Economy 
of Means, Generosity of Ends: Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, Saint Peter’s Bay, PEI

PROJECT Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, Saint Peters Bay, PEI

ARCHITECTS Baird Sampson Neuert architects, part of the WF Group with SableARC Studio 

TEXT David Sisam

PHOTOS Brad McCloskey

Building on a reputation for delivering environmentally progressive institutional buildings, Toronto-based Baird Sampson Neuert (BSN) has once again designed a notable academic building with ambitious sustainability goals. This time, the project, completed with SableARC Studio, is situated on Prince Edward Island, a small province with a remarkable history of initiatives to combat the threatening consequences of climate change.

The Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation (CCCCA) is a 30-minute drive across the eastern tip of the Island from Spry Point, the site for the 1976 Ark, an experimental built demonstration of a self-sustaining house and ecological research centre by architects David Bergmark and Ole Hammarlund. That landmark project from 50 years back—officially opened by no less than Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau—was built under the auspices of the US-based New Alchemy Institute, with funding from the federal government and land from the province. The Ark was the first in a long series of environmental initiatives on PEI: in 1981, the Wind Energy Institute of Canada was established in North Cape, where there is a Research and Development Park testing a great variety of experimental wind turbines. By 2018, 23 percent of the electrical energy on PEI was supplied by wind turbines. In 1999, the Island Waste Management Corporation was created. Its Waste Watch program has converted 65 percent of the Island’s waste to compost or recycling. From 2019 to 2023, the Green Party formed the Official Opposition in the PEI legislature—for the first time in the history of any Green Party in Canada. 

These bursts of environmental consciousness are not surprising on a small island with no oil and gas reserves, a fast-eroding shoreline, limited space for landfill, and other vulnerabilities to climate change, including the effects of sea level rise. These vulnerabilities became clearly evident in 2022, with the widespread damage of post-tropical storm Fiona. The storm destroyed 40 percent of the island’s forests, and coastline erosion was in many cases measured in metres.

In 2019, the province’s track record of environmental initiatives continued when the federal government, along with the province and the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), announced combined funding for the new Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation (CCCCA) at UPEI. The CCCCA is located remotely from the main UPEI campus in Charlottetown and overlooks the Village
of Saint Peter’s Bay (pop. 231).

Program and Built Form

The rather heroic presence of the CCCCA takes its position on a ridge above the picturesque village, on land donated by three families. It is a location that in previous generations might have been occupied by a grand mansion or a church. In effect, it symbolizes the necessary effort that will be required to counter the real threats posed by climate change.

Innovation is also evident in the Centre’s program, which accommodates the internationally recognized UPEI Climate Research Laboratory, as well as other teaching and living spaces. Its unique 24-hour live/learn/research programme includes teaching, research, maker and social spaces that extend across the ground level, and compact accommodation for twenty-one residents on the upper levels. 

The entrance to the Centre is a double-height space with a view through to a grass forecourt, which hosts a drone launching pad and a solar array. At the east and west ends, a drone port/workshop, art gallery, and resource room/kitchen break free of the bar to further define the forecourt. The drone port/workshop takes advantage of the site’s topography to allow a greater volume for the space. The teaching and research spaces all have abundant natural light, and faculty offices border a 57-car parking lot on the north side.

As a living laboratory and educational destination, the building enables world-class sustainability-focused research, as well as immersive experiential learning for graduate and undergraduate students. The Centre specializes in coastal climate science, precision agriculture, and climate adaptation research. Its location gives researchers and students access to nearby wetlands, forests, and coastal habitats, as well as facilitating the monitoring of PEI’s shoreline by drone.

The CCCCA doubles as a community hub, hosting workshops and public meetings with local residents, including the neighbouring Abegweit First Nation, and engaging the local community with significant global climate change research.

