facility in Canada combining arenas and aquatics to receive CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Building Design certification. We will describe the challenges and opportunities encountered on our path to a Zero Carbon future.
Speaker Bios
Jeanne Ng is a Senior Principal at MJMA Architecture & Design. She has been instrumental in furthering MJMA’s architecture and community engagement goals since 1997. She has taken a key role in many of the firm’s most notable community-focused projects that foster social cohesion, such as the Regent Park (Pam McConnell) Aquatic Centre, the Audley Recreation Centre & Library, and the Wellesley Community Centre and St. James Town Library. A champion of sustainability, she has led research initiatives like MJMA’s Embodied Carbon Benchmarking Study for community recreation centres, and is the Project Principal on the Western North York Community Centre—which is on target to be one of Canada’s first Net-Zero aquatic-based community centres.
Marc Downing, a Principal at MJMA, has been practicing his highly environmentally sensitive approach to architecture—first developed during the pursuit of a Bachelor of Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Architecture, both at the University of Waterloo. As a core member of MJMA’s community and recreation design team, Marc has led arena projects across Canada. His projects are typically part of a larger public precinct, forming relationships to existing buildings at the civic scale. Marc’s work is rooted in the idea that assembly space is always malleable; the challenges of multiple program types necessitate hybrid, multi-use design solutions. He is the Project Principal on the King Township-Wide Recreation Complex which is the first public aquatic and arena facility to achieve Zero Carbon Design certification in Canada.
