The three-level parkade consolidates the sprawled distribution of campus parking into a central facility, freeing up developable land and reinvigorating SAIT’s campus life.
Project Details
By siting the building carefully, a critical landscape and visual relationship between the campus and downtown was preserved, respecting the historic heart of SAIT’s campus.
Working in collaboration with Bing Thom Architects, METAFOR was engaged as Architect of Record for this multi award winning design located on the campus of Southern Alberta’s Institute of Technology (SAIT). The three-level parkade consolidates the sprawled distribution of campus parking into a central facility, freeing up developable land and reinvigorating SAIT’s campus life. The primary design challenge was mitigating its actual and perceived scale. The design team established a profound relationship between the building and surrounding landscape by nestling the building into an existing hillside.
Sector(s)
Year Completed
2009
Location
Client
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT)
Role
Architect of Record
Collaborators
Bing Thom Architects
Size
± 387,400 ft² (1,100 stalls)
Value
± $77 Million
Awards + LEED Certifications
Calgary Heritage Authority Lion Award (2012)
Prairie Design Award: Award of Excellence (2012)
Mayor’s Urban Design Awards (2012)
Only the east and south sides are fully visible, creating a green roof year-round sports field that extends over the structure.
Glass pyramids articulate the stairways and create atria that allow natural light down into the structure. By siting the building carefully, a critical landscape and visual relationship between the campus and downtown was preserved, respecting the historic heart of SAIT’s campus.
Continuing the relationship between landscape and design is the pixilated façade. The east and south façades are clad in semi-perforated metal screens, allowing natural light and ventilation into the interior while simultaneously creating a giant exterior art piece that interacts with sunlight to both depict, and blend into, the prairie sky.
