20 engineering feats celebrated with 2021 ACEC awards

OTTAWA — Twenty projects were recognized for excellence during the 2021 Canadian Consulting Engineering (CCE) Awards virtual celebration presented by the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Canada (ACEC) recently.

Known as one of the industry’s highest honours, the awards are presented to projects by Canadian firms that illustrate the most remarkable engineering feats.

The projects and the firms that worked on them include:

• Taiyuan Botanical Garden Domes: The city of Taiyuan in central China looked to StructureCraft to create three long span gridshell domes covering a world class botanical garden. The innovative architectural design from DMAA called for the domes to be supported using wood instead of steel.
• MacKimmie Complex Redevelopment: The University of Calgary commissioned a consulting team that included Entuitive for a retrofit of the existing 1970 MacKimmie Tower. The goal was to transform it into a leading edge, high-performance, net-zero carbon building. The tower is now 85 per cent more energy efficient.
• Cure-Paquin Primary School: The first project in Quebec — and the first primary school in Canada — to receive Zero Carbon Building – Design certification from the Canada Green Building Council, the Cure-Paquin school is a flagship initiative for other school service centres. gbi acted as the lead engineering contractor for building mechanical and electrical services and for energy conservation in the design of the project.
• Trans-Canada Highway Avalanche Mitigation: Glacier National Park, located 650 kilometres east of Vancouver, is home to a unique transportation corridor containing the Trans-Canada Highway, Canadian Pacific Railway and a concentrated cluster of high-frequency avalanche paths. Parks Canada Agency engaged McElhanney to improve the corridor’s safety and reliability by implementing avalanche mitigation solutions.
• Turcot Interchange and Railways Reconstruction Project: As part of an integrated team with the Quebec Ministry of Transport, a consortium formed by AECOM and Tetra Tech acted as the owner’s engineer for the Turcot interchange project over the last 12 years. The complex project included the reconstruction of interchanges, sections of motorways, railways and municipal links.
• Major Environmental Remediation Project: Hydro-Quebec retained Englobe in 2015 to manage the major environmental remediation project of Block D, a parcel of land on the eastern shore of James Bay located between Ontario and Quebec, in the Cree community of Chisasibi. The team overcame local challenges by developing relationships with stakeholders and working closely with the people of the community, who represented 85 per cent of the workforce.
• Mushkegowuk James Bay All-Season Road Feasibility Study: The Mushkegowuk Council retained Morrison Hershfield to assess the feasibility of a new all-season road connecting four western James Bay communities to each other and the provincial highway network. Complexities including a vast study area, challenging geotechnical conditions, and diverging community views were overcome through extensive community engagement, careful and transparent assessment of corridor alternatives, and innovative design methodologies to select a new 525 kilometre ASR route.
• The Building Envelope Thermal Bridging Online Database: Morrison Hershfield, in partnership with BC Housing and project sponsors, expanded the Building Envelope Thermal Bridging Guide to include details applicable to all Canadian climates and energy codes. The team also developed a first-of-its-kind web-based database that allows users to search for building envelope details, compare approaches to mitigate thermal bridges and calculate the overall thermal transmittance of opaque wall assemblies.
• Hopital Maisonneuve-Rosemont – Modular Complex: The Hopital Maisonneuve-Rosemont in Montreal engaged WSP to have a building expansion constructed to accommodate the increased patient load caused by COVID-19. Utilizing modular construction methods, the project team designed the complex so that it could also be used to serve oncology patients after the pandemic.
• West Niagara Secondary School Remediation Project: The District School Board of Niagara purchased half of Ridgeview Garden Centre’s land to build a school. WSP provided remediation options for the historical site that included a former brickwork and quarry illegally infilled with 140,000 cubic metres of construction and demolition waste. The work included the removal of the waste to licensed landfill, diversion of impacted soil to a re-use site and sequestration and risk management of impacted soil beneath the relocated garden centre property.
