Polishing Two Sandstone Jewels: Calgary City Hall and Government House, Halifax - REGULAR

Polishing Two Sandstone Jewels: Calgary City Hall and Government House, Halifax

This webinar is part of the RAIC 2022 Virtual Conference on Architecture, now available to stream!

Topics: Design

Length: 1 hour | What's Included: Video, Quiz, and Certificate of Completion 

Water often teaches us difficult lessons. Sometimes the lessons are taught fast, like the 2013 flood that inundated downtown Calgary, engulfing the basement of the 1911 sandstone City Hall overnight. Other lessons may be slow, as in Halifax, where water slowly seeped from the ground into the foundations of the 1805 Government House for two centuries. In both cases, each of these nationally-recognized historic landmarks required extensive reparations. As is common with most aged buildings, both of these projects discovered and addressed damage that resulted from deferred maintenance, disrespectful previous repairs, and inherent flaws with the original designs: roofs that didn’t shed, undersized gutters & downspouts, stone blocks that had shifted, leaky wooden windows, asbestos abatement horrors, toxic paints, and inaccessible facilities. Valuable lessons were learned from correcting these issues too. Join the two government architects who supervised the assessment, planning & reparations that conserved these two heritage buildings at different ends of the country and hear answers to key questions.

Learning Objectives:

By the completion of this session, participants will be able to:

• Appraise the successful rehabilitation of two sandstone heritage buildings.
• Apply strategies for improving the accessibility and inclusivity of heritage buildings.
• Summarize how to successfully develop & deliver a “conservation” project.
• Predict the risks of water, deferred maintenance, improper repairs, and inherent design flaws to heritage buildings, so that they can develop their own heritage rehabilitation & maintenance.

Subject Matter Experts:

Mr. Gillies is an Architect with the city of Calgary. He leads a team that plans construction programs, including heritage building conservation projects and accessibility. During his 20-year career, Cameron has worked with some of Canada's best recognized Architects, and has contributed to over $3B worth of design and construction projects. He has also mentored, taught, and lectured at institutions across the Canada.

Terrence Smith-Lamothe
M. Arch., B. Env. D. S., B. Sc., LEED AP, Dipl. PM
Architect,  NSAA, MRAIC, Architech, Ltd. 

Smith-Lamothe was employed for 17 years with the Nova Scotia Provincial Government as senior architect. He supervised mainly Education, Heritage and Healthcare projects. He was steering committee chair for the renovations to historic Government House. He founded Architectural Overdrive! a discussion group about Architecture and good design which has met quarterly for the last ten years to learn about and celebrate regional architects and their work. Presently, he continues to work in his small private practice which includes visual arts and writing. He has presented several topics at RAIC Conferences in the past with some teaching at Dalhousie School of Architecture.

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