Engineering growth plans outlined

“A beautiful quad” with a pond (and a railway) is one likely result of huge expansion plans for UW’s faculty of engineering, says a detailed story about the proposals that was published on the front page of the engineering student newspaper Iron Warrior last week.

The report, by systems design student Eric Migicovsky and computer engineering student Bahman Hadji, also introduces the name “Engineering 5” for the first building in the expansion program. It’s a natural enough name for the next building in a sequence that has so far included Engineering I (Doug Wright), II, III, and IV (Carl Pollock Hall) as well as the Rod Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall.

“Over the next four years, assuming the approval process goes as expected,” the two students write, “construction will begin on three new buildings in addition to the planned Quantum-Nano building. An estimated 150 million dollars will be spent on the expansion project, which will add the much-needed floor space to help fulfill the Faculty of Engineering’s Vision 2010 plan.”

The UW board of governors gave approval in April for the first of three phases of building: that 150,000-square-foot building in parking lot B, east of the railway tracks, that the Iron Warrior is calling E5. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2008 with a target completion date of January 2010, the article says, though the UW board was told in April that the necessary zoning changes could be a slow process.

The article is based on an interview with Ron Venter, former University of Toronto executive and now a consultant on engineering space needs, and Sue Gooding of the dean of engineering office. “At the moment,” the students note, “Engineering has access to roughly 38,000 net assignable square metres (nasms) of space. . . . In order to fill demand and satisfy the Faculty’s Vision 2010 plan, the study concluded that Engineering would realistically need to add 22,000 nasm, bringing its total space up to 60,000 nasm.”

Says Venter: “Engineering buildings on the Waterloo campus appear to sprawl with too large a low-rise component. As new structures and add-ons have materialized, a stacked feeling has been created; while the buildings are connected together, these links are often inconvenient for pedestrian traffic. . . . Future buildings should not just be additions to existing buildings, but entirely new structures that make good use of space and provide for an enhanced Engineering identity to benefit the student experience.”

More from the Iron Warrior article: “Consideration was given to North Campus and the parking lots south of University Avenue, but the choice was finally made to develop eastward. Parking Lot B, between East Campus Hall and the Davis Centre, will play host to two of the new buildings, which will be built in Phase I and Phase III. The second building, however, will be located inside Ring Road. The concept is still in development, but it will be built in close proximity to DWE, and may be located partly underground between DWE and RCH, and built up from there, with a possible link to Physics and proximity to the Tatham Centre. . . .

“The ideal timeline for the entire three-phase project calls for a building to be completed every year starting in 2010, with E5 opening in January 2010, the Phase II building in September 2011, and the Phase III building in December 2012.”

It says E5 will be a six-storey building running north-south and parallel to the railway track, immediately north of the University Plaza. An important feature of the building, as announced by engineering dean Adel Sedra this winter, will be working and display space for student “projects” such as the solar car and aerial robotics unit.

The “biggest headache”, according to Venter, involves “how to sensibly and attractively connect E5 back to campus. It would have been amazing to link to CPH, but unfortunately, that link is too far architecturally. Instead, an overhead walkway from E5 to E3 will bridge the gap over the railroad track. The walkway must be high enough to allow a train to clear, so it must be at the third or fourth floor level. However, the nonexistence of a corresponding third or fourth floor in E3 makes this an architectural challenge, with a tower and elevator combination being one possible solution. . . .

“E5 will have a pedestrian corridor through the ground floors in the centre, hopefully connecting directly to the service roadway to the south of the Davis Centre, thus serving as the new eastern gateway to campus. A beautiful quad is also planned in the future for the area between E5 and DC, which the plan hopes will be a new central meeting area for students from all faculties. The existing water drainage system next to the train tracks across from DC has the potential for being turned into a pond in the middle of this meeting area.”

The second phase of the expansion plan will put a building “in close proximity to DWE and RCH. Dr. Venter suggested that the tunnel linking those two buildings be used to access additional underground classrooms adjacent to RCH, with the potential for placing Phase II directly above, possibly even connected to Physics or the Tatham Centre. . . . Loss of greenspace could possibly develop as an issue with this location.”

The third new building is to go just to the east of E5, still in what’s currently parking lot B. Another six-storey building is proposed, the Iron Warrior says. It goes on to talk about which engineering departments will make their homes in which buildings, as well as some issues about financing (likely a combination of government, UW, alumni, research and other sources of funds).

Back to top

Student’s memorial in UW rock garden

Kenton Carnegie, who was a third-year geological engineering student at the time of his death during a co-op work term in November 2005, was remembered in two special ways on June 16, the day his classmates received their engineering degrees. His degree was presented posthumously at the morning Convocation ceremony, and friends and family members met afterwards in the Peter Russell Rock Garden, where a rock has been installed by classmates and friends.

The rock is green metabasalt with white calcite veins. Surface markings in two directions show how ice movement transported the rock from northern Saskatchewan to the vicinity of Weyburn during the ice age. It was in Points North Landing, about 800 kilometres north of Saskatoon, that Carnegie died. A geological explanation with pictures, “Kenton’s Rock Story”, is to appear soon on the rock garden web site.

Pictured is Kenton Carnegie’s mother, Lori, who read a poem in her son’s memory from atop the rock.

Back to top

Events will celebrate 'one book'

by Amy King of The New Quarterly

Readers of this year's Waterloo Region One Book, One Community selection, Elizabeth Ruth's searing novel Smoke, will be delighted to hear that The New Quarterly is once again sponsoring an OBOC literary tour. This is the fifth such tour the magazine has sponsored, all of them unique and interesting. The July 14 visit will be particularly fun as Ruth herself will be hopping aboard in Otterville, the model for the rural Ontario town that is the backdrop against which she challenges our assumptions about identity and conformity.

Another exciting aspect of our tour is that the town is now in the midst of its bicentennial celebration. It was fifty years ago that Otterville's literary counterpart, the fictional tobacco town of Smoke, celebrated its sesquicentennial. This fusion of history with literature will prove to be of both historic and literary interest. The tour will visit many intriguing landmarks in and around Otterville, including Woodlawn, an octagonal cottage built in 1861, St. John's Church, built in the gothic style, an early black settlement along the Underground Railroad, Otterville Mill, which was built in 1845 and runs entirely on water power, and an 1881 Grand Trunk Railway station that also houses a blacksmith shop.

The bus leaves Waterloo at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 14. Those joining the tour will meet at 8:45 a.m. in the parking lot across from the Waterloo Recreation Complex. The tour will return to Waterloo around 6:00 p.m. The cost is $60 and includes lunch.

The Smoke bus tour will be followed by another great TNQ event on July 29, 5-7 p.m. — an outdoor house concert with picnic at the country home of TNQ editor Kim Jernigan. Local musician Tim Louis will perform some of the sizzling 1950s pop songs that play throughout the book. Bring your own lawn chair and relax to the tune of Heartbreak Hotel, It's Only Make Believe, That'll Be the Day, All I Have To Do Is Dream and other dreamy numbers from the smoke-filled fifties. The concert will be a "pass the hat" (a homburg, of course!) event. Proceeds will go to the musician and to support The New Quarterly in its promotion of emerging Canadian literary talent.

To reserve for either event call ext. 2-8290, or e-mail orders@tnq.ca. Bus tickets are going fast!

CAR

Back to top