Facility’s Glass and Metal Façade Showcases High-performance Curtainwall
Honoured with a 2023 Global Future Design Awards’ gold winner for cultural architecture, La Place des Arts du Grand Sudbury (PdA) also celebrates its one-year anniversary serving as Northern Ontario’s first multidisciplinary art centre focused on French-Canadian culture and community empowerment.
Helping define the PdA’s award-winning appearance and purposeful presence, Alumicor provided the building enclosure’s custom, aluminum-framed, high-performance glazing systems. Alumicor’s ThermaWall 2600 curtainwall and FlushGlaze BF 3400 storefront were paired with complementary fixed windows. For the PdA’s entrances, vestibules and terrace balconies, Alumicor supplied its ThermaPorte T400A swing doors and TerraPorte 7600 terrace doors.
The glazed openings were strategically positioned to optimize the facility’s daylighting, views and thermal performance. This helps the PdA to save energy on heating and cooling the building, and to maintain the year-round comfort for staff and visitors.
Culmination of collaboration and creativity Jointly serving as the PdA’s lead design architects, Moriyama & Teshima Architects (MTA) and Bélanger Salach Architecture (BSA) were awarded the project in 2017 by The City of Greater Sudbury. MTA and BSA gathered input from and built consensus among the seven contributing organizations of Regroupement des organismesculturels de Sudbury (ROCS). Drawing from a 400-year Franco-Ontarian history and aligning with the Greater Sudbury Downtown Revitalization Masterplan, the seven distinct organizations agreed to combine efforts, share resources and come together in a centralized common space that benefited all.
While each member of ROCS brought its own perspective, the PdA’s resulting design is greater than the sum of its parts. The facility provides space for various cultural and civic uses, flexibility for current and future needs, and contributes to the neighbourhood’s surrounding urban context.
“The team effort of developing Place des Arts represents a culmination of creative professionals with one shared vision, successfully producing something that can be enjoyed for generations to come. The concept was to build a new facility in the same way that one would produce a piece of artwork – to understand, conceive, dream and inhabit the possibilities of Place des Arts as a work of collective and expressive art,” explained MTA.
From concept to construction In May 2018, MTA’s associate, Cathy McMahon, M.Arch., B.E.D.S., OAA, MRAIC, LEED GA, contacted Steve Gusterson, FCSC, CTR and vice president of Alumicor’s pre-construction design in Canada. “The project at that time was in design development, so we had high level discussions. From that point through to the tender process, we had fairly regular conversations and meetings. We worked extensively with the architectural design team throughout the project stages,” said Gusterson.
“Alumicor is almost always the basis of design for Division 8 products in MTA’s projects,” said Gusterson. “We have had a collaborative relationship for many years and the MTA team knows they can always count on Alumicor for product application assistance and honest, ethical recommendations. Alumicor ensured the lead was provided to all of our most capable dealers, including Barrie Metro Glass (BMG).”