National Archives of Canada
Gatineau, Quebec
This Governor General’s Medal winning facility is designed for a lifespan of 500 years to preserve and conserve our Nation’s memory in a Thermal Neutral Environment. The National Archives exists in three metaphors:
1) The Treasure Chest of our Nation’s Memory -a glass case surrounds and protects the elaborate vaults. The sun reflects on thin stainless steel blades and studs.
2) A Temple to our Nation’s Memory – surround by 50ft articulated stainless steel columns the vaults become like the Pantheon’s Naos.
3) The vaults protect the village of preservation and conservation.
This is not a simple storage building; it is a highly technical electronic facility with controlled static environments, preservation labs, communication labs, video labs, film labs, processing labs, EDP labs, optronic labs, audio labs, and numerous other laboratories.
The National Archives of Canada is conceived as a building within a building to create a Thermal Neutral Environment protecting the vaults from external environmental conditions and contaminants such as terrorism, vermin, fire and water. The outer building is constructed of glass supported by the world’s first stainless steel superstructure enveloping the inner concrete archival vaults. The generous space between the concrete archive vaults and the steel and glass skin serves as an effective environmental buffer and a gracious public galleria.
The laboratories are a series of buildings and greenhouses located above these vaults. To avoid the contamination of priceless artifacts, all building materials within the Archives have zero VOCs (vapours of contamination) to avoid off-gassing. The engineered thermal neutral environment provides a stable atmosphere for the preservation of archival materials. Sensitive spaces are protected from contamination while allowing archivists to interact.
The building utilizes IKOY’s plug in, plug out, plug in philosophy to allow for economical and efficient change as the archival preservation techniques change with time. The mechanical and electrical room is a separate building located outside of the Archives’ thermal neutral environment allowing for maintenance and renovations to the systems without contaminating the laboratories or vaults.
“Keenberg’s strategy begins with the almost self-evident assertion that obsolescence is the villain of modern architecture. It shares with British high-tech architects a belief in the autonomous expression of building systems, allowing them to be replaced according to their individual life cycles without interfering with other systems, a sentiment which echoes the philosophy of architects like Richard Rogers. In the case of the National Archives, each system is weighted, according to what it must do, and how long it must last – and the idea that it must operate at the leading edge of technology throughout its life. (This latter point is extremely important, as it implies that architecture is never finished, never static – it resists the pitfall of much contemporary architecture where the pristine moment of photography represents the apex of a building’s life, after which the ravages of use and change can only be seen to degrade the compositional perfection of that fleeting instant).”
Beth Kapusta, Domus, 1998.
Structure
The facility contains a unique stainless steel superstructure consisting of thirty-four 80ft elegant, classical modernist columns, capitols and bent beams elaborately designed to emphasize their structural role. The structure is contained within the skin on the sides of the building and is external on the front and back facades. The structure is meticulously detailed, made of stainless steel plates, bar, threaded rods, nuts and bolts with a glass bead blasted finish.
The use of cast in place concrete bearing wall construction created simple cost saving vaults with a thermal mass, that helps to maintain a constant internal environment and provides secure containment that can prevent the spread of fire or water. The 9.6m high reinforced concrete wall is stepped back at each level and is marked by thin vertical stainless steel fins and studded with steel plugs that work together to catch the sunlight that pours through the glass outer wall, making this structural element like a giant treasure chest.
Skin
SITE’s south face is a bold transparent glazed curtain wall. The north wall is poured in place concrete with punched windows and faced with pre-cast concrete panels. The building is constructed out of 85% light admitting triple glazing systems. These systems not only offer excellent insulating properties, but also create a wall system that is easy to maintain. If a seal breaks, condensation signals the problem, and the offending unit is popped out and a new one plugged back in.
Mechanical
The concept of a building within a building was envisioned by IKOY’s Chief Architect Ron Keenberg, to satisfy the stringent demands for a secure, environmentally controlled archive by creating an artificial climate that separates the archival vaults from the region’s harsh climates. The Thermal Neutral Environment (TNE), a first for any archives or museum anywhere in the world, is a thermally controlled air barrier that surrounds the six faces of the vaults to provide constant relative humidity (RH) and temperatures within the vaults. This air barrier is effective at controlling the storage vaults’ atmosphere, and puts less demand on the mechanical systems thereby reducing operating costs.
