As part of an innovative project, students from the business and architecture programs at Carleton envisioned what a new Sprott building could look like and presented their designs to the community in December 2013.
The course placed third and fourth-year business students and Master of Architecture students into 16 groups to design a new building for the business school, located either on-campus or on Albert Island near downtown Ottawa.
The new buildings were designed to be full-service, incorporating classrooms and offices as well as event and study space. The on-campus projects also featured space for a school-run hotel.
After completing their designs, students presented their proposals to a diverse panel of judges, including local architects, developers and Sprott dean Jerry Tomberlin. The projects were displayed in the University Centre galleria for three days and visitors voted more than 300 times for their favourite proposal.
The course was created by Sprott professor Troy Anderson in collaboration with architecture professors Claudio Sgarbi and Maria Denegri.
Nilakshi Roy is a Masters of Architecture student who developed the campus-based “Pivot” project and she said the chance to work with another architecture student as well as a business student was unique in her academic career.
“I didn’t have many group work opportunities like this during my undergrad in architecture, so it was really great to work not only with another architecture student, but also a business student acting as a client,” she said. “I think this exposure to working collaboratively is really great for us as students and for the school.”
The architecture students were responsible for designing the buildings and producing the models, while the business students focused on defining user needs, developing a proposal to fund the building and designing websites to showcase the projects.
To view the students’ designs, check out Sprott’s project websites.
