Check out this interesting article from the Ottawa Citizen – Design Your Own Building The Mountain Equipment Co-op Way is very inspiring as they have used straw bales, which as you know, is right up my alley! Read on down and see where they have actually integrated a straw bale wall in the store!
OTTAWA — The Mountain Equipment Co-op store in Westboro, a pioneer of green design and construction in Ottawa, has donated several trees and its climbing wall as it prepares to build a two-storey addition.
Construction of a 10,000-square-foot extension in the west parking lot of the Mountain Equipment Co-op store on Richmond Road is set to start at the end of February. Completion is expected in September Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/planning+major+expansion+Westboro/6144682/story.html#ixzz1pORnXQOE
Construction of a 10,000-square-foot extension in the west parking lot is set to start at the end of February. Completion is expected in September.
“We’ve been bulging at the seams for a number of years,” says store manager Colleen Mooney. “Since we built this store, we’re now carrying a broad selection of bicycles and running shoes and we can’t fit it all in anymore.”
The Richmond Road store, which opened in 2000, is smaller than Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) outlets in Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. “We cannot carry the whole MEC assortment,” she says.
MEC is part of a national network of stores that sells outdoor clothing and equipment. It charges a $5 membership fee and calls customers members.
The new section will house an expanded bike shop and enlarged children and youth department. The old space will be reconfigured and renovated. There will be more gear for yoga and road running (as opposed to trail running), more and larger change rooms and more rental equipment such as canoes, kayaks and cross-country skis.
“We really want to promote active lifestyles,” says Mooney. “A lot of our members do many different things. They might go climbing on the weekend and during the week they run or do yoga.”
To maximize retail space, MEC recently gave its 30-foot climbing wall to the Dovercourt Recreation Centre.
There will be a new 500-square-foot community room available for use by outdoors and environmental groups. MEC currently offers space after-hours in the footwear department. “We want to become a real community hub for people who are interested in pursuing outdoor active lifestyles,” says Mooney.
The addition will increase the size of the simple, square two-storey building to about 39,000 square feet. Besides retail space, there is a warehouse and offices.
The project involves demolition of two buildings to the west which MEC owns — a store that housed Extreme Pita and Auto Racks and a house behind it on Danforth Avenue — to make way for a new parking lot.
Much of the landscaping will be replanted. However, six trees — a large honey locust, three jack pine and two white spruce — were deemed unable to withstand two transplants (a temporary one during construction and a new permanent location.)
These were donated to the City of Ottawa and planted in Wisteria Park in the Uplands area. It cost more than $1,000 to move each tree.
“They went to great expense,” said Ottawa landscape architect James Lennox. “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about doing the right thing. Even the employees wanted to know what would happen to the trees.”
MEC will pay to water the trees for a year to help them survive.
When it opened, the Ottawa MEC was the first retail building in the country to comply with Canada’s C2000 Green Building Standard. This standard is based on energy efficiency, minimal environmental impact, occupant health and comfort and functional performance.
Its building consumes 50 per cent less energy than a similar building and was built mainly with salvaged materials.
For instance, many components of the grocery store originally located on the site were reused, such as structural steel columns, beams and joists, the terrazzo floor and parts of the foundation. The ground-floor timber frame is made of Douglas fir posts and beams, recovered from old log booms in the St. Lawrence River.
One unusual feature is a wall insulated with straw bale, a highly-efficient natural, renewable resource. The wall has a viewing portal so visitors can see inside.
The original building was designed by the team of Ottawa architects Linda Chapman and Chris Simmonds.
“At the time it was among the most advanced buildings in the city for environmental standards,” says Chapman, whose firm is overseeing the addition.
“Environmentally-friendly buildings are becoming standard for most corporations now,” she says. “It’s still leading edge from an environmental point of view, but we ain’t the only ones anymore. Lots of people are doing it now.”
The building tries to visibly demonstrate the company’s interest in sustainability. The addition is designed to blend with the existing building and uses the same materials.
It will be clad in galvanized steel and cement board. The heavy-timber canopy, which gives the big-box building a friendlier street presence and scale, will be extended along Richmond Road.
Two elements will be moved to the new section: the diagonal front entrance, and the bay window above it in which children sit and look out onto the street.
“It’s very much in keeping with the original store,” says Chapman. “There’s a timber-frame structure on the ground floor and the second floor is steel beams, steel columns and steel open-web joists.” The main floor will be concrete and the second floor will be wood.
“It’s carrying on the same theme as the original building where it’s super-insulated, deconstructable and uses very durable materials that can be recycled at the end of their lifespan,” she says.
The use of energy-efficient systems mean that although the building will be larger it will operate on the same amount of energy.
The cistern that collects rain for watering plants will be replaced. A new heated cistern will operate year-round and provide water for toilet flushing to reduce indoor water use. “They decided they needed to step it up a notch,” says Chapman.
There will be just one new parking space for a total of 63. The City of Ottawa required 67 spaces but there isn’t room so MEC will pay cash-in-lieu for four spots.
“The parking lot is rarely full except on busy Saturdays and Sundays,” says Mooney. “We do encourage members to come by public transit.”
The bike racks will be able to fit up to 80 bikes as opposed to a maximum of 50 today. The parking lot will have two new electric-car charging stations and reserve two spots for car-sharing and one for hybrid vehicles.
The store will also be the western depot for Right Bike, a bike-share program that aims to encourage cycling between the Wellington West, Hintonburg and Westboro neighbourhoods.
Lennox, who was the landscape architect from the start, will continue use of native plant materials, such as raspberry and serviceberry bushes, and local river-washed stone as mulch in the planting beds. Pines and spruces will shade the western side of building, while vines on the south will provide shade in summer and solar gain warmth in winter.
The big red rock by the front entrance will be moved, but the three towering rocks by the front door will probably break when dislodged and will need to be replaced.
The store will be open during construction.
“MEC has been one of the main draws to Westboro Village,” says Natalie Hanson, executive director of the Westboro Village Business Improvement Area. “The bigger building with more services will draw people from all over the region and, draw more customers to the area.”
