The first Canadian architecture school in more than 40 years, McEwen embraces its northern climate and culture, with adaptive re-use of historic structures, a new building with locally sourced, cross-laminated timber design, and a design that serves both the university and Sudbury’s tri-cultural community.
Located on Laurentian University’s downtown Sudbury campus, the McEwen School of Architecture wanted to provide a uniquely integrated and focused education for Anglophone, Francophone, and Indigenous students. The curriculum addresses resilient architecture and fabrication techniques for northern latitudes, with an emphasis on Indigenous culture, wood construction, local ecologies and resources, and design for minimizing the impacts of climate change. The design promotes universal welcoming and inclusion, and is the first school of architecture to include offices for Indigenous Elders, who play a central role in the school.
We conceived McEwan as a didactic instrument from which students could learn about the making of architecture, and particularly how it can address sustainability, climate, and culture. The resulting mini-campus unites four different building typologies around a climate-controlled central courtyard. We converted a former Canadian Pacific Railway ticketing and telegraph building into faculty offices, and a timber rail shed into the Fab Lab for teaching traditional and contemporary building methods. A new steel and concrete wing houses the “Crit Pit” and design studios, and a cross-laminated timber (CLT) building houses the auditorium and library. The CLT wing immerses students in a relatively new product that is having a tremendous impact on local construction. The courtyard, south facing and sheltered from prevailing winds, serves as an outdoor classroom and making space, with a ceremonial fire pit that enables students and the local community to participate in local First Nations traditions.
