Design contract for $20M Arctic College Iqaluit expansion awarded

The design contract for a $20-million expansion of Nunavut Arctic College's Iqaluit campus has been awarded to a pair of design firms.

Teeple Architects from Toronto and Cibinel Architecture from Winnipeg won the contract to design a new, 23,000-square-foot campus building next door to the current Nunatta campus. 

"This new campus space will provide us the space that we need to expand our programs and welcome more students to the college," said Eric Corneau the dean of the Nunatta campus.

The building is scheduled to open by August 2019 with space for 259 students and 37 staff members. It will replace classroom space damaged last year in a fire in a campus building that now sits vacant. 

"It's pretty much condemned," Corneau said. "We still have some things in storage there but there are no programs being run in the building," 

Linking campuses

Student residences and classrooms were relocated across town after the fire.  

The new campus building will bring those classrooms under one roof and also house the college`s community learning classrooms.

The new campus will be linked to the current building which will also be renovated.

"There's much more connectivity with the community, there's much more space for interaction," said Stephen Teeple, the president of Teeple Architects.

"Everything that we talked about with the college dealt with a much more interactive vibrant learning environment."