Location: Offsite - buses and meeting spot, Parker Building, Laurentian Main campus
Please report 15 minutes prior to your scheduled departure to the OAA Dispatch Hub located next to Registration in the R.D. Parker Building
2 ConEd Learning Hours
2 AIA LU
12:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Science North was not just a pride-instilling landmark in Sudbury’s history when Queen Elizabeth opened it in 1984, but it was also a turning point in the city’s self-confidence and perception by Canadians. The inspiration for the architecture was the extraterrestrial collision that blasted out the third largest crater known on Earth—the Sudbury Basin—almost 2 billion years ago.
The stainless-steel snowflake superstructure is a photogenic symbol of the north that houses activity areas including theatres, one of which was modelled after the Royal Institution in London where Michael Faraday gave his famous Christmas lectures. The snowflake is reached through a tunnel that simulates the mining drifts that riddle the ground north of the city.
A billion-year-old geological fault cuts the building along with a wall of once-molten rock that rose from kilometres below the surface. The very visible path of the fault today was covered by vegetation and only discovered after blasting for foundations had begun. Thanks to the project management team approach, the blasting program was rapidly changed and the design of the ramp to the upper levels was altered to protect the fault.
This case study is led by David Pearson, who was on leave from Laurentian University as the owner’s project director. The local architectural firm of Townend, Stefura, Baleshta and Nicholls collaborated with Moriyama and Teshima in Toronto. Taizo Miyake, who worked on the creation of the Ontario Science Centre with Ray Moriyama, was a key designer in developing the exhibit program.
Learning Objectives
- Become familiar with a building for communicating science inspired by the science of its location.
- Learn about an example of a midstream redesign that enhanced the fit of the building.
- Experience the integration, post opening, of a former hockey arena.
- See a variety of activity spaces and the “blue coat” style of personal communication with visitors.
Dr. David Pearson is an OAA Honorary Member and Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Laurentian University in Sudbury where he taught geology, climate change, and science communication, interrupted by a six-year spell as project director and then science director of Science North in Sudbury. He left the Geology Department 20 years ago as co-founder of the collaborative Laurentian University–Science North graduate program in Science Communication and at the same time became involved provincially and federally in early initiatives to promote adaptation to the impacts of climate change. David began travelling as far as Hudson Bay to many communities of northern Ontario First Nations in 2009, with an eye to learning from Elders and Knowledge Holders about how changing climate is affecting the well-being of Indigenous people in the north. He has been learning ever since and now leads a small group, Up North on Climate, that is collaborating with six northern Councils in co-developing resources and building local capacity for community-based, Indigenous led, climate change adaptation planning. The collaboration has become the Partnership for Indigenous Climate Change Adaptation.