Aluminum shades wrap Sheridan College Student Life Centre

In a joint venture, Montgomery Sisam Architects and Moriyama Teshima Architects designed the Student Life Centre, a building on Sheridan College’s Hazel McCallion campus in Mississauga, Ontario. The structure achieved high thermal efficiency through the use of aluminum fins across its south and west-facing elevations.

The recreational building, known as Phase 2A, physically connects with Phase 2, an academic building completed by the two firms in 2018. The buildings are part of Sheridan College’s Hazel McCallion campus expansion.

“We had a really great relationship with Moriyama Teshima Architects,” said Enda McDonagh, principal at Montgomery Sisam Architects. “We collaborated to the extent that we relocated a team in their office for a period of time, and then they relocated people in our office for a period of time. So we shared resources, shared offices, and developed the project that way,” he said.

In terms of athletic facilities, the Student Life Centre houses a fitness center, gymnasium, and an indoor track that wraps one of the structure’s upper levels. In addition, the building contains study and club rooms, a cafeteria, and administrative offices.

Located near the center of car-centric downtown Mississauga, the newly expanded campus was designed to be pedestrian friendly and engage with the public realm. The two new buildings cede nearly half of the site to Scholars’ Green Park, a park intended for student and public use. Importantly, the park and campus-at-large are sited at the intersection of 11 bus lines as well as a planned light rail line.

The Student Life Centre was designed to complement its predecessor, Phase 2, with a size appropriate to the scale of the surrounding park. On the building’s ground floor, glazing encases a double-height gathering space with wood-paneled wall and ceiling surfaces. This detail was continued on the exterior, along the soffit of a cantilevered overhang that shades the glass atrium.

While the first two levels are all glass, the upper floors were designed with greater opacity, faced with standing-seam aluminum sheets and more selective spans of glazing.

“Sheridan College was very focused on envelope quality, which was great for us,” added McDonagh. “The three of us [Montgomery Sisam Architects, Moriyama Teshima Architects, and Sheridan College] were very much aligned on the goal of having a really rock solid thermal envelope.”

Of the building’s three elevations—north, south, and west-facing—the south and west orientations were most vulnerable to solar heat gain and glare. To counteract this, these portions of the facade utilized greater opacity and, where glazing was necessary, incorporated vertical aluminum fins to create shade. Depending on orientation, the fins were applied at 45 or 90 degree angles. In addition to these strategies, the project’s glazing incorporates a low-e coating and ceramic frit to further reduce solar heat gain.

The building has achieved an R-value of R28 for its facade, demonstrating high energy efficiency.

In sum, passive cooling strategies on the facade in combination with the use of chilled beam and heat recovery technology on the interior of the Student Life Centre have led to highly reduced operation energy usage. Montgomery Sisam Architects estimates that these strategies yielded a 53 percent improvement in energy savings.

Project Specifications

• • Architect: Montgomery Sisam Architects, Moriyama Teshima Architects
  • Landscape Architect: Janet Rosenberg Studio
  • Interior Design: Montgomery Sisam Architects, Moriyama Teshima Architects
  • Structural Engineer: Halsall Associates
  • Electrical Engineer: MCW Consultants
  • Civil Engineer: Counterpoint Engineers
  • Lighting Consultant: MCW Consultants
  • Signage/Wayfinding: Entro Communications
  • Telecommunications: MCW Consultants
  • Fire & Life Safety Consultant: Randal Brown & Associates
  • General Contractor: Bondfield