Ottawa OLRT – Confederation Line – Ph 1

13 Station Transit Line - Ottawa's Largest Capital Investment To-Date

Ottawa OLRT – Confederation Line - Ph 1

“When it comes to aesthetics, the Confederation Line will also boast some of Canada’s finest train station architecture, with its unique designs, high-quality materials, and spacious concourse spaces.”

Per media coverage during OLRT opening (Source)

We are proud of our contributions to the above praise of OLRT architecture, following the successful collaboration with all members of the project team.

The 12.5-kilometre rail line consists of 13 stations between Tunney’s Pasture in the west and Blair Station in the east, with three of these stations residing in the 2.5-kilometre tunnel downtown. This allows for transportation to, from, and across the downtown core easier.

At over $2 billion, this line was the city’s largest capital investment to-date.

The design approach of the Confederation Line system focuses on obtaining a generous degree of transparency to allow for views into, out of and through each station building. Combining a spacious and elegant design with convenient passenger flow systems, stations are comfortable, intuitive, safe and accessible.

Successfully steering natural light into a cavernous environment is a big win in subterranean architecture… The architects went with a neutral palette to help bring more light into the spaces.
Passengers can expect to see lots of white, cream and light grey tones, accented with stainless steel and glass.

“We want to create a lot of transparency to the space. Even our elevator shafts are fully glazed…ce. If you enter an elevator from the grade level, you are almost seeing the trip from the street level through down into the station.

“A constant challenge is designing underground transit stations that don’t feel like they’re underground…When you go down, you’ll see a pretty wide path to the concourse, and then you can see your stairs, escalators and elevators down to the platform.

Our goal is to always try to open that up if possible.”

Per Ottawa Citizen newspaper – quote by IBI Project Architects – (Source)

Our scope of work on this project started in early design to use our extensive transit knowledge to ensure the consideration of key pre-design details. We worked closely with the glazing contractors by providing shop drawings, glass fabrication drawing and engineering. After supplying hardware, we stayed closely involved with the project to offer quick trouble-shooting advice and modified hardware to meet site conditions.

Stella’s design engineering and hardware is part of each of the 13 stations.
Hardware applications include exterior signage, windscreens, structural glass walls, canopies, elevator enclosures, glass staircases and more.

We’re proud that our hardware (which we consider art!) is used next to the actual station’s public art; each station features a different Canadian artist and their work that passengers can enjoy.

We’re currently also playing a major role in the second phase of the Confederation Line that will extend the metro 14 kms westward and 12 kms eastward, and add 19 stations.

Project Team:

• The Confederation Line, Ottawa’s Light Rail Transit (LRT) project, is a public-private partnership between the City of Ottawa and the Rideau Transit Group
• Rideau Transit Group’s major partners include ACS Infrastructure Canada, Dragados, EllisDon, SNC-Lavalin, and WSP
• Architect – Preliminary Design: Perkins + Will

• Architect – Underground Station Design (Lyon, Parliament and Rideau): IBI
• Architect – Above Ground Station Design (Tunney’s Pasture, Bayview, Pimisi, uOttawa, Lees, Hurdman, Tremblay, St-Laurent, Cyrville, Blair): BBB Architects and Adamson Architects

Awards:

• Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships National Awards for Innovation and Excellence, Gold Award, Transportation Innovation, 2013