The Rossdale Power Plant Advanced Assessment and Priority Rehabilitation is a multi-part conservation and adaptive reuse planning framework designed to facilitate the reanimation of the historic Rossdale Power Plant in Edmonton as a significant cultural hub.
Built between 1937 and 1955, the Rossdale Power Plant is a decommissioned electricity generating station consisting of a monumental low-pressure plant (itself comprised of a boiler hall, turbine hall, and switch house) and two smaller pump houses. The complex is a provincially designated historic resource and a highly recognizable landmark in the North Saskatchewan River Valley. In addition to its industrial heritage, the site is of considerable significance to many of the region’s Indigenous communities, having supported human occupation for millennia.
In the first instance, the project establishes a baseline of existing conditions through an exhaustive documentation of the structures through multiple disciplinary lenses (historic/architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, civil). Building on these condition assessments, a conservation plan provides a comprehensive history of the site and defines measures necessary to rehabilitate the plant’s historic fabric.
In concert with the technical assessment work, a scope definition study evaluated a variety of adaptive reuse opportunities that could complement the complex’s historic character while serving as a cultural catalyst for the City of Edmonton’s River Crossing Master Plan. From this study, a series of vignettes map out potential paths forward to reuse based on a variety of program combinations. Each vignette includes strategies for the phased delivery of rehabilitation and reuse investments based on near, medium, and long-term timeframes.
The strategies for rehabilitation and reuse are guided by a conceptual framework that privileges the conservation of the ‘aura’ of the Plant’s industrial heritage as its foundational ethic. This framework is manifest in multiple dimensions of the project and at multiple scales. New services and related programmatic elements are conceived of as discrete objects within the broader ‘sites’ of the buildings they occupy, providing the infrastructure necessary to support a wide variety of artistic and cultural practices while leaving both the organizational logic and the character of the Plant’s original spaces intact. The approach to detailing, meanwhile, seeks to reinforce the clarity of existing versus new construction, elevating the prominence of the former and establishing the latter as a quiet, complementary infrastructure.
The Rossdale Power Plant Advanced Assessment and Priority Rehabilitation is a multi-part conservation and adaptive reuse planning framework designed to facilitate the reanimation of the historic Rossdale Power Plant in Edmonton as a significant cultural hub.
Built between 1937 and 1955, the Rossdale Power Plant is a decommissioned electricity generating station consisting of a monumental low-pressure plant (itself comprised of a boiler hall, turbine hall, and switch house) and two smaller pump houses. The complex is a provincially designated historic resource and a highly recognizable landmark in the North Saskatchewan River Valley. In addition to its industrial heritage, the site is of considerable significance to many of the region’s Indigenous communities, having supported human occupation for millennia.
In the first instance, the project establishes a baseline of existing conditions through an exhaustive documentation of the structures through multiple disciplinary lenses (historic/architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, civil). Building on these condition assessments, a conservation plan provides a comprehensive history of the site and defines measures necessary to rehabilitate the plant’s historic fabric.
In concert with the technical assessment work, a scope definition study evaluated a variety of adaptive reuse opportunities that could complement the complex’s historic character while serving as a cultural catalyst for the City of Edmonton’s River Crossing Master Plan. From this study, a series of vignettes map out potential paths forward to reuse based on a variety of program combinations. Each vignette includes strategies for the phased delivery of rehabilitation and reuse investments based on near, medium, and long-term timeframes.
The strategies for rehabilitation and reuse are guided by a conceptual framework that privileges the conservation of the ‘aura’ of the Plant’s industrial heritage as its foundational ethic. This framework is manifest in multiple dimensions of the project and at multiple scales. New services and related programmatic elements are conceived of as discrete objects within the broader ‘sites’ of the buildings they occupy, providing the infrastructure necessary to support a wide variety of artistic and cultural practices while leaving both the organizational logic and the character of the Plant’s original spaces intact. The approach to detailing, meanwhile, seeks to reinforce the clarity of existing versus new construction, elevating the prominence of the former and establishing the latter as a quiet, complementary infrastructure.