Status wins VRCA silver

“Usually,” says Status Electrical Corporation, “all our hard work is hidden from public view.”

Not so in the University of B.C.’s Institute for Computing Information and Cognitive Systems Building/Computer Systems building and expansion project (ICICS/SC), in which the design incorporated exposed services. Status Electrical had the $3 million electrical contract with a construction period of 18 months.

The Vancouver Regional Construction Association was impressed, bestowing Status Electrical with a Silver Award in the Electrical Contractor category of its 2005 Awards of Excellence.

The ICICS/CS Expansion and CS Lecture Pavilion project consisted of four parts:

1. Construction of a new, seven-storey-plus-basement ICICS building, a concrete structure containing computer research labs, undergraduate teaching labs, offices and study/lounge areas;

2. Construction of a new, three-storey Computer Science (CS) lecture pavilion (since renamed the Hugh Dempster Pavilion), a concrete and Glulam structure containing lecture theatres and classrooms;

3. Renovation to the existing Centre for Integrated Computer Systems Research (CICSR) building, including research labs, offices and server room areas; and

4. Construction of a connecting two-storey link between the new ICICS building and the existing CICSR building atrium – the link is a glazed walkway bridge between the third levels of each building.

“The most challenging aspect of the project arose from the architectural detailing, which is an industrial design with exposed services,” Status says. “Running the conduit and tray system in an aesthetically-pleasing manner involved a lot of coordination within our scope of work and also in working with other trades.”

Because the entire project houses the many operations of the computer department, power and data considerations were extremely important. “The electrical scope of work encompassed every facet of our trade, which provided opportunities for the crew to experience installations that they might not normally encounter”

Stuart Olson was the general contractor. Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden provided the architecture