Information about this scheme

Named after Edmonton’s first female bus driver, the Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage houses 300 buses, 35 maintenance bays with three undercarriage wash bays, four refuel bays and exterior wash bays. One level of employee parking is provided below grade— important in a locale whose temperatures can vary considerably from 35°C at the peak of summer to -40°C in winter. The busy hub supports 800 workers including bus drivers, maintenance, administration, and transit security staff with the intimate conditions of the workplace, whether human or mechanical, as well as the scale of urban infrastructure. The building sits on a 10-acre site at the intersection of the Yellowhead Trail and Fort Road. In 1936 the site was occupied by the Canada Packers’ abattoirs, stockyards and meat processing plant. Designed by famed architect and educator, Eric Arthur, the Canada Packer’s factory was a prime example of functional Canadian modernism until it was demolished in the 1980s apart from its 50-metre-tall smokestack. KATG restores this legacy by conserving the smokestack and remediating the brownfield site through ecological greening, micro-climatic thresholds, bioswales and dense tree planting. At 50,000m2, KATG is a big building on a big site. Its box-like form is broken down by its continuous surface, wrapped in highly insulated stainless-steel panels with vertical corrugations and variegated widths. Furthermore, along Fort Road, five rooftop light wells enclosing stairs and mechanical systems give the building scale. These are capped by sculptures by Berlin artist Thorsten Goldberg referencing the topography of mountainous regions around the world that are at the same latitude as Edmonton — ironically located in the Canadian Prairies, one of the world’s flattest landscapes. Inside, the building is powerfully pure and monochromatic. Employees enter through a generous lower-level congregating area, and up to a day-lit central atrium via a sculptural stair. Transit depots rarely attract attention from either designers or the public, despite their functions being critical to the life of most communities. KATG attempts to celebrate these services with a new civic landmark, and further Edmonton’s reputation as a progressive city.

Judges’ Comments:

“Extraordinary municipal bus maintenance building. Designed with care for employees, and recognition that a structure and service of this scale has a civic presence too.”