St. Cecilia Elementary School

Project Team :

Bryden Martel Architects - Architect of Record

Genivar - Civil / Structural / Mechanical / Electrical Engineers

James B. Lennox & Associates Inc. - Landscape Architect

Description :

This is the first school in a series of schools that became ‘repeated’ schools used by the Ottawa Catholic School Board. It is also the first school completed by the practice that  incorporated features that reinforce the concepts of 21st Century Learning which emphasizes collaborative learning and the school as a community.

The 16-classroom school design incorporates a hierarchy of learning environments ranging in scale.

Throughout the school, there are “caves” and “niches” these personal sized spaces provided for students a quiet place to be by themselves for study or reading, away from other students. 

The corridor are slightly wider and classrooms are arranged to frame a space becomes  learning pods. Allowing groups from the surrounding three to four classrooms  and opportunity for student to interact more independently with students from other classes, while being supervised by their teachers in the adjacent classrooms. 

Classrooms are fit up with separate learning centres within the room through careful placement of Smart Boards and whiteboards, so that children can work in different groups on different activities at the same time or the they can all learn together.

The Learning Centre accommodates small and large groups of students, who are able to access shared resources for independent learning, and interact with students from different classes and grades.  The room opens to the main lobby of the school creating a focal point within the school.  

The building itself is a learning tool for children and is intended to inspire curiosity towards the built environment. Exposed ceiling spaces, wall and floor construction reveal what is behind the finishes.  A window into the Boiler Room showcases colour-coded pipes, ducts, and equipment that are explained on an educational display on the wall outside the room.  

Another design objective was to follow sustainable design principles.   The school was planned to include solar collectors on the roof that will generate energy to help offset the energy used by the building.  Energy conservation was achieved through the use of energy efficient lighting and controls, heat recovery on the ventilation systems, high-efficiency boilers, and energy efficient design of the building envelope.  The consultant team completed energy modelling to confirm compliance with the Part 12 of the Ontario Building Code on Resource Conservation.  This Part mandates that the building must exceed the energy efficiency attained by conforming to the “Model National Energy Code for Buildings” , by at least 25%.

As part of the going process of design more energy efficient school during the design development process “Savings By Design” workshops sponsored by Enbridge, were attended. These one-day workshops explored changes to the building design to increase the annual energy performance to a level that would be at least 25% better than the Ontario Building Code. Assisting in the workshops were multiple building energy design consultants, which was a very interesting and beneficial arrangement. Examinations were made of the entire building envelope, and the mechanical and electrical building systems. Energy modelling took place within the workshop, and the capital costs of considered changes were compared to projected annual energy savings to arrive at expected pay back times. All attractive changes were then incorporated in the next new school design.