The site
Northern tomatoes. Potential types of alternate energy, such as wind turbines to power auxiliary lighting, solar photovoltaic panels to generate electricity and waste heat recovery from the local power generating plant will be used. The recovered heat from the stack exhaust as well as that from the water cooling jacket on the generators can be piped to the greenhouse to reduce the high cost of heating the greenhouse. The building will have two sections: a two-level hexagonal community centre, used throughout the year, will contain public meeting rooms, classrooms where students can incorporate technological knowledge with physical interaction; exhibition areas for weekend produce markets and a café; all an oasis of green foliage in the middle of an Arctic desert. A polygonal skylight bringing light through the building to the first floor spotlights a central stage for performances and exhibits.The second floor lounge and meeting room overlooks the greenhouse though floor- to-ceiling plate glass windows, visually taking the occupants to the jungle below. The greenhouse portion of the facility can be used seasonally or year-round with 102 4’ x 8’ elevated garden plots and separate plotting and germination rooms. A greenhouse in Iqaluit can be a unique community focus, a location where the outdoors is brought indoors, an airy oasis of vegetation to relieve the severest of winter doldrums or SAD syndrome, a place to experiment with new plant varieties or environmental conditions, or just a place to get down and dirty away from the white vertigo. The roll- ing hills of Iqaluit will cup the greenhouse like a green jewel in a frozen crown.
Harriet Burdett-Moulton is a native of Labrador who practised archi- tecture for 13 years in Iqaluit, Nunavut. She was Project Architect on the new community plan for Little Sango Pond “Natuashish”, (reloca- tion of Davis Inlet, Labrador) working through the planning process from 1994 until 1997. She has applied her education background to establishing construction-training programs for the Northwest Ter- ritorial Government. These programs were established to train Inuit, whose first language is Inuktitut She currently is working in Halifax Nova Scotia, specializing in environmentally sensitive designs.
On Site review 11
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Spring 2004
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