The following text is excerpted from A Portrait of Canada’s Parliament by William P McElligott © William P. McElligott; essay copyright Stephen Fai and Allan Teramura, 2021. Published by ECW Press Ltd. www.ecwpress.com
Carleton University?s Immersive Media Studio used state of the art technologies such as laser scanning and digital photogrammetry to record and measure the interior and the exterior of the Parliament Building as well as reveal the structural systems within the floors, walls, and roofs. Image courtesy Carleton University Immersive Media Studio (CIMS)
To the casual observer, the Parliament Building appeared, before it was closed for the rehabilitation in 2019, in good condition. The iconic south facade and Peace Tower were restored in the 1990s, and the important interiors were generally presentable. Look closer, however, and there are signs of water entering the building, damaging the stonework and finishes ? a result of deteriorated exterior masonry and roofing. Unseen behind the stone and plaster, water is also corroding structural steel, which further damages the masonry in a vicious cycle.
Also concealed behind the elaborate interior finishes are thousands of metres of rusted-out heating pipes, which break from time to time, causing further damage and wasting heat. Because most of these pipes are embedded in concrete, finding the source of leaks is time consuming, messy, and costly. 
People who worked in the building, before they moved to alternate...