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Fortis Environmental Award
Earlier this year, one of our parents suggested that the school submit our recently completed Centre for Art and Humanities building for an award. The 6th Annual VIREB (Vancouver Island Real Estate Board) Commercial Building Awards celebrate a number of categories of development on Vancouver Island. This year they added an award for environmental excellence in commercial buildings: the Fortis B.C. Green Award. Brentwood College School won this inaugural award for the excellent engineering and architecture that went into this campus gem.
For anyone who has seen the Centre, it speaks to all levels of the power of visual image and the dialectic between artist and audience. The 30,000 sq. ft. waterfront facility includes 16,000 sq. ft. of visual arts studios, two digital media studios, a spectacular 25’ high entrance gallery and a corridor with asymmetric walls, emphasizing student artwork. A suspended walkway accesses a 7000 sq. ft. suite of classrooms while window locations were selected to maximize natural light at optimum times for our art programs. The signature bell tower, the campeline, acts as a conduit chimney to a naturally ventilated building.
It follows LEED guidelines and beyond as solar energy sources supplement power needs of the building, almost taking the building off grid at night. Natural ventilation utilizes cool ocean breezes, limiting the need for air conditioning while a closed ocean-source geothermal system provides energy efficient heating and cooling twelve months of the year. Solar evacuated tubes also allow for water pre-heat for our photography programs. Cutting edge computer modeling has maximized many of these efficiencies, which considered the angle of the sun, our proclivity for winter rain and our proximity to the ocean. This modeling has also helped reduce building costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This marvelous building is a new cornerstone to our campus development and will benefit the students, staff and community for decades to come.
Mr. Ian McPherson, Director of Communications and Marketing
For anyone who has seen the Centre, it speaks to all levels of the power of visual image and the dialectic between artist and audience. The 30,000 sq. ft. waterfront facility includes 16,000 sq. ft. of visual arts studios, two digital media studios, a spectacular 25’ high entrance gallery and a corridor with asymmetric walls, emphasizing student artwork. A suspended walkway accesses a 7000 sq. ft. suite of classrooms while window locations were selected to maximize natural light at optimum times for our art programs. The signature bell tower, the campeline, acts as a conduit chimney to a naturally ventilated building.
It follows LEED guidelines and beyond as solar energy sources supplement power needs of the building, almost taking the building off grid at night. Natural ventilation utilizes cool ocean breezes, limiting the need for air conditioning while a closed ocean-source geothermal system provides energy efficient heating and cooling twelve months of the year. Solar evacuated tubes also allow for water pre-heat for our photography programs. Cutting edge computer modeling has maximized many of these efficiencies, which considered the angle of the sun, our proclivity for winter rain and our proximity to the ocean. This modeling has also helped reduce building costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This marvelous building is a new cornerstone to our campus development and will benefit the students, staff and community for decades to come.
Mr. Ian McPherson, Director of Communications and Marketing
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