Spokes
01-12-2010, 05:56 PM
Recapping
$150M Engineering Expansion to Begin Next Year
By Eric Migicovsky and Bahman Hadji
http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/photos/2007s-3/expansion.jpg
“Hey, do you want to meet later, around noon at the Student Design Centre in E5?”
That is something students could be uttering just three years from now. New buildings are going up all around campus, and the Faculty of Engineering has decided not to be left out. Over the next four years, assuming the approval process goes as expected, construction will begin on three new buildings in addition to the planned Quantum-Nano building. An estimated 150 million dollars will be spent on the expansion project, which will add the much-needed floor space to help fulfill the Faculty of Engineering’s Vision 2010 plan.
The project will be done in three phases, one building at a time. The first building, to be called Engineering 5, was approved by the University of Waterloo Board of Governors Building & Properties Committee this past April after having gotten the initial required approvals in March. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2008 with a target completion date of January 2010.
The Faculty hired Dr. Ron Venter, former Vice-Provost at the University of Toronto, as an independent consultant. His mandate was to perform a study of the Faculty’s current and future spatial requirements against the Council of Ontario Universities’ space standard, which formulaically quantifies the amount of space required based on the number of students, faculty, and staff. At the moment, Engineering has access to roughly 38,000 net assignable square metres (nasms) of space. The unit nasm describes usable space, such as labs, lecture halls, and offices, but excludes space like corridors, walls, and washrooms. All assessment was completed without taking the Nanotechnology program into consideration, since the needs of the program will be met by their new building to be situated north of the Biology 2 building.
The Iron Warrior recently had a chance to sit down with Dr. Venter and Dean’s Office Operations Manager Sue Gooding to find out more about how the Faculty developed this massive construction plan, and get a general idea of what campus will look like after the plan is completed.
In order to fill demand and satisfy the Faculty’s Vision 2010 plan, the study concluded that Engineering would realistically need to add 22,000 nasm, bringing its total space up to 60,000 nasm. For comparison, E2 contains 7900 nasm while E3 (excluding E3X) has 7400 nasm spread over a large base footprint.
Around Engineering, one of the obvious problems is the sheer volume of corridors necessary to link the various generations of buildings together. It takes a long time to navigate between classes, offices, and libraries. “Engineering Buildings on the Waterloo campus appear to sprawl with too large a low-rise component. As new structures and add-ons have materialized a stacked feeling has been created; while the buildings are connected together, these links are often inconvenient for pedestrian traffic. I call this the corridor syndrome,” explained Dr. Venter. “In order to limit this feeling, future buildings should not just be additions to existing buildings, but entirely new structures that make good use of space and provide for an enhanced Engineering identity to benefit the student experience.”
While the development of new space is the prime objective, this expansion should also allow for the consolidation of each department’s administrative services and student support, so that each one is easily identified and has a defined presence within the complex of Engineering buildings. Only the Department of Chemical Engineering is essentially consolidated in one building, namely DWE, which was the first Engineering building built on the current campus to house the first Engineering discipline. The rest of the departments, subsequently introduced, are scattered through E2, E3, CPH, DC, and EIT, and do not have an easy roadmap from parking lots to the respective Chairs’ offices, causing difficulty for visitors. “Even when you are visiting ECE in the new and attractive EIT Building, the first thing you encounter when you walk into the building is a dinosaur!” commented Dr. Venter, referring to the fact that part of ECE resides on the top two floors of the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology (
EIT) building, shared with the Faculty of Science’s Earth Sciences Department and their museum on the ground floor. According to Dean of Engineering Adel Sedra, the new space will be divided up among some departments, but there will be a domino effect where vacated space will be renovated and distributed as well. The Chairs of each department have worked with the Dean to make a plan for their department, having been given the option of moving into these new buildings or taking over space left by other departments moving out.
The overarching plan calls for three major buildings, each with a budget of some $45-50 million, to be constructed in three phases. Due to the lack of space within Ring Road, it has become necessary to begin expanding outward. Consideration was given to North Campus and the parking lots south of University Avenue, but the choice was finally made to develop eastward. Parking Lot B, between East Campus Hall and the Davis Centre, will play host to two of the new buildings, which will be built in Phase I and Phase III. The second building, however, will be located inside Ring Road. The concept is still in development, but it will be built in close proximity to DWE, and may be located partly underground between DWE and RCH, and built up from there, with a possible link to Physics and proximity to the Tatham Centre. The Board of Governors directly selected Shore, Tilbe, Irwin & Partners as the primary architects of the three-phase plan. Their work includes EIT, as well as many other buildings for universities and colleges across Ontario.
