Building Nova Scotia's Largest School: Inside Bedford Ravines with PCL & Architecture 49

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1:06forward to having them back on the podcast in the near future. Okay, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Very excited today to have our guests — we have Catherine Hefler, architect and education practice lead from Architecture49, and we have Sean Andrew, a senior project manager with PCL Construction. We'll be discussing the Bedford Ravines school project, the largest school in the province to date, which is opening — I believe in a few weeks. Is that correct, Catherine? That's right, yeah — bringing students in in

1:40September. Yeah, so very exciting time. So usually what we do to start is kind of just give some context, some background on our guests, so before we do dive into that specific project — and obviously PCL and Architecture49 and their respective roles in completing a design-build on a large school project here in the province. Well, maybe we can start with you, Sean. We were talking earlier and I know this is a long time ago, but you did do some work with PCL on the — at

2:13the time it was the Air Canada Centre, now the Scotiabank Arena — one of many obviously complex projects you've been a part of. But could you tell us a little bit about that experience and then kind of go from there? Yeah, well, as I mentioned, it actually started even before that. I started with PCL in Ottawa. We did the Senators Arena. Yeah, so I was back in '94, out in a farmer's field. That's right, they didn't have a

2:39lot of money at the time, so they built this project way out — you know, west of Kanata — at the farmer's field, to the point where we actually used the farmer's house as our office. So did that project for two years. You grew up there somewhat — in the Ottawa region? Yeah, yeah. I kind of moved there just at the beginning of high school. I did high school, university — kind of those young years. Reading the military? No, no, okay. My father

3:07was in the military, so we moved around a lot. I knew you mentioned earlier something about the military. Yeah, I remember your father and you had to move with them — that's how it goes. Yeah, so we ended up in Ottawa and stayed there for a number of years, and then Dad got out of the forces and we stuck around. But then even after that, when I started working with PCL, I moved around quite a bit. So my first ten years in PCL I went from Ottawa to Toronto to

3:31Ottawa to Halifax to Ottawa back to Halifax, so yeah, we've bumped around a lot. But so yeah, I started in Ottawa on the — at the time it was the Corel Centre — and the stadium. And then the Daniel Alfredsson days! You got it, yeah. And so we did that for two years and then we won the contract to do the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, so they kind of grabbed most of us, picked us up, and

4:00moved us to Toronto to do that project. But those are some neat experiences. Obviously, it seems to me — correct me if I'm wrong — like you're working on a lot of complex design-build projects as a PM; that's kind of your forte. And those early experiences on projects — these arena-type projects in central Canada that obviously are well known — those must have been kind of crucial to your growth in your career. Yeah, I'd say so. It was an exciting

4:28time, right? Like you're building something that is a monument to the community — a national monument, even, with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Well, exactly, right. And it started off as the Raptors arena, and that was really exciting building that — and then the Leafs got the Raptors and, you know, so then we're building the new Maple Leaf Gardens essentially. Yeah, which was pretty exciting. You know, they had players coming out for site visits, and I remember Tie Domi coming out and you

4:58know, finding a guy who was wearing a Montreal Canadiens shirt and jokingly ripping it off — but not jokingly. No, exactly! You know, Tie Domi wants to rip your shirt off. Yeah, right. So it was really fascinating, and I was fortunate enough to work with, I think, some of the best people in the business. Probably one of my biggest mentors, Oscar Godot — who was the superintendent on both those projects — really molded me in a lot of ways, and I really appreciated that

5:31opportunity to work with him. So there was that great experience, and then onwards from there — actually, one of the guys who started the office here, John Volkow, was on that project, and he and I got to work together on that, and Ian Stewart — just names of almost legendary PCL people, right — I got to experience working with. So that really was exciting. Is there anything — just to draw out from that — is there anything from some of these guys who you would consider

5:58mentors, or like you said, legends in the PCL company — as project managers and managing these major, complex projects — is there anything you can draw from? What was it about the way they approached some of these projects, as far as logistics and planning and just having that thirty-thousand-foot view, catching things a year in advance — anything specific like that you would have taken from some of those guys? I think Oscar was probably the most influential in that sense. He

6:30was a superintendent, so he — you know, I'm a project manager, so he was field. And I had that opportunity for the first five or six years of my career to be a field person, and so that makes a whole world of difference — because the intuition and understanding of how construction works physically, being part of it, seeing how it works, what's involved — brought forward into the management side of things — you know, being able to properly scope a project, understand how it's going to be built, understand what the

7:00triggers are, understand the schedule — that was huge. And Oscar was probably one of the most detailed planning people you could imagine. He was just meticulous, and back then everything was on paper. And I can still remember we'd have little sticky notes that we'd put, and we'd put dates, and we'd be planning and organizing. And when you get these really complex projects — whether it's the Corel Centre, a school, or an airport — that ability to

7:29think it through in this piece and then this piece and then that piece — I think that really came from Oscar. He really drove that into me, and he was just so exacting and very much a perfectionist on it. So that was huge for my career, I think. It gave me that flexibility to understand how these projects need to work and what's involved. Yeah, because in someone in your position it's so autonomous, right? There's so much to have

7:58understanding of — this point and that point — and like you say, the physical site through to organizing, all the preliminary planning. And just to have worked with someone who's like that, right? Yeah. To be a site super on a project like the Air Canada Centre — I mean, that's like you're an army commander plus a business person — it's a very intense job that one percent of the population within the industry can handle. Yeah, exactly. And so Oscar did both