The research “village” of modular offices and laboratories are placed above the vaults as a collection of small light buildings on a raised deck directly below the roof. To provide a clear vaulted ceiling to this heavily serviced work area, a walk-in interstitial floor above the vaults and below the deck was created to provide for the distribution, maintenance and renewal of electrical, piped and ducted services. In addition, any potential failures become readily visible to ensure the safety of the archival collection.
Although the National Archives is designed to have a lifespan of 500 years, electrical and mechanical systems have a life expectancy of only 20 to 50 years. Therefore key electrical and mechanical machinery were placed in a separate structure west of the main building to allow change, maintenance and servicing to be done without jeopardizing the safety of the collection and leaving the main structure intact.
Electrical
The electrical systems utilize a ‘plug-and-play’ strategy. Easy, economical change will keep our Nation’s memory available, and safe, decade after decade.
Fitments
Constructed in glass, steel and corrugated metal, the research facilities are easy to build and change, economical and self finished providing ingeniously for long term flexibility. To avoid contamination to the archival holdings through off gassing all building materials within the Archives have no VOCs. There is no drywall anywhere in the Archives, thereby eliminating dust and paint contamination. IKOY’s design team developed a galvalume finished sheet steel wall system on steel studs to facilitate ‘clean’ refurbishment, free re-use and economical change – a key illustration of IKOY’s ‘plug-in, plug-out’ philosophy.
Action Strategies
Create a Thermal Neutral Environment where decay does not occur.
Designed to be operational for at least 500 years.
Use simple bearing walls versus columns due to extreme structural loads.
Use glass versus stone for walls, since glass is impervious to vapour and air carried acids.
Design for assembly versus construction.
Create a site where a man made landscape contrasts with a natural landscape to create a unique and special place.
Key Information
Completed 1997
Project Cost $70.6M
Building Area
38,000 m² / 409,000 fft²
Awards
Governor General’s Medal 1999
RAIC Millennium Award 2000
Canadian Architect Millennium Award 2000
Canadian Architect Award of Excellence 1994
Publications
Canadian Architect- Jan. 2000; May 1999; Feb. 1998; July 1997; Dec. 1994
Domus (Italy) – September 1998
The Globe and Mail- February 16, 2002; July 27,1997
Ottawa Citizen- January 7, 1996
Award Magazine- October 1996
Le Droit- January 4, 1997
National Archives of Canada
Gatineau, Quebec
This Governor General’s Medal winning facility is designed for a lifespan of 500 years to preserve and conserve our Nation’s memory in a Thermal Neutral Environment. The National Archives exists in three metaphors:
1) The Treasure Chest of our Nation’s Memory -a glass case surrounds and protects the elaborate vaults. The sun reflects on thin stainless steel blades and studs.
2) A Temple to our Nation’s Memory – surround by 50ft articulated stainless steel columns the vaults become like the Pantheon’s Naos.
3) The vaults protect the village of preservation and conservation.
This is not a simple storage building; it is a highly technical electronic facility with controlled static environments, preservation labs, communication labs, video labs, film labs, processing labs, EDP labs, optronic labs, audio labs, and numerous other laboratories.
The National Archives of Canada is conceived as a building within a building to create a Thermal Neutral Environment protecting the vaults from external environmental conditions and contaminants such as terrorism, vermin, fire and water. The outer building is constructed of glass supported by the world’s first stainless steel superstructure enveloping the inner concrete archival vaults. The generous space between the concrete archive vaults and the steel and glass skin serves as an effective environmental buffer and a gracious public galleria.
The laboratories are a series of buildings and greenhouses located above these vaults. To avoid the contamination of priceless artifacts, all building materials within the Archives have zero VOCs (vapours of contamination) to avoid off-gassing. The engineered thermal neutral environment provides a stable atmosphere for the preservation of archival materials. Sensitive spaces are protected from contamination while allowing archivists to interact.
The building utilizes IKOY’s plug in, plug out, plug in philosophy to allow for economical and efficient change as the archival preservation techniques change with time. The mechanical and electrical room is a separate building located outside of the Archives’ thermal neutral environment allowing for maintenance and renovations to the systems without contaminating the laboratories or vaults.
“Keenberg’s strategy begins with the almost self-evident assertion that obsolescence is the villain of modern architecture. It shares with British high-tech architects a belief in the autonomous expression of building systems, allowing them to be replaced according to their individual life cycles without interfering with other systems, a sentiment which echoes the philosophy of architects like Richard Rogers. In the case of the National Archives, each system is weighted, according to what it must do, and how long it must last – and the idea that it must operate at the leading edge of technology throughout its life. (This latter point is extremely important, as it implies that architecture is never finished, never static – it resists the pitfall of much contemporary architecture where the pristine moment of photography represents the apex of a building’s life, after which the ravages of use and change can only be seen to degrade the compositional perfection of that fleeting instant).”
