The Mackimmie Complex
This webinar is part of the RAIC 2023 Conference on Architecture, now available to stream!
Topics: Climate Justice and Resilience, Sustainability, Adaptation and Mitigation
Length: 1 hour | What's Included: Video, Quiz, and Certificate of Completion
The MacKimmie Complex Redevelopment is a deep green and resilient revitalization of a campus heart and reestablishes the core’s connective tissue. It is a respectful homage to the 1960s tower and a contemporary reimagination along with the adjacent Link and academic Block. The collaborative process helped define a design that enhances campus identity and synthesis of the University's aspirations. Comprised of a 14-storey concrete tower and a five-storey steel-framed block connected by a two-storey concrete link; the MacKimmie Tower remains the tallest building within the University of Calgary’s main campus. The original brutalist building consisted of opaque vertical and horizontal lines. In response, the design strips the structure to its essential frame, adds two levels of reduced floor plates, and uses a dynamic and angled double skin to read the transference of light as it moves throughout the day in a diagonal path down the building. The Tower’s radiused corners are a natural way of reading the existing structure of the building. The new skin drifts down over the top of the structure and hovers very delicately above the ground floor. The loggia steps back at the ground plane and gives pedestrians access to a covered exterior corridor around the building.
The new Block is a departure from the north/south diagram of the existing block and creates an east/west alignment to optimizes solar access and provide a closure to Swann Mall. An efficient warehouse of spaces, this mass houses classrooms, administration, and student study areas. It is punctuated with articulated extensions or apertures, that connect view corridors. Finally, the Block core houses three multi-story vessels that act as the building’s lungs. The MacKimmie Complex has achieved design certification with the Canada Green Building Council’s Zero Carbon Building Standard. The integrated design approach for the building and systems is to minimize energy through passive climate techniques such as natural ventilation, thermal mass, heat recovery and use solar exposure. The project demonstrates that a deep retrofit of an existing campus buildings, can result exceptional environmental performance and cultural transformation.
Learning Objectives:
By the completion of this session, participants will be able to:
- Articulate several design techniques that can transform and reinterpret existing campus buildings
- Identify a process that synthesizes design thinking and methodology across all disciplines
- Can identify computational methods and industry partnerships that can aid a complex design execution.
- Define a distinct Net Zero Carbon and resilience-based approach that reinforces an institutions aspirational goals.
Subject Matter Expert:
Mr. Robert Claiborne
Architect, AAA, RAIC, Architect - California, NCARB
Partner - Architecture, DIALOG
A design partner at DIALOG, Robert has led many international cultural, institutional and master planning commissions. Robert is the creative force behind many national and international award-winning projects including The University of Calgary Mackimmie Complex. He believes that each project has an opportunity and a responsibility to express a greater cultural meaning. Robert puts emphasis and focus on understanding and reshaping the many forces that influence each project and strives to find a unique and inspired response to those conditions. A keen observer with many interests, but particularly in the arts, Robert believes that architecture comes to us through our experiences with the world not from other architecture. Engaged and committed, Robert works closely with clients and colleagues alike and fosters a strong dedicated team approach to work with the studio. Robert is a licensed architect in both Alberta and California. He previously had his own architectural practice in Montreal, Studio 451, where he focused on cultural projects and international competitions. For almost a decade he was design lead with Studio Libeskind in Berlin and Los Angeles where he led many design projects in Europe, North America and Asia. Robert earned his Master of Architecture degree from SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) in 1993 and his Bachelor of Architecture degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1985 and a certificate from the Ecole d’arts americaines in Fontainebleau, France. He has taught architecture for many years at universities including the University of Calgary, McGill University, the University of Toronto, the University of Southern California and California Polytechnic University, Pomona. His work has been exhibited both in Canada and internationally.
Mr. John Souleles
Architect, AAA, MRAIC, International Associate AIA, MArch, LEED® AP
Partner - Architecture, DIALOG
As an Architect and Partner at DIALOG, John has over 25 years of industry experience in a large spectrum of projects but with a specific focus on libraries and post-secondary institutions. His interests lie in higher education education learning environments and innovative library service models, transformational programs, and collaborative techniques. John is also acutely design focused, with a depth of experience in deep carbon reduction, resilient retrofits, and sustainable design. John was most recently the project architect for the University of Calgary MacKimmie Complex, the first Net Zero Carbon design for the institution, and the Mount Royal University Riddell Library + Learning Centre, a new standalone facility to accommodate student and faculty academic excellence.