8:25— Corel Centre and Air Canada Centre. Wow. I got to be his — what I jokingly say is his whipping boy. But it was an awesome experience. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Maybe we can jump over to you, Catherine. Obviously a former Dalhousie student — master of architecture from Dalhousie. I graduated with that in 2012. And, you know, psychology degree — interesting journey that way — and worked on a lot of schools in the

9:02province and outside the province. Currently the Stratford High School is starting, and can mention a few — Bridgetown, Sacred Heart — all kinds. But yeah, maybe just kind of start us off with your time at Dalhousie. Yeah, sure. So I started off — my first degree, like you said, is in psychology, and I worked for a little while with some teams at the end of university. And so I really knew I wanted to do something in my life that was

9:35making — you know, trying to help, trying to make some kind of impact on people's lives. But did you know at the time that you would pursue architecture? Well, no. I mean, I grew up building things, painting — really creative; it was more like a hobby. And then I just did this 180 in university and decided to kind of throw my hat into the architecture ring and see what happened. To have a psychology background — you know, Dal is actually great in a way, because you do need some prior undergraduate

10:12experience in order to be accepted into the architecture program. But they want quite a broad range, so certainly there are people who come in with an urban design background, or a planning background, some engineering as well — but there's also the fine arts, education, people with an English degree. And it's really amazing the program in that way, that you learn from your peers and you get this really broad approach to design and people. So yeah, something about — through

10:50my studies — just the ability to make a tangible impact on mental and physical health. So it has been fantastic for my career. The Dal program is great in that it has work terms, so I was able to do my short work term in Toronto with a small firm called GBSA, and I worked on a library and a small school there. So you're starting to see, even at a really early stage,

11:28working with clients, working with the public, seeing these end user groups in — you know, libraries, very much an educational environment. And then I did my second work term out in Vancouver and worked with a firm called Dialog, which is quite large in Canada as well, and was able to work on a large school project during that work term. And yeah, just really loved the process, loved the end user groups, and thinking about how the spaces we were making were really kind of impacting

12:07these students and teachers and how their day was going to play out. So yeah, a real love of that — I think even from an early start in my education — to focus on design for educational buildings, and just how that could be. And just public buildings in general, I guess, was always my interest. And so then, close to ten years ago, I came to Architecture49 and had the opportunity to work really closely with some of the principals there — so Stacy Hughes and Craig Mosher. They have such a

12:45long — really excellent history of focusing on educational design in Nova Scotia, but also kind of in the Atlantic provinces. So the ability to work with them for the last close to ten years, and to focus on these types of projects through the provinces that I consider home — I really grew up in Nova Scotia. I did, yes. So yeah, that's been a fantastic opportunity to kind of learn from the best, really. And

13:20they brought me into it in a way of: we're just going to bring you to every meeting, we're going to teach you everything we know. Exactly. And any bit of — you know, you start off as an intern architect, so you work for a number of years before you ever take your licensing exams and everything, as you're probably familiar. So those years were so great — they helped me see all the different phases of projects, every bit of. Every chance to

13:56give me more responsibility or more autonomy — yeah, I took it, went for it, and they've just supported my path the whole time. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about — I think Susan Morash, is she involved in the architecture program at Dalhousie? I might be saying the name wrong, but I've talked to friends of mine that are in the architecture program doing their masters and just about how grueling it is. You hear the

14:27stories of, you know, 60, 80, 100-hour weeks — you're sleeping at the architecture building. It truly is, though, one of — if you're talking about choices in education for your masters, whether it's engineering or architecture or law — it seems to be one of the most demanding, grueling programs. Yeah, it's definitely intense. I mean, if you love it and you're meant to be there, it's fine — it's part of the process. But it's very time-consuming. I actually, the last

14:56couple of years, I've been a sessional teacher at Dalhousie for their first-year architecture course. And I think the tone and the language is definitely trying to shift a little bit — they're trying to develop more of a work-life balance, a reasonable way. Yeah, I walked in on the first day and it was like, "You guys are going to live this, you're going to sleep here, you're going to love it — it's going to be the best of times or

15:31the worst of times." And they were kind of

15:40I think when I went through it was really more like a sink-or-swim kind of approach. Yeah. So it is slowly changing, I think. And I guess maybe just like as everything kind of moves towards better work-life balance — sure, going that way — which is great. But yeah, no, it certainly — yes, it was an intense program, and you make friends there, and you work with peers that I'm still very much

16:10in touch with and have, you know, friends for life. Yes, for sure. Amazing. This project that we're working on in Prince Edward Island that you mentioned — yeah, the Stratford — so the firm that we're paired with, the local firm in PEI, is a colleague that I graduated with — one of the principals there. So yeah, you really do develop this kind of mentality of having really lived through something together. Yeah, of course. So maybe just to share a little as well with

16:43you know, you've worked obviously — like you mentioned — on a lot of different educational buildings with Architecture49 in the past ten years. Lots of different schools, many of which our listeners locally would know: Sacred Heart School, Yarmouth Elementary, Bridgetown Regional, just to name a few. Can you maybe draw out a couple of those projects or experiences that you had that were kind of milestones for you, or just some memories of working on any one of those? Probably something that stood out — I'm sure, you know, it's all

17:14well — it's such a fantastic experience to show up at a building that's opening that you've worked on. I'm sure Sean would agree. Yeah. You see the kids in there actually living it. Yes! That was what was rewarding with CP Allen — absolutely, showing up and seeing the kids in it and living it. And hearing their responses and their feedback. You know, projects are so long — certainly they start, of course, on the government side for years before the RFPs ever come

