This place is home
David McRobie knows Ashbury’s campus well, and has helped shape Ashbury’s plan for the new Centre for Science & Innovation
4 | Ashbury News
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or an architect who has designed primarily corporate and commercial buildings, David McRobie often says that his most rewarding work has involved a school. “The most satisfying projects of my professional career have been with Ashbury College,” says McRobie, who is the father of Ashburians, Deane ’08 and Audrey and Chase, both ’11. McRobie is the name behind his Ottawa firm, MCROBIE Architects + Interior Designers. His designs have literally shaped much of the modern campus at Ashbury College, including Maclaren Hall, the new gymnasium, Matthews House and the Creative Learning Centre (CLC), as well as renovations throughout the school. His latest project is the design of our new Centre for Science & Innovation, planned for 2019. It’s likely not to come as a surprise to anyone who has sat in a science classroom at Ashbury in the past decade or so, that the current science wing is one of the more deficient areas of the campus.
“That area of the school was identified as being in need of a fresh approach, which recognizes how teaching methods and their facilities have changed,” McRobie says. Once Ashbury’s Board of Governors gave the okay to begin the process of design in May 2017, McRobie and his colleagues got started on the process of planning a new centre for science at the school, generally within the footprint of the original lab wing. But before pen was set to paper, or more accurately, planning software was launched, McRobie needed to understand how the spaces would be used. “One of our biggest challenges was to understand where teaching is going in the sciences,” he says, explaining that dialogue with teachers was the starting point for the creative process. “Teaching spaces are personal,” McRobie says. “Teachers are really invested in their spaces, so their style for instruction should be reflected in what the architect proposes.”