Wicked new project for the southside. Hoping to be the first 'Living Building Petal' certified building in AB.
The Mosaic Centre For Conscious Community and Commerce is going to more than an office building.
This new, 30,000 square foot building will be located at the threshold of a commercial strip and the emerging Edmonton community of Summerside. It will house the Mosaic Family of Companies, providing its staff not only an office, but important amenities including a child-care facility, wellness centre, lounge areas and game rooms, and even a restaurant. Every detail of the building will work together to promote a healthy collaborative work environment that resonates with the unique ethos of its occupants. One of the primary goals is to create a net zero commercial building- a building that will generate as much energy on site as it will consume in a year. That isn’t the only green goal- this building hopes to be the first Living Building Challenge petal certified building in Alberta!
The diversity of the Centre’s programme provides us a complex design challenge, but one that we were excited to tackle. The various companies that form the Mosaic Family each have their own needs.
Additionally, small leasable office space, called “the beehive,”
is hoping to assist local businesses and start up companies grow. Facilities including the child-care centre, restaurant and wellness centre, will first be made available to the Mosaic staff, then neighbourhood residents, and workers in the surrounding commercial buildings. This will engage the Centre’s surrounding residents, and make the building a gathering place and solidify its role as a community hub.
Mosaic desires the building to be less of an object, and more of a system. This collection of elements will function in a way that parallels biology, as the design creates interdependence between the disparate elements of the Centre’s programme. Three levels match the three categories of space that are required: public, private and shared space, expressing the relationship between the programmes, while a central, shared atrium provides an incidental meeting area-as-common space.
Like a biological system, the Centre will sustain life, with
light, water and spatial systems creating a connective tissue along which programme needs would be met and energy requirements would be achieved. As a progressive organization, the Mosaic Family of Companies expressed that sustainability would be a fundamental consideration for the facility.
Setting net zero energy as our goal, holistic sustainability strategies have been employed at every level of design. Net zero is challenging to achieve in our northern climate! However, by implementing key strategies, we hope to achieve Living Building as well as LEED® certification. These strategies include the provision of a high-performance building envelope and minimal mechanical/electrical systems that will work together to form an integrated response to the building’s physical environment.
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What is it with developers' love of cheesy clock towers? We have phones and watches now to tell the time. They add nothing and are tacky.
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