The Humber College Athlete Centre is located at the northwest edge of Humber’s Lakeshore Campus. The building offer a range of physical and recreational activities for students, faculty and staff, and the community at large as it promotes healthy lifestyles. The state-of-the-art three-storey facility features a fully outfitted weight room, aerobic studio and cardio space.

Working in collaboration with Moriyama & Teshima Architects, The HIDI Group provided mechanical, electrical, lighting via Alula Lighting Design, communications, audiovisual (AV) and security design for this 24,000 ft² athletic facility. The project has achieved LEED Silver Certification.

Challenges

Getting power to the building proved to be a challenge as various options were taken off the table such as: The building required a 400A at 600V service (Hydro max is 200A overhead). Providing an underground service would have been extremely expensive and time consuming, and to make matters worse the closest High Voltage switch was on the other side of Lakeshore Drive. No road closures were permitted due to the Pan Am games, so closing down Lakeshore Drive was not an option. The Athletic Centre is also neighboring a TTC High Voltage Switching Facility.

Solution

The solution came by convincing Hydro to provide a 400A overhead service to the building. Special grounding system installed on the east wall of the building to ensure the Athletic Centre and TTC Facility are equi-potential to a degree that the Step and Touch voltage levels on the east wall do not exceed OESC requirements.