CONESTOGA COLLEGE – High Design Wall Feature
Conestoga College
As a leader in polytechnic education and one of Ontario’s fastest-growing colleges, Conestoga College has a reputation for innovation that is matched only by its commitment to excellence. So, when the College was planning to transform the look of its campus, it is no surprise that they turned to the creative team at Dfy Studio to imagine a dramatic rework of a space that had started its life as a mall in downtown Kitchener.
The Challenge
Dfy developed a design vision that combined color and texture to create spaces emphasizing collaboration and a strong sense of community. Open, public spaces were energized with variations of green and blue, while the more private spots on campus leaned heavily on geometric and symbolic patterns as the dominant feature.
The intricacy of the design features on the project was challenging in itself, but the project was also on an extremely tight deadline: final approval to begin work arrived in December, and the entire project had to be completed before students returned to classes in early January.
The Process
Partnering with Industry-leader Ayrsonics™ North America was the obvious choice for a project of this complexity and magnitude. Dfy approached Ayrsonics for the technical, manufacturing, and installation support needed to upgrade meeting rooms, desktop stations, and the student town hall.
The Ayrsonics’ team responded with a series of custom-built V-notched Ezobord panels that would save on material costs, reduce installation times dramatically, and keep the project on time and under budget. The acoustic panels had to be custom fit into areas of various dimensions before being installed using ezoTape. In other areas, the team built custom Asterisk Wall Panels on sheets of Ezobord. Again, locations varied dramatically in size, so care had to be taken to ensure an aesthetically pleasing outcome for the college.
The Solution
The results were spectacular: spaces balanced a sense of privacy while taking full advantage of Ezobord’s sound absorbency to ensure that private conversations or group work would not disturb other students.
As with many custom projects that Ayrsonics undertakes, attention to detail was critical given the complexity in design. All the areas redesigned as part of this project are high-usage areas and had to ensure that functionality remained a top priority.
