Location: Vineland Station, ON
Architect: Baird Sampson Neuert Architects Inc.
Date of Completion: 2015

OAA Design Excellence Awards Finalist

Located in Southern Ontario’s fruit and vine production region, the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre integrates scientific and commercialization interests under one roof. It brings the public to the forefront of horticultural innovation. Environmentally conditioned ‘pods’ located below the greenhouse envelope are open to people while allowing the greenhouse to extend into all areas of the facility. This reduces the scale of the environmental footprint of a fully conditioned occupied space.

Exterior of the Greenhouse (top), Vineland location (below)
Drawing Credit: Baird Sampson Neuert Architects Inc.
Photo Credit: Richard Seck

Pods entrance (left), Exploded structure assembly (right)
Drawing Credit: Baird Sampson Neuert Architects Inc.
Photo Credit: Richard Seck

Sustainability is the key mission of the greenhouse, while the research platforms enable rapid innovation and immediate commercialization of the successful research all under one roof. The 40,000-square-foot facility was conceived to support outreach and public education, circulation and plant production spaces. Designed to multitask for events and outreach activities, its sliding walls extend between the ‘pods’ to enable rapid transformation and to secure equipment and technical spaces.

Public education event
Photo Credit: Richard Seck

Controlled research trials occur in fully isolated rooms.
Photo Credit: Richard Seck

The facility’s integrated capacity to host complementary events, product launches, etc., within the interstitial spaces of the research environment creates a hyper adjacency between research and outreach that foregrounds research and innovation as the primary experience of place. It showcases, and makes accessible, the facility’s resources to the growers’ community.

View of research trial of new tomato varieties
Photo Credit: Richard Seck