17:53out and we get involved — six years later before that opening day comes. Exactly. And so you know so much of our lives are so invested in these projects — you know, you consume it, it's all-consuming for many years. You go to sleep thinking about how to try to come up with solutions and things. So you're very invested, and then to show up on the opening day or seeing kids go through — I remember in particular these — so one of the first projects

18:30where I was the lead design architect was LeMarchant-St. Thomas. And of course everything is always a team, but you have various levels and roles, so that was a big one for me. And these students who had their final year there — so they were just the grade sixes at the time, so they just got one year before moving on to other schools — but they wrote a whole series of letters of what they loved about the school, these kind of thank-

19:01you letters. And I almost cried — it was amazing. Yeah, coming from these — it's neat too, you know, 10- and 11-year-olds. Because your formal client technically is the government, right? Public, but the user of the building is the teachers and the students. So that was amazing, just to get that response from the students. Yeah, very nice. And it's very neat today to have PCL and Architecture49 both respectfully represented here to talk

19:33about Bedford Ravines — the biggest school to date in the province, I think, at approximately 256,000 square feet. So this is a design-build delivery model, and collaborative — that's unique. It's maybe happened once or twice before, but for a school, you know, maybe just for context, can we kind of go through the process of — the school comes to tender from Public Works, and I think — correct me if

20:10I'm wrong — but it was initially going to be two separate buildings, and then kind of through the design phase decided, okay, no, it makes more sense for whatever reason to combine into one — for grades one to eight and nine to twelve all combined. There are lots of unique design features and materials used and things like that. But where to start — when does PCL get involved on the tender side? Is it GC or CM? Architecture49, you know — how do things

20:42start for everything — for our

20:47So I guess, really, it starts with the province having chosen what they called a collaborative design-build model. Design-build typically might be, you know, the union of an architect and a constructor — put in a fee, go build the school if you're selected. So responses were an architect and a constructor together. The collaborative side — that the province has used — which is actually very similar to what DND uses, called a modified design-build, is a little bit different. So if our listeners

21:24— Department of National Defence — these are for military buildings, correct? Right. Just for your context. Yep. So the collaborative design-build is, I guess, the province's version of what DND does. And so in this model you get a pairing of a designer and a constructor — put in a technical proposal and a fee, typically for that pre-construction design phase — and then the province would be able to evaluate who's the best team. So that's a huge bonus

22:00to that — they're getting a team. They're not getting a designer, they're not getting a constructor; they're getting a team. So any insight into how the province might — in other situations — pick that team? Well, they say, okay, this is a coming together of Company A and Company B, and this architecture firm has this background, and PCL has this repertoire of past projects that are similar — these are the kinds of things they're taking into perspective, right? Value-engineering type

22:27thinking. It's not just about lump sum — that's right, low bid — though that's part of the equation. It's also looking at value for money. So they can look at Architecture49, who's the premier architect especially for schools in the region, look at PCL, who I'm going to say is probably the best builder around, and look at that team and that experience. And especially, you know, with Architecture49 and PCL there's a lot of history —

22:57Stacy Hughes, one of the principals, and I worked together over twenty years ago on schools. Craig Mosher, you mentioned, was involved in CP Allen school, which I worked on. Catherine, you worked recently with a few people in our office on St. Andrews Community Centre. So there's a huge synergy there that we can demonstrate as well. And so the province has that opportunity to look at: okay, who's going to be the best

23:29team, value for money? Select the best team, move forward with the selection, and start the design process. Okay. And so the collaborative nature of it — you know, really, ourselves and the client group sit down and we really evolve the project together. Yes, there's a budget, but we're working towards that; we've got a program we're working towards, and it's a very dynamic, fluid process where we're all sitting down together. So that, really, at the

24:04end of the main contract, if you will, we've got a set of drawings that Catherine's done that they absolutely love, PCL on our side has provided input on that, and you know budget checks and some pricing — and there you go, Province — then we can move forward with construction. So it's to your advantage to be involved, especially on the GC side, right from this inception point, treating it like a collaborative design-build, because you're able to have input on these decisions prior to

24:38construction starting, whether it be coordination drawings or different types of materials or all that. So then, almost like from point A to Z — the sooner you can initiate change, the less long-term impact and cost it has. So being able to bounce ideas off Catherine, right — she would call and say, hey, what about this, what about that, and I could provide my input

25:10absolutely. And then especially on the pricing side of things, right — what if we do this, what if we do that — so that we're getting the best value for the province and ultimately the taxpayer for what they're going to get. And we have the ability — these collaborative design projects are flexible enough that we can start construction early, we can have different mechanisms that we can really work together. And that's neat — go ahead. Sorry, no, I was saying it's

25:40become my favourite delivery model. Right. Because I agree — I think it was very successful, and I think a little bit different than maybe a more traditional design. We would go in — you know, when you would win that as a construction team, a lot of the design and decisions would have been made, so you'd be coming into the project where DPW — like the Department of Public Works — they

26:12would have already done a significant amount of pre-design and understanding of what they wanted to build, so you would be tasked with sticking to that quite closely. There's flexibility, but this project — there was such an interesting combination of delivery models where we were working as a team with the GC right off the bat. So we're all in it together, which is great. You're coming at it together, but it was an open design process — you know,

