The Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology (C.A.S.T.) is dedicated to the search for new ideas. This search embraces both the poetic and technical dimensions of architecture through physical explorations of materials, the study of natural law, and the free play of imagination. The work of C.A.S.T seeks new boundaries for architectural thought, design, and building technology.

THE NEW C.A.S.T. BUILDING:
IMAGINATION, SPECULATION, AND EDUCATION
THROUGH FULL SCALE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
The new C.A.S.T. laboratory building is the first of its kind at any school of architecture in North America. This new facility will change the way architects and engineers are educated by providing opportunities for collaborative, full scale, hand-on construction experience and experiments, emphasizing speculative projects that seek new boundaries for the use of building materials, products and technologies. C.A.S.T. establishes a dynamic hybrid of architecture, engineering, and building practice, with the participation of manufacturers, suppliers and contractors interested in the education of future design professionals and the advancement of building and engineering technology.

The unique design of the C.A.S.T. laboratory building provides our students with the opportunity to speculate about new design possibilities using a wide range of materials and building technologies, and to test those ideas by actually building them. The building provides several venues for full scale, hands-on, student design and construction experiments:

1: FACADE INTERVENTIONS: The C.A.S.T. Building?s masonry cavity walls have been built with ten openings specifically designed for our students to design, build, and install their own (removable) infill designs. In this way students are given the opportunity to directly effect the architecture of the building, while receiving knowledge of important envelop detailing and design issues using a wide variety of materials.

2: STRUCTURAL FRAME FOR FULL SCALE CONSTRUCTIONS: located directly adjacent to the C.A.S.T. building, an exposed, two-story steel frame will soon be provided by the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. This structural frame will support full scale, hands on construction projects in a variety of materials. Here students will be able to design and build their own walls, facades, floors, roofs, etc.

3: The C.A.S.T. Building provides space (along its South facade) specifically reserved for building envelop performance testing. The design of exterior wall sections is a crucial to energy and sustainability issues in architecture. This test area will allow speculative ideas about building envelop design to be tested in the full range of temperatures offered by the climate of Winnipeg.

C.A.S.T's facilities include:

• wood, metal, concrete, masonry, and textile fabrication workshops
• 108 M2 (1,100 ft2) overhead crane bay
• 45 M2 (490 ft2) strong floor with 110,000 lb. structural testing equipment.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION AT C.A.S.T.
Traditional classroom study of construction technology is also supported by the unique design of the C.A.S.T. laboratory building itself. The C.A.S.T. Building has been specifically designed as a living "text book" of building construction. For example, its structural, electrical, and mechanical systems are all completely visible, facilitating on-site lectures and analysis projects. The building is also accompanied by a digital video record of every phase of its construction. Our goal is to augment technical lectures with direct physical knowledge that our students can touch, see, experience and remember.