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September 21 and 22
2 days, 2 disciplines, 2 ways to participate – defining our professional roles and uniting to build more equitable, accessible and inspired communities.
#2GETHER2022
Learn about York University's iconic New Student Centre through the lens of a unique partnership of student, institutional, and municipal stakeholders. The Student Centre is a fully student funded, large scale, and award winning institutional building that was successfully completed under budget, on schedule and with no design changes through construction.
In response to burgeoning student enrollment and rapid growth occurring at York University’s Keele Campus, a second student centre has been constructed to compliment the original student centre built in 1991. The process towards realizing a second centre began in 2010 through an extensive, exhaustive and innovative student engagement model. The building was completed in May 2018, having been constructed in only 18 months.
The building is technologically focused to meet the demands of a progressive student body. Its design gives students autonomy in their spaces without them being reliant on traditional methods for access throughout the building, provides a dominance of plug 'n play spaces, and offers state of the art lighting capabilities in a large scale conference setting.
The New Student Centre is expected to achieve LEED GOLD certified status and the City of Toronto’s Toronto Green Standards Tier 2 level. Environmental and sustainable highlights of this ‘Smart Building’ design include: water efficient landscaping, green power production, sustainable materials, engineering systems, led lights, green roof, low flow plumbing, green energy, an innovative waste management system using socially responsible technology, active transportation and non-standard solutions (this was the first building in Toronto, at the time of construction), such as an ultra violet pattern treatment to the building glass only visible to birds, and not to humans, to allow maximum light and transparency while preventing bird collisions. The New Student Centre has received the Buffalo/WNY 2018 America Institute of Architects (AIA) award and the 2019 Association of College Unions International (ACUI) Facility Design Awards.