SIX THINGS ABOUT THE REDESIGN

Canada Day will mark the opening of the Elgin Street Entrance, box office and part of the atrium. Here’s what to look for:

1

The tower on Elgin Street will mark the entrance and the point of arrival in the NAC. It will also take its place as one of the most important towers in Ottawa, marking the location of Ottawa’s first city hall and a relationship between the Peace Tower, which presents the Crown, and the City of Ottawa.

2

Four of the eight sides of the “lantern” in the tower are digitally enabled with LED screens to showcase events at the NAC or around the world. There are strict rules about light levels and content, but the NAC’s new “marquee” will be visible from the new LRT station on Queen Street.

3

Look up. Look waaay up. The new atrium showcases wood as an innovative Canadian product. The Douglas fir in the coffered ceilings was chosen for its structural properties and was manufactured by Structurecraft in Vancouver. It was prefabricated off-site last summer in a warehouse in Chesterville, south of Ottawa. The longest span measures 20 metres, and the coffers are equipped with electrical conduits, lights and sprinklers. There are 246 wood coffers in the atrium and a curtain wall almost twice the size of an NHL hockey rink. Schmitt says the space was designed to be filled with light. “The luminosity will showcase what’s here.”

4

The NAC is meant to be accessible to the public 17 hours a day. Schmitt wanted to create a “living room in the city,” a place where visitors can stop for a coffee — there will be a coffee shop just inside the Elgin Street entrance, plus mobile bars — to use the free Wi-Fi, or catch a free performance or lecture on the wooden steps in the atrium.

5

Keep an eye out for the hexagons, a repeating motif in the original NAC, that has been continued in the expansion project, from tiles in the washrooms to the stone floors in the Elgin entrance and the lower box office. The limestone floors, quarried in Owen Sound, are made of triangles pieced together to form hexagons. Why hexagons? Project architect Jennifer Mallard says triangles were a common architectural theme at the time the NAC was built. “The original language of the building was so very strong, so that to work with it was both inspiring and a challenge.”

6

The project will triple the number of public washrooms in the NAC. Before the expansion there were 21 women’s washrooms and 26 men’s washrooms. After construction, there will be 80 women’s washrooms, 68 men’s washrooms, and four universal washrooms.