St. George Campus Exam Centre is the first of its kind in Canada. Housed in a repurposed, heritage-listed Art Deco building, the dedicated exam facility provides a supportive test-taking environment suitable to a highly diverse student body with many different needs and accommodations. Program spaces include two 300-seat exam rooms, an accessible exam centre with a total of 105 private, semi-private and open testing stations, and a series of specialized testing facilities.
The fourth floor provides 24,680 f² of open work areas, private offices and meeting rooms for the University’s Capital Projects Department and Facilities and Services Department. With optimized space planning, these Departments now occupy 25% less area than they did in their previous location without sacrificing efficiency. The design locates the majority of staff in open workstations along the perimeter while private offices and meeting rooms are positioned centrally, borrowing daylight through the open office windows. The fourth floor has now become a benchmark for office redevelopment across campus.
The design is rooted in modest interventions that are sympathetic to the character of the existing building; the focus was places on restoring existing elements which had deteriorated and or been compromised by previous renovations. New elements were added using a contemporary but complementary vocabulary, including many sustainable features like the green wall in the lobby.
The Exam Centre was the first building on the St. George Campus to achieve LEED Gold certification.