Workshop for Proposed New Multi-Purpose Building

On Tuesday evening, Oct. 2, 2007 members of the community were invited to meet with representatives from Manasc Isaac Architects from Edmonton. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss what the community feels its needs are for the proposed new Multi-Purpose Building which we will hopefully be receiving funding for through the hard work of our Councillor Lisa Wardley and Mackenzie County.

The meeting kicked off with a powerpoint presentation being given by Richard Isaac and Meagan Gauthier from Manasc Isaac which explained how current other such buildings are being designed by incorporating elements of natural light, power efficient flourescent lighting which reflects back off of ceiling surfaces, new low e glass windows perhaps also incorporating the use of shutters which will help lower the cost of operating AC systems and the use of high efficiency water boilers for heating. Some projects are circulating city water lines underneath their buildings to help cool the internal temperature during the warm months as well. The idea is to design and construct a building which is environmentally friendly and uses as many environmentally friendly materials as possible.

After the presentation the attendees were broken into three groups who were given construction paper, coloured paper which had been cut out to scale representing the different room areas that had been previously identified as potential components of the building along with glue and pens. The groups were then asked to each come up with a design that they felt would be functional and incorporate all of the elements. The purpose of this exercise was to give Richard and Meagan the architects a feel for what the community felt was important and what they might be looking for as to a design.

When all the groups had completed their designs they were posted on the wall and a represenative from each group got up and spoke about their design. Why they had put things where they had, how they hoped it would look and what type of materials they felt would give their design a good look if it were to be constructed. It was pretty much a unanimous decision that the building should incorporate large wooden beams, natural rock and glass for its exterior and interior looks.

Armed with this information Richard and Meagan will now go back to Edmonton to do up some proposed designs and possibly some 3D electronic models of them. Hopefully we may see the results of that by the end of October.