Binnie was recently retained by the McLeod Lake Indian Band (MLIB) to provide project management, survey, conceptual civil engineering and landscape architecture design for the McLeod Lake Indian Band Cultural Centre and Archives building. The team also includes Formline Architecture, Farley McLeod Associates (grant/business analyst), LEC (cost consultant), Wood (geotechnical), Triton (environmental) and Integral (Energy/Sustainability consultant)
The project includes a 7,000 sq. ft building with outdoor gathering space and is located on the McLeod Lake Indian Band lands, located 140 km north of our office in Prince George. The building is being designed by the award-winning Formline Architecture – Canada’s only indigenous-owned architecture firm.
The project is currently at the conceptual design and feasibility analysis stage. The purpose of the proposed Cultural Centre and Archive will be to collect, preserve, revive, and celebrate the history and culture of the McLeod Lake Indian Band. The band members have been significantly impacted and displaced by the Residential School system, the Sixties Scoop, and the construction of the Bennett Hydro Dam. The Cultural Centre and Archive will create a space wherein community members can re-connect with their families, history, language, and culture through access to the archives, exhibits and educational programming and where visitors can learn about the history of the Sekani People.
In terms of sustainability, this project is being designed to be net zero energy-efficient and carbon neutral. The roof is also flat and will be lined with solar panels.
Did You Know?
-The MacLeod Lake people are known as “the people of the stone.”
-The space will be a place for many residential school survivors reconnecting to their families they will never meet.
-The architect, Alfred Waugh, drew inspiration for the form and shape of the building from the image of a papoose (a traditional baby-carrier) and a child. The inspiration will manifest in the reading room being celebrated as a circular pit house space with clerestory day lighting from above.