26:50you're starting with a blank site and the program, and everyone from the Department of Public Works and education were all at the table together, kind of talking through the main design parameters for this project and where we wanted to go. And I think, more so than just providing some pricing, I think PCL was really selling that — it was so important and so valuable to have PCL working alongside us through those

27:27phases. We always have costing through projects — there's always a cost consultant of some description — but to have a GC who's so in the heart of the market, understanding lead times of certain materials, what's in shortage, what they could suggest — it was a really great relationship working with PCL in terms of, you know: there's a shortage of masons, what if these walls could be built out of this instead? That would help alleviate this trade and you know

28:08support us getting this done faster. Or various materials that they brought to the table that we had not used on school projects before that were really interesting. I'm assuming that's a real example, because you will see a lot of clay brick and masonry work on most schools in the province in Atlantic Canada — that's a current trend. But on this school, at least in the renderings, you know, there's not a lot of that — it's mostly cladding, and the envelope is curtain wall and

28:37cladding and ACM panels and other materials. Right. Yeah, so it was very much — working with them — we always felt like everyone on the project really had this strong agreement on the design goals of the project. So I really valued their input and their position when they brought forth ideas, because they were still really trying to achieve the learning environment that we were all hoping for — everyone was on the same page in that regard. So it was just so

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30:18accounting services, and financial needs, Pivot Accounting is a great option. Yeah. And I think, you know, again for context for our listeners as well — I mean, we could have parents tuning in to this podcast that have children who would be attending these schools, living in Bedford or surrounding areas. We could have other people in the industry: professionals, some of the trades that worked on it, other architects, et cetera. But again, for people outside the industry, an idea of timeline — you know, so the government

30:47would have planned this project and funding, you know, years and years in advance. And then both respective parties present here today would have combined forces, and it was awarded in 2020, in February. So this pandemic thing that we don't talk about as much anymore, right — that was your kickoff meetings being virtual, going through this major shift globally in everything. That would have added to the whole lead time, organizing — you know, you're in a level

31:20of uncertainty that's ten times higher than typically for making some of these decisions. And at what point, and how did it come about, where you had two separate buildings and decided to be one? Is that someone on the Architecture49 side, on the PCL side? Is it combined? Is it the government saying, you know, I think we want this to be combined now? How much did the design change with both respective buildings, or did you kind of just bridge them together with

31:48a central corridor or something? Right, like I'm trying to think. Yeah, yeah. So we always start off with a pre-design, schematic design phase of moving the program pieces around on the site and investigating how that could fit, what makes sense. You know, you're looking at sun, you're looking at vehicular traffic, access points, and where the field makes sense — all of these things that play into how a building starts to get positioned on the site. With this collaborative design

32:25process, rather than maybe me or my team working just with the Department of Public Works and education, moving these pieces around and coming out with ideas or possibilities, we're all sitting at — well, in this case a computer screen. So it was an interesting process where we actually made digital kinds of squares, if you will — program blocks, what we would normally use, but we would use a physical one often. So you know, an actual 3D little block — if a gym is 8,500

33:08square feet, we have a to-scale site plan and to-scale blocks of how the shape of these rooms could be, that we can all look at how it's fitting on the site. So we did that digitally, and it did work out. It was an interesting, new kind of way to — we do so much digitally, but you know, still these initial phases, there's a really nice aspect to working with your hands, something physical you can — yeah. And kids who play with Lego, it's good

33:37for their psychological development! Oh absolutely — your spatial awareness, it's great. So we did that digitally this time, and very quickly I think it became apparent that the amount of program required to build these two different schools — we looked at some versions where there were two buildings on site — and it just really would not be the most efficient use of the space. It really wouldn't all fit. A large field was part of

34:10the program, there's that big cliff based on an existing, humongous slope. Exactly — is it six, seven metres? It's huge. If I read correctly, yeah — the bottom floor of the four-level high school is six metres below grade. Yes. We tried to make use of the slope that was on site, to take advantage of that and work with the site as much as possible. And we always try to separate all pedestrian movement from buses and car movements, so that ends

34:47up being a lot of moving parts on the site as well. So all of these things just led to the idea that we could create a lot of efficiencies by having two distinct schools in the one building. Right — even thinking like just for events, for sporting — you know, have gymnasiums close together for tournaments and things like that — those are the kinds of things that come into the thought process. Yes, and it greatly benefits the community in that sense, because they've

35:13got a beautiful big cafeteria and these two gyms and — absolutely — they can host a lot of stuff. And the way you guys set up the stage, we have not only the stage out into the gym but a stage facing into the cafeteria — it's going to offer a lot. Absolutely. I think that main space that we brought together is really like a community hub, as you said. And there are still two distinct entrances, so there's a pre-primary to grade eight entry and a high

35:41school entry. But when you walk into that main space, that's really the shared zone of the school, and that lends itself really well to the community and supporting a whole host of functions. It's really flexible, the space. As Sean mentioned, it can be used for a whole variety of things. And I think there were some mechanical efficiencies and space efficiencies there by putting all of this together. Can you add to that, Sean, and maybe talk a little bit about

36:15the tender process and just kind of how that works, with getting the ball rolling on awarding to all trades? Was it tendered out as a full package, all trades? Or was it a couple of different packages? Was it treated on the tender side — yeah, as two separate? No, it was all one. No, we had — so we did sequential, because of the size — well, not so much the size but the flexibility of that style of contract, right. So that collaborative design-build lends itself to

