New UOttawa Bldg Underway on King Edward

[MountainView]

It looks like a building that should go on Carleton's campus - the brick looks like it would match their new Canal and River buildings.

[teej1984]

Originally Posted by toaster

New render

Kinda looks like a green WALL on the side there! That would be a really nice addition

[FiereSansVoiture]

Originally Posted by MountainView

It looks like a building that should go on Carleton's campus - the brick looks like it would match their new Canal and River buildings.

I think it looks like an actual building at Carleton University: Azrieli Pavillion

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

--building and its instruments is attracting a research facility from U of T

New U of O lab to house powerful, ultra-stable laser


By Tom Spears, Ottawa CitizenSeptember 21, 2012 4:03 PM


The newest research labs in Ottawa will soon stand five storeys high beside King Edward Avenue, but just as crucial are their roots, set deep in the Ottawa Valley bedrock.

The University of Ottawa has started construction on its $57-million Advanced Research Complex, future home of photonics and geoscience labs. There will be a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday.

Part of the building is a photonics project by 10 researchers to use high-intensity light to investigate things at the nano-scale. The lab itself has to be ultra-stable. Even the rumbling of passing traffic would disturb the delicate instruments, which is why it is in the basement and anchored in bedrock, not on ordinary building foundations.

Jiggling a laser makes its frequency a little unstable. “The reason you want lasers to begin with is the extremely high degree ... of (having) a single frequency,” said nanophotonics researcher Robert Boyd. Jiggles are fixable but it’s much better to avoid them.

Temperature and dust will also controlled. Even a change of half a Celsius degree in the lab “is just enough thermal expansion that things go wrong,” he said.

“Imagine the basement in your home. Now cut a slot so that the central slab is disconnected from the rest of it. People can be jumping down on the outside, and the central slab is vibrationally isolated,” he said. “In our building the central slab will be placed on concrete piers that go all the way down to the bedrock.”

The laser lab will be “comparable to the best in the world,” he said. It may even be the best, period.

Of the many things the new labs will do, veteran physicist Paul Corkum says the most exciting is to look deep inside “slices” of a biological cell.

“Think of how you would slice up a tomato. We would like to have slices of a cell. If you look at each slice, you would know where you were in the cell.

“Then we want ... to take a little piece of the slice and desorb (separate) it from the surface and put it into a vacuum where its mass can be measured. Not just the piece but the molecules in the piece.

“We would be able to look — maybe this is too big a dream — almost molecule by molecule inside a cell. What’s beside it? How does the chemistry work? I find this the most exciting of all possible things to do.”

The lab would also investigate nanoparticles, which worry some people about environmental and health effects.

“We have nanoparticles in makeup and things like that,” he said. “What happens to them? ... Where do they go? Do they go into the cell? If they go into the cell, how long do they survive? What do they do to the cell?”

Another major centre in the building will be an accelerator mass spectrometer, which looks at “trace elements of things — things that are not easy to see. Sometimes they don’t like very long” because the molecules break apart. That group is led by Ian Clark of the Department of Earth Sciences.

There’s only one such instrument in Canada today, in Toronto. It’s about 30 years old and will shut down when the U of O lab opens, and the team that operates it in Toronto is moving here.


The new building will also have an overall expansion of lab space, including some for three new faculty it plans to hire soon.

It attracted Boyd two years ago from the United States with a Canada Excellence in Research Chair and is trying to establish itself as a world leader in photonics.

Boyd says the biggest benefit of the new building will not be laboratory equipment at all. At present, the photonics faculty are split between a science building and an engineering building. Now they will have one home, and a chance to “bump into each other in the hall.” That means a better chance to share ideas.

It also puts all their equipment in one place.

Corkum said the new building has been at least 10 years in the planning, and strengthens the links with government and industry.

“Although there have been ups and downs” over the years, “the people haven’t gone away, nor has the expertise,” he said.

Construction is expected to finish in the spring of 2014.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

[Postmaster]

Decent enough looking building, but that research lab sounds really cool. Glad to have something of that magnitude in our city.

[amanfromnowhere]

Ground breaks for new Ottawa research complex

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

The University of Ottawa has broken ground officially on its Advanced Research Complex (ARC), a building that will house two separate facilities — the revamped uOttawa Centre for Advanced Photonics and a cluster of state-of-the-art geoscience laboratories.

Designed by Cole + Associates Architects Inc. and being constructed by Pomerleau Inc., the 13,490-square-metre building will be home in part to an accelerator mass spectrometer lab. This Canadian technology is now used world-wide to measure trace radionuclides.

The team that has been working with the current mass spectrometer at the University of Toronto will relocate to Ottawa once the complex is open and the next generation of the technology operational.

“The groundbreaking of this world-class facility sets Ottawa on the path to becoming the geoscience capital of Canada and the photonics capital of the world,” said Allan Rock, the university’s president and vice-chancellor.

The total project cost is $57 million. Construction costs are estimated at $45 million to $46 million.

Designed to achieve LEED Silver certification, the building will house 10 labs, which “float” on seismic plates, mechanically isolated from external vibrations. The labs are controlled for temperature, humidity and electromagnetic interference.

Clean rooms will recycle air 30 to 60 times per minute.

Labs have been designed in clusters to promote collaboration and synergy between researchers.

The height of the building drops from five storeys to three storeys on one side to align with an adjacent residential neighbourhood.

Claudio Brun del Re, the university’s director, Physical Resources Service, said the university is making use of a corner site “that doesn’t have much presence at the moment.

