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HAGEN HEAD OFFICE, BAIE D’URFÉ, QUÉBEC

OWNER: R.C. Hagen Inc.
ARCHITECT: Rubin & Rotman Associates
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: BCA Consultants
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Broccolini Construction Inc.
Photos & images: Rubin & Rotman Associates

Exposed structural steel elements, open-grid ceiling tiles and low R-value carpeting are some of the energy-saving features of this building

The Hagen Head Office project illustrates the need to start thinking about the LEED process right from the start. The owners — pet-food makers Rolf. C. Hagen Inc.— had already chosen a site and a developer and had developed a concept plan before the architects Rubin & Rotman Associés of Montreal came on board.

“The owners expressed interest in environment and conservation but they had no knowledge of the LEED program or any other organized approach to sustainable architecture,” says Rick Rubin, a partner with the architectural firm. “Once we introduced them to the concept, they fell in love with it and decided to go after it wholeheartedly.”

The site for the 5,600-square-metre, three-storey building was a heavily treed site along the Trans-Canada Highway near Montreal. “As consultants we would rather not denude a natural habitat,” Rubin says. “We would rather redevelop a brownfield site. Once we had inherited the situation, from a LEED and environmental perspective, we wanted to make the best use of what we had.”

The maples, oaks, lindens, ash and red maples that could not be saved were cut down and incorporated into the building as soffits, wall panels, furniture components and interior dec-oration. “We would have liked not to cut them down in the first place but, since the building had to go on that site and it was a treed site, we made the best effort to take advantage of what we had,” Rubin says.

Aside from the basement foundation walls and the reinforced concrete ground-floor slab, the structure of the building is steel. For this type of building, steel would be the typical choice even if LEED wasn’t involved but the 90 per cent recycled content of some of the structural steel used for the project meant it was an important component in the sustainable aspect of the building design.

Part of the design philosophy for the building was to keep the use of material to a minimum. To that end, much of the structural steel was left exposed. “It creates certain challenges by not cladding the vertical columns with drywall,” Rubin says. “You can’t accommodate wiring and electrical outlet boxes that would normally go on a column.” Some low-voltage control wiring goes through the columns and some thermostats were mounted on the steel columns. “It was a little challenge but not enough of a constraint to have us abandon our ideas.”

The building is designed around a central atrium that forms the main vertical traffic corridor. It also serves as the “lungs of the building” with fresh air brought in by the mechanical ventilation system distributed to the various floors by fans in the ceiling. Some of the energy-saving features of the building include a geothermal loop, heat pumps, a heat bank, radiant slabs, open-grid ceilings and low R-value carpeting. Glazing of the building ranges from clear to semi-opaque and opaque to allow as much natural light in as possible while controlling the intensity and the potential heat buildup. Aside from the exposed structural steel elements, treatments in the interior include polished concrete floors, brickwork, wood facing and glass walls.

LEED certification is moving rapidly into the mainstream as a desirable and achievable goal for owners, developers, and architects to provide a built environment that is more sustainable. There are as many ways of achieving the goal as there are ways to design buildings but steel will often play a prominent role because of its ability to be reused and recycled without losing strength, its high strength-to-weight ratio, its deconstructabillity and adaptability. Its use can often be justified from a social, environmental and economic standpoint – the best of all possible worlds. The design teams of the Kuujjuaq air terminal and the Hagen head office demonstrated how each, with their own set of constraints, strived to reach that goal.