36:46the ability to create tender packages as you go. So when we get to, say, fifty percent design — hey, you know what, at fifty percent design we can probably tender civil, because civil knows where they're at. You're digging, you know — because I can dig a hole without knowing what kind of paint finishes are going to be on the building, even though there might be some changes in the underground laying of mains, and whatnot. There are all kinds of futures, but by a certain point, okay, you're

37:18fairly confident about where things are going. So you can take advantage of that — and again, that's where that synergy works with the two teams, in that we can look at when we've progressed enough in certain designs to feel comfortable putting something out to tender. So typically you might do a civil package, then a structural package, then an envelope package, then interiors and systems — that's how it generally flows with the different submissions that the design team

37:49does. So we look at how to do sequential tendering, and that allows you to get to construction sooner, right — you're not waiting until the paint colours have been selected to start digging a hole. So you get that overlap between the two, and there's an element of risk evaluation: do we have enough information to proceed or not? But it allows you to start early, and it also allows the client to get a certain level of cost certainty. We now know what

38:24civil is going to cost — that's a known. Scratch that off the list. And if something has changed, we have lots of time to react. So you know, if civil comes in under budget, Catherine gets excited and suddenly she can buy some stuff — she can buy some fancy chairs for the library! Right. And then there's this big change order that comes up because of whatever else in the interiors, right, that kind of balances that — which is typically what's going to happen on

38:51projects. It all works out in the wash, but it allows you that cost certainty — now we know how much that's going to cost, scratch it off the list. Or if there's a problem, we have time to react, we have time to do value engineering, we have time to find other means to reduce costs without impacting the program or waiting to start. Right, you know — right. So it's moving parts. You think of a typical lump-sum project — you put it out and, wow, we're ten million dollars over

39:21budget, now what? Three redesigns — well, yeah, but you have to go to redesign, and how long is that stretch? Whereas by starting that process early, you have time to react in real time, adjust what you're doing. So that's kind of how we lined up the project, doing those sequential tenders. And in fact, we were actually able to enhance it even more — if you remember, when we got through concept into DD we were kind of struggling on budget and going, well,

39:52let's take a step back and re-look at something. But in the meantime, what we were able to do is we broke out a civil package just to rough-grade the site. We know what the site was generally going to look like, so while we're still trying to figure out the building itself — is it going to be ten metres bigger, smaller — we were able to put a tender out and within a couple of months get trades out there, you know, blasting,

40:18shaping the site. There was blasting involved in the whole area. Yeah, quite a bit. And that afforded us the time to be able to go and do some value engineering and finish how we wanted the building to be sited, without really slowing it down. So there are those benefits of sequential tendering — again, it's all part of the bonus of this type of delivery model. And you've worked on a lot of projects — obviously we

40:47talked earlier about the major arena complexes in central Canada, but in Nova Scotia particularly, in Atlantic Canada — a lot of DND projects, Halifax Airport — complex projects. Do you see more of a design-build collaborative kind of delivery model being used, given you just explained how much more beneficial it was to the end client which is Department of Public Works? Do you see that happening more on some of these major school projects or public projects, like even healthcare —

41:21it seems to have a lot of benefits in that delivery model? I think so. I truly am a fan of it. DND is a huge fan of it — they've seen the benefits of working together on teams, they've seen the benefits of getting that synergy amongst everybody, it gets their projects out the door faster and keeps them

41:50on budget more often. So that's their go-to model on a lot of projects. And the province is starting to see it too, so I think they've had a really good experience with this Bedford school. I think it was positive. Yeah, I think we'll see more. Yeah, yeah. In particular — Catherine, you've worked on a lot of schools. Sorry, no, I was just going to say that because we recently we teamed up to try to get — there's a collaborative design-build for a school or a hospital in

42:19Amherst, right? And so the province is starting to see the benefit of it. And that wouldn't be common to have a healthcare project with that delivery model — is that what you're saying? That's kind of new for me. Right — well, if you've seen it before, but yeah. And all the schools you've worked on in the past weren't this delivery model? So it's been a good experience for you personally and for Architecture49? As far as what

42:42to piggyback on what Sean was just saying — I think definitely we have quite a strong education studio group in the office. We have a lot of the same people who've done a lot of these types of projects, and I think we were really able to use our strengths. We have a great team, so where there are pieces that are still very much in design, it leaves me to be able to really focus on those while people who are

43:17really focused on building science — like my colleague Joe Dalton, who is our building science lead — he's able to really run with the detailing of the envelope package while I'm really focusing on an interior package. And you're working together as a team, but able to divide up and kind of conquer it together. There's so much going on, right. I think a lot of that ties into — a lot of people, when they say — because we do have a lot

43:50of listeners that are younger people, and one of the opportunities we have here with so many different guests — like we have today — is to give people insight into what it means to be in the industry. If they're thinking about it, or come from a family where maybe law, or some other kind of work, is maybe seen as higher status in their mind than the construction industry, or what it means to actually be an architect — and you know,

44:18you're designing things, but like you said, some people are specialized in building science, some are specialized in — a lot of times it's more hands-on management and you're doing change orders and you're dealing with contractors. You could be heavily on the design side, but there are so many different things that you could be doing. So that gives context into it. And then your background with psychology, your time at Dal and your masters, and the unique design for

44:48educational spaces as opposed to other kinds of public spaces — you're thinking about how the kids are going to interact, what's happening in this room, it's a music room. Can you give any kind of practical examples from the Bedford Ravines school, this specific project, where you had typical rooms you'd see in a school where you're sprinkling different things throughout that are unique? I'm sure you could give lots of examples, but maybe some unique, practical examples from that school where you were able to

