Kelly Foss

The concept design phase of the new 425,000 sq. ft. core science facility is expected to wrap up in July.

The contract for architectural and engineering services was awarded to HOK Canada. This group, together with the university, will be involved in all phases of the project from initial concept design to handover and post occupancy follow-up.

Since March, HOK has been holding workshops with Memorial end users, provincial government representatives, and other stakeholders to verify project requirements and to confirm the functional programs for the faculties of Science and Engineering and Applied Sciences, says Ann Browne, associate vice president of facilities at Memorial.

“At our third workshop last month, we actually unveiled a wooden model of what the site around the building would look like,” she said. “We also had Styrofoam models, representing the three concepts that have been developed, which fit into the wooden model so you can see the different options.”

In addition, stackable floor plate models were made to give workshop participants an idea of the possible floor plan configurations.

On June 25th, these options will be presented in a Town Hall session to the Memorial community, with the goal of establishing a preferred scheme based on the strengths of each concept. High level details about the potential cost of each option will also be available at that time to help drive the discussion.

“The very next day the steering committee will be locked in a room until we can come up with a final recommendation based on these discussions,” said Ms. Browne. “Our intention is to then have a special campus planning and development meeting of the board of regents prior to the board of regents’ meeting on July 3, 2014, where we hope to recommend the preferred concept.  The preferred concept will undergo a detailed estimate by a third party cost estimator to ensure that the concept fits within our budget.”

Once the preferred concept is signed off and approved, HOK and their team will continue to work with the user groups and other stakeholders through the design development phase to populate sets of construction documents to a LEED silver standard, said Ms. Brown.

“The first public tenders for civil and enabling works will be called by the spring of 2015 such that preliminary construction activity is underway by June 2015,” she said. “Other tender packages will be called and awarded for foundations/structure, early mechanical and electrical packages, core and shell, and interior fit-up during the remainder of 2015 and into 2016.”

It is anticipated that substantial completion of the new Core Science Facility will be achieved by the summer of 2019 and will be ready for occupancy in September of that year.

The Town Hall will be held on June 25 at 1 p.m. in room IIC-2001 of the Bruneau Centre.