Heron Park Community Association

The following photos display some new Community Centre designs ideas as created by various people in the community.  These models help us think about how the programs (or room types) are arranged within the building and also accessed and seen from Heron Park and the surrounding neighbourhood.  The idea is to use these ‘program planning models’ to communicate and influence future design proposals made for the new Community Centre.  Please see the legend below for an example of some of the typical programs included in these layouts.

Option #01 – ‘T’-Axis

*The central location of the washrooms and the ‘T’ axis for the building circulation space (i.e. Foyer and Corridor) are the two main elements that make this design proposal so effective.*

Washroom location:

(1) they provide easy for access from the both interior and exterior spaces.

(2) they are close to gymnasium, (could incorporate change rooms).

(3) close to multi-use/ foyer / gathering space.

‘T’ axis for building circulation:

(1) provides a quick path through the building from north to south. (This is especially useful in summer months when people are moving back and forth across the park; from the baseball field to the pool for example.)

(2) The east-west axis could be widened quite largely to double as foyer / hall / or any type of assembly space.  (The Multi-use rooms to the south could have moveable partition walls to connect to the foyer allowing a bigger open space when necessary)

(3) Also, the east-west axis leads people to the gym at the back of the Community Centre from the entry, which a) would be a nice visual feature, and b) keep loud sounds from gym distant from the front lobby and other multi-purpose rooms.

Other Rooms:

Kitchen: If it was located between the daycare, a multipurpose room, and the foyer / hall/assembly space, then it could serve all these different spaces and the different activities they host.  (Additionally, kitchen preparation space could expand into one of these rooms if it was needed for a larger event).

Staircase: could be added to the main foyer space to provide access to quieter rooms above:  (ie. Games room, exercise room, meeting rooms, study, or more multipurpose).

Option #02 – Multi-Purpose Room (Gym) in the center

*This design puts the multi-purpose room directly in the centre of the Community Centre.*

The atrium/gathering room: is the first space you would experience when you arrive from the entrance  located on the corner closest to Clover Street.  From this space, one could either go directly into the large multi-purpose room (gym) or over to the daycare/youth games room on the south end of the building that looks over the baseball field.   Attached to this daycare/games room is a lowered mudroom that could be used as a skate changing space.  However, this room wouldn’t only be used for this purpose as ‘putting on your skates’ is only a seasonal task and also doesn’t necessarily require the standard privacy  factor as people usually only put on their skate here and do not need to change their clothes.

The idea of putting the multi-use room in the centre was to emphasize the fact that it could be used for multiple, changing things and that people entering the Community Centre would see these events as soon as they entered the building.  Also, the central location would allow the sounds and views from this room to resonate throughout the building creating an overall lively atmosphere.

Option #03 – Stacked Up!

To add four storeys on top of the existing field house is likely a bit of an exaggeration, but what if the existing structure could support a second storey?  Is this an option worth looking into further?

Option #04 – Community Orchard

This design does not directly involve the Community Centre building but instead proposes a new community orchard space just north of the park. 

Option #05 – A couple ideas from our young designers!

Click on the link below to see a short time-lapse video of these design being built.

BIG! Site Model: Programming the Community Centre from A Student on Vimeo.

This time-lapse video shows the interactive model-building process used for planning a variety of new Community Centre design layouts. Members of the community help design the building by arranging different rooms and space on a large (4ft x 8ft) site model.