45:18combine all that. So in 2019 and 2020 I was completing this additional certification to be an ALEP — an Accredited Learning Environment Planner. I'm not sure how many there are now, but when I did that three years ago there were only fifteen in Canada. Our managing principal Stacy Hughes is one as well. And so it has kind of guided me toward that additional training and education. So it was really interesting that that kind of coincided right as this project was beginning

46:03and certainly, you know, over the last ten years of focusing on school design — and certainly we've been looking at it before that — but this idea of 21st-century learning

46:19CP Allen has some great examples of that as well. And I feel like every project we've done in the past ten to fifteen years, we're pushing different ideas on how we can work within the parameters of the building code, budget, and the province and end user groups' comfort level and what they're looking for — but really trying to push the boundaries on what an educational space can be. And I think what it all boils down to, and what I think is really

46:52showcased in the Bedford Ravines project, is the idea of choice for the learner. So getting away from a purely teacher-focused model — standing at the front of the room doing direct instruction. Certainly the school supports that as well, and there's a time and a place for that in the learning environment. But really trying to provide choice. There's a body of research really supporting the idea that we all learn in different ways,

47:32we all have our own best kind of way of learning, and it kind of depends on the task at hand — what you have to learn, whether it's reading, whether it's math, or what have you. But there's some really strong evidence that we want to support just a really wide range of learning environments — not just a bunch of classrooms down an eight-foot hallway. And this school, I think, really showcases the idea of providing that choice for students: if they need

48:08quiet, if they need to work in a group and talk things out, if they need to sit and listen to the teacher give a fifteen-minute presentation and then break into small groups, or if someone needs to go present on the wall and do a PowerPoint, or work with media in different ways — I think it allows the school — it allows for all of these opportunities and choices, and provides that choice in a really flexible, easy-to-

48:38use way. And I think it also allows for teachers and principals — the administration — to work together in a really interesting way. So they can team-teach, they can do a lot of hands-on learning. As you say, there's that huge hands-on, skilled trades learning space. So I think all of these things really support kids of all different interests and learning styles. For instance, in the elementary school I think it's a really interesting example of it, where

49:18the school is so large — a main concept of course breaking off of that central hub, where you either turn left or turn right into an elementary school or a high school. And within that we wanted to break this really big volume down for wayfinding purposes, for comfort — you know, if you're five years old, it's a large building to be in. So each wing — we called it a house — and it has six

49:54classrooms, and then a series of other spaces. That's the program we were working to with the province. And I think what we did there is really take those six classrooms and a couple of what we call small group work rooms, and broke it up in a way that it could be twelve or fourteen different learning spaces. So there's the opportunity for direct instruction like a just a closed-off classroom, there's the opportunity to open up four big classrooms in the centre, and you know

50:28six teachers can teach 150 kids all different types. You know, just providing the opportunity — there are places for groups, there are places for individuals, but also within this house for these kids. So I think it allows a lot of really interesting opportunities for the teachers to run with and the students to really embrace within these comfortable houses. It was really quite brilliant. I have to say, when you came up with the house idea and the open nodes

51:05where we could open those doors up and have the kids come out — I was like, wow, that's something I hadn't seen before. And Catherine came up with some pretty amazing ideas. Thank you for sharing the insight too, because I think — always trying to draw threads here and tie in different priorities of people who are tuning in, especially under the umbrella of construction. I mean, we're all in the industry, so we know what we

51:30think when we say that. But a lot of people think different things when they hear that. And to have an architect on this specific project — like yourself — to talk about what thought processes went into it, you know, we could have teachers listening in, we could have parents whose students are going there, or people who are going to be in the space soon. It opens in three weeks. And then just to understand what goes into

51:57this complex process of having these spaces built. And I think two things I want to try to remember to say to that: I think we have to give really good respect to the province. I think there's really great forward thinking happening to allow you to manoeuvre that way. Absolutely. I think there are some really key players — like Daryl McDonald — who really believes in providing these flexible, open, and welcoming learning environments that are trying to provide

52:35a space to enhance the inherent abilities of each child. And certainly the flexibility that we work with them to create is trying to think about all the different types of learning that need to take place and that teachers are trying to provide. So giving that — but then also working with PCL, I always found that they were enhancing the design goals and really on board with the overarching design idea. We call it like a parti — like

53:13the key concept — how we distil the idea down to one concept. And in that particular elementary space, where the idea was that you could open up these rooms or close them — we have these operable walls, but they're not like the accordion walls that you would picture. That was actually what I was picturing! Yeah, they've come a long way. But we have these operable walls, and they were coming in at a really

53:42high price point, and PCL came forward with the idea of this kind of demountable partition that was more cost-effective and also lent this ability to really create a visual connection through these spaces, in a way that just made it way better — 100% supported the concept we were going for before. It was important — I really — right, I loved the ideas that Architecture49 was coming with, so I was like, okay, I'm going to work hard to help them get that. And that's a

54:14lot harder to do than people might think when it comes to spaces and layout and fire rating and sound and all those kinds of things — to come up with creative solutions. Yeah. And so that was just a really great part of the process. Lots of things over these large-scale projects get value-engineered, and you have to always do things very cost-effectively. So to be able to work with them to

