Gender equality
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OAA Design Excellence Awards has won MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects were the proud recipients of a Design Excellence award from the 2013 Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) Awards for their Regent Park Aquatic Centre in Toronto. The 28,000 sq ft facility was completed in 2012 at a cost of $14.8m and joins the likes of Diamond Schmitt Architects and Zeidler Partnership on the esteemed winners’ list. Associated landscaping creating a new central park is due for completion in 2013 and will knit the Aquatic Centre into the urban environment. The Regent Park Aquatic Centre (RPAC) has been conceived as a park pavilion, very open at the base, and bisected lengthways by a ‘dorsal fin’ of aquatics hall sky lighting. It is the first facility in Canada to adopt the singular use of universal change rooms, no longer separating males and females, rather common change rooms with private change cubicles. This is thought to enhance the openness and visibility through the whole complex. The facility also has sliding glass doors off the main pool hall to allow access to the parkside terrace. RPAC has been designed to the City of Toronto Green Development Standard. The project utilises the Regent Park central energy supply system and the aquatics hall has a green roof augmented by cisterns for the site water stewardship. The building features high efficiency mechanical and electrical systems with energy management controls and pool dehumidification with heat recovery. The pool hall has been designed to use natural ventilation when the sliding doors to the terrace are open in suitable weather conditions. MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects’ project typifies the design legacy commitment of the Regent Park revitalisation program. The building is both sculptural and urban in its resolution as a park pavilion in a rigorous urban grid. The interior design is clean and simple in its resolution, open and inviting, and active and fun in use. The facility provides an important civic amenity to a once marginalised neighbourhood.
MJMA