Science and Nature

When members of the Irving family started thinking about donating a science center in memory of their parents, they imaged a facility that combined indoor and outdoor space for both social and scientific purposes. Completed in November of 2002, the 65,000-sq.ft. K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, is situated on the six-acre Harriett Irving Botanical Gardens. It was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York City as the first element of the comprehensive master campus the firm has developed for the university.

The three-story building offers facilities for advanced research and teaching in the fields of botany, environmental sciences and estuarine studies along with meeting and gathering spaces that bring all members of the community into contact with the natural sciences. In addition, the building incorporates a greenhouse and also opens out into two walled gardens – one for research and one that is open to the public. A 4,500-sq.ft. herbarium serves a growing collection of more than 200,000 preserved botanical specimens, some dating back to the 18th century.

All of these facilities are housed in a building that reflects the culture and historical character of the campus. Reviving the restrained Georgian Classical vocabulary of the campus’s historic core, the architects specified a palette of hand-molded water-struck red brick, a granite water table, carved-limestone trim and a blended gray and black slate roof. The custom-designed windows are made of plantation-grown mahogany with quarter-sawn white oak on the interior. The cupola is roofed in standing-seam copper and is topped by a specially designed finial and spire.

“The Irving Centre is part of a master plan that we undertook for the university,” says Robert A. M. Stern, FAIA, principal, Robert A. M. Stern Architects, “working in collaboration with Novell Tullett Landscape Architects of Bristol, England. The Centre itself is part of a complex strategy that reinforced a new focus on the natural sciences, and specifically environmental sciences, at the University by combining it with the impulse to create a campus center. This synergistic approach gave us a very mixed-use program, which brings together scientific research and social spaces – rooms for meetings and informal socialization – in one building. Likewise, the gardens serve teaching and research functions and at the same time provide a setting for gatherings and give pleasure to visitors.”

“The building is principally intended to reinvigorate the traditional language of the Acadia campus,” he adds, “which dates back to the early-19th century, and for the most part was realized in a simple red brick, shall we say vernacular, Georgian. There are certain buildings on the campus that have a more spirited interpretation of the Georgian, from Acadia’s own Carnegie Hall of 1909 all the way up through the Manning Memorial Chapel of 1963.”

“This project was a carefully balanced combination of building and garden,” says Graham Wyatt, AIA, project partner. “The buildings and garden were designed as a unified composition, with outdoor and indoor spaces carefully coordinated. The site is a critical transition between the campus and a greenbelt that defines the university’s south and west flanks. The creation of the gardens and Science Centre rapidly solidified the greenbelt, an important element in the campus plan.”

The L-shaped plan of the building allowed the architects to tuck the east-west wing into the hillside. Facing north, it houses the laboratories, which do not require natural light, on the ground floor with the greenhouse on the level above, where it gets lots of light. The north-south wing contains classrooms, meeting rooms and other public spaces that also benefit from natural light.

Says Stern: “The building benefits from a generous and prominent site, which, though away from the campus’s main quadrangle, is nonetheless the focus of important vistas and pedestrian ways. It is intended to become a symbol of the university comparable to University Hall (1925). The idea was to make a first-class work of architecture.”

“The building terminates an important visual axis from the University Hall in the campus’s main quadrangle,” says Wyatt. “The Irving Centre’s cupola is carefully located to complete this axis.” He explains, “Standing on the front steps of University Hall and facing south, one can look diagonally between two existing buildings to see the Irving Centre’s cupola. This dialogue between buildings was very carefully planned and is an important element in the campus plan.”

Integrating technology into the building was one of the challenges. “Because of the traditional design of the building and the very high level of finish, it was critical that all technology be carefully integrated into the design so it wouldn’t become obtrusive,” says Wyatt. This can be seen in the garden room where high-speed wireless internet access is available and where outlets for notebook computers are inconspicuously hidden in custom table lamps. The auditorium provides another example of this strategy. Each of the 124 seats is wired for the internet and for notebook computers, and an AV system can be controlled from an LCD touch-panel integrated into the lectern, which itself houses an array of electronic equipment. This hall also has built-in speakers, microphones and video cameras and is equipped for teleconferencing and distance learning. Adjacent is the library/video conference room, a multi-purpose room equipped with data ports built into the custom designed table, lighting designed to simulate daylight and a plasma video screen.

On the ground floor, a terraced entrance on the east façade opens into a large lobby with an oculus in a handkerchief vault ceiling. The oculus is lighted by the cupola above. Stained quarter-sawn white oak wainscot and trim, custom pendant light fixtures made of bronze and art glass and bluestone and limestone flooring add to the character of this room.

This entry lobby leads to the greenhouse in the east-west wing and to the garden room to the south. Designed as an orangery to accommodate plants as well as people, the garden room features a coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling, a large limestone and marble fireplace and two limestone fountains. “The garden room became, from the moment it opened, one of the University’s most sought after and beloved study and lounge spaces,” says Preston Gumberich, AIA, project architect. “The high level of finish in this room, the careful balance of natural and artificial light, the acoustics, the wide variety of comfortable furniture available, the incorporation of technology and the placement of key visual focal points such as the great fireplace and fountains helped to make it, in essence, the university’s living room. It was humbling to have students approach us, as the building’s architects, and, quite literally, thank us for creating such wonderful spaces for their enjoyment. That is an unforgettable experience, and, of course, one that couldn’t have happened without the generosity and participation of the Irving family.”

The greenhouse recalls English glass-house architecture of the latter half of the 19th century and it also incorporates the latest technology seamlessly. The condition in each of the six phytotrons, or micro-climate spaces, can be monitored over the internet; allowing the simulation of different natural environments by altering the mix of atmospheric gases as well as temperature and humidity levels and by operating the roof and wall sash vents in each space.

The garden room and the greenhouse both provide access to the walled garden, which is open to the public and is anchored on the southern façade by two open-air pavilions. An experimental garden used for research is located next to the walled garden. These are both part of the Botanical Gardens, dedicated to the study of the native flora of the Acadia region, which includes Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and parts of Quebec and New England.

To the north of the entry lobby is a seminar room with built-in display cases, a custom-designed round table with built-in data ports and its own audio-visual system, another example of integrating technology into the building.

The lower level comprises the 124-seat high-tech auditorium, laboratories and classrooms, as well as the herbarium. The herbarium was designed to accommodate future expansion to nearly double the current collection size. The upper level of the three-story structure contains the 2,400-sq.ft. Acadia Room, a reception suite for the University’s Board of Trustees, with views across the campus to the Minas Basin of the Bay of Fundy from its bluestone-paved terrace.

To the north, the Centre will be connected by a pedestrian tunnel to an addition to the existing Patterson Hall, built in 1927.

Another unusual aspect of the building is that rather than using conventional air conditioning, an environmentally friendly geothermal cooling system provides natural cooling with water from an underground aquifer. “This is an energy- and cost-efficient system with no negative impact on the environment,” says Wyatt.

After four years of construction, the facility was completed in November of 2002. It was designed “in close cooperation with the Biology Department and its environmental sciences program,” says Stern, “as well as with the office of the President of the university. It is a tribute to Arthur Irving who was the Chancellor of the university and is part of an effort to prepare the university for its future in the 21st century.” – Martha McDonald

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Last Updated February 15, 2008