The Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, built in 1914, was originally designed for winter curling and seasonal exhibition use. As part of the Lansdowne Redevelopment, the PFS Studio Urban Park team including Julian Smith Architects used an integrated approach to the relocation and adaptive reuse transformation of this heritage building. The north wall and adjacent bays were dismantled and the entire building moved 484 feet to its new resting place. The north wall and two bays were rebuilt as a complementary fourth facade which created a stronger visual and functional connection to Holmwood Avenue. It is the largest historical building moved for preservation purposes in Canadian history.
This amazing time-lapse video, from CDS Building Movers and Front Page Media Group, shows how the Horticulture Building was stabilized from the interior and raised to be rolled to its new location.
The horticulture building will be adaptively reused as a public building and an integral part of the new urban park at Lansdowne, including public access to underground parking from the park, washrooms, a teaching kitchen associated with the park’s civic demonstration gardens and heritage orchard, and a versatile interior space to complement the park’s programming capabilities.