Demolishing the first building in the history of the University of Calgary is not so simple as saying: Craigie Hall C is in the way, let’s level it.
CORRESPONDENT
CALGARY
Demolishing the first building in the history of the University of Calgary is not so simple as saying: Craigie Hall C is in the way, let’s level it.
The decision is not so much a demolition issue as a space planning issue, says university spokesperson Laurie Drukier. “There are a lot of considerations involved about the best use of the space.”
So much so, the university launched a feasibility study into the demolition last fall.
Made up of representatives of the campus planning department and an outside consultant, Joanne Weninger of Calgary’s KWC Consulting Inc., the feasibility study is scheduled to be finished at the end of February.
After that, either the university’s board of directors or the president will decide whether Craigie Hall C goes or stays.
Initially named Calgary Hall, Craigie Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus. Demolition of the three-storey building, with its precast 1960s facade, won’t light a fire of protest from preservationists but university officials are concerned about how and where activities in the studios and performance space in the C wing can continue if the building is demolished.
Craigie C is connected to another building that will stay, which could have an impact on the decision to demolish. “And dollars are always an issue,” says Drukier. “How much is it going to cost to demolish? What’s the cost/benefit analysis?”
As Karen Snyder, campus planning associate vice president puts it: “This has never been done before on this campus. Because it’s the first time, everyone’s a little nervous. We don’t take it lightly.”
The university hasn’t had any experience with demolition because of its youth. Only 40 years old, the university has always had the room to add buildings to its campus without demolishing any in existence. But last spring, it broke ground for a $150 million digital library, the first project of its kind in Canada. Thanks to a $25 million donation from Calgarians Don and Ruth Taylor, the largest philanthropic contribution to the university’s $1.5 billion capital expansion plan, it will be named the Taylor Family Digital Library. Scheduled to open in the fall of 2009, the library will anchor the Taylor Quadrangle, a public green space scheduled to become the heart of an expanded campus.
Architects for the digital library are waiting patiently to find out whether Craigie C will or will not be in their way. If it isn’t demolished, “well, we would have to work around it,” says Judy MacDougall, project architect with Kasian Architecture of Calgary, the executive architect. Montreal-based Saucier and Perrotte is the signature architect. The library is still in the schematic design stage—“everything’s in flux”, says MacDougall—so the decision about demolition isn’t yet pressing.
Since Craigie Hall was built, the university has adopted the mandate that “design matters” so the library design, due by the end of the summer, is expected to make an architectural statement. By then, the university will likely have tendered the demolition of Craigie C, if that’s the decision taken.
The library and four other major capital projects planned for campus will allow the university to enroll 7,000 more students by 2010.
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