Right now, it’s just a dirtcovered construction site, but soon the Centre for Digital Media’s new home will rise on this section Vancouver’s False Creek flats, with the city’s downtown skyline as a backdrop and vacant bramble-covered fields for neighbours.
And today’s sod-turning marks not only the launch of construction for the new building that will house the Masters of Digital Media Program, it’s the catalyst in a promised transformation of the 18-acre former site of Finning International into a neighbourhood that will bring together academia with high-tech and newmedia companies in a community where people will live, work and go to school.
“The four institutions or shareholders, as they are referred to, are very aligned and supportive of what’s going on in the site,” said Morgan Sturdy, chairman of the Great Northern Way Campus, which is owned and operated by the four academic partners behind the Centre for Digital Media: , the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and the B.C. Institute of Technology.
“I think over the next many years the site is going to dramatically change,” Sturdy said. “This is the first new building on the site.”
Perhaps reflecting the vision for the future, the new centre will have 15,000 square feet of meeting, teaching and studio space on its main floor, with 76 studio apartments above it to provide students with a place to live – or what GNWC president Matthew Carter dubs a “digital dormitory.”
It will be in the forefront of green technology, with a green roof, solar panels and geothermal heating, and recycled materials used in much of its construction.
The CDM, which has seen 81 people graduate since its launch in 2007, with that number due to climb to 125 with next April’s graduation, draws students from around the world.
CDM director Richard Smith talked of meeting Thursday with new students. “What was really powerful for me was how many people spoke [of] it as their dream to be here,” he said.
Potential employers are simiarly interested in what is hapening at the school.
“Two big animation companies in China wanted to come to the school, they wanted to see the students,” said Smith. “We talked to them about what they wanted in graduates and they described our students. It was very gratifying.
“They have access to lots of technically trained people but they want leaders.”
Leadership and creativity are hallmarks of the program. Smith said students gain a repertoire of skills rather than a single specialization.
Fouad Hafiz, Josh Klo and Luke Johnson, co-founders of Catstatic Interactive, graduated from the masters program at the centre in 2010.
A project at the school kicked off their successful startup and led to the creation of a 3-D interactive display that provides a virtual tour of the new digital media centre.
Based on gaming technology, their projects have also included other designs, such as one for Royal Roads University, the Bateman Centre Visualization Project and “advergames,” which are games that combine digital play with a brand message.
Catstatic’s 3D visualization of the new Centre for Digital Media can be found at https://tinyurl.com/3krcghc
The centre will be a draw for students not just from B.C., but from the rest of the world, said Naomi Yamamoto, B.C. Minister of Advanced Education.
“B.C., and particularly Vancouver, leads Canada in providing this type of education in digital new media,” she said.
The current project had its beginnings back in 2002 when Finning donated the land. In 2007, the four academic institutions that are partners in a trust to oversee the initiative welcomed the first 20 students in the masters program, which was housed in one of the old Finning buildings.
The Ministry of Advanced Education provided $40 million for the educational initiative and the new centre is being built with $13 million of that funding.
“We’re really excited about it,” Carter said. “We have a firm deadline to get the building ready for next August.
“The new students that arrive for September 2012 will move into the project for classes [and] project work and 76 of them will live there.”
gshaw@vancouversun.com
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