The ideal timeline for the entire three-phase project calls for a building to be completed every year starting in 2010, with E5 opening in January 2010, the Phase II building in September 2011, and the Phase III building in December 2012.
Phase I (Engineering 5):
This phase of construction will be in the form of a 6-storey building, named E5, in what is now Parking Lot B. The plans call for a building running north-south and parallel to the train tracks, situated immediately north of the University Plaza. The first two floors of the building will comprise the ground floor plus a mezzanine area, featuring public spaces and a 1,900 nasm “Student Design Centre”. This area will serve as a lab and workshop space for student teams and groups, as well providing space to showcase the achievements of past designs. The remaining four floors will be split: The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department will get two floors, while the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering and Systems Design Engineering Departments will get one floor each. Departmental space will consist of offices for professors, faculty members, graduate students, research laboratories, meeting rooms, and potential undergraduate teaching and lab space. The Centre for Intelligent Antenna and Radio Systems, a
facility for leading-edge electromagnetic research, is also planned for the ground floor. It will feature an RF anechoic chamber (a room designed to suppress reflected electromagnetic waves) and will be funded partly by a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
The “biggest headache” of the plan, according to Venter, revolves around how to sensibly and attractively connect E5 back to campus. “It would have been amazing to link to CPH [at the north wing of the third floor], but unfortunately, that link is too far architecturally.” Instead, an overhead walkway from E5 to E3 will bridge the gap over the railroad track. The walkway must be high enough to allow a train to clear, so it must be at the third or fourth floor level. However, the nonexistence of a corresponding third or fourth floor in E3 makes this an architectural challenge, with a tower and elevator combination being one possible solution.
Phase I has been approved by the UW Board of Governors Buildings & Properties Committee. The cost of this phase was estimated at $48 million, funded through a variety of sources including $18 million from the Province of Ontario for graduate enrollment, and $12 million from the University’s operating income. $13 million is also hoped to be raised through fundraising efforts from alumni and other contributors. The Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation is also expected to contribute a large gift towards this building as part of their 10 million dollar principal milestone celebration and due to its focus on the student teams.
E5 will have a pedestrian corridor through the ground floors in the centre hopefully connecting directly to the service roadway to the south of the Davis Centre, thus serving as the new eastern gateway to campus. A beautiful quad is also planned in the future for the area between E5 and DC, which the plan hopes will be a new central meeting area for students from all faculties. The existing water drainage system next to the train tracks across from DC has the potential for being turned into a pond in the middle of this meeting area.
Phase II:
The second phase of the Engineering expansion plan seeks to provide new space resources for the Chemical Engineering Department and administrative space for the Dean’s Office, as well as other University activities under consideration. This building will be situated inside Ring Road, in close proximity to DWE and RCH. Dr. Venter suggested that the tunnel linking those two buildings be used to access additional underground classrooms adjacent to RCH, with the potential for placing Phase II directly above, possibly even connected to Physics or the Tatham Centre. Assuredly, the focus of this building would be to address the needs of Chemical Engineering and Faculty administration. However, due to its central location, this building should also house multi-use classrooms similar to RCH, as noted above.
Loss of greenspace could possibly develop as an issue with this location. The minutes from the UW Board of Governors meeting on April 3rd reflect this potential problem, stating that one Governor was unhappy. The presenters’ response was that capital expansion is necessary to support growth and that UW is working with Urban Strategies Inc., the architectural planning firm involved with this project that also worked on the 1992 Campus Master Plan, to improve quadrangles, making them more pedestrian-friendly and with a better sense of green space.
Phase II has not been approved yet, but will be put forward to the Board as construction begins on Engineering 5.
Phase III:
The final building called for will be constructed just to the east of what will be E5, completing the eastern expansion of the University and filling Parking Lot B. Less details are known about this development other than the fact that it will be linked to E5, and will be almost identical in structure (six storeys) to its twin building, except for the student design centre and the anechoic chamber. It is anticipated that the departments occupying E5, ECE, MME, and SYDE, will expand over to the adjacent floors in the Phase III building after it is completed.
