Operations Control Center, Maintenance & Administration

This new facility includes a control room, permitting operations, training area, administration, lockers, maintenance shop and food services, all located within a single building. It expressed an “inside-outside” ethos, in that the control room operators are strategically located in proximity to the engineers who physically go out and fix any problems. The Event-Permit-Resolve timeline was minimized. The result was maximum cohesion.

Custom consoles—all of which embody state-of-the-art ergonomics—foster collaboration because management, operations and maintenance all under one roof.

The Canadian wilderness is spectacularly beautiful, but it’s a frigid, rough and messy place to locate a plant. From an interior design perspective, everything had to be extremely durable and low maintenance, which informed many design features and the overall plant room layout. For example, carpet was implemented in workstation areas for its sound-absorbing acoustic properties, while sturdy, dirt-resistant hard surfaces were used in travel zones. The result is a building that features both the hardwearing qualities of a bunker and the aesthetics of a high quality office building.