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Des Trois Soleils School expansion – Visioning Sessions

Iqaluit, Nunavut – School and Community Visioning Sessions – Last week of January, 2020

As successful proponents for Iqaluit’s only French school – Des Trois Soleils, Parkin Architects Limited (Parkin) and Accutech Engineering Inc. (Accutech) presented at visioning sessions with the Mayor, council, local educational authorities, staff, students and the Francophone community.  Des Trois Soleils School took part in several visioning sessions throughout the last week of January 2020.

Each group was presented with a variety of activities that focused on gathering ideas for the school’s expansion. Idea sharing, the selection of architectural images, drawing activities, and writing news headlines for the future, were just a few of the activities. These identified several important relationships, opportunities and challenges relating to the specialized needs of French youth education within the unique cultural and environmental characteristics of Iqaluit. The resultant information and ideas gathered enables Parkin/Accutech to identify key characteristics and goals for the school’s redevelopment.

Parkin/Accutech’s goal is to gather as much information from the stakeholders and users to ensure that the renovations and expansion of the school meet the current and future needs of the students, staff and the Francophone community. These projects are designed and built to provide the students and staff with a robust environment in which to learn and develop. The school plays an important role as a community facility providing common spaces, multi-purpose rooms, and the gymnasium, for after-school use.  The unique siting, between the existing Aqsarnilt Ilinniarvik School and the Arctic Winter Games Arena, provides an option to build on the campus around the school.

The Francophone community and the use of Inuit IQ will influence the design and assist the design team to incorporate local knowledge. Findings of these visioning session, will result in creating spaces that support the needs of the Francophone community in Iqaluit.

The following article was written by the local media following the community consultations.  https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/handful-of-iqaluit-parents-provide-feedback-on-french-schools-15-million-expansion/

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