Updates
March 2008 – Interior Design
The basic interior design concept of the new wing mirrors the one used in the current passenger terminal building. It’s open and airy and will aid passengers as they make their way to and from their gates. Windows on both sides of the holdroom as well as a large number of skylights will ensure the building receives an abundance of natural light and will provide passengers with an unobstructed view of the airfield and the aircraft.
Numerous finishing elements from the current passenger terminal building are reused in this new wing: limestone which is prominent in Ottawa architecture, natural and charcoal coloured porcelain tiles which will assist those with visual disabilities, and the custom-made green carpet adorned with leaf inlays which represents leaves found in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. The same furnishings are also being used to provide a continuous look and feel throughout the building.
Phase II has two strong storylines in its design that you might not be aware of.
1. Wood/Heavy Timber
The first ideas to use wood were introduced in the Phase I project but did not materialize until this new phase.
The goal of the design was to use wood to warm the palette of the building and link the building to the heritage of Ottawa. Wood is not only a quintessentially Canadian material, born of our forests and shaped in the history of our buildings but is also an integral industry of the history of Ottawa. In previous years, logs were milled and floated on the Ottawa River.
During the design stages the concept of using heavy timber in the new Phase II project developed coincident with the demolition of the last WWII hangars on the airport property. The dilapidated hangars were ready for demolition but underneath the layers of paint and scrapes was beautiful old growth fir. The suggestion was made that the wood could find new life in the terminal and the design team set to work to find locations and methods for doing so.
The beautiful reclaimed wood found a home as the wood grilles in the soffits above the departure lounges and in the enclosures of the retail areas.
Wood warms the space in colour and texture while also contributing to the host of sustainable measures embraced in the overall project design.
2. The Geography of a Nation
The Phase II project has a backdrop of three architectural treatments that celebrate the physical and geographical qualities of Canada.
City Signage
Canada’s place names derive from a wealth of history. They are born of the languages of our nation; French, English and First Nations. They are born of the people and the wilderness; the rivers, the mountains, landforms and the seasons. The design team integrated a variety of names from across Canada in signage located along the entire length of east corridor at the base of the large wood columns. The cities and towns were chosen from unique communities across the country representing the diversity of scales of communities in equal number per province and territory.
Mountains
30 mountains (or highest point in province for PEI) were selected and graphically represented in long recessed bars in the large concrete brace walls of the building (gates 23-25). Arriving or departing passengers walk along the abstracted bars representing the height of the great mountains. One or two mountains from each province or territory were selected as well as the tallest five mountains in Canada topped by Mount Logan in the Yukon, Canada’s highest point. The height of the bars is the height of mountain above sea level converted from meters to millimeters.
Rivers
30 longest rivers in Canada are shown in a similar way to the mountains in the second large brace wall (gates 19-21). One or two rivers were chosen from each province or territory. The height of each reveal is length of river converted from kilometers to millimeters.