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At their best, convention centers are about creating memorable experiences and meaningful relationships.
MemorablY Meaningful
BY RITCHARD BRISBIN BRISBIN BROOK BEYNON
Conventions and conferences are about visiting new places, meeting people, learning, and encountering new things. At their best, they are about creating memorable experiences and meaningful relationships. For the Ottawa Convention Centre, we committed to produce a design that would be the most memorable, mar-
ketable, and manageable Tier II facility in North America. The three M’s refer to the three key clients the design solu- tion must successfully service. “Marketable” targets the event planners who actually book the space, and refers to the attributes of the building: e.g., the amount of free space or the variety of different meeting-room configurations, etc. “Manageable” refers to the overall efficiency of the building’s design to building operators—back-of-house services, for example. “Memorable” refers to the delegates and focuses on providing them with a genuine and meaningful experience with Ottawa, the convention center itself, and the social interactions that occur within it.
RITCHARD BRISBIN is an architect at Brisbin Brook Beynon, a global architecture firm based in Toronto and Ottawa that has earned more than 30 awards for its projects, which have included hotels, resorts, and cultural, office, and institutional buildings in Canada, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the United States, and other countries. Brisbin designed the Ottawa Convention Centre, which will open in spring 2011.
INSIDE OUT, OUTSIDE IN: The “skin” of the Ottawa Convention Centre is being constructed of 1,045 crys- talline-shaped glass panels— each a different size. The façade will give visitors stun- ning views of the city’s his- toric Parliament, the Rideau Canal, and Ottawa’s down- town, while allowing those outside the center to see what’s going on inside.
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pcma convene October 2010
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ILLUSTRATION COURTESY BRISBIN BROOK BEYNON