Inside, the team removed portions of the second floor and created a “pitch stage,” which acts as the entrance, the connection between the two levels, and the nexus of the space that encourages both organized and impromptu meetings. This ramp can be easily removed later if vehicular access is no longer needed. The design team proposed that the Platform occupy the first two levels of the building to animate the street frontage and created a suspended light-framed vehicular ramp cutting through the central airspace, to remove the vehicular circuit from within the structure and offer an unexpected user experience. This was the first test of the adaptable design-requiring conversion of the plan into an open and flexible office space that can be easily modified for use by individuals and small and large groups, occupying the space on an hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly basis. Halfway into the design process, the client solidified a partnership with Platform, an entrepreneurial hub for the city’s burgeoning innovation community. The members of the shroud hold a fine-grained mesh that acts as a pedestrian guardrail today, while easily and inexpensively accommodating conversion into residential/commercial suite balconies with no additional work required. The structure is enveloped in a distinctive guard shroud, raised strategically around the perimeter to provide pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular access. Spherical bollards, colored concrete patterns on the floor, and a traffic mirror ceiling ensure that the central courtyard is a lively and vibrant place with a distinctive and memorable aesthetic, enriched by additional public amenities including a café patio, and outdoor exhibition space. The vehicular entrance, with clearances that will allow for maintenance of the underground tunnel, is flanked by pedestrian and bicycle entrances and activities such as a basketball court, activating the frontage along 9th Avenue SE and framing the southern edge of the developing East Village neighborhood. The floor plates ascend on a 1-2% gradual slope to avoid the need for vehicular ramps that would eventually need to be removed.Ĭeiling heights of 4-meters, clear spans, and universal load-bearing capacity contribute to a variety of gradual or wholesale changes with low-cost ramifications. The ellipse creates a large, street-width interior courtyard and 12-meter shallow floor plates that in time will allow daylight and ventilation to pervade the interiors from multiple directions. Vehicles enter at grade, directly over the easement. The design team’s solution is a building in the form of an elliptical helix, bridging the easement, thereby recapturing much of the lost land value. The project site-adjacent to the new Calgary Library, Calgary City Hall, and the Studio Bell, (the National Music Centre)-included an unbuildable easement for an underground light rail tunnel, cutting through the middle of the project site and representing what the city determined as a 20% loss in the buildable area. The City of Calgary required a downtown parkade to free up multiple downtown lots for development. The result is a 250,000-square foot, mixed-use building, which includes an innovation center on the first and second levels, and allows for the future conversion to residential or office use Understanding the likelihood of building’s future obsolescence, 5468796 Architecture and Kasian have recreated a 510-stall parkade in downtown Winnipeg for Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) that can be easily converted into an office, light industrial, or residential building.
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