Pfeiffer Partners Architects with offices in New York and Los Angeles, in association with Calgary-based Sahuri + Partners Architecture Inc., designed the center, which is part of the university’s six-phased expansion program. Upon completion, the expansion will better accommodate the growing Lincoln Park Campus student population.

The Taylor Centre serves the university’s music, theater and speech programs and also includes a wing dedicated to an early childhood program instructional suite. The Transalta Pavilion — a large elevated ensemble performance studio — and multiple ensemble rooms, individual and group practice rooms, and master classrooms provide a flexible learning environment, enhanced with breakout spaces for impromptu practice or socialization, according to Pfeiffer Partners. The most prominent feature of the new center is the Bella Concert Hall, designed with 10 theater boxes, an 89-seat choir loft and full multimedia capability.

Additional program components include an 800-seat concert hall, a multi-purpose rehearsal/performance studio for 85 musicians, ensemble studios, master classrooms, a recording studio, a percussion studio, flexible teaching studios and practice rooms, classrooms, a student lounge and meeting room, dressing rooms and a green room. A multi-level lobby and roof terrace also help to define the space.

Adjacent to the prominent East Gate campus entrance and the Roderick Mah Centre for Continuous Learning, the multi-tiered building serves as a new gateway for the growing campus, according to a statement by Pfeiffer Partners. An enclosed link between the two buildings allows for shared use of the lobby and other public spaces, enhancing potential synergies between the two programs.

The center’s design also offers a nod to its geographic location: The eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by rolling plains and farmland.

“A contemporary interpretation of the rural barn on the expansive prairie of Alberta inspired our choices in materials, structure, and color throughout the project,” said William Murray, principal with Pfeiffer Partners, in a statement. “Within the concert hall itself, the expressed structure echoes heavy timber construction, while the abstracted image of the Alberta Rose is the crowning feature in the design of the acoustical reflectors.”

Gili Meerovitch, the project’s interior designer, found inspiration in the story of Calgary as both a cosmopolitan city and a part of the prairie, crafting “grand, theatrical spaces that reveal their beauty at their own paces, with pronounced and distinct colors and quality of light,” according to a statement.

The facility is also designed to meet LEED Gold standards, with orientation and glazing placement that maximizes solar exposure to take advantage of natural lighting, according to a statement by Pfieffer Partners.

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The new heating and cooling system will use geoexchange technology and high efficiency natural gas boilers to cut the district’s energy bills. Geoexchange temperature management works by running water into the ground and relies on the difference in temperature between the ground and the air. During the cold winter months, underground pipes are warmer than the outside air, meaning the water can be used to heat air before it is moved throughout the building. During the warm summer months, the relatively cooler subterranean temperatures can be transferred into the building instead.

The project will go a long way in terms of preserving Canada’s natural gas resources. The change to a geoexchange system will result in a 45-percent decrease in energy use, saving the equivalent of enough natural gas to heat over 360 homes per year. The move will also significantly lower the districts greenhouse gas emissions. The change represents a 69-percent drop in emissions, the equivalent of taking 450 cars off the road per year.

The system will save the district a lot of money, especially because the Province of British Columbia requires all public sector organizations to achieve carbon neutrality, meaning they cannot contribute to global warming by emitting greenhouse gasses. Facilities that do not have their own clean energy sources must purchase carbon offsets, which basically consists of contributing funds to an organization that plants trees in the rainforest or does something else to combat the effects of global warming. The school currently purchases approximately $100,000 in carbon offsets each year. Combining this with the energy savings themselves, the district anticipates savings in excess of $180,000 per year.

Frank Geyer, director of facilities and planning at the school district, explained the project would be accompanied by a series of upgrades, rounding out the effort to increase fuel facilities.

He explained, “Facilities are being constructed, renovated and retrofitted with energy conservation in mind, including solar hot water systems and state-of-the-art energy consumption monitoring. A number of other initiatives have also been implemented to do our part in making our operations more efficient.”

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