Students, teachers, Vancouver School Board trustees and senior staff gathered at Lord Strathcona Elementary on Friday, February 16 to celebrate the completion of seismic upgrading of the heritage school.
In a gathering that began with a drumming circle and Indigenous dancing, Lunar New Year greetings, and was followed by a student-led tour of the renovated school, visitors were also shown how the seismic upgrading used unique engineering to protect the heritage of the school buildings while ensuring it would withstand a major seismic event.
Founded in 1891, Lord Strathcona Elementary is the oldest school in the Vancouver School District still operating on its original site. Strathcona was renovated under the Seismic Mitigation Program, with funding from the Province of British Columbia to help school districts ensure schools are able to keep students safe in an emergency. Construction began in July 2015 and was completed late last fall.
Strathcona Elementary is the first building in Canada to use seismic base isolation to minimize the impact of an earthquake. Base isolation connects the building foundations to the main building structure with specially engineered rubber buffers. The Strathcona seismic upgrade project won the Lieutenant Governor's Award of Excellence at the 2017 Awards for Engineering Excellence.
With the extensive renovation completed, Lord Strathcona Elementary is now consolidated into three core buildings which can accommodate more than 500 English and French Immersion students. Two new elevators were installed and a connecting bridge was built between the two classrooms buildings, providing accessibility to all classrooms and school common spaces.