When asked if the new buildings will mirror or be styled in the image of any current structures on campus, Dr. Venter noted: “There are no two buildings [on campus] that really resemble each other. If you go to Queen’s, all the buildings are stone. . . . At Waterloo, it’s too late to try to make everything look the same, but that is a strength. The challenge is to make sure everything flows, fits in, and is consistent with the overall campus plan and the associated landscaping, so that you can say ‘that looks interesting with good functionality’. So, clearly the buildings will look different.” In order to preserve greenspace on campus, designs will increasingly “look skyward”, and the two buildings outside Ring Road will be in the form of multi-storey structures.
Questions were also raised by students interested in the potential for creating ‘green’, environmentally-friendly buildings; specifically, whether or not the new buildings would aim for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating. A LEED rating indicates that measures such as garden roofs, eco-friendly toilets, and solar panels have been implemented. Dr. Venter mentioned that it would be infeasible to fully pursue a LEED certificate because studies have shown that in Canada, due to cheaper energy in comparison to Europe, it would take an extremely long time span to recoup any initial costs. “The buildings will benefit from passive solar technologies and will be green-friendly, handicap-friendly, and student-friendly; we will seek to shadow a silver LEED specification but will not formally seek the LEED certification.”
While both Engineering 1 and Engineering 4 (now named after Douglas Wright and Carl Pollock, respectively) were renamed to honour people integral to the development of the University of Waterloo and Waterloo Engineering, generous donations from alumni and industry can also result in getting a building renamed. An example is Rod Coutts Hall (formerly Engineering Lecture Hall), an Electrical Engineering graduate from 1963 who gave $7 million to the University in the form of stock in his company, Teklogix International Inc. Dean Sedra stated that $5-10 million is the rough figure if you’re a willing investor and want to leave your mark on campus by getting your name on one of the new buildings.
If all goes well, this means that in six years the Faculty of Engineering could come close to doubling in physical size as a result of this expansion plan and the Quantum-Nano building. This will provide some much-needed breathing room, with the the Faculty’s constant growth and its increase in enrollment as a result of the new undergraduate programs that have been created over the past six years.
http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=2999&format=html (http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=2999&format=html)
WEEF Director Report
By Alex James, WEEF Director
As some of you may already know, the university will be breaking ground on the new buildings this coming March. The first two floors of one of these six-floor buildings will become the new Student Design Center (STC). The STC will be a state of the art workshop for students and student teams. It will contain work bays, work benches, meeting rooms, and best of all, a new student machine shop! The size of this project is immense, quadrupling the current space given to student teams. This will allow for the current teams to receive the space they need, as well as allow brand new teams to be given space and resources. The STC will also contain a fully stocked student machine shop twice as large as the current one. It is being designed as an open concept, to promote cooperation between student groups.
This great idea is happening soon, and WEEF would like to be a part of it. WEEF is here not only to increase the quality of education here at the university, but also to give students the opportunity to work on the most cutting edge and exciting projects possible. In that spirit, the WEEF board of directors has come up with a proposal that will allow WEEF to make a very large contribution to the STC. How large? The total budget for the STC is estimated to be 12 million dollars. The proposed plan will allow WEEF to generate 4 million dollars to the project. The proposal calls for a 1 million dollar donation on the part of WEEF, but the Faculty of Engineering has pledged to match any donation made by WEEF, and the university has agreed to match that figure.
The board of directors believes that this kind of donation is just the kind of thing WEEF was created to do. Other large proposals have been considered in the past years, but none have stood out as much as this one. Add to that the fact that the money donated by WEEF is quadrupled, and you have a very solid large-scale donation. Some of you may be thinking that this large donation will affect the amount of money that WEEF gives out every term. If donated, the money will be removed from the WEEF account over a seven year period. This will allow the amount of money WEEF gives out annually to remain the same, or even rise during this time, depending on the participation rates. The important part is that WEEF will not be giving out any less money if the application is accepted.
The proposal will be presented to the funding council during the month of November, and I encourage anyone who is interested to come and ask questions. You can also send an email to weef@engmail.uwaterloo.ca. This is a great opportunity for WEEF to make a difference, and I for one am very excited about it.
http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=3284&format=html&edition_id=85 (http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=3284&format=html&edition_id=85)
ENGINEERING V PLANS COMPLETE
Parking Lot B Major Focus of Faculty's Long-Term Roadmap
By Bahman Hadji
A rendering showing the approximate look of the east side of campus after the completion of the three-phase plan.
