Awards

AIA Committee on Education / Society for College and University Planning Excellence in Architecture and Excellence in Planning Honour Award, 2005

Canadian Wood Council, Wood Works High Performance Building Award, 2005

Governor General of Canada Medal of Excellence in Architecture, 2004

Vancouver Regional Construction Association Awards of Excellence, General Contractors Award of Merit, (For a project under 10 Million), 2002

The Wood Design Awards, Citation Award, 2002

Lieutenant Governor of BC, Medal for Excellence 2002

International Green Building Challenge, 2002

The Nicola Valley Institute of Technology is designed to reflect the cultural characteristics of aboriginal students, and to provide the state of the art learning spaces that promote traditional First Nations ways and foster student success. The building's program includes classrooms, faculty offices, social spaces, labs, a bookstore, a cafeteria, and a library. Functional spaces have been located to eliminate any sense of hierarchy within the building.

The design process involved intensive user group interaction and many site visits with native elders. The Institute's semi-circular shape is the first gesture towards a circular master plan that was chosen because of the cultural significance of the circle. The building is oriented to the cardinal points, with the main entrance on the east axis to symbolize the start of the day.

The building emerges from its sloping site, evolving into a three storey structure at its center. The inner strip of the semicircular rooftop is planted, reinforcing the sense that the building has grown out of the landscape and supporting the minimization of disruption to the surrounding area. Traditional native structures in this area were mainly pithouses, with small diameter local species of trees used for structure. This building is a combination of wood and concrete with a wood column structural system, visually representing pithouse poles rising up through the interior space.

The building is designed as a cold climate green building, a commitment that is clearly in keeping with traditional aboriginal structures and values. A glazed ventilation stack with operable windows is central to this function, creating airflow patterns that ventilate the building naturally. Tensioned fabric is used in the ventilation stack for shading; a reference to stretched skins in traditional aboriginal design, this technique is also used for the front entrance canopy. The exterior is clad with horizontal wood strip siding.

A challenging and successful scheme that adheres to the rigorous budget requirements of the Ministry of Education's value analysis process, this is the first phase of a much larger campus plan for the 43 acre site, and will be followed by campus housing.