Colley Valentine: an International Energy Campus

Comments

[Stephanie]

What is interesting about this is that it anticipates a future that doesn't change the structure or the problems that we associate with the Oil Sands today (the drug problems, the migratory nature of the workers), but changes the perception of the area by introducing it all as a subject for study. Essentially optimistic, it reminds me of a soviet model that built huge cities in Siberia with enormous universities in them. Canada has always treated northern industry as hinterland workplaces rather than places to make a life.
How far would Suncor go to build such a campus, including the elevated railway, etc. This would be a federal/provincial/industry partnership, hugely expensive. Would its importance in terms of oil extraction technology, environmental reclamation and all the rest be enough to balance the last 30 years of bad practice? How big, how important would it have to be, given the size of the problem? How would it be made and broadcast as a world centre, where your students from Murmansk come to, but also from Congo and Venezuela. How would the architecture of this campus town proclaim its absolutely necessary importance?
Is the architecture the container for vital research and development, or is it research and development in itself?

[stephanie]

Is this campus actually the site for consultation, communication, negotiation and debate asked for by Todd and Rabyniuk? They are calling for an activist architecture that is a dynamic process rather than buildings, however the physical architecture of this campus, ATCO x 100 (built in portability, un-heroic, pragmatic) locates this conversation/debate in a geographic space.
The presence of this campus as the site from which information is produced and disseminated, and which acts as a counter-weight to the prevailing read of the oil sands removes the debate both from urban centres and virtual anonymity, and places it precisely where Todd and Rabyniuk want it to be.