University of Ottawa - Vanier Hall tower | 15 fl | Completed

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by Davis137

It's awesome how fast this has started rising now...I think it's at it's 10th floor, with only 5 left to go until topout. Funny thing is, it's already almost as tall as the buildings beside it, which have a higher floorcount...

The other buildings are residential and this is institutional, which means higher ceilings and thicker floors with more HVAC, wiring, sound/fire proofing etc. That's just the way it goes, really.

[Davis137]

Fair enough...I really like the streetwall presence this adds to Nicholas/Lees and the transitway...it looks like it's going to be really nice when viewed from Col By....

[bobert_d]

SITE (the glass building that is the first uOttawa building you see coming down Nicholas) still always impresses me whenever I go down the transitway, this should hopefully make the rest of the ride through campus that much better.

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

bobert_d wrote

SITE (the glass building that is the first uOttawa building you see coming down Nicholas) still always impresses me whenever I go down the transitway, this should hopefully make the rest of the ride through campus that much better.

I read some time ago that the SITE building has a dupicate. It is at Lakehead University and used for a different academic pupose than the Ottawa one.

At the time the province was funding a new building for each. Both unis liked this design, so the province saved itself a bit of money by using the design twice.

[McC]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

bobert_d wrote



I read some time ago that the SITE building has a dupicate. It is at Lakehead University and used for a different academic pupose than the Ottawa one.

At the time the province was funding a new building for each. Both unis liked this design, so the province saved itself a bit of money by using the design twice.

The one at Lakehead looks very similar, they're definitely twins, but maybe not *identical* twins. ;-)

[ServiceGuy]

A little different view than the Nicholas side...

[Admiral Nelson]

Taken today (Sep 18) from the somerset footbridge.

[waterloowarrior]

article explaining the delays
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/tower+delayed+ground+instability/5526353/story.html

[S-Man]

If it's an Ottawa U building, my guess is any slant will be to the left

[teej1984]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

article explaining the delays
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/tower+delayed+ground+instability/5526353/story.html

This is kinda old news... Le Droit (Ottawa' French daily) reported on this at the start of summer!

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by teej1984

This is kinda old news... Le Droit (Ottawa' French daily) reported on this at the start of summer!

Well it would be unreasonable to expect University Administration to take less than a couple months to get the English translation of their press release out.

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

Ottawan wrote

Well it would be unreasonable to expect University Administration to take less than a couple months to get the English translation of their press release out.

Balderdash--all this was reported in the Citizen in sept 2010, There is nothing new at all in this Oct 2011 CitiZen ariticle. They are just rehashing what was said in 2010. Both articles basically say the building will not be finished by the original 2011 date.

U of 0 doing ‘best’ to finish new building

By Nick Taylor-Vaisey, The Ottawa Citizen September 28, 2010 6:44 AM


OTTAWA — Months of delays on the University of Ottawa’s newest building could mean its federal funding will be cut off next spring, even before the structure is more than a few floors off the ground.

The $112-million Vanier Tower, the largest construction project in the school’s history, was delayed almost immediately after work began on the building’s foundations.

The project received

$30 million from the federal government’s $2-billion Knowledge Infrastructure Program, part of its larger stimulus program to juice the economy out of recession.

The taps run dry on that funding at the end of March 2011.

Claudio Brun del Re, the school’s director of physical resources, said the university broke ground on the new arts and social-sciences building the day after the funding announcement. But almost immediately, he said, workers ran into problems with its foundations.

The northern portion of the site near the Rideau Canal sits on limestone, but the southern portion hits shale a few feet beneath the ground. Engineers ran into problems with the stability of that layer of shale, which didn’t provide the load-bearing capacity required for the foundations.

The problem arose last November, and it delayed the project for five months as engineers searched for solutions. Work resumed in April, and the project has been in full production since.

“We’re doing everything we can to accelerate our work,” said Brun del Re. “We’re pre-ordering as many materials and long-delivery items as we can. We’re making sure everything will be available on site at the earliest possible time.”

The delays mean the school won’t finish the project by September 2011, as originally planned. While the first few floors of the 15-storey tower will be ready for occupancy next fall, many will still require substantial work.

The delays might also mean next spring’s funding deadline will pass before the university can spend all the federal money dedicated to the project. The March deadline was imposed in an effort to get the federal money into the economy as quickly as possible; the funding is supposed to flow as projects progress, but the government has repeatedly said that if work is still going on after the deadline, the money will stop.

“We’re optimistic that the financial requirements can be met by the deadline,” Brun del Re said, but in an e-mail, he added that forecasting is difficult, because even spending the funding “is not a singular coordinated initiative, but rather a myriad of smaller individual initiatives.”

Although he was reluctant to criticize the government and “bite the hand that feeds” the university, Brun del Re said the stimulus deadline was ill-conceived.

“(The government’s) expectations that there are going to be no risks at the best of times is probably unrealistic,” he said. “You shouldn’t be faulted for doing the best you can.”

Darryl Boyce, Carleton University’s assistant vice-president of facilities management and planning, said that the Carleton projects met similar delays as the U of O project.

Boyce said that the federal government’s strict deadline “made things more stressful.” He explained that Carleton had problems with both buildings in its stimulus-funded “Waterfront Project.”

“They were both a struggle to get out of the ground,” he said. “I think if you talk to other KIP projects, there are probably a number of projects where getting out of the ground posed the most challenge.”

Brun del Re also said that some projects on other campuses are also facing delays, but he couldn’t cite examples.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

Ottawan wrote




Balderdash--all this was reported in the Citizen in sept 2010, There is nothing new at all in this Oct 2011 CitiZen ariticle. They are just rehashing what was said in 2010. Both articles basically say the building will not be finished by the original 2011 date.

I actually never doubted any of this. My post was just an attempt at a little humour. As a Carleton grad, taking jabs at Ottawa U is a patriotic duty.

[alphachap]

[S-Man]

I guess the shale conditions were the reasons the LRT tunnel was shortened in that area.

[alphachap]

[Admiral Nelson]

Nice photos! Good to see it coming along.

[alphachap]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

[IMG]

I don't like an open air plaza when it could so easily be enclosed.
It might be a nice place on a perfect summer day,
but for most of the school year it will be unpleasant, cold, windy, rainy, snowy.
All this while it could have been a cosy common public indoor area with benches, tables, etc...
A missed opportunity.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by alphachap

I don't like an open air plaza when it could so easily be enclosed.
It might be a nice place on a perfect summer day,
but for most of the school year it will be unpleasant, cold, windy, rainy, snowy.
All this while it could have been a cosy common public indoor area with benches, tables, etc...
A missed opportunity.

I suspect that area above will have just that function meaning both types of spaces will be available.

[adam-machiavelli]

Indoor "open air plazas" are a waste of energy and very inefficient use of space. They should be avoided at all costs.