Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University has been changing its campus to address the future growth areas for the school. Keith Regan learns how innovation has kept key projects moving forward Simon Fraser University (SFU) has a history of rapid growth and of being responsive to the changing needs of the students it serves. The university, named after explorer Simon Fraser, literally sprung up in 1965 when, after just 18 months of planning, the campus opened with 2,500 students. Today, SFU is a research and teaching institution that serves some 30,000 students on campuses in Burnaby, downtown Vancouver and Surrey, and it is enjoying steady growth. The 2008 incoming freshman class was the largest ever at SFU, with interest in the school driven by MacleanÔÇÖs magazineÔÇÖs ranking it in a tie with Victoria University as the top comprehensive university in Canada.┬á Even as it has grown, the school remains nimble, and after several years during which funding for new construction from the province of British Columbia was limited, the school benefited from a decision by the university to lease properties to developers, a move that helped generate capital funding that the province also contributed to. That helped clear the way for a new wave of building projects to help address emerging areas at the university, says development manager Phil McCloy. ÔÇ£The university makes strategic decisions based on opportunities to attract new faculty and research funding, and it made expanding technology and science a high priority.ÔÇØThat led to the construction of the Arts and Social Sciences complex. The first building enabled a number of related departments to be brought together under the same roof. Disciplines such as criminology and archaeologyÔÇöwhich often share lab techniques and equipmentÔÇöand First Nations studies, which overlaps with archaeology, were brought together. The second phase, known as Blusson Hall and the Health Sciences Center, opened in fall 2008 and created new lecture halls, office space and a number of science lab spaces for research and teaching focused on preventive health and contagious diseases. The Arts and Social Sciences Complex 1 and Blusson Hall were both designed by Busby Perkins & WillÔÇöwhich followed design principles established by Arthur Erickson, the firm that master planned the campus starting in 1963ÔÇöand has been well received by the faculty, researchers and students who use it, McCloy says. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs a very green building, and people like being in it.ÔÇØ Although SFU has traditionally not pursued LEED certification for its buildings, it has essentially built them to Silver standards in most cases. ÔÇ£Our thought was always that we could use the money that we would have spent on the paperwork of obtaining the certification on other green measures,ÔÇØ says KC Jones, assistant director of major projects at the university. With a provincial mandate that all public buildings seek LEED Gold certification, SFU is now preparing to follow that mandate as well. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs just a little extra work for us, but we already have the expertise and the people in place to meet that requirement.ÔÇØThough primarily a lab-space building, Blusson Hall is ÔÇ£filled with daylight and has an open-air quality to it,ÔÇØ says McCloy. The building features a center courtyard with a water pool and features sustainable elements such as green roofing, a water tank that retains stormwater for use in irrigating the landscape, reduced water and energy use, and systems that capture heat from air being emitted from the building. The two phases began in 2005, which meant that they were being built during a boom time, not only for North America as a whole but for British Columbia in particular. Vancouver will host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and as a result, a crush of Olympics-related infrastructure projects was making its way through the pipeline at the same time that SFU was looking to start construction. ÔÇ£It became very difficult to get mechanical contractors, and concrete and steel were in very short supply,ÔÇØ Jones recalls. ÔÇ£It made for some challenges in getting the buildings built on time and on budget.ÔÇØSFU sought to address that challenge by using a design-build and construction-manager-at-risk model for the project, the first time the university had embraced that technique. Bird Construction became the construction manager, agreeing to a fixed-price contract and then working with subcontractors on its own. The approach ÔÇ£was the right one for the times,ÔÇØ McCloy says, adding that the university might be more inclined to use a traditional design-bid-build approach and to bid work as it goes along in todayÔÇÖs market, when subcontractors are more likely to respond to bid requests because the rest of the work has slowed. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs a different environment today.ÔÇØMeanwhile, not far from its campus in downtown Vancouver, SFU is involved in another innovative collaboration that will create a new School for Contemporary Arts as part of a larger project that includes market-rate and affordable housing and retail spaces. The schools of visual arts, dance, music, theater and cinema will all be housed in the building, which will also house an experimental theater performing space. SFU obtained the space through an air-space parcel purchase arrangement and is one of seven owners involved in the project. SFU will own its portion of the building but not the ground it sits on, and it will be situated between housing overhead and a drugstore below. The project, which will feature four towers in all, will cover almost an entire city block. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre trying to encourage a progressive type of urban development that mixes market with non-market housing and provides some synergies with our arts school,ÔÇØ says Jones. ÔÇ£It has been interesting to watch the developers deal with seven owners through the process.ÔÇØThe Woodward Building project will also feature green design elements and is being built to LEED Silver standards. The agreement calls for Westbank Development to deliver the 127,000 square feet of space to the university on a turnkey basis. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs a unique project for us, and we hope it becomes a model for urban investment and possibly a new way to encourage redevelopment in areas that havenÔÇÖt gotten the attention of developers,ÔÇØ adds Jones. ÔÇô Editorial research by Jim Rose┬á