July 6, 2009

Skills Training

Algonquin College’s new Ottawa facility will have trades working together

KORKY KOROLUK

correspondent

OTTAWA

The building planned to house the construction-related programs at Algonquin College won’t be just a building housing a bunch of classrooms; it will be a living lab, says a college vice-president.

Joy McKinnon said the building’s features will include things like a green roof, extensive use of sensors, and power metering—all things that are showing up with increasing frequency in modern buildings. That’s why the college is calling it an environmental demonstration centre, although that name is likely to change, she said.

Many of the technological devices in the building will be accessible to students, she said, “so they’ll be able to collect data on the energy use in the building.”

“They’ll be able to be actively involved in the operation of the building.”

When the final $35 million was received from the federal government in April, the building officially became a work in progress. That money, together with a similar amount from the provincial government, make up the bulk of the project’s $79-million price tag. The city of Ottawa contributed $2 million in the form of the land. The remaining $7 million is being raised from the construction industry.

Teams from the various construction sectors are out now, McKinnon said, talking to leaders in the industry about “how they would like to participate in the building, what kind of contribution they would like to make.”

“The construction industry has really seized this building as their building.”

The need is clear. Studies have shown that more than half of Ontario’s skilled trades workers will retire sometime in the next 15 years, and replacements will be needed.

Algonquin presently has slightly more than 1,700 full-time students enrolled in construction-related courses. The new building will have a capacity of about 2,500 students, as well as space to accommodate programs catering to evening and part-time students.

There are presently 19 full-time programs, with three more in the works. One, construction project management, will begin in the winter of 2010, although a part-time version will launch this fall. Another, professional kitchen and bath design, is still under development and will launch in the winter of 2010.

The third, a four-year degree program in applied technology, is being developed to begin in 2011 or 2012. McKinnon was reluctant to discuss details of that program because it has not yet been approved by the provincial government.

When that happens, it will be the second degree program offered in construction-related subjects. A bachelor’s degree program is already in place for interior design.

As well as the full-time courses, the college also offers 13 evening and weekend programs.

The new building will mean that all the college’s construction activities are brought under one roof for the first time. But by the time they move to the new quarters many will have undergone changes in curriculum to accommodate the rapid acceptance of LEED.

“Our existing programs will be updated and new aspects of practices and regulations and trends in the industry will be added in,” McKinnon said, “and one of those areas will certainly include LEED standards . . . in programs where that’s relevant.”

In addition, she said there will be a “suite” of subjects that relate to “sustainable design, construction practices and environmental efficiency, and all those things that will make this an environmental demonstration centre.”

One of the things the local industry has said from the beginning is that it wants the facility to be an interdisciplinary construction centre.

“They want it to reflect how construction work is done. It’s team based, it’s interdisciplinary, it must comply with the regulatory environment, and what students should be learning . . . (should go) beyond the construction practices and theoretical components of the curriculum. They should be learning to work together with other disciplines in the field.

“So architectural technologists should be working with the trades, for example. Interior designers should be working with the architectural technologists and construction management students. They should all be learning to work . . . in a team environment before they graduate.”

The need for the team approach is affecting the design of the building, she said, as spaces need to be created to enable that to happen.

And the name?

Calling it an environmental demonstration centre is long and awkward in conversation, she said, and the industry has said it would like something shorter, something that lends itself to an acronym.

Construction of the facility involves two steps. First, an existing bus transitway station has to be moved a short distance to the west to accommodate the new building. That work is to be completed by the end of the summer.

The second step, the real construction, will begin after that. McKinnon said the hope is to break ground by about mid-October of this year, with opening set for September, 2011.

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