Vancouver, BC, Canada
Awards: 2011 Merit Award, AIBC Awards for Excellence in Architecture + 2011 SAB Canadian Green Building Awards + 2009 Excellence in Green Building Practices, GLOBE Foundation + World Green Buildings Council
This project achieved a LEED Platinum rating.
Located on the southeast shore of False Creek, this facility is part of the Athletes Village development for the 2010 Winter Olympics, serving as a media centre during the Olympics and being turned over to the community after the games. The program for the project brings together a varied mix of community based and commercial program elements, all in the service of the neighbourhood being developed on the disused lands of this former industrial waterfront.
The core elements of the community centre program include all of the activities typically associated with a community centre: a gymnasium, activity and meeting rooms, a fitness room, as well as associated service and administrative spaces. Added to this are the activities of a boating centre, neighbourhood child-care facility and a restaurant/dining terrace.
Creekside Community Centre embodies a number of sustainable building strategies that propose to balance environmental responsiveness and resource efficiency with the programmatic and social requirements of a public building on a prominent site. Community-wide measures include an across the site remediation of contaminated shoreline soils as well as a collective commitment to a Neighbourhood Energy Utility that utilizes energy extracted from the sewage system to heat buildings and provide domestic hot water.
The building-specific measures were developed through a series of energy models of the building envelope. Window openings and solar shading devices were developed to control solar gain and maximize the day lighting of the interior spaces. The thermal mass of the concrete building is used to absorb and store heat energy and reduce the cooling requirements of the building. This is coupled with a radiant heating and cooling system that in turn permits the building to use a passive displacement ventilation system. The building uses the height of the central atrium space to draw outdoor air from windows in the occupied areas, through the circulation corridors and exhausting out the through the top of the atrium. Additional measures include a rainwater collection system from the green roof surfaces that is stored in the basement, supplying water for toilets and irrigation of the day care planting. Rooftop solar hot water collectors are used to augment building heating and domestic hot water heating. These solar collectors are also used in conjunction with an absorption chiller to cool the day care and restaurant when necessary.
Design Architect: Nick Milkovich Architects
Design Consultant: Arthur Erickson
Associate Architect: Francl Architecture
Size: 44,000 sf
Completed: 2009