“From an urban design perspective, the complex will give the street a stronger presence, showing the university in the best possible light.”

During construction, due diligence will be required to ensure that critical vibration control requirements are met.

“The equipment that we are housing is very, very sensitive,” he said.

Targeted for completion in spring 2014, the project is being undertaken by a team that includes project manager CBRE Canada Inc., structural engineers Genivar, mechanical engineers BPR and landscape architects Corush Sunderland Wright.

Through the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s New Initiatives Fund and Leading Edge Fund, the federal government is investing $5.5 million toward the construction of the new complex. An additional $7.2 million will go toward equipment for two of the labs that will be located in the facility.

Construction coincides with the publication of a report ranking the University of Ottawa fourth in Canada in science and engineering.

dcn

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

When this building opens in 2014, the top two floors will be unoccupied.

It was originally supposed to be a three story building, but the university decided to add two stories and keep them for future needs.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

When this building opens in 2014, the top two floors will be unoccupied.

It was originally supposed to be a three story building, but the university decided to add two stories and keep them for future needs.

Wow, plan for future considerations. Now there's a foreign concept for Ottawa.

[Chris-R]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

When this building opens in 2014, the top two floors will be unoccupied.

It was originally supposed to be a three story building, but the university decided to add two stories and keep them for future needs.

They'll probably need it for classes (at least temporarily)... ...classes... grumble grumble Colonel By Bldg basement.... grumble grumble.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Chris-R

They'll probably need it for classes (at least temporarily)... ...classes... grumble grumble Colonel By Bldg basement.... grumble grumble.

What about Colonel By bldg?

Update; Oh, now I see, good cadidate for the next tear down.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

What about Colonel By bldg?

Update; Oh, now I see, good cadidate for the next tear down.

I doubt they would tear down Colonel By. It is one of the most significant chunks of floor space they have. They will just continue incrementally renovating it.

Some of the lecture halls need a redo (there is not really that many). The building is mostly office, lab and shop space. The lecture halls that need a redo are in much better shape than the ones in Gendron prior to it's renovation, or Marion prior to it's reno.

It also has a great feature in that it is strategically designed to ensure arts students have absolutely no hope of finding their classes Ah the memories! "Where's E?"

[Chris-R]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

What about Colonel By bldg?

Update; Oh, now I see, good cadidate for the next tear down.

Not so much to tear down, I just don't like having classes down there in the dungeon.

It just seems to be that in the short time that I've been at that school, the assignment of classrooms has become more Tetris-like at the beginning of every term. Considering the rapid growth of the school in in the last decade and that there has been little new class space, they could probably use more.

[J.OT13]

I guess I'm a bit of an extremist.

[Beatrix]

Seems like an average/decent addition to the campus.

I certainly hope the UOttawa building craze continues for the next little while. It would be nice if they did something the parking lot that fronts the transitway/Nicolas avenue (just north of the new Vanier Hall Tower).

Seems like a good place to have a small urban park (assuming the transit way will be gone when they build the light rail tunnel).

If not - another 15+ story building is always nice

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by Beatrix

Seems like an average/decent addition to the campus.

I certainly hope the UOttawa building craze continues for the next little while. It would be nice if they did something the parking lot that fronts the transitway/Nicolas avenue (just north of the new Vanier Hall Tower).

Seems like a good place to have a small urban park (assuming the transit way will be gone when they build the light rail tunnel).

If not - another 15+ story building is always nice

No matter what they do with the lot it will definately have to include adding underground parking. Parking is VERY limited on campus and this lot is really the last large one left. I would like to see half the lot (the side closest to the Transitway) used for a mid-rise building and the half facing campus a park. More and more that area between Montpetit, Teachers College, Vanier, New building, Uni Centre is starting to look like a proper centre to a large university campus.

[Beatrix]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

No matter what they do with the lot it will definately have to include adding underground parking. Parking is VERY limited on campus and this lot is really the last large one left. I would like to see half the lot (the side closest to the Transitway) used for a mid-rise building and the half facing campus a park. More and more that area between Montpetit, Teachers College, Vanier, New building, Uni Centre is starting to look like a proper centre to a large university campus.

Yeah - I agree the overall design for the campus is going in the right direction (but still needs a lot of work).

Before I left Ottawa U in 2009 they were planning on turning the parking lot in front of Lamouraux into a public square with greenery and (if memory serves me correctly) a mini skating rink during the winter. I remember that area was an absolute eyesore and dreadful navigate through (for pedestrians and drivers, alike).

They should also tear down that ugly skybridge that connects LMX to the Vanier tower, IMO.

Regarding the lot by the transitway - yeah I'm not sure where they can add additional parking spaces if our idea becomes a reality. However - since the university is including a transit pass in the cost of tuition - it seems like they are trying to wheen people off taking their cars to school, anyway.

[J.OT13]

General comment for those who think space will be added to U of O once the central transitway is converted to an underground subway. The tunnel will surface past Laurier Ave. E., so the only additional space will be between the Desmarais and Tabaret hall. And even then, there is no guarantee the city will eliminate that part of Waller Street to leave it as U of O open space, but I certainly hope they do.

[Beatrix]

I hope so to.

The student population has increased dramatically over the past ten years. While I'm happy they are constructing more buildings to accomodate more classes -- I think the administration should also work towards creating more parks and public places to allow more "breathing space" for people to hang out on campus.

[Harley613]

This one is coming along quite rapidly now! Not a bad looking building!

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Harley613

This one is coming along quite rapidly now! Not a bad looking building!

Love the green!... adds a nice splash of colour