A view looking at the west entrance of City Hall in August, 1972. Shot from the old police headquarters, you can see the old police cars parked on City Hall Square.
Interesting to see the original entrance before it was filled in, like it is today. Also interesting to see the original, long closed south entrance.
This city hall, built in 1957, has an excellent passive solar design. A very large south facing area with just the right amount of south facing window. Enough to provide substantial free solar heat in the winter but not too much so it doesn’t overheat in the summer. The north side has just a little too much glass area but the windows are small so they are very easy to upgrade to a very high performance level. The design for the new city hall has 60 % plus glass area!!!!!!! The absolute maximum window area recommended for energy efficiency, indoor comfort control and minimal glare for computer screens is 30%. Read the first sentence of this report by one of Canada’s most respected building scientists and you’ll know the new city hall design is a disaster.
http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-006-can-fully-glazed-curtainwalls-be-green
The building is only going to meet the lowest efficiency standard allowed by law. Smashing down an excellent building and burning thousands of tons of fossil fuels to manufacture the steel, concrete and glass for a new building is obscene. This accelerates global warming by cramming 10 to 20 years of operating energy use into the present. We cannot afford this when scientists are warning us that we are approaching the tipping point for runaway global warming. The city can achieve the improvements it wants by a combination of renovations, building an addition and/or renting other office space.
Replacing this excellent building design with a super energy pig is a crime. Call the mayor and council and ask them to stop this insanity.
http://www.citywindsor.ca/mayorandcouncil/City-Councillors/Pages/City-Councillors.aspx
My grandfather worked for the city as a general engineer throughout the 1960’s and the 1970’s and I can always remember him saying, “It’s a wonder that City Hall doesn’t fall down, if you knew how many holes were drilled in that building for wiring, you would probably fall down.” Just a funny memory I have of him saying that.