AG-NAV OFFICE & WAREHOUSE – EXPANSION

AG-NAV OFFICE & WAREHOUSE – EXPANSION

Just minutes south of Barrie, Ontario and directly east of Highway 400, is AG-Nav, a leading manufacturer of GPS navigation equipment for small crop-duster airplanes.

Prior to our involvement, all that existed on this site was a one-storey concrete block office building fronting onto Churchill Drive and a two-storey concrete block warehouse, which stretched to the rear of the property.

Programmatically speaking, the task was straightforward: provide space to manufacture a new line of GPS navigation products along with ample space for additional offices. With this understanding, we oriented the addition 90° to the warehouse, resulting in a longer, more dramatic building on Churchill Drive, which simultaneously allowed for a facade better able to capture natural southern light. Further, this elongated building (east/west) was now capable of concealing the rather unsightly trucks, docked at the numerous loading bays behind it, making for a much tidier composition of buildings.

We clad the existing concrete block office building in vertical planks of buff Wiarton stone, complete with a new lower-level entrance and in-filled the many existing openings with new windows. To the east we added the new manufacturing zone, whose southern facade is clad with sandblasted glass block, allowing sunlight to enter the space, while maintaining privacy from Churchill Drive and the adjacent parking lot. At its midpoint, a long horizontal slot window has been added, giving visitors a brief glance into the GPS navigation manufacturing process taking place within.

At the second storey, we added 15 ft (4.5 m) tall offices composed entirely of glass (south side), with small windows and vertical planks of Wiarton stone to its backside (north side). Within this office space, as one walks toward the tall glass exterior windows, a sense of flight is replicated, as one virtually soars above the parking lot below. The essence of flight is further captured with the building’s wing-like white enameled roof, which cantilevers out from its east end. Additionally, a giant spiral stair inside the building, complete with propeller-like wood treads, also expresses a flight reference. Strategically, this cantilevered roof, along with a change in grade, creates an architectural transition, demarcating the public side of the project (south) from its more utilitarian backside (north).

As one comes to understand the project as a completed architectural vision, it is obvious that it speaks directly to crop dusting, with the tall glassy facades and the cantilevered roof alluding to flight, while the vertical buff-coloured Wiarton stone planks that clad the building speak of nature and the soil that allows crops to grow.

LOCATION: Barrie, Ontario

ARCHITECT: LINEVISION Architects

DESIGN LEADERSHIP: Michael Poitras,
Principal-in-Charge

CLIENT: AG-Nav Manufacturing Ltd.

STATISTICS:

  • No. of storeys: 2
  • Total floor area (addition):
    9,100 ft2 (845 m2)
  • Parking: 20 stalls

MATERIALS:

  • Vertical planks of Wiarton stone
  • White butt-glazed curtain wall
  • Silver curtain wall windows & doors
  • White porcelain tile soffit & fascia
  • Sandblasted glass block
  • Existing concrete block warehouse painted buff colour
  • Poured in-place concrete walkways
  • Outdoor landscaping

GENERAL PROGRAM:

  • Entrance foyer
  • GPS manufacturing area
  • Offices (ground & second floor)
  • Additional warehouse space
  • Washrooms
  • Loading docks: 13

COST: Withheld

COMPLETION: Project