Features
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Award of Excellence: Mountain Equipment Co-op Head Office
“This mid-rise commercial building in Vancouver is a hybrid timber and steel structure, with an extensive use of wood. It seems relatively simple construction, but the engineers had to work from first principles. The interface of the floor diaphragm with the steel lateral system, for example, needed careful design to meet the intent of seismic requirements in the code.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Edmonton International Airport Office and Control Tower
“This was visually a very impressive project. Combining the control tower with an office building above the terminal was challenging. The steel shear walls were innovative.
A lot of the solutions are partly driven by the structure, partly driven by the architecture, which means it’s a truly
integrated solution.” – Jury -
Award of Excellence: Thunder Bay Courthouse – Acoustic Design
“What was interesting about this building in northern Ontario was the close integration of the acoustic design with the construction. The acoustic engineers’ expertise provided natural acoustics inside courtrooms that are open and daylit, unlike the typical heavily insulated “black box” environments.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Calgary International Airport Runway and Tunnel
“The complexity of designing a runway on top of a tunnel to accommodate the new large aircraft was impressive, especially as there were no Canadian codes or standards for it. They also introduced LED lighting for the Category IIIA runway — a first in North America.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: St. Patrick’s Bridge
“The bridge is very elegant, very light and transparent, with an efficient structure that minimized its use of materials. It is also
an innovative design that allowed much of the structure to be prefabricated. Despite the setbacks of the 2013 flood, it was completed on budget and for half the cost per square metre of other signature bridges in Calgary.” – Jury -
Award of Excellence: Ruskin Dam, Right Abutment Seepage Control Upgrade
“This was a challenging rehabilitation of a 1930s dam in Mission, B.C. It had suffered seepage issues that compromised its integrity. To address the problem the engineers basically had to cut a 25 metre deep slot in the existing dam and seal it with a mastic asphalt membrane. It required precise drilling techniques in challenging site conditions.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Orleans Watermain Link
“The City of Ottawa needed a large 900-mm diameter watermain to cross two environmentally sensitive creeks and the Rockcliffe Parkway, a key recreational area. Like several other award-winning projects this year, the project saved money and time by being innovative.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Flood Mitigation in Calgary
“The flood situation that Calgary dealt with in 2013 was unprecedented. The engineers developed a creative modelling technique for mapping the changed conditions on the Bow and Elbow Rivers, which allowed the city to better plan its responses to future events. A lot of future resources will be tied to this activity.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Outboard Marine In Situ Environmental Remediation
“This old small engine manufacturing facility site in Peterborough, Ontario was contaminated with DNAPLs like lubricating oils and degreasing fluids. To remediate the land the engineers applied an in situ thermal process that has not been used in Canada before, called electro-thermal dynamic stripping.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Kokish River Hydroelectric Project
“This 45 MW run-of-river project in Port McNeill, B.C. has innovative features to provide safe passage for both adult and juvenile steelhead trout and salmon. We also liked the fact that the local First Nation was part of the development team and were able to contribute their in-depth traditional knowledge of the site.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Giant Mine Remediation
“As part of the remediation of one of the worst contaminated mining sites in Canada, this project in Yellowknife, NWT involved stabilizing underground voids and openings that were posing a safety hazard. The really impressive aspect was the creative use of the tailings materials on site to fill the voids and create barricades.”– Jury
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Award of Excellence – First Nation Land Management Regime
“The engineers worked closely with individual First Nations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba to provide environmental site assessments and remediation plans for their reserves. We appreciated how this work was then integrated with individual frameworks for future land management. These policies included social and economic factors specific
to First Nations.” – Jury -
Award of Excellence: Improving Water Supply in Mozambique
“We liked the fact that the funding clients used Canadian engineering expertise for this project in a struggling sub-Saharan country. The engineers provided eight cities with master plans for their water needs for the next 20 years, and they oversaw construction of one system. The solutions were appropriately designed to be low-maintenance.” – Jury
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Award of Excellence: Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park
“The consulting engineers donated financial support and their professional knowledge and personal time to an archaeological excavation at the Siksika Nation Site in Alberta. We found that this project was an interesting way of building relationships between the public and First Nations. And it provided valuable experience for the university students.”
– Jury Court Appointed Receiver
After a manufacturer went bankrupt and left behind a contaminated site, consulting engineers took on an unusual role in the environmental remediation.
Newsjacking and Trendspotting
Advice on how consulting engineers can borrow the latest marketing techniques to develop strong relations with clients.
Why are engineering firms blurring their names? Editorial
The trend to anonymity goes hand in hand with globalization. It also goes with what everyone complains about: the “commoditization” of engineering services.
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Aquatic Light: Guildford Recreation Centre Aquatic Addition
Illuminated wood trusses at the Guildford Recreation Centre Aquatic Addition in Surrey, B.C. cast a soft atmospheric light over the pool.
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Fire Protecting the Eight-Storey Wood Innovation and Design Centre, B.C.
Site specific rules were developed for the design of the Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, B.C. to ensure the structure would safely withstand fire.
The Path to Leadership: Chris Newcomb on Core Values
The chair of a large consulting engineering company based in Vancouver shares some of his personal history and has advice for aspiring young professionals.
Smart Building Operations with Building Controls
Today’s Building Automation Systems provide a host of detailed data that is useful for identifying problems, but they also require that operators receive appropriate training.
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Detection, Delay, Defence: Dominic Chevrier of Stantec on Building Security
At Stantec, a specialized group deals with the security needs of clients, headed by Dominic Chevrier.
OLEDs – Lighting’s New Wave
Organic light-emitting diodes could transform the lighting of spaces, with their flexible, thin surfaces that can be wrapped around different forms.
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The SkyDome’s Birth: Engineer Michael Allen remembers
Michael Allen recalls how he and architect Rod Robbie came up with the concept for the famous retractable roof over the Toronto Rogers Centre.
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Pan Am Prize: Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, U of T Scarborough
The centre provided a stunning backdrop for events at the summer Games. The structural engineering was complex with removable columns to provide unobstructed views in the vast aquatic centre.
Future-Proofing Hospitals
The information technology needs of health care institutions are rapidly expanding, which makes it critical that the communications infrastructure is planned strategically.
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For Hockey and Housing: Westhills Recreation Complex, Langford, B.C.
The Westhills Recreation Centre in Langford, B.C. integrates its ice rink systems with the building HVAC. It also pumps excess energy to a nearby housing development.
Delays with Infrastructure Construction Projects
Large transit and other construction projects are taking years longer than they’re supposed to — and the public want to know why. Engineers give their views on what are the causes.
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Engulfed – Warding off Floodwater in Alberta
After the 2013 flood of the century in southern Alberta, engineers are drawing up plans for dikes, dams and other large structures to save vulnerable communities from future disaster.
Changing the Model – Wandering River Regional Pipeline
A design-build team completed the Wandering River Regional Pipeline across 88 kilometres of Northern Alberta, taking just over a year.
