Building Down

Hey, did you see the demolition of the Child Studies building? That building beside the Vanier Building? Well if you didn’t see it you can see the hole in the ground that was left behind. Now in case you wanted to know a little bit about how green buildings make a difference you are about to get your wish.

You may or may not know but the new Social Science Tower that is going into the place of the old Child Studies Building is going to be LEED certified. Fun fact number 2, if you want to have a LEED certified building than you have to demolish the old building in an environmentally friendly manner. So when the old building was being knocked down there was a series of environmental measures that had to be implemented.

The two most notable ones were the dust control measures and the material recycling. Dust control was a nice touch and actually kind of funny to watch. It consisted of having someone using a big hose to spray water on all of the pieces of the building as it was being knocked down. Doing this helped control the dust flying around the campus; thereby saving the nasal passages of the campus community.

The material recycling of the building is also a pretty cool feature. The building was knocked down and all the pieces that could be recycled were stripped away and collected. This consisted of a good deal of metal wiring and piping, aggregates of concrete and so forth, along with other various bits and pieces. Machines peeled apart the metal from the concrete in classic cheese string fashion and created what can only be called a metal hairball.

This demolition project will hopefully mark a new standard for the University as green buildings begin to make their mark on the Ottawa City skyline.