• Lowering the regional groundwater table in Nutashkuan: Due to its location on the edge of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and its low elevation in relation to sea level, the Innu community of Nutashkuan has been experiencing flooding problems in its homes in the spring for several years. WSP was called upon following the spring 2017 floods to quickly develop a solution to protect the community, resulting in a controlled groundwater drawdown project.
• Peter Lougheed Centre Temporary COVID-19 Treatment Facility: In March 2020, Stantec Consulting Ltd., along with Alberta Health Services, Sprung Structures, Faulkbuilt and CANA Construction, collaborated to build a temporary treatment facility to accommodate the predicted pandemic peak in May 2020. The facility was designed and entirely constructed under three weeks, providing an additional 70 treatment spaces for patients in Calgary.
• Capital Regional District Wastewater Treatment: When the Capital Regional District (CRD) embarked on an ambitious effort to plan, construct and commission a new 108 megalitre per day tertiary treatment facility to serve the Core Area communities of Greater Victoria, Stantec was engaged to provide technical services and act as the owner’s engineer. Collaborating with the CRD team to deliver nine major capital projects under the program, Stantec developed solutions and used a hybrid procurement model, completing construction in only four years and with cost savings of $425 million.
• CIBC SQUARE at 81 Bay St.: Consultant RJC Engineers provided structural engineering for a complex, mixed-use development within a tight urban site of Toronto. The project was developed by Ivanhoe Cambridge and Hines and designed by WilkinsonEyre and Adamson Associates Architects, with general contracting delivered by EllisDon. The development rises 54 storeys and provides 1,500,000 square feet of Class AAA commercial office space, restaurants, retail, terraced park platform and a new GO bus terminal.
• Clayton Community Centre: RJC Engineers helped the Clayton Community Centre in Surrey to express a unifying theme of a tree canopy draped over a mix of community spaces for its facility. The esthetic goal, establishing a “lattice-like” roof structure resembling tree canopies native to the area, was accomplished by using an assembly of reciprocating “pinwheel” shaped glulam modules using a creative two-way timber system.
• Edmonton Convention Centre Atrium Renovation: The revitalization of Edmonton Convention Centre’s multi-level atrium along the slope of the city’s river valley was more than an opportunity to replace 35-year-old glazing. DIALOG’s comprehensive solution included a higher performance building envelope, modernized lighting and electrical systems, structural upgrades, and Canada’s largest building-integrated photovoltaic system, which included an embedded Morse code poem.
• Mill Creek Ravine Pedestrian Bridge Rehabilitation: Working with the City of Edmonton, ISL replaced two pedestrian bridges and restored three historic railway-turned-pedestrian bridges within Mill Creek. Historic timbers were used where possible to maintain the original design and preserve the heritage value, while thoughtful structural engineering reduced wear on bridge components interacting with the creek.
• Southwest Rapid Transitway – Stage 2 and Pembina Highway Underpass (SWT2) Project – Dillon Consulting Limited: Dillon Consulting Limited assisted the City of Winnipeg addressing the need for rapid transit to support the city’s long-term growth, connecting the southwest quadrant with downtown. The Dillon team provided consulting services in the role of owner’s engineer to deliver the project under a public-private partnership delivery model.

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  Drainage Master Plan for the Whapmagoostui Cree First Nation: On the Nunavik border at Hudson Bay, the Whapmagoostui Cree First Nation is facing a stormwater management issue related to climate change. The Cree Nation government wanted to implement a solution that would generate local economic benefits. CIMA+ developed a drainage master plan and co-ordinated the complex logistics of the major project carried out by the Cree Nation in this northern region.
• Hot Pipeline Condition Assessment Study: The Greater Toronto Airports Authority engaged CIMA+ to develop a condition assessment solution for a critical hot pipeline system that it owns and operates. The system, which consists of carbon steel pipes operating at high temperatures, needed to be assessed to ensure the continuous operation of Toronto Pearson International Airport.