The Brock University Plaza Building is a five storey 86,000 sq. ft. building located on the university campus in St. Catherines, Ontario, on the Niagara escarpment. The building was designed in association with RDH Architects as prime consultants to be the new home of the university book store as well as academic and research spaces.

The Plaza Building is an early manifestation of the university changing its policy to introduce sustainable design principles and to implement urban design strategies to transform the existing campus into a more pedestrian-friendly environment. The placement and geometry of the building in plan creates a new quadrangle and suggests the further development of a system of open courtyard spaces. On the north side of the plan, a fully glazed three storey atrium, an internal social street, connects to the existing campus street system, and animates the quadrangle. The naturally lit space with its two generous social stairs, ramp, and 200’ limestone bench provides a place to see and be seen, interact, socialize, and study. Parallel to the street is a three storey wood classroom box. Behind the box are the faculty offices on the building’s south face, expressed as oversized extruded copper “eyelashes”. The campus store is located at ground level.

The straightforward material expression of the project is related to the clarity of the plan. The integrated building systems take on a didactic role, creating the aesthetic identity of the building inside and out. On the south side, the building incorporates a passive solar approach by utilizing a 400 year copper skin, which is finely crafted and shaped into copper channels that shade the summer sun, invite the winter sun, and admit diffused indirect natural light. The use of local Niagara escarpment limestone for both interior and exterior finishes connects this project to the site and region.