Coaldale Town Hall

Our submission for the Coaldale Town Hall design competition was a unique opportunity for us to reimagine the town’s city center. Having had the chance to design other noteworthy buildings in the downtown area (GEN Manufacturing and the Hub to name a few) we were optimistic for this exercise given our experience in this department. The competition itinerary requested proposals for a building that included the town’s relocating municipal offices, community center, and CRU’s. Given the importance of its location and program, our focus of the project was to enrich the downtown streetscape with something particular to Coaldale. On the corner of 20th Avenue and 18th Street, we wanted to emphasize the importance of the site and building by creating a substantial corner presence. We were able to achieve this effect by creating a visual mass in the architecture that built towards the corner of the site. We chose materials like brick to arrange in large piers that helped anchor the building to its site and imply its heavy permanence. Cantilevered eaves help extend the building past its boundary, and establish a human scale at the sidewalk. Between the brick piers and under the canopy, the architecture frames and dignifies the local businesses that occupy these areas along the street. Above the street-level, a clock tower rises to establish the significance of the building, marking metaphorically a new era for Coaldale. The clock tower gives the government building a quality of civicness, setting itself apart powerfully from the rest of the mainstreet.