The Aurora Cultural Centre is the outcome of 8 years of consultation for our firm. It is the transformation of the Church Street School, an 1886 school building located in the historic heart of Aurora. The design respects the architectural significance of the School while providing a progressive facility that attracts a broad audience from beyond Aurora. Beautiful galleries, administrative offices, curatorial work spaces, temperature controlled archives and entertainment venues are some of the amenities the new facility offers. Using the original layout of four distinct large classrooms on each of the two upper levels, the spatial separation allowed the logical formation of galleries, an archive library, an administration area, tow multi-purpose areas, a historic classroom, and an archive storage area. The lower level will house a permanent historical exhibit and a storage area for large artifacts.
The basic architectural elements of the building were restored but new design insertions are distinctly modern and minimal. Ontario Heritage does not allow any fixtures to be mounted to the building. New lighting elements include tall slim LED bollards flanking the ceremonial entrance doors and elegant compact fluorescent sign poles in the front lawn to highlight changing exhibit banners.
