Campaign News

Latest Look at Complex Designs Wows Audience

by Cathi Bishop

Arial shot of the SAIT Polytechnic campus taken in October 2010.

Elevators with inner workings exposed to view. Strategic lighting to showcase the architecture at night. Whiteboards in open gathering spaces to encourage collaborative learning. A freight elevator that holds a whopping 15,000 pound load.

About 150 SAIT employees were all ears – and eyes – to learn about these and more features of the new Trades and Technology Complex at an information update in the Orpheus Theatre on November 23.

Wayne King, CFO and Vice President Capital and Corporate Services, opened the session by saying the project is going “surprisingly great – on schedule and on budget.”

He emphasized the complex will benefit SAIT as a whole. For example, when security or information technology needs are being addressed for the facility, upgrades to those systems will be made campus-wide where feasible.

King said the SAIT community can also expect to hear much more about a green campus in conjunction with the new facility. “We want to be a leader in the green side of things,” he said, noting the complex is aiming for minimum silver LEED certification.

Funding is also on a high note. “The story of SAIT is reading very well [with prospective donors],” King said. “We need to raise $75 million, and Alumni and Development are well on their way to that.”

High-Tech Tour
Boris Dragicevic, Associate Vice President Facilities Management and Campus Expansion, took the crowd on a virtual fly-through tour of the complex. View the fly-through (approx. 10 minutes).

It highlighted what Dragicevic termed the “pedagogy of the buildings” – features built into the construction that will create learning opportunities for students.

“The buildings are their lab,” he said, pointing out such features as glass-encased elevator shafts. “This is huge because we teach people who will be constructing and fixing elevators.”

Even the lighting budget was used strategically, Dragicevic said. “It’s one of the ‘oohs and aahs’ of the architecture – accenting it during evening hours when a lot of our students are on campus.”

Dragicevic echoed King in emphasizing the project is “not just about the Trades and Technology Complex.” When some programs move to the new complex, real estate will become available to benefit other programs and services. That includes the fifth and sixth floors of the Senator Burns Building and about 125,000 square feet in the Thomas Riley Building.

Equipped for Learning
Another aspect of the project is the massive task of identifying and procuring equipment needed for the completed complex. Brad Donaldson, Dean of the School of Manufacturing and Automation, is charged with orchestrating that process.

A team has been working on equipment planning for the past year-and-a-half.

“We’re going through a very rigorous process right now to determine the priority equipment needs,” Donaldson explained. He said part of this is ensuring the complex is set up to anticipate technology advances well beyond its completion in 2012.

Timelines for equipment purchases and installations will also factor into the decision-making, Donaldson says. Some equipment, due to size or weight, must be installed even while building construction is underway.

The 40,000 square foot south wing of the Trades and Technology Complex will be ready for occupancy in less than a year. “Within a week, work will start on the skin of the building, and it will take about a month to fully enclose,” Dragicevic said.