Headwinds

When the project was awarded to BSN in association with SableARC Studio, immediate headwinds were encountered. Essentially, there was that all-too-familiar problem of too much program for too little money, and too little time. Within a fast-track 21-month design and construction schedule, the architects had to reprogram the facility from its initial 4,180 square metres to 3,530 square metres to meet budget limitations. Even then, the building and its ground source geothermal system were realized for $295 per square foot—a remarkable feat given the sustainability achieve­ment of the project. Significant site costs were required to service the lot and to provide onsite capacity for firefighting, including water storage, booster pumps and back-up emergency power systems. In an additional set of challenges, the project was designed and built during the peak of Covid pandemic lockdowns, a period of significant material price escalation.

Sustainability

Because of the Centre’s research mandate, for the architects it was a given that the CCCCA building would need to showcase the best in sustainability practices. Implementing a carbon sequestering design approach, the structure primarily consists of conventional wood stick construction with occasional use of glulam beams and steel columns. The exterior walls are made up of prefabricated, thermally broken wall panels and locally harvested wood cladding. Triple-glazed and operable Passive House certified windows provide daylighting, views and natural ventilation for all regularly occupied spaces within the building. The Centre is sited to address the grass forecourt, maximizing views, access to daylight and microclimate conditions. The Centre achieves the CaGBC Zero Carbon Performance Standard, based on an all-electric design approach which includes a ground-source geothermal heating and cooling system, coupled with 100 KW of onsite solar panels, and a low-voltage power distribution system for lighting and electric vehicle charging.

The Achilles heel in the sustainability profile of the CCCCA doesn’t have anything to do with its architecture, but rather with its location and car dependency. While its live/learn program is intended to help address this, the Centre is located 51 kilometres from the main UPEI campus and over 10 kilometres from the nearest grocery store. Recognizing the problem of distance, UPEI has made arrangements with the provincial bus service to allow opportunities for daily trips between the Centre and the main campus on its regular route, and provides subsidies for students to use the service. Resident students typically carpool for grocery store outings.

What if?

There were several sustainability initiatives proposed by the design team that were not possible to implement due to the budget constraints. These included green roofs, permeable paving for the entry drive and parking lot, as well as brise-soleils for the art gallery/multi-use gathering space and drone port/workshop. A proposed second-floor rooftop terrace was a casualty of value engineering during the construction management delivery process.

When asked what would have been different if the project had a larger budget and a more forgiving timeline, principal Jon Neuert of BSN allowed that the community space would have been more developed, and that the built form would have been more granular in nature, as is typical in BSN’s portfolio of university academic and residence projects. This finer grain would also allow the built form to be more attuned to the village of Saint Peter’s Bay, with its array of small buildings and church spires, while at the same time maintaining its strong presence atop the ridge.

Notwithstanding these ‘what ifs’ and other built form options, the CCCCA as constructed is a remarkable achievement, and provides UPEI and its students a fertile setting for teaching, research, community activities and living accommodation. The client and the architects have done more with less—economy of means, generosity of ends—reflecting the Island’s tradition of punching above its weight in its efforts to tackle the threatening consequences of climate change.

David Sisam is Principal Emeritus of Montgomery Sisam Architects. He and his family have a summer place near Malpeque on the north shore of PEI.

CLIENT University of Prince Edward Island | ARCHITECT TEAM BSN—Jon Neuert (FRAIC), Luke Cho, Dat Pham, Mehdi Latifian, Clare Commins, Jesse Dormody. SableARC—Bill Saul, Jodi Crompton, Robert Haggis | STRUCTURAL SCL Engineering | MECHANICAL MCA Consultants | ELECTRICAL Richardson | LANDSCAPE Vollick McKee Petersmann | INTERIORS SableARC  Studio | CONTRACTOR Bird Construction | CAGBC NZB SHADOW REVIEW LMMW Group Ltd. | AREA 3,600 m2 | BUDGET $11.4M building / $12.4M with site servicing & improvements | COMPLETION May 2022

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 109.6 kWh/m2/year | EMBODIED CARBON 60-YEAR LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS (PROJECTED) 204.7 kgCO2e/m2 (59% below CaGBC NZB v3 threshold) 

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of Means, Generosity of Ends: Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, Saint Peter’s Bay, PEI appeared first on Canadian Architect.