100 Gloucester

The project is located in the Centretown district of Ottawa, bordering the Core district, on the south side of Gloucester Street between Metcalfe and O’Connor. The site has an area of approximately 1832 square metres. With its central location, the project is within walking distance to commercial, institutional, educational, cultural and recreational facilities including public schools and parks.

The proposed project is a 27 storey tower with floor plates of 750m2 in floor area, resting on a varied podium structure of 6 or 7 storeys. Podium floor plates vary from 780 to 965 square meters – the smaller plates at grade and second floors to ‘carve out’ and sculpt pedestrian-related spaces facing Gloucester. The overall massing of the project has been articulated to respond to urban conditions around the project, to provide an animated tower profile and a dynamic street experience. The building form and position on its site allows for a garden space to the south, linking with the existing gardens located between the towers of Claridge Loop – common space which will be shared between the projects.

The project massing, treatment of grade-related levels and open space contribute to the overall building design, and have been described above, but can be further elaborated. A large building, its scale is broken down into smaller components creating visually slenderer elements and gestures and to relate appropriately to the existing streetscape. The general canvas of the composition is the light-coloured plane/volume, treated with repeated vertically-oriented punch windows in a regular pattern – offset on the tower and aligned on the podium, yielding a vocabulary and texture which carries around the project. The vertical proportioning of the windows is accentuated by the introduction of metal panels which extend the masonry openings vertically.