54:44highlight some really key design moments — certainly there are things where you're like, okay, well, let's do this, that's more cost-effective. But if we really try to protect this idea, because this will really impact the kids in a certain way, being able to work with them to focus on that and having that conversation with the province to highlight those things — I think that was really successful. Yeah. And what's that like when you're — you know, you've both worked on a lot of public jobs, some

55:14private — you're teamed up here, and you're talking about changes or design like you just mentioned, and whether or not the client — in this case DPW, and maybe the individuals you mentioned — whether or not they're willing to put up more money because this is going to look better or because this is going to interact better with the space and the use. Like, is it constant conversations on your end with them about these

55:44changes and the costs and things? Or are you more left to manage that freely? It depends on the situation, depends on the project. On this style — this collaborative design-build — because we're all in the virtual room together, it's part of the topic. So DPW would question us: okay, well, how much is that going to cost? I love it! So yeah, it's our job to provide the program, but do it in a way that we really feel is going to

56:17enhance the end user's experience, while at the same time managing the Crown's purse. Absolutely, and really trying to get the most for the money, the most for the students. And there are lots of moves that we made on site — like the initial site moves — that really make a big difference in the project. So having the efficiency of putting them together, that immediately saves a lot of cladding,

56:53site work in between. And then the way we're stacking things in the building to try to create efficiencies, going on certain structural dimensions and a grid that we try to not create undue cost — so that you can then try to focus on enhancing certain areas that really make that learning environment. There's a lot of give and take, right. Choose priorities and then try to enhance whatever we can. Absolutely. And

57:27the whole team — the consultant team that we work with all the time on school projects — was very much involved and on board with this idea. And you know, suggesting: well, if you did this, if these were ten-metre-long wings, that would help this — and they're all on board, working to the same common goal. Which was great. Yeah. No, thank you, that gives a lot of context into those decisions and all the different priorities that are involved

57:56in the management team and how that comes about. Plus too, I think education in our culture specifically is very critiqued and people have different opinions — not necessarily about the content and those kinds of things, but also being part of a new school, especially from grades one to twelve — that's a long span of different ages and different points of their journey. So to have a unique model for education is a big deal. It also shows how these construction projects have so much more to do with the community and the culture and the psychology of people in so many ways.

58:27So yeah. And we always have a school steering team on any of these large projects, where it's kind of an assembly of end users. This project was unique in that it was not replacing a school, so there wasn't an existing student body or an existing faculty or administration.

59:04Probably two thousand new students, right, in the school. Right. So there wasn't this kind of existing group to work with. Certainly at a certain point the two principals of the school and administrative people were brought on board and we were really able to get their feedback. And then at a certain point we got to develop a student steering team — or a school steering team. It's really great to have those opportunities as well, to show what you've done so far and get feedback. It's usually parents and

59:39teachers and some students, and people from DPW and education are there as well. And you're getting that feedback from the community as the project is moving forward, and you're kind of showcasing the ideas that you're trying to move in. But it's good to get their thoughts. Yeah, for sure. And it does influence it. You know, at a certain point the feeling was that we really needed to adjust this room so that it

60:11could be flexible, to be a second music room. So in that space, the users are influencing it — exactly what we hear is that we need, you know, to make this additional space. We can't add more square footage to the project, but we can work with this wall assembly to add a whole bunch of extra soundproofing and adjust the layout of the room and some of the storage and the millwork and things, so that that room can then be flexible as an

60:40additional music space, if that's what's required. So we work with this very wide range of stakeholders through the whole project to try to achieve the best outcome. You mentioned — you know, the idea that we focus so much on education, and often it's teachers and that — but I think the work that Architecture49 does designing these schools is equally really, really important. Like, I think back to the schools I went to — yeah, they weren't really a nice place

61:13to go and learn, right? "Bells and cells," they called it. Yeah. Now these buildings — with these flexible learning styles, they really understand what is required to make a good environment for a child to learn. So I kind of learned to appreciate how important that is. And the work that Architecture49 puts into it sets the stage really for what's coming next. So it's an important piece that I don't think really

61:46— yeah, where you're setting these kids up to have an environment that — I mean, that's a hard metric to track data-wise, but the impact that you're having in the design of these schools — if these kids are thirty percent more efficient in their learning, those numbers could be astronomical in the ten-year cycle of how they impact the culture, the economy, everything. So yeah, I think that's what's so important about the choice

62:14— in that a student's main learning modality might not just be to sit and listen. Very few of us — I've heard statistics where it's something like fifteen percent of us would best learn by sitting and having someone do a presentation or talk to us. And if you think about it, that's kind of the stereotypical image of school: someone's standing at the front and talking. Yeah, yeah. So I know that's a

62:46very far cry from what it is today, but if so many of us really need to write out notes or discuss it or see images or build it with our hands — all of these different ways of learning — I think it's so important to try to provide that. I think we went to CP Allen on a site visit one day, just as an office, and seeing so many students there on their free period — they don't even need to be at the

63:15school at those different times, and they're just embracing these spaces. It's a subconscious thing too, right — they're probably not even thinking about it. It's just because it's designed well, because it's a good place to be and interact. Yeah, that's just so exciting to see — a space that they're choosing to be in when they don't need to be. That's great. Sean, you've worked on a lot of different kinds of projects — obviously this one is in the

63:44educational field. You mentioned Gagetown, a lot of the things you're currently working on there. When you're working on a project like this — say, as the lead project manager on behalf of PCL — do you ever come into a situation or a certain thing on a project like this one or others where you know of a similar case within the company that's national or North American, and you'd pick up the phone and call person A in

