Architects of the West Block's Ambitious Rethink Draw on Similar European Projects

Design for the West Block 

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

OTTAWA CITIZEN, By Maria Cook

The architecture team designing an addition to the West Block on Parliament Hil describes it as "both contemporary and yet respectful of the building which surrounds it."

The design features a free-standing pavilion in the centre of the courtyard of the West Block, as well as three new underground levels. The three-storey pavilion acts as a support for a glass roof, which will cover the entire courtyard.

When the new infill is finished in 2020, it will become the temporary chamber for the House of Commons, allowing the operations of Parliament to continue uninterrupted during renovation of the Centre Block, which is expected to last five to seven years.

When work in the Centre Block is complete with its restored chamber, the space will be converted into committee rooms.

“It’s the project of a lifetime; to take a building on Parliament Hill and not only to upgrade it but to add to it,” said architect Norman Glouberman. “And to do it in a way that we think will enhance the building and return it to its initial glory, and perhaps more than its initial glory.”

The addition is part of a major rehabilitation of the West Block that started in 2005. The project is expected to cost more than $1.3 billion. That includes renovation of the West Block, fit-up of interim accommodations for West Block occupants and functions which will be relocated next year to nearby buildings, and design and construction of the new infill.

For inspiration, the design team looked at the Oxford Museum of Natural History, a 19th-century Gothic building in Oxford, England that was built around the same time as the West Block. It has a spectacular atrium that provides an example of how a glass roof was built over a courtyard at the time.

Although there are technical differences, the overall spirit is to reflect the Gothic character of the building on the interior. From the exterior it will be almost invisible; it will be seen only from higher vantage points such as the Peace Tower.

“We see it as a very contemporary piece of architecture, but one that has some imaging back to the original Gothic,” said Glouberman. “We plan to have the structure exposed so it will be reminiscent of the Gothic kind of structure … a tree-like structure.”

The project is being carried out by two Montreal firms in a joint venture, Arcop and Fournier Gersovitz Moss Architects.

They plan to preserve the role of the courtyard as a source of light to the offices— hence the glass roof and the placement of the building as an object in the centre.

“We’re trying to keep it away from all the walls of the existing building,” said Glouberman, who is with Arcop. “We want it to be a pristine object in the middle of the courtyard.

“We want to use a lot of local materials. We’re looking at wood and steel. We want to highlight Canadian materials and wood is very much a Canadian material.”

Both the British Museum in London and the Louvre have added space and solved circulation issues by making courtyards of this type. If done well, they give visitors an opportunity to appreciate details of the original architecture as an interior experience. The stone walls of the West Block facing the courtyard will remain exposed.

“Dealing with a heritage building takes a certain mindset,” said Glouberman. “Creating a contemporary infill, you have the contrast of the two, which you don’t see often in Canada but you see a lot in Europe. I think this is a real chance to do something innovative.”

The roof design carefully avoids putting weight on the existing stone building by transferring the loads back to the pavilion and some free-standing steel columns in the courtyard. The roof celebrates the structural system rather than minimizing its impact.

“I think it’s going to be a real piece of engineering, a real beautiful kind of structure,” said Glouberman. “Within the courtyard you’ll see this tree-like structure spanning over the space.

“You will only see the new building inside,” adds Glouberman. “That’s one of the heritage ideas. They don’t want to change the image of the Hill. They want the three buildings (the West, Centre and East blocks) to stay very much the same from the outside. I think we all agree on that.”

The most dramatic change from a public perspective will be the new security arrangements. Instead of entering Parliament directly through the Peace Tower, visitors to the temporary Commons chamber are to be routed underground through a scanning facility before being allowed into the building. One MP compared it to a defence bunker.

“It’s essentially an underground facility, which you would enter approximately to the left of the steps in front of Centre Block, between Centre Block and West Block,” said Rob Wright, Public Works project director.

The new security facility is part of the West Block project, but it will eventually become part of a visitor welcome centre and serve as the entrance to the entire complex. It is located outside the building footprint.

“The successful design of such a facility — that must be at once an efficient, secure processing machine and also an elegant and welcoming signal point — poses an enormous design challenge,” says an architectural report obtained by the Citizen. “It is made more challenging by the fact that the site and landscape are part of a national historic site and they cannot be easily reshaped.”

The architects hope that once screening has taken place, entering the roofed courtyard will help make up for the unpleasantness of an underground entrance.

“All visitors, once scanned, will enter immediately into the courtyard, bathed in natural light and soaring in height,” says the report. “The courtyard becomes the meeting place, the orientation space. From this level, the visitor should be able to experience the full vertical sweep of the courtyard walls,” it says.

“The design team believes that the courtyard, covered by its new glazed roof, should be the centre of the building, and the circulation patterns of the different users (MPs, civic visitors, business visitors) should be anchored within this space.

“Everything significant and public within the building should be designed to happen within the courtyard,” including viewing of the Speaker’s parade.

A walkway inserted within the pavilion and courtyard roof structure will overlook the partially glazed roofs of the government and opposition lobbies and offer views of the building’s heritage façades.

The chamber will be located on the second floor. It will maintain the present Centre Block centre aisle width of 3.9 metres, the symbolic two-and-a-half swords’ lengths between government and opposition.

The West Block is also being upgraded to meet current earthquake requirements. The stones that make up the exterior will be removed individually and tied back to the rubble core and inside stone face of the walls. The floor will also be tied to the outside wall.

“We want to make sure the face doesn’t fall apart and the rubble core falls apart and the whole thing collapses,” says Glouberman. “It’s not something that happens easily, but it is work that has to be done.”

 

Article By Maria Cook, Originally published in the Ottawa Citizen on March 22, 2009. Republished in the Ottawa Citizen on March 24, 2015.