The Faculty of Engineering’s $150 million expansion plan that The Iron Warrior first reported on last June is in full swing. The plan calls for the construction of three new buildings in addition to the Quantum-Nano Centre to fulfill the space needs of the Faculty’s Vision 2010 plan.
This plan was the result of a spatial review done by Dr. Ron Venter, the independent consultant hired by the Faculty now overseeing the ambitious expansion project. Venter’s study concluded that Engineering was in need of an additional 22,000 nasms of space (the unit nasm stands for net assignable square metres and refers only to usable academic space) in order to be able to handle the level of growth it is currently experiencing and plans to experience over the next several years. The solution to this space shortage would thus be achieved with the creation of three new buildings.
The first building, Engineering V (E5), is a six-storey building to be built on Parking Lot B, on the east side of Ring Road. E5 will address space needs for the Departments of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, which will reside on the third floor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, which will reside on the fourth and fifth floors, and Systems Design Engineering, which will reside on the top floor. The bottom two floors will be the much-heralded Student Design Centre (SDC), which will be the new home of the numerous Waterloo Engineering student teams.
The building is in the final stages of approval, with the drawings having gone out for tender in February. E5 will be the subject of discussion at the University of Waterloo Board of Governors Building & Properties Committee on May 8th, and will go forward for final approval to the Board of Governors on June 3rd. If approved, the groundbreaking for the building would take place shortly thereafter. Despite the slight delay, after last year’s hopes that construction would begin in March, the target completion date for E5 is still the same as set out initially, as the building is expected to open in January of 2010.
I met with Ron Venter and Sue Gooding, Operations Manager for the Dean’s Office, to discuss the future of Engineering’s expansion plans. “Engineering on this campus has a long-term plan,” Venter stressed, referring to the three-phase plan that will take shape this year with the start of construction on E5, the first phase of the plan.
The idea behind the plan is not just to provide departments within the Faculty with more breathing room, but to also consolidate their identities in specific locations on campus. The first phase is on its way to completion and will attend to the three aforementioned departments. The second phase, meanwhile, is supposed to address the pressing needs of the Department of Chemical Engineering, which currently resides in Douglas Wright Engineering (DWE), the oldest building on campus. Initial plans called for the Department, along with the Dean’s Office, to acquire space in a new building in a central location inside Ring Road, likely on the Graduate House green, but the Faculty made the decision to avoid that site for now in favour of keeping to a realistic timeline to meet the pressing space needs of Chemical Engineering. As such, serious consideration is being given to locate Engineering VI (E6) is planned for the east end of Parking Lot B, to become the exclusive home of the Department of Chemical Engineering.
The third phase of the plan calls for a twin building, Engineering VII (E7) to be built adjacent to E5, which is designed in a way to allow for E7 to easily integrate and link to it with minimal disruption. The three departments occupying E5 will see their space expand into the adjacent floors in E7 through three corridor links, while the bottom two floors could address parking, Dean’s Office, and Faculty-wide space or possibly additional expansion by the departments to be housed within E5 and E7.
The Board of Governors approved Shore, Tilbe, Irwin & Partners as the primary architects for the E5 design. The firm’s work includes the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology (EIT), along with many other buildings at campuses across Ontario.
An artist’s rendition of Engineering V as seen from the Davis Centre. The building is planned to open in January of 2010.
Engineering V
E5 (shown above, looking east from the Davis Centre) will have a very open design, and its exterior will be unlike any other building currently on the UW campus. It will be encased completely in glass, and will have two green roofs. The stormwater drain just west of the site will be turned into a stormwater retention pond, which together with all of the trees in the area will be the makings of a beautiful quad. “It creates a community area between the Davis Centre and E5,” Venter said. There will also be a courtyard with benches and large trees on the south side of the building. “One would like to see students working out there in the summer. It could be a great meeting place for students.”
E5 will be linked to the main campus by a third floor link going from its south side to the west side of Engineering III (E3). Because E3 does not have a third floor, a glass tower will be built on its east end where the student team garages are currently located, which will contain an elevator and stairs to get from the ground floor up to the link. “This helps us two-fold, because it now gives E3 a presence and a front door onto Ring Road,” said Gooding, emphasizing how the tower link will enhance E3’s identity in addition to creating a link to the new building.
