Located in the heart of Brossard’s new Solar Uniquartier complex, a 33,000 sq. ft. of raw concrete vacant space awaited the ideal occupant to liven up Place de la Gare and the new REM station (Greater Montreal's electric transit system). The site was earmarked to house the new Teccart Institute Campus, a private college offering technical training in technology, arts and design.
As part of an integrated management project with Avantage +, the mission was to design a school that would be more than just a collection of traditional classrooms, but a living environment in its own right. Design challenges included optimizing the layout of a vaste space, managing traffic flows, maximizing natural light and ensuring the well-being of users.
The school is designed as a forest of concrete columns, with classrooms inserted like white boxes punctuated by wooden blocks. These white boxes guide circulation and allow natural light to enter through curtain walls surrounding the building. The busiest passage areas feature seating in various forms: planted benches, banquettes, relaxing alcoves, and an architectural staircase. This diverse range of seating allows students to make the college their own, transforming simple corridors into common areas to occupy and interact.
The cafeteria serves as the heart of student life on the new campus. The space is located along the windows overlooking the Solar complex's Place de la Gare. Positioned along the windows overlooking the Solar complex's Place de la Gare, this common area plays a direct role in fostering community life in the new district. While the ground floor is marked by planted benches firmly anchored to the ground, the mezzanine consists of light white walkways. The architectural composition of the staircase merges these two formal languages, with metal railings contrasting against wooden blocks. The staircase showcases the cafeteria and its relationship with a tree, which takes advantage of the double-height space to spread its trunk over 14 feet high.
In short, the new Teccart Campus contributes to the consolidation of a recently built residential complex, playing an active role in enlivening this urban hub in the greater Montreal metropolitan area, both externally and internally.
-Collaboration To deliver the new campus in the shortest possible timeframe, Teccart's management opted for the integrated management method. This approach has the potential to save time and costs by overlapping project phases, from planning through design and construction to delivery.
Unlike the traditional method, where each stakeholder plans work based on completed tender plans, integrated management requires stakeholders to collaborate on planning for elements that are still unknown. Site preparation must begin while the program is still being refined. Components with the longest production and delivery times must be ordered before site progress allows dimensions to be validated.
Teccart Institute’s Brossard Campus was built using this agile, intensive approach, made possible by a truly collaborative effort from all professionals and construction workers. For the 2024 winter term, students were welcomed into a peaceful environment, flooded with natural light and brightened by plants.
