A NATURALLY COOL CIVIC CENTER

Clayton Community Centre/Hcma

—NB

THE VANCOUVER SUBURB OF SURREY, BRITISH COLUMBIA, GOT A hardworking new civic center last fall. The Clayton Community Centre combines a fitness facility, gymnasium, community kitchen, tool workshop, and recording studios, as well as offices for the city’s recreation, library, arts, and parks staffs. It’s also one of the largest buildings in North America to meet the stringent Passive House green building standard, which requires structures to limit their energy use through highly efficient insulation and ventilation systems. Despite its northern location, keeping the building warm was not the challenge. “We found out quickly that we had a cooling problem,” says Melissa Higgs, principal at Hcma, the architects of the project, citing the building’s variety of uses and all the warm bodies inside. To avoid relying on an industrial air…

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Fast Company (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2022

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