The food bank is located in Cambridge, Ontario, on an existing industrial site just beyond the town centre. This project recognizes its industrial surroundings as valuable contextual material to be referenced and physical material to be used in the new construction. Many of the buildings on site required demolition, though one building was retained and retrofitted to become a conditioned community centre and farm storage space, called “the barn”.
From the demolition, brick walls are re-used as floor finishes, concrete block used as interior partitions, and steel recycled. The new building, the “warehouse” is a light steel frame single-story structure with a repeating sawtooth roof angled northward. The building is pushed to the front of the site to maintain and develop a street presence in the rapidly developing post-industrial area. The plan is divided in three sections, with the large open warehouse space in the center, the more intensely conditioned programs like staff offices, meeting rooms, and washrooms are pushed to the north, and a semi-conditioned greenhouse lines the south facade. For direct solar gain mitigation, a large photovoltaic shading screen is erected in front of the south facade, creating a distinct face to the building and enabling a fully-glazed facade while maintaining an efficient thermal envelope.
_
