The New Vic at McGill University is featured in an article for The Globe and Mail.
In the article, journalist Wallace Immen provides a detailed overview of the project and discusses the challenges faced on a project of this scale.
Here's a preview:
For more than a century, the castle-like Royal Victoria Hospital was a primary Montreal medical care facility. Now the complex of buildings at the northeast corner of the McGill University campus is being transformed for a new role: a global research and teaching hub dedicated to sustainability and public policy.
But those changes involve challenging work – which takes time. Work began in 2022 and will finally be complete in 2029.
“We are literally between a rock and a hard place,” says Pierre Major, executive director of what’s known as the New Vic Project.
The site is on a slope that has 100 feet of difference in elevation from one side to the other and sits on bedrock just two feet below the surface. The project will involve drilling shafts to 700 feet beneath the new construction for geothermal wells and heat recovery systems that will provide at least half of the heating for the complex on even the coldest winter days. The buildings also connect to a campus central heating plant.
Read the full article on The Globe and Mail here.
