Laurier Brantford YMCA

Mirroring a city's past to ignite its future

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Client
Wilfrid Laurier University and YMCA
Location
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Size
120,000 square feet
Status
Completed 2018

The Laurier Brantford YMCA is a dynamic community resource and a new model for community and collegiate recreation. The first YMCA in the world co-owned with an academic institution, the building unites the regional YMCA and Wilfrid Laurier University. Our design team engaged the two clients and the community in a highly collaborative process to ensure all ideas and possibilities were covered and all needs best met.

Located at the confluence of a dynamic city edge, the center is conceived as an integrated design that offers the public a unified and cohesive experience, asserting a new identity to the block and city as a whole. The design focuses on three themes—memory, movement and landscape—as it draws upon the rhythms and patterns of buildings that previously filled the location while creating new possibilities. The center is equipped to support residents, students and community events.

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Our environmental graphics team did all the branding and signage in the building, including a donor recognition system that acts as the focal point in the main atrium space.
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Our environmental graphics team did all the branding and signage in the building, including a donor recognition system that acts as the focal point in the main atrium space.

The YMCA is rich in resources, featuring an aquatics center with two pools for swimming, a double gym for sports and competition with retractable seating, comprehensive cardio and weight training space, group fitness studios and more.

The building also offers zones for childcare, youth development and social leadership, student collaboration and health intake for specialized community-based healthcare programs. It is remarkably diverse in all the ways it supports the communities it serves.

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Sculptural lights add a playful touch to the staircases, which offer glimpses to various activity spaces.
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The YMCA offers an incredible range of resources, including court space, swimming areas, and weight and cardio rooms.
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The YMCA offers an incredible range of resources, including court space, swimming areas, and weight and cardio rooms.
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The YMCA offers an incredible range of resources, including court space, swimming areas, and weight and cardio rooms.

Testimonials

  • The massing couldn’t be simpler for this bar-shaped building, but its sheer dedication to exterior unambiguousness is what makes it a standout. This brave design is memorable.

    Athletic Business Awards Jury
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The building's volume is incredibly narrow, allowing the YMCA to take its unique high-block, low-block structural form.
Laurier Brantford YMCA
With its mirrored façade and a truss-supported cantilever extension on its eastern flank, it sits on the street with all the permanence of a mirage.

Testimonials

  • Mirroring the past and moving forward—the structure serves as a backstop for the campus—but at the same time provides an open vista and limitless horizon for those looking to the future.

    Canadian Architect
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The stairway is a vertical element of intrigue from every vantage point.
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The partnership between the YMCA and Laurier University empowers the building to truly benefit every generation of citizens.
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The partnership between the YMCA and Laurier University empowers the building to truly benefit every generation of citizens.
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