THE VILLAGE OF WESTBROOK LANE
RICHMOND HILL, ON
Soon, 176,700 sq. ft. of long-term care space and 240 beds will serve the City of Richmond Hill. This 8-storey building is framed using cast-in-place concrete with precast hollowcore floors. The unique, community-focused Main Street brings local amenities and common spaces inside the main building ground floor. This change of use at the ground floor drives significant layout changes, which always brings the possibility of expensive transfer elements. Instead, more cost-effective steel framing was added in select locations to prevent load accumulation and avoid large transfers, minimizing cost and maintaining simplicity.
A minor drainage layer and weeping tile are typical around the perimeter of most buildings, but the high water levels found on this site would have quickly overwhelmed a typical system. The living classroom and critical operational services in the basement would be shut down in the event of water leakage, as a result, another solution was needed. Long term dewatering and draining large amounts of water into the local storm system was not permitted, instead, the entire building was designed like a reverse ‘bathtub’. This required extensive waterproofing of below-grade services, foundations, and the basement slab.
The significant uplift pressure impacted the whole basement, but especially the electrical duct banks, sump pits, kitchen, and electrical room. Smaller conduits were embedded within the slab; larger conduits were grouped together into banks and run beneath the basement slab. The electrical room was built using a ‘sandwich’ slab approach to run the high density of electrical conduit. The lower electrical room slab was poured, then the many conduits were run on top of it, and a final ‘finish’ slab was poured at the final floor elevation. This also allows for easy future modification since the conduits can be accessed through only non-structural layers.
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