The Future Buildings Laboratory is currently enclosed with semi-transparent photovoltaic curtain walls and building integrated photovoltaic/thermal collector panels. Photo by Shawn Moss
PROJECT Future Buildings Laboratory, Concordia University, Loyola Campus, Montreal, Quebec
ARCHITECT Smith Vigeant architectes
As an architect working for Concordia University?s facilities management department, my projects include the renovation of classrooms or offices where our department, along with external professionals, are the experts. In the case of a recent project though, the architects were the learners.
Concordia University?s newest?and smallest?pavilion, designed by Smith Vigeant architectes, may look like a building. But this research facility is essentially an instrument designed to test building envelopes and efficiency under real-weather operating conditions. The pavilion was created for the University?s Centre for Zero Energy Building Studies (CZEBS), part of the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science?s Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering department, and was informed by the CZEBS?s researchers. That group is directed by one of the world?s foremost experts in solar buildings, Dr. Andreas Athienitis; the construction project was led by Dr. Hua Ge, an expert in field-testing building envelopes. The pavilion is designed, among other things, to test building-integrated photovoltaics, motorized shading devices, hybrid renewables, urban wind energy, and s...