The practice

North Bay, Ontario 

31,450 square feet

Completed 2020

 

Services: interior design and furniture

 

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This new two-storey building provides a much-needed centre for student gathering and study on the campus of Nipissing University. Beginning with early concept work in 2016, Carlyle Design Associates was a key member of the design team lead by Mitchell Jensen Architects, working closely with the university and student union leadership. 

 

The building includes a full-service restaurant, a 500-person night club that will also be used for conferences, a retail space, a variety of student gathering, study and meeting spaces, and the offices of the student union.

 

Design inspiration came from the surrounding natural world of coniferous forest and rock and the big-sky view towards Lake Nipissing. The building is youthful, robust and dramatic in form, with expansive glazing, and is full of changing light, stone and wood. Other interior materials and furnishings echo the character and layered colour of rock cuts in the landscape, the intense and varied forest greens and the blues and grays of sky and water. Furniture was proposed, designed and specified to animate spaces and to provide comfort, durability and flexibility for constantly changing activities. 

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Photographs from CFM Consulting