Clayton Community Centre

The new Clayton Community Centre will be an innovative community hub that pushes programmatic integration, architectural design, and sustainability in Surrey, BC–one of Canada’s most rapidly growing cities. The design is based on the social fabric of the surrounding context to meet the needs of a young community, be welcoming of youth from the two adjacent secondary schools, and to provide key public gathering spaces that encourage community connections among culturally diverse residents. This major civic building is a compact pavilion, defined by natural light–an oasis situated in response to a prototypical suburban fabric while extending and protecting the natural environment within which it is carefully situated. The building is not “next to nature” it is part of it; its shape, structure, and skin designed to blur the boundaries between building and site. The project provides a positive response to the universal challenge of providing a truly civic response to a placeless suburban context. With its function it is intended to be a catalyst for social interactions, active living, creativity, and learnings for generations to come. Site and Symbiosis The building situates itself as an extension of the treasured forest on the site and focuses on these qualities for its design parti. A forest ecosystem is defined by all the collective inhabitants that coexist together in symbiosis to create a unique ecology. The roof and building envelope of the new facility mimics the tree canopy to unify the four traditionally separate civic services of arts, library, recreation, and outdoor park underneath the same canopy. Like a forest canopy, Clayton’s revolutionary leaf-like heavy timber structure is designed as a series of large scale, modular interlocking pinwheel units to create a two-way wood structure spanning across large spaces. The interlocking members of the pinwheel components create a tree canopy enveloping all the programmatic spaces of the building under one singular system, metaphorically and structurally gaining its strength by all components being interconnected. Beneath the canopy is a space that strives to be responsive and evolving both physically and with its activities–a space for unexpected discovery and learning, and a leader in social inclusivity and environmental sustainability. At Clayton, the unique mix of spaces combines arts and culture programming with recreational activities. The centre offers music studios, recording studios, and a community rehearsal hall. The centre also includes a gymnasium, fitness centre, and branch library. These key services are supported by a range of shared social spaces and supplementary spaces that were imagined and developed in close engagement with the community. These spaces include a community kitchen and associated community garden, a tool sharing centre with a community workshop, a cafe, and child-minding, preschool, and childcare spaces. The project offers fully universal washrooms and change rooms, and is targeting Passive House Certification to create a space that redefines a civic centre to serve its diverse and rapidly changing demographic context. Building Performance The facility has an ambitious sustainability goal of achieving Passive House Certification, making it on track to become Canada’s largest Passive House facility to date and the first Passive House community centre of its type in North America. It seeks to maximize energy efficiency as well as protection of natural ecosystems. The building’s unique compact form benefits both the programmatic aspects of the building and passive house targets by minimizing the surface area of the floor, walls, and roof relative to the volume of the building that needs to be heated and cooled.