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Analyzing SMI Concrete for Adaptive Reuse | |
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EDAR in LA | |
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Pictou Landing Health Center | |
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Pictou Landing Health Center In Kroeker's opinion, buildings designed for Native communities too often try to achieve cultural relevancy by exploiting shallow symbolism. "I believe our project avoided this pitfall by seeking to validate the modern currency of traditional Native building technologies," he says. Learning from the Longhouse This desire to explore long-abandoned building techniques led to the implementation of numerous low-impact strategies using natural materials, such as walls insulated with sphagnum moss sandwiched between layers of bark, fresh air intake using bark tubing, and thermal-mass heat storage using rocks and insulated earth. The use of lightweight layers with a massive core for heat storage is a technique borrowed from traditional lodges: layers of structural frame and birch-bark cladding, with an insulated layer of sphagnum moss and a pit for hot rocks in the middle. As in traditional use, the wood at the health center was worked while green to take advantage of its flexibility, then dried in situ to create structures with low embodied energy. Traditional lodges also used the warmth of the earth under the lodge to preheat fresh air being brought in through bark tubes. At the health center, geothermal energy from an adapted obsolete municipal well is used to heat and cool the building, helping keep energy usage about 40 percent lower than that of a comparably sized conventional building. Kroeker notes that by using round poles for the truss, the wood's cellulose strands are continuous from end to end and oriented in concentric cylinders, as they were structurally optimized by natural growth. This method of using wood is consistent with Mi'kmaq techniques, which involved sparing use of saws and cutting wood to length in ways that kept fibers continuous. Members of the First Nation fabricated the timber truss, and most of the wood used for the project was harvested from Forest Stewardship Council-certified woodlots owned and managed by the community. Students at Dalhousie University's School of Architecture in Halifax, where Lilley and Kroeker are professors, helped prototype and test the performance of the truss. While the students were testing different ways to lash the poles together, which was traditionally done with animal sinew, Kroeker recalls that a passerby suggested using metal straps — something that might have been overlooked had the research not been conducted out in the open. They ended up connecting the poles using a stainless-steel strapping system normally used to strap street lights to lamp poles or for industrial clamping applications. Inside the Health Center The health center is curved into a south-facing semicircle, maximizing sun exposure and providing a wind barrier to the circular "medicine garden" it wraps around. The roof slopes inward toward the short midsection that divides the building, creating a stack effect that allows air to be exchanged naturally. A central entry point allows for the building to be clearly zoned into two wings, allowing the community room to be open for after-hours use. In a space that reveals the full building height, the waiting area doubles as a gallery for local artists and cultural artifacts. Views between levels facilitate orientation. All interior spaces are daylit, with exposed structural members. "Exposing the truss makes the building's logic and poetry legible in all its interior spaces," says Kroeker. "It feels like a primal extension of nature." Clinics for doctors, dentists, and community health workers are contained in the west wing, while the smaller east wing contains the large, full-height community gathering space and public health education room. The latter two components were an integral part of the design — and the element that the Canadian government was most reluctant to fund. "The community placed a great deal of importance on providing a venue for cultural and communal activity within the center," reports Kroeker. Space for educational programs, such as cooking lessons for diabetics and prenatal care courses, was also a priority. "Medicine and healing has always played a central role in Native culture," he says, "but the government's concept of healthcare delivery is explicitly culture-neutral." Part of the Community The medical and dental center comprises the first phase of a community plan, first developed in 1999 by the Joint Community Planning Committee (JCPC), a steering committee made up of government and First Nation representatives, in conjunction with the Cities and Environment Unit at Dalhousie University's School of Planning. >>> Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...
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