What is the Better Buildings Boot Camp?

• The Better Buildings Boot Camp (BBBC) is a free, week-long on-line interactive virtual conference
• It is project-focused, centered around a particular building (St. Lawrence Center for the Arts), and theme (“positive”)
• It is multi-disciplinary and cross-institutional, bringing together diploma and graduate students from a variety of institutions, and backgrounds
• It is hands-on and collaborative: students, faculty, staff, and professionals will work together to shape the direction of the building.

2022 Project Description – The St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (STLC)

• The vision for the STLC is to create cultural infrastructure that is net positive in both human and environmental terms that simultaneously improves human wellbeing (e.g. health, productivity, happiness) and environmental circumstances (e.g. net positive on carbon, energy, and water).
• STLC is poised to symbolize the future of sustainable cultural infrastructure on a global scale. Combining dynamic spaces driven by radical access, extreme usability, flexibility, and plug-and-play cultural production, this redevelopment aims to crystallize the architectural signature of downtown Toronto while accelerating a citywide transformation to climate positive outcomes.
• This project has the potential to advance sustainable building practice in Toronto, but also find hidden leverage, foster civic engagement at an unprecedented scale, fill the city with a sense of optimism and possibility, and fuel our collective appetites for transformative change.

Who Should Participate?

• The goal is to include students from a variety of backgrounds, institutions and fields of study, including but not limited to architecture, design, engineering, building science, and environment as well as business, social sciences, liberal and performing arts, construction, etc. 
• All disciplines are welcome since we will all live and work in buildings and therefore have something to contribute.

Program Format

• The Boot Camp will consist of live webinar plenary sessions facilitated by professional and/or academic experts on topics relevant to the building
• These plenary sessions will contain a variety of individual and panel style discussions and will be interactive through the use of surveys, polls, chat, and contain links to additional information
• students will be divided into cross-institutional and multi-disciplinary groups, and participate daily in on-line collaborative group discussions and activities, allowing students to engage directly with each other to determine their group’s recommendations for the building
• On Thursday, August 25th, students will observe the actual professional workshop with the building project team, and students will have an opportunity to present their own recommendations and ideas for the project team on Friday, August 26th
• The program format will mirror an extended integrated design workshop, providing students with hands-on experience of preparing for and participating in this process. The program will run from August 22-26, 8:30 am to 3 pm.

Learn more about the 2022 BBBC here!