The main entrance to the building will be on the west side on the second floor, with stairs going up from Ring Road. The elevators and staircases will be located in the centre of the building. The first floor and most of the second floor contain the Student Design Centre, a world-class facility that the Faculty hopes will spawn even more innovation from its students. There will be a large student machine shop on the first floor, to be called the WEEF Student Machine Shop, named after the Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation. WEEF recently made the decision to donate $1 million towards the SDC, which was matched by the Faculty and doubled by the University, effectively turning their gift into a $4 million investment in the building.
The first floor will also have numerous work bays with roll-up glass doors surrounding a large common work area, as well as a sanding room, a spray shop, a wash bay, a dynamometer, and three engine cells. The student teams with vehicles will be able to drive their vehicles up to the entryway at the south courtyard and then push them into the building through a passageway that goes all the way across the first floor. These work bays will be assigned to certain student teams, but there will be a process and accountability protocol to ensure that the space is being used well. The Faculty will be liaising with the teams regularly to ensure that space is allocated to the student teams that require it the most.
On the second floor directly above the WEEF Student Machine Shop is a large computer lab which will be able to seat 70 students, making it the largest lab within the Faculty of Engineering. “We are really in need of more computer commons,” said Gooding, who successfully lobbied for the lab to become a reality. Beside the lab is an office that will belong to WEEF, as Dean of Engineering Dr. Adel Sedra officially made the announcement to the Foundation’s Board of Directors last Thursday. “They have been very positive about supporting this building, and we decided to create this space that they could use,” Venter said. The decision for WEEF to support E5 is only natural given its tendency to fund student projects and the building’s heavy focus on student teams. Both the Funding Council and the Board of Directors fully endorsed the idea of making this large capital investment.
The second floor contains even more space for student teams, including additional work bays, design offices, and meeting rooms. It also has a large area open to below that directly overlooks the common work area and work bays on the first floor, by virtue of the building’s open design. “You would’ve lost that character if you closed it off and stuck more office space there,” noted Venter.
Students were heavily consulted on the design of the SDC. Professor Duane Cronin set up a committee starting in the Fall of 2006 with representatives from the several student teams. As the demand for team space had increased with the founding of new student teams and lack of space for the existing student teams, the committee was tasked to inquire as to how much space their current activities required based on current needs. Their estimate came back at 1,600 nasms, and the committee then made the specifications for what such a space could look like, focusing on maximizing common space, collaboration, and the flexibility to adapt. The spec sheets made by the student teams were supplied to the architects, who designed to them while actively working with Professor Cronin to get feedback from the students. “It truly has been a design driven by the intended users of the space,” remarked Matt Stevens of the Alternative Fuels Team.
There will be a state-of-the-art two-storey research facility on the north end of E5, featuring an RF anechoic chamber. This facility will be used for leading-edge electromagnetic research by Electrical and Computer Engineering. The anechoic chamber will have a green roof.
The third floor of the building will be the new home of the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering (MME). “What we wanted to do was have our department identity in one location,” stated Professor Jan Huissoon, Deputy Chair of the Department, who was in charge of designing the floor plan. The undergraduate office, graduate studies office, and the Chair and other administrators’ offices will all also be on the floor. There will be a faculty lounge in the administrative space that overlooks the green roof of the anechoic chamber, as well as two large common areas in the centre of the floor.
The link from E5 to E3 is connected to this floor. The Department’s robotics, fluids, and other heavy labs are staying in E3, so the link existing is all the more important. The Department also chose to have two large seminar rooms that can hold up to 112 students each, with a fold-up partition and acoustic border in between. The rooms contain movable desks, and there are four outlets and Ethernet jacks for every pair of desks. The third floor has an astounding 800 Ethernet jacks in total. The Department is also planning to have a display case on the floor, with the trophies that some of the student teams have won.
“Getting this space is really important for the Department,” expressed Huissoon. “It’s our identity. And this is really going to make a big difference to the way we’re perceived.”
