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Sustainable Architecture: A Calgary First
Cardel Place is the first city of Calgary project to be LEED™ Gold accredited, a distinction enjoyed by qualified, energy efficient and environmentally sustainable architecture around North America.

What is LEED™ and What is Sustainable Architecture?
LEED™ is an international measuring tool used to gauge the environmental performance of buildings. This tool uses a total of 69 criteria to test the ability of a project to meet the rigorous environmental standards established by the United States and Canada Green Building Councils in five major categories:

  • Sustainable Sites
  • Water Efficiency
  • Energy & Atmosphere
  • Materials & Resources
  • Innovation & Design
  • Indoor Environmental Quality

Low-Impact Life Cycle
In meeting LEED standards, sustainable buildings minimize their impact on the environment through their entire life cycle – from design to construction, operations and maintenance. Owners, architects, engineers, suppliers and contractors of sustainable buildings are stewards of the environment and make a significant contribution to improving the quality of life in their communities.

Friendly by Design
Cardel Place incorporates an enormous number of innovations to qualify as a sustainable building and meet LEED™ Gold Standards. It starts with the basic design of the building.

Large buildings are a challenge to "fit" into a residential area and be a welcoming presence in the neighborhood. Cardel Place achieves this presence by utilizing the natural contours of the sloped site that drops significantly over the length of the building. The bulk of the project is buried into the hillside, significantly reducing the facility's apparent size. The hillside design is efficient, too, allowing for a main public entrance on the west (or top) end of the site, and a separate arena entrance on the east end at ice level.

Open for Activity
The main entrance is from Country Village Road and it opens directly into the foyer, Public Library, community offices and reception / information counter. Entering the building from this location, one can also see directly to the aquatics area, gymnasium and outside to the green space and artificial lake at the east end of the site.

The main feature of the interior of the building is a dramatic oversized athletes ramp, connecting the upper "public" and lower "participant" levels together and serving as a uniquely functional stretching and walking zone. Combined with an abundance of windows, natural light and sunshine, the building is bright, spacious and welcoming.

Cardel Place and the Community
Cardel Place is also part of an integrated site development, consisting of high schools, recreation fields, a municipal tri-services building (Police, Fire and Emergency Services) and related infrastructure. The site is located next to a future light-rail transit station and a large, man-made storm water and irrigation pond serves the site and a new housing community to the east. A regional pathway system borders the south property line of Cardel Place and extends through the site. These integrated components yield significant project, environmental, and cost benefits to the City of Calgary and its citizens:

Shared Space
By combining and sharing components like the library, the arenas, and the pool into one larger multi-purpose recreation centre, a smaller net footprint, more efficient site utilization and less costly infrastructure result. Myriad programs ‘under one roof’ create synergies enabling a more efficient deployment of staff for building administration, operations and maintenance. In addition, the integrated site enables reductions in program space needs for the future school projects by sharing space and creating a cross pollination of activities from shared recreation and leisure services, to library and information technology services, to food services. This same sharing occurs outside as well with parking and play fields developed for both academic and general public / community use.

Efficient Use of Infrastructure
A single service road serves all of the development parcels instead of separate access roads. This saves over an acre of paved roadway and reverts this land to permanent green space. The service road enables City transit buses direct access to the site and queuing in a single location, central to all of the buildings. This increases the convenience of transit while reducing automobile traffic and parking on site and demand for automobile use.

Natural Irrigation Source
The storm water retention pond is a non-potable source of irrigation water for the entire lands – including Cardel Place and the shared play fields. This system eliminates the need for millions of liters of potable water for irrigation purposes.

Integrated Site
By burying part of the building into the hillside, the natural insulating characteristics of the earth significantly reduce the load demand on building systems and exposure of the building envelope to the elements. The components not dependent on daylight – such as the locker, change and shower facilities, the gym and arenas – are to the north and the west; those most benefiting from daylight – such as the fitness centre and the aquatic facilities are placed in more exposed areas at the base of the hill, facing south toward the views and outdoor public amenities. The siting of the building components is a "natural" integration of the site with the program, creating a framework for building systems design that begins by not being reliant on technology in the first instance to provide basic comfort. This means that the total demand for power and fuel is reduced.

Building systems thus directly benefit from the integrated site approach. The consolidation of various programs into a single building on a large site means that the combined building systems contribute directly to mechanical synergies and efficiencies – smaller and longer lasting compared to these same components if designed for separate buildings.

All in all, the building consumes 30% less energy than expected by the Canadian Model National Energy Code for buildings and considerably more than that for similar building types.

Sustainable Design Characteristics

Sustainable Sites
Erosion and Sedimentation Control
Integrated Site

  • Shared and reduced parking
  • Bus, bicycle and light rail transit
  • Car pooling

Alternative transportation

  • Reduced Site Disturbance
  • Consolidated footprint
  • More landscaping

Stormwater management to naturally recharge the siteShaded and/or reflective surfaces minimize heat islandsReduced light pollution

  • Downward lighting promotes dark sky

Water Efficiency
Water-efficient / drought-tolerant landscapingNon-potable self-contained irrigation systemReduction of water use

  • Waterless urinals
  • Dual flush toilets
  • Controlled flow faucets and showers

Energy & Atmosphere

Best practice environmental control systems

  • Photo-light sensors
  • Low-voltage controls
  • Direct digital controls

Energy-efficient performance

  • Superior thermal performance of building envelope
  • Reduction of heating and cooling demand
  • High-efficiency boilers and pumps
  • No CFCs in refrigerants
  • Ozone protection – no HCFCs or halons in systems
  • Energy-efficient lighting
  • Heat reclaimed to heat poolo
  • Rink refrigerations
  • Co-generation system (microturbine)

"Free Cooling" or cooling recovery

  • Outside air
  • Snow melt
  • Rink refrigeration

Renewable energy

  • Co-generation
  • Green power from Enmax

Materials & Resources
Recycling program

  • Building content
  • Waste management

Regional materials supplied from within an 800 km radiusCertified wood products

Indoor Environmental Quality
Smoke free
CO2 monitoring
Air quality control during construction
Building flush-out before occupancy
Low VOC content (VOLATILE ORGANIC CHEMICALS)

  • Adhesives
  • Sealants
  • Paint
  • Carpet
  • Wood

Permanent temperature and humidity monitoring systemMaximum daylight

Look carefully at the signs around the building that describe some of these features or ask for more information about Cardel Place at the information desk, guest services or library reception and the centre’s website at www.cardelplace.com.

Help us continue to be energy efficient and kind to our environment. You can help by conserving water and towels and of course, please use the recycling containers throughout the building.

Welcome to Cardel Place!