The designers of one of Canada’s most innovative educational buildings have received a prestigious award for their focus on woodwork in modern architectural teaching and design. LGA Architectural Partners, responsible for designing the McEwen School of Architecture building in downtown Sudbury, has been granted the Ontario Wood WORKS! 2017 prize in the “$10-million Institutional” category. The prize was handed out by the Canadian Wood Council on November 1, 2017 at a special ceremony in Toronto.
“This award is well-deserved for the innovative Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) wing of the McEwen School of Architecture” said Dr. Terrance Galvin, Founding Director of the MSoA. “The LGA team did their research in wood early on in the design process of the School, successfully applying for a $350,000 Centre for Research & Innovation in the Bio-economy (CRIBE) grant early on in the design process. The design team’s work has paid off with this award.”
Woodwork and design have been at the heart of the McEwen project from the very beginning. Since classes began in 2013, students have focused on creative uses of traditional, sustainable resources as well as state-of-the-art designs in their work and have already won a number of prestigious awards, including the 2016 Bergen International Wood Festival in Norway.
That same philosophy guided the LGA Architectural Partners design for Phase 2 of the McEwen School’s building which opened at the beginning of 2017. From exposed beams and innovative integration of wood features with high-tech equipment, to the preserved wood features of the historic CP Telegraph train shed building which houses the Fabrication Labs, the blending of natural wood design and modern concepts is key to the facility’s beauty and functionality.
“The McEwen School of Architecture is a prime example of the ingenuity and bold thinking that make our university a Canadian leader in education and research,” said Pierre Zundel, Laurentian University’s Interim President and Vice-Chancellor. “I congratulate the LGA team for this award and their outstanding ability to place our region’s forestry resources and landscape at the heart of the project. Those elements, along with our country’s Indigenous peoples and French and English cultures, combine to make the McEwen School of Architecture a unique place to study innovation in order to design buildings using renewable resources for the future.”
About Laurentian University
Laurentian University offers an outstanding university experience in English and French, with a comprehensive approach to Indigenous education. Laurentian University, situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinabe peoples of Atikameksheng First Nation, prepares students as agents of change and empowers them to create innovative responses to local and global challenges. Laurentian’s students benefit from small class sizes and exceptional post-graduation employment rates. With nine Canada Research Chairs and eighteen research centres, Laurentian is a recognized leader in its specialized areas of research strength, which include mining innovation and exploration, stressed watershed systems, particle astrophysics and rural and northern children’s health. Laurentian University has secured over $100 million in research income in the past five years.