While MME will be using its space in E5 to establish a new identity, the fourth and fifth floors acquired by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) will be used to relieve the Department’s research space shortage. ECE made a decision 14 months ago to use the space to handle the 20 new faculty members it expects to hire by 2010, while keeping its administrative offices in the EIT building. The Department’s two identical floors thus contain predominantly offices, each of which would be able to hold four grad students, though they also each contain two smaller seminar rooms with breakaway partitions. There is also a notch at the centre of the west side of the ECE floors, where a rooftop garden is located directly above the main entrance to the building.
“The research space was designed to be flexible enough to handle the research space needs of 20 faculty members, who we have not even started recruiting, doing research that we are not sure of and will clearly change over the 50- to 100-year life of the building,” said Professor Jim Barby, who had the task of designing ECE’s space in the new building. “ECE is taking a 50-plus year view of the space for 20 new faculty members, to keep the renovation costs low over the life of the building.”
The Department of Systems Design Engineering will finally be acquiring new space and vacating Engineering II (E2) and some space in Carl Pollock Hall (CPH) once E5 opens. The floor is unlike the MME or ECE floors. It contains three seminar rooms, several student workshops and studios, an undergraduate computer lab, common rooms, as well as administrative offices on the south end of the floor, meaning all of their administration as well as their undergraduate space will be moving to E5. While the sixth floor was originally thought to have been necessary as a staging area for the building, with Systems eventually moving in, the plan has been developed sufficiently that the Department can move in at the same time as all of the other occupants of the building.
Throughout the upper four floors, along the building’s glass walls, wherever possible, there will be shelves running across with chairs so that students are able to sit down and look out the window while working on their laptops. This will be done in corridors as well as common areas. “I think the students will have a great time in this building,” Venter underscored.
Engineering VI
E6, which is the second phase of the expansion plan, was originally planned to be located in the vicinity of the Graduate House green and linked to DWE. However, this plan ran into complications. The planning firm that came up with the University’s campus master plan in 1992, Urban Strategies, was asked to evaluate the site and provide a recommendation as to the type of building that could be constructed on the site. Urban Strategies defined an approximate footprint that would maintain the full integrity of this valued location on campus and also recommended that any building there should not be too high.
With these reasonable constraints, the magnitude of the immediate space that could be constructed was marginally less than what had been anticipated, and the site complexity and construction of interfaces with Rod Coutts Hall (RCH) and DWE would increase the cost and take considerable time to plan. So while the Faculty remains very interested in the site due to its central location, the additional classrooms, and the prospect of also relocating the Dean’s Office and Faculty headquarters there, ultimately, it was left to find another solution for the second phase of the plan, which is integral to Chemical Engineering and has the possibility of an earlier implementation date.
The Department’s current space in DWE, especially in the C-Wing (the part nearest to CPH), is in bad shape, with problems such as leakages and HVAC deficiencies. The Faculty has always planned to renovate this wing of DWE, but this can only happen once Chemical Engineering has vacated the space or is temporarily relocated to allow for the renovation, which is a costly undertaking in itself with a serious loss in research productivity. Further complicating the issues is the fact that the Department, as a result of its proactive international programs, is expected to expand at a larger rate than the original estimate within the Venter space study of 2006 – and to build a building now that would address their entire needs would push the costs of the expansion beyond $150 million. So the considered solution that the Faculty is currently entertaining to deal with the problem is the erection of another six-storey building, Engineering VI, on Parking Lot B, which would be similar in size to E5, but leaving some of the space “shelled in” – that is, structurally built so that it appears completed externally, but selected interior floors being outfitted at a later date as funds become available to do so.
“The idea would be if we can construct this building, all six floors comprising a total of 8,000 nasms, and 75% is outfitted at completion, that would be sufficient to accommodate the beginnings of the ChemEng relocation. They presently occupy 6,000 nasms within DWE,” Venter explained. “And the extra 2000 nasms that we might not be able to finish as a result of funding shortfalls, would be shelled in, providing the structure for expansion. As funding is received, the shelled-in space would be completed and made available to ChemEng.”
Furthermore, with the growing international programs, the space needs for the Department are projected to increase even further and could grow to some 10,400 nasms, meaning even more space would be needed. The solution for this is to allow for a subsequent addition to E6 at a later date with planned interfaces, allowing for easy integration as is being planned with E5 and E7. “So it’s three stages for this building,” Gooding noted. “The first is to have two floors shelled in. Then the two that are shelled become a reality – that’s stage two. And in the final stage it’s this piece on the end to finally reach that long-range goal of the Department.”
