In 2009, CIGI announced plans to house the BSIA within a "CIGI Campus" that would be built alongside its headquarters in Waterloo. The resulting $68 million complex received federal and provincial funding totalling $50 million through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program and Ontario's 2009 Budget. The City of Waterloo donated the land for the campus through a 99-year lease.
Toronto-based Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects was selected to design the CIGI Campus building in a classic Oxbridge style, complete with an inner courtyard and bell tower. Construction began in 2009 and substantially concluded in late 2011.[1]
Features
Within the CIGI Campus courtyard is a public art installation crafted by Richard Fleischner. The art piece highlights significant moments of progress in international governance, with copper markers located on an unseen world map.[2] The campus has received the Governor General's Medals in Architecture and other awards for its design.
The building also incorporates environmentally friendly green roofs, operable windows, energy-efficient in-slab cooling and heating systems, and an underground cistern to collect grey water for landscape irrigation. The building was constructed using a BubbleDeck system that reduces structural concrete usage, and as a whole, achieves a 50-percent energy reduction beyond the requirements of the National Building Code.
View of the CIGI Campus
The campus also houses the CIGI Auditorium, a 250-seat theatre-style space for public lectures and events, as well as a café operated by Stone Crock Bakery.