64:11Ontario or Saskatchewan or BC and say, hey, you guys had something like this come up a couple years ago with a school you worked on there — and talk to them that way, kind of outside of the Atlantic Canada team? Does that happen? Yeah, quite often, actually. You know, being a multinational company — we're all through Canada, through the US — I said North American but it's beyond that. Yeah, we have an office in Australia

64:39now, and we did a project in the Bahamas, so a big company. But they've really always tried to keep that line of communication between the different areas. So yeah, I've done that — I'll call up someone in Toronto I know and say, hey, what about this, what about that? Why not use that resource, right? So we've got that broad experience all over the place. And our internal intranet — I can look up projects and find

65:10out who the PM was on it and give them a call. And I've had people from one of our Yellowknife projects call, for doing a DND project, and want to talk about how these MDBs work. So you've got — they've really tried to make sure that communication is available. And surely somewhere in the company, someone's done it before. Yeah. But then we also have a kind of knowledge-sharing in the company where we call these Quest

65:39bulletins — hey, we did something interesting on this project, do a little Quest bulletin, it goes onto the intranet site and it's there for others. We also have what we call an Excellence in Construction seminar every year that travels around to different parts of the country. Often a senior person and a junior person — whether it's a PM or a super — get teamed up and go to this and provide a presentation on some aspect of construction. And that's all recorded and it's in a library and

66:12right, we've got it. So I was fortunate enough to do one in 1997 on stadium construction, of all things. And my mentor Oscar and I went and did that, and we got to present and we met people from all over the company. That knowledge is now available for people. So it's a big piece of the company culture — the each-one-teach-one mentality. We have that absolutely. That's great. Yeah. Is there anything

66:42that we didn't touch on? I mean, we definitely touched on a lot of things with this specific project — Bedford Ravines school. But is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention, either of you, on behalf of your respective organizations? I'm sure we could talk all day, there are so many things we could get into once we start. But if anything comes to mind. Yeah, I think it's also an exciting learning environment — or working environment — for the teachers and the administrators. I think there's a really interesting shift in

67:18thinking about it as a place where someone is going to work for the day as well. So there's also this focus on what we call teacher collaborative spaces — we call them professional learning communities. Those are kind of dotted throughout the school as well. And this idea that teachers have this opportunity where they could work together — you know, maybe you're teaching about a

67:55volcano, and the English teacher is having them read and write an essay about it, and the art teacher is having them build a project about it, and the science teacher is making the volcano actually explode — and you're thinking about it in all these different ways. So there's that opportunity there. And there's also this idea of watching professionals collaborate. These teacher collaboration spaces are really visible — both from a supervision perspective, they're watching over the corridors, but they're also showcasing this idea of being an

68:30adult professional and collaborating. And students are able to witness this — seeing how this kind of working method can really function in real life. You're getting that hands-on, visible experience of that. So I think that's also a really great aspect to the way these education projects are going, because it's reinforcing — which is really where these students are going to head in the collaborative

69:07workforce. So yeah, trying to showcase that as well. I think that's exciting. That's a great example, because I think our industry in construction — it's a great example today — is really becoming more collaborative on many fronts, all the way through with the subcontractors and architects and consultants and GCs and CMs. It's becoming more and more collaborative. So that's a great example. I wonder, Sean — one last thing: could we get your perspective on, you know, a big thing for everyone in construction across the country in North

69:36America — the labour shortage — and just your position with PCL as a lead PM. You kind of have more of a thirty-thousand-foot view than some people. You know, what are you seeing, or what is your intuition kind of telling you from the projects you're involved with currently? How much of a problem is it, and do you see any ideas of solving it — whether it's getting more youth involved from a young age and solving it downstream that way? Just your thoughts on that whole

70:03thing. Yeah, it's a tough one. We're very much in a labour crunch, and that stems from everything. Our architects, consultants — they're all struggling for people. Ourselves — we're always looking for good people. Suppliers, subcontractors — everyone right now is stretched very, very thin. Supply chains are still a disaster in many fronts. You have one fire in

70:40Texas and suddenly you can't get a whole bunch of materials for six months, right. So I think overall as an industry we've got a struggle from all fronts, including workers. And I think on the trade side, we've gotten away from supporting the notion that being a tradesperson is great — you know, it is a good career, there's lots of opportunity, financially it's very good, and it's rewarding. You know, at the end of the day you can look back and say, hey,

71:11I did that. So yeah, the whole industry kind of needs some support. And I know we've been looking at ways to help the trade community, to bring in more workers and try to train workers. Because if you don't have the workers, you can't do the work. And in a lot of places I think we're going to struggle with that — there's just not enough people to do the work. And so the industry is going to change,

71:37where we're going to try to grow these communities of people. But also I think things are going to slow down a bit and readjust, because there's just that challenge we're having these days. So it's going to be a tough one, and we're just always adapting. Yep. Well, thank you so much — Catherine Hefler with Architecture49 and Sean Andrew with PCL. This has been really insightful. It's been a treat to have both perspectives and both major organizations involved in this specific project — Bedford Ravines school — it's

72:12opening in a few weeks. Congrats on that and on the opening of the school — an amazing project for the province. Thanks for being with us today and sharing your perspective, insight, and experience — really, really appreciate your time. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having us. Cheers. We'd like to thank our longtime sponsor Cook Insurance. Cook is your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for fifty years. The Cook team opens up opportunities for contractors by proactively managing the requirements of their bond facility. They expand levels

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