Sector: Education
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)
‘Smart Campus’ Strategy, Planning and Technical Requirements
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) engaged HH Angus to develop the ‘Smart Campus’ strategy, planning and technical requirements. These deliverables will guide NAIT forward as a leading polytechnic in Canada to attract students, donors and researchers, while supporting environmental causes and the student experience.
The Angus Connect team led a multi-disciplinary Smart Campus consortium of consulting firms that brought together deep expertise in digital solutions and engineering disciplines. Some of the exciting aspects of the Smart Campus project included a campus integrated command centre, IoT sensor rich environment, energy management, smart building standards with BIM and Digital Twins, a future state network architecture including a spectrum management plan for Wi-Fi and cellular, with a focus on 5G-enabled devices. The incorporation of these emerging technologies will assist NAIT in achieving its organizational goals.
This project required a broad engagement of stakeholders and subject matter experts; a consulting team of 24 subject matter experts and project management joined forces to prepare a smart campus strategy.
It quickly became apparent that setting up the right decision makers and creating an advisory committee would be key to a well thought out strategy. Our team led the governance, oversight and direction setting with the committee, and, the project was managed through virtual engagement.
SERVICES
Stakeholder engagement | Desktop studies | Strategy & Roadmap development
PROJECT FEATURES
Post-Secondary | Visioning workshops | Technical requirements | Modeling | Standards and operating procedures | Completion: Q4 2022 (Est)
LOCATION
Edmonton, Alberta
KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Smart campus strategy | Planning | Technical requirements
Visioning Workshops
The Angus Connect team has deep experience in organization-wide and campus digital strategy & visioning, technology specifications, smart buildings technologies, command centres, networking infrastructure design and integration, and energy management. Our consultants facilitated visioning workshops with the Steering Committee and senior leadership to understand the needs, goals and objectives of the organization. These sessions included discussion of best practices, industry standards, and showcased current and emerging technologies through the use of case studies. From these sessions, our team was able to synthesize the vision, principles, key evaluation criteria and future state (opening day) initiatives.
Systems Architecture
Additional workshops were held to gain a better understanding of the current systems and network architecture, with attendant discussions on gaps/pain points and ongoing projects. Using the outputs from the visioning workshops and the systems architecture workshops, our team developed a conceptual model of systems architecture with a basis of design report to guide the client from their network today to the network they need for the future Smart Campus.
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology
Garriock Hall Mechanical Retrofit
Located on the King City campus, Garriock Hall renovations are part of Seneca’s on-going expansion. The retrofitted heating system provides improved comfort for the campus’ 5,200 students.
HH Angus was engaged as prime consultant for a retrofit at one of the campus’ main academic buildings. Our scope included replacement and upgrade to:
- Twelve fan coil units, complete with additional coil elements
- Approximately 30 hot water cabinet unit heaters located throughout the building, along with additional Building Automation System (BAS) integration
- Dual-duct terminal boxes for approximately 2/3’s of the building. The terminal boxes themselves were upgraded from pneumatically controlled to digital controlled complete with BAS integration.
- Domestic hot water system
- Pool heating system
The project used low temperature heating water from a ground-source heat pump system. This increased the physical size of the replacement heaters, which required accompanying structural and architectural modifications.
Domestic hot water preheat was implemented to take advantage of the low temperature heating water from the heat pump system, and was implemented as part of the domestic hot water system replacement and upgrade. The upgrades included a new high efficiency condensing water heater paired with a heating water to domestic water heat exchanger.
The pool heating system was not operational prior to the project. It was made functional and upgraded to take advantage of the low temperature heating water available from the heat pump system, by replacing the heat exchanger and adding additional controls.
Dual duct terminal boxes upgrades included replacing the terminal boxes to implement Variable Air Volume (VAV) control. In a few areas, existing single duct VAV terminal boxes were replaced with those equipped with reheat coils to facilitate occupant comfort.
The project timeline was aggressive, with engineering design starting late May 2019 and tendering in late August 2019. The project took advantage of the 2019 Christmas break to complete the majority of construction in order to minimize impacts to the occupants.
Image courtesy of Google Maps
SERVICES
Prime Consultant | Mechanical Engineering
PROJECT FEATURES
Twelve fan coil units | ~ 30 hot water cabinet unit heaters | Additional BAS integration | Dual-duct terminal boxes, upgraded from pneumatically controlled to digital control, complete with BAS integration | Domestic hot water system | Pool heating system
LOCATION
King City, Ontario
KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Heating plant uses ground source heat pump to deliver low temperature heating water | Compressed project schedule to meet heating season deadline | Unique dual-duct HVAC system being modernized and upgraded for re-use
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
TecNano Academic BuildingTecNano is a proposed new academic building that combines a variety of lab spaces containing co-working environments. The intent is to support a highly interactive and collaborative research experience within the biotech lab building.
Tecnológico de Monterrey is a multi-campus private university in Monterrey, Mexico. The university has grown to 36 campuses throughout Mexico, with the Monterrey campus serving as its flagship institution.
HH Angus was engaged to provide ICAT (information, communications and automation technology) design services for a proposed new building, the TecNano Academic Building. The IT design scope included a main data centre with a subsidiary data centre dedicated to Multiomics. The IT design was based on a stacked central riser, with main and redundant facility entrances from the street and from the rear, connecting to the campus backbone. Wi-Fi would be available throughout the building, with lab benches and overhead carriers providing wired data connections.
