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2008 Governor General’s Medals
in Architecture
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Trent University Chemical Sciences Building |
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 The science centre is conceived as a promenade, both architectural and natural, that brings one into repeated contact with the Otonabee River, the central focus of Ron Thom’s Trent University campus. It is directly linked to the ground floor of the existing science precinct, and to its
+15 circulation system. The promenade weaves between these two levels, presenting views of Trent’s unique river landscape to students as they move through the campus and the building. The river is the constant reference point, ever present in one’s experience of the place. The project provides a highly regularized, flexible system of teaching labs that can be combined, as required, into various research projects. The ordered nature of the spaces stands in contrast to the sculpted complexity of the public space as it reaches outward to the river.
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Jury Comment:
This is a successful exploration of walk-on and folded roof architecture: a new form of “landscape architecture” inside-out that is a contemporary interpretation of Ron Thom’s campus. Interior and exterior gardens and paths continue trajectories launched by the existing bridge, while the heaviness of the masonry gives way to a lighter steel structure creating a tension between the weight of the ground and the heaviness of the roof. |
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Anne Cormier |
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