As far as Engineering’s interest in the Graduate House site, Venter was quick to say that the Faculty has not given up on it: “We will always need planned growth, and that site is not going to disappear. So the Faculty remains very interested in its development to benefit all aspects of the campus, and the Dean is always at the table to express this interest.”
Engineering VII
E7 will only be built after the space needs of Chemical Engineering have been alleviated with the construction of E6. The planning process for E7 will be minimal, because one of the guiding principles behind the expansion plan dictates that consolidation is important, and so the departments occupying floors three to six in E5 will gain the complementary space in E7, with the two buildings linked with two small corridors on the north and south ends, and a major passageway at the centre.
The usage of the two lower floors of E7 will still have to be finalized, as the SDC will not be extending into the building. Covered parking is an option, but the Faculty is not willing to pay for it, when costs can run as much $30,000 per parking spot. However, if the University wants to put the cash forward to regain some of the parking space that will be lost with the expansion on Parking Lot B, the Faculty is receptive to the idea. Another possibility is to use the lower two floors for the Faculty, which could range from space for the Dean’s administrative staff to more computer labs. “This type of use would certainly shift the centre of gravity of the Faculty even more towards Parking Lot B, but it is all dependent on what might happen with the Graduate House site in the years immediately ahead,” Venter stated.
Once E7 is built, the space in between the two twin buildings will make for a nice atrium, and there is the possibility of a second Engineering Society C&D or a Food Services location in the space.
Other Priorities
Getting E5, E6, and E7 built are currently the three top priorities of the Faculty as part of the expansion plan. But the idea has always been a domino effect where as some departments vacate their old space in E2, CPH, and DWE and move into these new buildings, other departments reorganize within that space which would be renovated. So the fourth priority for the Faculty is the renovation of DWE, especially the C-Wing, once it has been vacated by Chemical Engineering, so the space can be used by other departments. Should it be proven to be more cost-effective, this priority may actually jump ahead of the construction of E7.
“When we started on the space plan, we told all departments that they could not all acquire space at once, but that each might anticipate incremental gains until the final objectives were achieved,” Gooding explained. Thus, the departments gaining space in E5 understand that the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Management Sciences will be gaining by the consolidation of their space in the current Engineering buildings.
The fifth priority of the Faculty is to shell in the floors of E6 so that Chemical Engineering can comfortably expand into the space. However, this may not even be a necessary step if enough money is raised by the time the building is that far in the planning stages. “Quite honestly, if we start planning the building now, by the time we get to building it, there will be nothing left and we will have built the whole thing without having it shelled in,” Venter advised. “But it’s the accountability and the planning that’s important.” Once the initial skeleton of E6 is filled in, the sixth priority is to plan for the extension of E6 to handle Chemical Engineering’s expected international expansion.
The final priority of the Faculty is to actively participate in the development of the Graduate House site to not lose it as a future option for expansion. “If Engineering doesn’t continue to show interest, we’ll lose momentum,” Venter said. “So we’ll show sufficient interest anytime the issue comes up.”
It is clear that over the next five years, an enormous amount of change will be brought to the University of Waterloo campus, with the Faculty of Engineering playing a major role. Students, faculty, and staff should take comfort in the fact that it is very apparent that the Faculty is looking ahead and planning for the long term with a broad vision for the future.
http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=3475&format=html&edition_id=91 (http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=3475&format=html&edition_id=91)
Spokes
01-12-2010, 05:59 PM
Breaking Ground on Engineering V
By The Iron Warrior
http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/photos/2008s-2/Groundbreaking2.jpg
The morning of Thursday, June 5th marked the start of a new era for the Faculty of Engineering, as it held a groundbreaking ceremony on Parking Lot B east of Ring Road, the future site of Engineering V (E5), a six-storey building slated to open in January of 2010. The ceremony, hosted by Dean Adel Sedra, saw speeches from special guests including President David Johnston as well as Dean’s Advisory Council members and notable alumni Fred Grigsby and Rod Coutts. Members of Waterloo Engineering’s student teams, students, staff, faculty members, and department chairs were among the hundreds in attendance to witness the momentous occasion.