The building design required an innovative solution to locating the IT backbone. We designed a riser in the exterior channel up the north side of the building to facilitate the open-air atrium as well as a stacked riser.
The security scope included access control, CCTV, duress alarms, and a central guard station with CCTV monitoring. The facility was designed with medium to high security measures, and featured dual factor credentials for specific lab entrances. There was one clean room with anteroom, and several isolation and pressurized anteroom labs, all requiring interlock and high-speed overhead doors.
Physical security also presented challenges. Intended to be welcoming, safe and secure, the facility was designed to be open to the campus on the North side and to act as a gateway to the campus from the street on the South side. We provided glass high-speed entrance portals for entrance circulation. The solution also had to function well in Monterrey’s extreme environment. Working with the architect, we provided a safe, secure, and high-speed portal that would be protected from the elements by the atrium ceiling high overhead.
The AV systems included a public auditorium with distance learning and lecture capture, video conferencing-enabled faculty boardroom, as well as AV-enabled student meeting, study, and huddle spaces. Digital signage in IP-65 enclosures provided wayfinding at the entrance for the facility and campus
The TecNano Academic Building laboratory types included:
Nanophotonics
Molecular Simulation
Metallomics
Advanced Optical Microscopy
Nanostructure Synthesis
Micro and Nanofabrication
Multiscale Manufacturing
Materials Characterization
Synthetic Biology
High Throughput Bioprocesses
Microrobotics
Tissue Engineering and Bioprinting.
SERVICES
ICAT Consultant - Security, Audiovisual and Communication Design
PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 25,500 m2 | Status: Design Completion 2018
LOCATION
Monterrey, Mexico
KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Biotech laboratory building, including clean room and nanotechnology labs | International collaboration – Client in Mexico, Architect in United States, ICAT and Vertical Transportation consultants in Canada
Innovative solutions
An interesting challenge affected the communications design, specifically the outside plant design. When the local municipality rejected street closures to install a communications duct bank for carrier entrance cabling, we surveyed the site, the facilities, and routing together with TecNanao IT, and designed a campus-internal route to meet the carriers’ entrance to the East. While it is a much longer route, it is also simpler to permit, as it was not located within the municipal right-of-way.
Image credits: FGP Atelier
York University
Osgoode Professional Development Centre
Osgoode Hall Law School is considered a world leader in continuing legal education. Its Professional Development Centre is located in the heart of Toronto's downtown core, at Yonge and Dundas Streets, and forms part of York University's Downtown Campus.
HH Angus provided mechanical, electrical and lighting and ICAT design for a fit-out and renovation of the 26th floor of 1 Dundas St. Spaces included the reception area, open concept workstations, meeting rooms, lounge area, kitchen, staff room, phone rooms, accessible washrooms, academic classrooms of various sizes and functions, video/audio studio, and other support spaces.
Our scope for the 17,000 ft2 space included the alteration and renovation of the base-building elevator lobby and the entire 26th floor, complete with architectural, interiors, mechanical, electrical, telecommunications, accessibility, code and life safety, space and program planning, and fully integrated Building Information Modeling. The design was based on meeting LEED CI Silver standards.
SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Lighting Design | Security Consulting
PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 17,000 ft2 renovation and fitout, meeting LEED CI Silver standards | Status: Completed 2019
LOCATION
Toronto, Ontario
KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Renovations to professional development institution | Fully integrated BIM
Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson)
Pitman Hall Food Facility
Pitman Hall, located in the heart of downtown Toronto, is Toronto Metropolitan University's second largest residence, with 14 floors and 565 rooms.
HH Angus provided electrical and mechanical consulting services for the renovation of the existing kitchen and dining facilities in Pitman Hall. The refurbishment was implemented in two phases, with the kitchen and seating area as Phase 1, and the Dining Hall expansion into Pitman Quad in Phase 2.
The objective of the renovation was to increase capacity throughout the existing facility, both in number of meals served and seating capacity.
HH Angus’ scope included review of existing building systems, preparation of mechanical and electrical designs, creation of preliminary construction and other tender documents, and identification of future mechanical and electrical space requirements.
SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Security | Communications | Fire Protection | Lighting Design
PROJECT FEATURES
Status: Completed Phase 1 - 2018; Phase 2 - 2019
LOCATION
Toronto, Ontario
KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Created preliminary construction and other tender documents | Identified future mechanical and electrical space requirements | Increased facility’s meal preparation capacity | Innovative ceiling lighting design
Ecological Exhaust
Increasing the meal preparation capacity of the facility presented some design challenges for the Planning, Design Consulting (PDC) team. This is usually accomplished by increasing the exhaust volume of the cooking facility; however, the location of the building was such that other nearby buildings were too close for direct exhaust. HH Angus worked closely with the kitchen consultant to design and specify a grease filtering “ecological” exhaust unit that would sit on the existing structure.
Ventilation and Lighting Design
The wave-style ceiling presented an interesting challenge to the PDC team in designing the lighting for the unique ceiling architecture. The team worked closely with the architect to create a design that would accommodate linear diffusers and lights.
