Westcoast Inc. is garnering international recognition for its sustainable construction.
Last year, PCL, B.C.’s second-largest construction company (see Business in Vancouver list, page 18), was awarded the Canadian Construction Association Environmental Achievement Award for the Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, a six-storey office building made almost entirely from wood.
The project was also named among the world’s Top 10 Big Projects by the Toronto-based architectural and design magazine Azure.
PCL topped even those honours, however, in recognition of its groundbreaking addition to the Okanagan College campus in Penticton. Salvaged pine-beetle-damaged wood, a massive rooftop photovoltaic system and innovative air circulation silos helped the $27.6 million project achieve the pinnacle LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum designation.
The 70,000-square-foot Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation, completed at Okanagan College in 2011, is now recognized as one of the most innovative and sustainable education facilities on the planet.
Designed by CEI Architecture and built by PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc. parent company PCL Constructors, it was one of three buildings in North America recently featured by the New York TimesKnowledge Network as leading examples of carbon-neutral campus architecture.
The project has also received awards from the Canadian Green Building Council and the Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of BC, and captured the international Green Good Design Award, presented by the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies.
“PCL doesn’t necessarily concentrate on ‘green’ projects,” said company spokesman Shane Jones, “but if a client is seeking that with their project, then we do everything possible to make that happen.”
PCL, which has its North American headquarters in Edmonton, is an international construction company with more than 354 LEED professionals on staff.
The Okanagan College project is an indication of what a LEED Platinum designation demands.
The insulated roof, for example, is covered in 30,000 square feet of thermoplastic polyolefin membrane and arrayed with 1,106 solar panels, from Calgary-based SkyFire Energy. The 235-watt panels incorporate a leading-edge inverter technology that tracks the sun.
The building also uses new sun-tracking light pipes that deliver natural daylight throughout the building. Designed by Vancouver-based SunCentral, the system can magnify sunlight by a factor of 10.
As well, three ventilation silos protrude from the roof, part of an innovative clean-air system. The fully accessible rooftop allows for the study of experimental technologies such as wind turbines and alternative solar systems.
“The Centre of Excellence is truly an innovative facility, providing leading-edge training in sustainable practices for Okanagan College,” said Bill Locking, senior partner with CEI Architecture in Vancouver.
He added that the facility has a wood-frame structure, which gives it a much lower carbon footprint compared with an equivalent steel or concrete structure.•