With the student teams having their projects on display in the parking lot, the ceremony began promptly at 10am as guests were invited to be seated inside the tent, which included conceptual drawings of E5. Dean Sedra spoke to the crowd about the Vision 2010 plan and the need to address the Faculty’s desperate need for space, with its undergrad population having increased by 75% and its graduate population by 95% over the past 20 years. He emphasized that an enormous number of people will benefit from this new building and it will go a very long way towards addressing Engineering’s needs.
E5 will be the Faculty’s first exclusive multi-use building since Carl Pollock Hall (formerly Engineering IV) was opened in 1971, and will be the first phase of the largest physical expansion in its history. The building will house a state of the art Student Design Centre on its first two floors, showcasing the Faculty’s world class student teams. It will be linked to the current Engineering complex through a third-floor overhead link, and will provide some much needed research and lab space on the fourth and fifth floors to Engineering’s biggest department, Electrical and Computer. It will also be the new home to two of the Faculty’s other departments – Mechanical and Mechatronics on the third floor and Systems Design on the sixth floor.
Sedra introduced several guests who each came up to say a few words, including President David Johnston and Rod Coutts, “64 Electrical alumnus whose $7 Million donation in 2000 helped ‘turn the submarine into a battleship,” in Johnston’s words, referring to the 3rd floor expansion of what is now the Rod Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall. Johnston also took the occasion to announce the kick-off of the Vision 2010 fundraising campaign, the goal of which is to raise $120 Million for the Faculty towards its expansion plans. Johnston remarked that the Faculty hasn’t waited for this announcement to start the fundraising process, though. “They have already raised $51.3M,” he said to applause from the audience.
Alex James and Brandon DeHart, Directors of the Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation, also spoke briefly and announced the student-run fund’s $1M gift towards E5. The gift is being matched by the Dean and doubly matched by the University, to help turn the students’ donation towards the building into $4 Million. E5’s opening is also expected to coincide with WEEF’s 20th anniversary and its principle hitting the $10 Million milestone. “It is monumental to see the effect that student contributions can have on development of the campus,” James said.
With the completion of the speeches inside the tent, the Dean invited everyone outside to the pile of dirt that had been specially brought out to accommodate the problem of breaking ground on asphalt. Members of the print and TV media recorded the occasion as Sedra was joined by the special guests who had spoken earlier to stick the shovels in the simulated ground.
Special Guests Perform the Actual Groundbreaking of Engineering V
The morning also saw some lighter moments, with Sedra quipping that the audience ‘sounds like one of my classes’ to get the crowd’s attention at the start, and commenting that a train passing by the train tracks “wasn’t part of the program”. Johnston also got in on the fun by jokingly promising to hold the Faculty to the completion date of Christmas of 2008 ‘ as opposed to Christmas 2009 as planned ‘ which Sedra had misspoken about earlier.
http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=3576&format=html&edition_id=93 (http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=3576&format=html&edition_id=93)
Fundraising campaign gears up as UW unveils Engineering V
June 06, 2008
Charlotte Prong Parkhill
RECORD STAFF
WATERLOO - A groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday for an innovative new building at University of Waterloo.
Dubbed Engineering V, the building will feature a two-storey atrium and design centre where students will showcase projects, such as solar cars. The $61 million building will have an environmentally-friendly roof and a pedestrian bridge stretching across the ring road.
Adel Sedra, dean of the faculty of engineering, said the 176,000-square foot facility is badly needed.
In the past 20 years, the number of students has increased by more than 75 per cent, but space has grown by only 20 per cent.
"The quality of life we have come to expect in Canada does not happen without engineers," said Sedra. "It is a noble cause."
The ceremony also launched Vision 2010, the faculty's largest expansion campaign ever. It hopes to raise $120 million to increase space, graduate studies and research. The campaign has already garnered over $51 million, with $25 million coming from an anonymous donor.
Other contributors include Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis, and Rod Coutts.
Coutts, chair of Navcast, has fond memories of his own days as an electrical engineering student at the university. He has donated several million to the faculty in the past.
"They asked me for a kickoff contribution, to see if we could get others to follow," he said. "We've come a long way but we have miles to go."
Amanda Hoff, fourth-year student and president of the Engineering Society, said she takes great pride in the work done by UW engineering.
"This event isn't celebrating construction," she said, "but the accomplishments we've made and the 'groundbreaking' research we do."
cprongparkhill@therecord.com
http://news.therecord.com/article/362475 (http://news.therecord.com/article/362475)
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.1.12 Copyright © 2012 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.