Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre: A Home for Life at the Heart of UBC
The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC) stands as a testament to the university's commitment to its alumni and the enduring connection between graduates and their alma mater. This ambitious project, a key initiative by UBC’s Alumni Association, provides a prominent and welcoming home for all activities related to present and future alumni. Named in honor of Robert H. Lee, a dedicated UBC graduate, local business leader, and philanthropist, the Alumni Centre embodies the spirit of alumni engagement and support. The newly opened $18.5-million Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre is a legacy of the University of British Columbia‘s $1.5 billion Start An Evolution fundraising campaign.
A Vision for Alumni Engagement
The idea for the Alumni Centre began 10 years ago, when a survey revealed that campus visits were the primary form of connection for alums, but that they didn’t feel welcome when they came. The Alumni Association subsequently petitioned the University for a new 42,000- square-foot “home for life” in the heart of campus. Funded entirely by alumni, the building is a monument to their individual and collective success. Beyond providing a home base for alums, the building functions as a general welcome centre and outreach facility, hosting a continuous program of scholarly and social events highlighting faculty research and industry achievements.
The Alumni Centre is more than just a building; it's a hub for fostering connections, celebrating achievements, and providing ongoing support for UBC graduates throughout their lives. It signifies a shift towards recognizing alumni as key stakeholders in the university's ongoing success.
Architectural Design and Features
Designed collaboratively by KPMB Architects and HCMA Architecture + Design Architects in Joint Venture, the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre reflects its distinct Pacific Northwest coast context and UBC’s campus in particular. The pavilion building was designed to reflect its distinct Pacific Northwest coast context and UBC’s campus in particular. KPMB and HCMA worked closely with the various stakeholder groups (including UBC’s Board of Governors, who also chose to make the new building their home) to create a cohesive pavilion accommodating flexible spaces for multiple uses.
Exterior Aesthetics: The exterior of the Alumni Centre is characterized by its striking white frit glass skin, which changes dramatically with the variations in daylight and weather conditions. The white frit glass exterior skin changes dramatically from day to night, and from grey skies to sunshine. This fritted façade not only protects against glare but also showcases the activity within, particularly during evening lectures and networking events. The service block that anchors the north-east quadrant of the building is clad in white concrete block to reference UBC’s white brick modernist campus.
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Interior Design: Extensive use of local BC woods in the interior of the pavilion provide warmth in a cold grey climate. The interior spaces are designed to be warm and inviting, with extensive use of local British Columbia woods. A generous atrium links all three floors with a sculptural wood stair that references the origin story of the Musqueam First Nation, the two-headed serpent. A generous atrium links all three floors with a sculptural wood stair that references the origin story of the Musqueam First Nation, the two-headed serpent. The atrium is flooded with natural light, and ascending the stairs offers a view of a heritage elm tree that anchors the east end of the building. Floors in public areas are finished in large-scale units of beige stone, hewn on the main level and smooth on upper levels. Ceilings and soffits are rough-sawn cedar. The library is flanked by white millwork and an oversized fireplace clad in mill-finished steel plate. White brick clads the service core, inside and out. But the main architectural event is the stair: enormous steel trusses are buried inside its meticulously detailed wood cladding, with rough cedar used again on the outer surfaces and smooth Douglas fir on the inner. The stair is massive, but it appears light as it dances back and forth through the sun-filled volume, culminating in a cantilevered lounge on the top floor.
Key Spaces and Functionality: The building contains a welcome centre, learning facilities, meeting rooms, library, lounge, cafe, and Jack Poole Hall conference and event space. The west side of the building contains the public spaces-café and library on the main level, large hall on the second, meeting and board rooms on the third. The east side is populated with smaller offices and back-of-house functions. A multi-functional celebration hall affords almost 360 degree views to the surrounding campus and, with several meeting rooms, occupies the second floor. The building is designed to allow for overlapping functions, primarily through the provision of pocket and sliding doors to close off individual spaces, as well as moveable walls to divide the large hall.
Sustainability Initiatives
The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre embodies UBC’s commitment to sustainability through its energy-efficient features and design. Positioning and design allow ample natural light to flood the space, while materials were carefully selected to optimize energy conservation and to minimize the building’s footprint. 50% of the wood is harvested from sustainably managed forests, and 30% of construction materials were collected and made within 800m of the building site. The second and third floor use solar energy to heat the building. A spillway water feature sits in front of the building, filtering stormwater for contaminants prior to reaching the water table. Sensors are located around the building, constantly measuring energy consumption.
Interactive Digital Installations
The Alumni Centre incorporates several interactive digital installations to enhance wayfinding, promote alumni engagement, and celebrate the university's history.
Interactive Alumni Wall: Intergalactic created a number of digital pieces for University of British Columbia's newest addition, the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre. The Wong-Trainor Welcome Centre is the lobby space of this building and covers a 1,900 sq ft celebration space and display area. One of these installations is a large multi-touch user wall that visualizes data from the UBC database. Visitors can also interact with a Kinect sensor and use their body to play with an array of lights or touch the screen to look up alumni, research projects, current events, instagram, composite grad photos, and a timeline of UBC’s history. The kiosk is generating positive feedback and press on the social networks. Users are encouraged to take photos with their profile found on the wall and share to their network to further engagement with the alumni network.
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Wayfinding System: The team improved wayfinding and booking for the various event spaces by creating a lobby wayfinding system to support the Welcome Centre's mandate to guide visitors throughout the larger UBC Campus as well as within the building. The adaptable touch kiosk features unique multi-level interactive floor plan to show placement within the event space as well as showcase current events scheduling.
Donor Recognition Wall: The final installation is a donor recognition wall that plays off the "points of light" campaign that brought in $16 million towards the creation of this facility. One of the truly remarkable things about the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre is that it will be entirely funded by the generosity of UBC alumni and friends.
The Alumni Centre and the AMS Nest: A Juxtaposition
The Alumni Centre is located at the intersection of East Mall and University Boulevard, the main gateway to campus, where the 1913 Neoclassical plan locks into the city grid. KPMB partner Shirley Blumberg, FRAIC, and HCMA partner Karen Marler, FRAIC (whose firms authored the current University Boulevard Neighbourhood master plan) view the Alumni Centre as one small piece in UBC’s overall shift from a suburban to a more urban campus, contributing to the mixed-use intensification of student services.
The north façade of the alumni centre faces a pedestrian square shared with the newly expanded student centre. Exiting the lobby on the north side delivers you onto a slim paved walkway between the two buildings and, though it overlooks a large plaza, this space remains perpetually in shadow and defined by the looming presence of the AMS Nest rising to the north and east. This addition to the existing student centre is six times the size of the Alumni Centre. It houses a similar program (in greater quantities) of bookable rooms, large event spaces, cafés, council chambers and offices, as well as many more uses such as a daycare, radio station, newspaper, theatre, art gallery, climbing wall and space for over 300 clubs.
A Welcoming Space for All
At the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, everyone is welcome. You don’t have to be a UBC graduate to reserve space. Sitting at the heart of UBC campus on University Boulevard, it has a warm and welcoming presence on campus, featuring a beautiful open atrium with a fireside lounge and a statue of Robert H. Lee himself. The UBC Welcome Centre, Loafe Cafe, and a meeting room are interconnected to allow free-flowing foot traffic through the atrium.
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