2007 Canadian Consulting Engineering Award Winners Announced

The winners of the 2007 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards were presented at a gala celebration at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa last night. <br>
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The annual awards, launched 39 years ago, are the most important national mark of recognition for projects recently completed by consulting engineering firms. They are co-sponsored by the Association of Canadian Engineering Companies (ACEC)/L’Association des firmes d’ingnierie du Canada (AFIC) and Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine.<br>
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Awards were given for innovative engineering design for four building projects, two dams, a wastewater treatment plant and a tailings pond. In addition, three projects that involved the transfer of Canadian technology and engineering skills won in the international category.<br>
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The 11 winners were selected from 65 entries. The jury was a panel of eminent engineers from across Canada. <br>
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CANADIAN CONSULTING ENGINEERING AWARDS 2007<br>
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SCHREYER AWARD<br>
Acoustic Design of the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre, Medicine Hat, Alberta<br>
– By Aercoustics Engineering Limited, Toronto, Ont.<br>
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The top technical award in the program is known as the Schreyer Award. This year it went to the acoustic engineers for the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre in Medicine Hat, Alberta, which opened in 2005. <br>
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The centre’s 700-seat main auditorium has one of the highest performance sound qualities in western Canada thanks to the sophisticated analysis skills and wise judgement of the acoustic engineers. <br>
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Working on behalf of the building’s architects, Diamond Schmitt Associates with Cohos Evamy, Aercoustics Engineering introduced two important innovations in acoustical analysis. First, they developed special “signal conditioning” software to analyze sound in a small-scale physical model of the auditorium. The software application improves on previous modelling techniques by creating representations of the sound that the engineers could listen to rather than simply relying on numbers and graphs. <br>
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Second, Aercoustics developed ways to analyze noise from the auditorium’s displacement air ventilation system. Displacement ventilation systems are relatively new for performance spaces and are becoming popular. Until this project, however, there w s no recognized method of predicting or measuring their acoustical performance. <br>
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Aercoustics’ analysis with displacement ventilation systems at the Esplanade Centre was later used directly to influence the noise control design of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, a building that is currently known as “the quietest opera house in the world.” <br>
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The owner of the Esplanade Centre is the City of Medicine Hat. <br>
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AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE<br>
Rehabilitation of the Centre hospitalier Honor-Mercier, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec <br>
– by DESSAU, Longueuil, Que.<br>
After a large hospital in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec was found to be badly contaminated, DESSAU completely overhauled its building envelope and mechanical systems. <br>
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Deep Soil Mixing, Ground Stabilization Foundation, Vancouver Island Conference Centre, Nanaimo, B.C.<br>
– by Golder Associates Ltd. (Golder) and Golder Associates Innovative Application (GAIA) Inc., Burnaby, B.C.<br>
The geotechnical engineers designed an innovative foundation system so that a building could be safely constructed in unstable soils.<br>
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Gimli Community Health Centre, Gimli, Manitoba<br>
– by MCW/AGE Consulting Professional Engineers, Winnipeg, Man.<br>
Taking an environmental approach, MCW/AGE designed a system that uses well water to cool and partially heat a community hospital.<br>
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Shikwamkwa Replacement Dam, Wawa, Ont.<br>
– by Hatch Energy, Niagara Falls, Ont.<br>
The engineers developed new dam monitoring techniques, and then designed one of the largest embankment dams built in Ontario in decades. <br>
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Seymour Falls Dam Seismic Upgrade, North Vancouver, B.C.<br>
– by Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd., Hatch Energy, Greater Vancouver Water District, Vancouver, B.C.<br>
A dam in the mountains north of Vancouver has been buttressed and strengthened to ensure the region has drinking water during an earthquake.<br>
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Conger Marsh Wastewater Treatment Plant, MacTier, Ont.<br>
– by Totten Sims Hubicki Associates (1997) Limited, Whitby, Ont.<br>
Great care was taken to protect endangered species before building this new plant in Ontario’s cottage country.<br>
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South Tailings Pond Wetlands, Millennium Mine, Alberta<br>
– by Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd., Calgary, Alta.<br>
The engineers designed a wetlands habitat for a tailings pond in northern Alberta.<br>
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Yellow River Water Resources and Flood Management Optimization, China<br>
– by Golder Associates Ltd., Calgary, Alta.<br>
The engineers brought Canadian technologies to help manage one of the world’s longest and most stressed river systems.<br>
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Goodfellow EFSOP Project at Topy Industries Factory, Toyohashi City, Japan<br>
– by Tenova Goodfellow, Mississauga, Ont.<br>
Tenova Goodfellow’s electric arc furnace technology is helping a steelmaker in Japan cut emissions.<br>
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Management Strategy to Reduce Hillslope Erosion and Reservoir Siltation for Watersheds, Algeria <br>
– by TECSULT Inc., Montreal, Que.<br>
Quebec engineers came up with plans to make Algerian water reservoirs more viable over a vast area of 23,000 square kilometres.<br>
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AWARD CO-SPONSORS:<br>
The Association of Canadian Engineering Companies/ L’Association des firmes d’ingnierie du Canada (AFIC) in Ottawa is the national association of consulting firms that provide engineering and other technology-based intellectual services. www.acec.ca<br>
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Canadian Consulting Engineer is a bi-monthly magazine for engineers in private practice. It is a division of BIG Magazines LP of Toronto. <br>
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Full descriptions of each winning project are published in the magazine’s October-November issue, www.canadianconsultingengineer.com. Or contact Bronwen Parsons, editor, 416-510-5119.<br>
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2007 BEAUBIEN AWARD <br>
Given by ACEC/AFIC<br>
The Beaubien Award is given to an individual for exceptional service to the association and the consulting engineering industry. This year the award went to J.C. Roger Warren.<br>
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Roger Warrens visionary leadership is well known in the consulting engineering industry, for many major projects both in Canada and abroad. In the 1970s, his team was instrumental in drawing attention to the James Bay regions enormous hydroelectric possibilities. Acclaimed as “the project of the century” at the time, the James Bay project has long been recognized for its tremendous contribution to meeting Qubecs and Canadas growing energy needs.<br>
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Roger Warren was involved in feasibility studies and his firm RSW Inc. had the engineering contract for the first power plant built on the La Grande River, for which they received the Schreyer Award. <br>
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His knowledge and his influence have marked the last 40 years of the consulting engineering industry in Canada and internationally.<br>
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