Beth Kapusta, Domus, 1998.
Structure
The facility contains a unique stainless steel superstructure consisting of thirty-four 80ft elegant, classical modernist columns, capitols and bent beams elaborately designed to emphasize their structural role. The structure is contained within the skin on the sides of the building and is external on the front and back facades. The structure is meticulously detailed, made of stainless steel plates, bar, threaded rods, nuts and bolts with a glass bead blasted finish.
The use of cast in place concrete bearing wall construction created simple cost saving vaults with a thermal mass, that helps to maintain a constant internal environment and provides secure containment that can prevent the spread of fire or water. The 9.6m high reinforced concrete wall is stepped back at each level and is marked by thin vertical stainless steel fins and studded with steel plugs that work together to catch the sunlight that pours through the glass outer wall, making this structural element like a giant treasure chest.
Skin
SITE’s south face is a bold transparent glazed curtain wall. The north wall is poured in place concrete with punched windows and faced with pre-cast concrete panels. The building is constructed out of 85% light admitting triple glazing systems. These systems not only offer excellent insulating properties, but also create a wall system that is easy to maintain. If a seal breaks, condensation signals the problem, and the offending unit is popped out and a new one plugged back in.
Mechanical
The concept of a building within a building was envisioned by IKOY’s Chief Architect Ron Keenberg, to satisfy the stringent demands for a secure, environmentally controlled archive by creating an artificial climate that separates the archival vaults from the region’s harsh climates. The Thermal Neutral Environment (TNE), a first for any archives or museum anywhere in the world, is a thermally controlled air barrier that surrounds the six faces of the vaults to provide constant relative humidity (RH) and temperatures within the vaults. This air barrier is effective at controlling the storage vaults’ atmosphere, and puts less demand on the mechanical systems thereby reducing operating costs.
The research “village” of modular offices and laboratories are placed above the vaults as a collection of small light buildings on a raised deck directly below the roof. To provide a clear vaulted ceiling to this heavily serviced work area, a walk-in interstitial floor above the vaults and below the deck was created to provide for the distribution, maintenance and renewal of electrical, piped and ducted services. In addition, any potential failures become readily visible to ensure the safety of the archival collection.
Although the National Archives is designed to have a lifespan of 500 years, electrical and mechanical systems have a life expectancy of only 20 to 50 years. Therefore key electrical and mechanical machinery were placed in a separate structure west of the main building to allow change, maintenance and servicing to be done without jeopardizing the safety of the collection and leaving the main structure intact.
Electrical
The electrical systems utilize a ‘plug-and-play’ strategy. Easy, economical change will keep our Nation’s memory available, and safe, decade after decade.
Fitments
Constructed in glass, steel and corrugated metal, the research facilities are easy to build and change, economical and self finished providing ingeniously for long term flexibility. To avoid contamination to the archival holdings through off gassing all building materials within the Archives have no VOCs. There is no drywall anywhere in the Archives, thereby eliminating dust and paint contamination. IKOY’s design team developed a galvalume finished sheet steel wall system on steel studs to facilitate ‘clean’ refurbishment, free re-use and economical change – a key illustration of IKOY’s ‘plug-in, plug-out’ philosophy.
Action Strategies
Create a Thermal Neutral Environment where decay does not occur.
Designed to be operational for at least 500 years.
Use simple bearing walls versus columns due to extreme structural loads.
Use glass versus stone for walls, since glass is impervious to vapour and air carried acids.
Design for assembly versus construction.
Create a site where a man made landscape contrasts with a natural landscape to create a unique and special place.
Key Information
Completed 1997
Project Cost $70.6M
Building Area
38,000 m² / 409,000 fft²
Awards
Governor General’s Medal 1999
RAIC Millennium Award 2000
Canadian Architect Millennium Award 2000
Canadian Architect Award of Excellence 1994
Publications
Canadian Architect- Jan. 2000; May 1999; Feb. 1998; July 1997; Dec. 1994
Domus (Italy) – September 1998
The Globe and Mail- February 16, 2002; July 27,1997
Ottawa Citizen- January 7, 1996
Award Magazine- October 1996
Le Droit- January 4, 1997
