Awards

Union of BC Municipalities Excellence Award in Leadership & Innovation, Mid-Size Municipality, 2004

Design Exchange / National Post Awards, Gold Medal Winner, 2004

AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects, Winner, 2004

Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Medal in Architecture, 2004

AIBC Innovation Award, 2004

Community Energy Association, Energy Aware Award , 2003

The City of White Rock Operations Building has received a LEED™ Gold rating, making it the first new building in Canada to achieve this standing!

has received a LEED™ Gold rating, making it the first new building in Canada to achieve this standing!

To date, the City of White Rock Engineering and Operations staff have been housed in a series of trailers and a small old wooden frame building in the City Works Yard. In 2001, the City requested proposals from a limited number of local Architectural Firms which have experience with the design and construction of "Green", environmentally sustainable buildings. Busby + Associates was selected to design the new facility for the City with the mandate to make it as "Green" as reasonably possible, in accordance with the City's own policy of promoting Green Strategies in all their developments and planning strategies.

The resulting design locates the new facility over an abandoned Sanitary Treatment Plant, using the existing buried tank walls as the foundations for the new building. The building developed into two separate pavilions: a two-storey component on the north end and a one-storey building on the south end. The north building is built on the existing basement of the old Sewage Treatment Plant Control Building and houses the departmental elements which are only periodically used (Field Crew facilities, change rooms, first aid room, meeting and lunch rooms). The south building houses the office component of the department, the roof of which will be partially used as a roof deck and the majority of it made into a "green", planted roof.

Sustainable strategies incorporated in this project will result in:

• a reduction in site water use by approximately 90% (2 million litres/year)
• a reduction in building water usage by over 20%
• a reduction in energy consumption by about 55% over ASHRAE 90.1