Features
UBC: building for a new era

The beginnings of the University of British Columbia’s famous Museum of Anthropology (MOA) lie in the basement of the UBC Main Library with the university’s acquisition of the Frank Burnett Collection in 1927. The museum was officially established in 1947. In 1976, the new building, designed by renowned Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, opened to the public. 

 Museum of Anthropology at UBC Great Hall

• Location: Vancouver
• Architect: Nick Mikovich Architects
• Glazing consultant: RDH Building Science
• Skylight contractor: Blackcomb Glass
• Facade contractor: Glastech

After graduating from UBC in 1968, Nick Mikovich, principal of Nick Mikovich Architects, joined the firm of Erickson/Massey. He continued to work for Arthur Erickson Architects from its origins in 1972 and was a member of the design team for the award-winning museum.  

“There were considerable artifacts from First Nations stored in the library’s basement,” Mikovich told attendees at Facades Plus Vancouver. “There was some funding from the federal government and Arthur was commissioned to design the building.” 

The museum was built on the foundations of a World War II military base and, much like Erickson’s other projects, primarily uses concrete. “There is a lot of concrete,” explained Mikovich. “It would have almost cost more than the budget of the building to remove.”  Erickson cleverly incorporated World War II gun emplacements in the design, featuring Bill Reid’s renowned Raven sculpture on a renovated gun battery. 

“My relationship with this building started 30 years ago,” said Brian Hubbs, principal at RDH Building Science. “I moved to Vancouver from eastern Canada. I was a young principal at an engineering firm and I had quite a lot of experience fixing skylight systems and glazing systems that were leaking. I got a call from my boss at the time to go to UBC. I walked up and immediately fell in love with this building. It is a true relationship. This building has a soul. I love it. When you sit in there, you get emotional.” 

“I tripped over something in the middle of the floor in the Great Hall,” recalled Hubbs. “I looked down and it was a row of bins collecting water. They had people there emptying bins on a regular basis when it was really raining.” 

According to Hubbs, the rules of skylights are that they are neither a roof nor a wall. “They don’t work when you tilt them vertically, or if they don’t have a slope. Skylights have internal rafters, drainage and gutters that work when it’s sloped. If you want vertical glazing, use vertical glazing. If you want a roof, you put a roof membrane on it. The UBC skylight is a roof, a skylight and a wall, which I thought was impossible before I met the folks from Raico.” 

“They are out of Europe and have this system which I had never seen before. I was a little suspect at first, but it had a continuous gasket which I thought could be interesting if we made it out of silicone. Durability is the big thing. We know that the weakest link in any of those glazing systems is the butyl seal. In a skylight that expensive, it doesn’t make any sense to put the weakest link where you have to pull everything off to get to fix it. You want to put it somewhere that can be serviced. We went to Raico and met with their technical people. They said it makes a ton of sense. We know silicone lasts virtually forever, and then we know that when it’s welded together properly with silicone, it’s not a weak link anymore. The aluminum and the wood components and the stainless become weaker links than the seal.” 

When the Museum of Anthropology Great Hall renewal project finally went ahead in 2020, Raico agreed to do the project. 

The architect was fighting for esthetics. “We were fighting for durability, longevity and performance,” said Hubbs. “And then we got it installed. For the first time in a quarter century, that building doesn’t have any leaks.” 

“The original Raven skylight had so many components to it,” shared David Vadocz, principal facade structural specialist with RDH Building Science. “It looked like this massive plastic UFO. And then you see what it looks like now. The structural supports are minimized and the skylight has a much greater vision area. You’re relying on your bigger glass for strength and stability incorporating it as a structural item itself, working with the thin members to hold it load conditions. It is really thinned out and it just came out beautiful.” 

In addition to the skylight replacements, the MOA seismic renewal included replacing the structural glass facade of the famed Great Hall. 

“The previous system wouldn’t have worked in an earthquake,” said Hubbs. “Anyone standing near that glass would have died. Our initial design had a lot more structural members. Felix came to the table and started looking at the load in a unique way and we were able to really reduce the number of fins to make it look much closer to the existing building. Normally there would be space between the columns and the glass, but we were able to hide it inside the columns. These are all little things that are quite complicated but nobody knows we were there. There used to be a fin or expansion joint and now there isn’t. That’s a good outcome. Less of less is more.” •