Seneca College has chosen DIALOG and Two Row Architect to collaborate on the preliminary design of the Seneca College Health & Wellness Center. The plan proposes constructing an entirely new Health and Wellness Centre on the eastern border of the Newnham Campus, replacing an aging sports center with a multiple-level complex catering to the university’s student body of over 30,000. Later this winter, construction could begin, with a 2026 finish date in mind.
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Many fundamental concepts influenced Seneca College Health & Wellness Center’s design. DIALOG Partner Craig Applegath remarked in a statement, “One is the idea that this structure will be an indication of what an ‘architecture of healing’ could look like.”
Applegath continued, “And such an excellent manner of integrating and uniting Indigenous and settler traditions and offering a pathway for possible new Canadian students to picture what the unified future Canada would look and feel like. Another is that it is designed to be a model of environmental responsibility, incorporating sustainable materials like mass wood and striving for a carbon footprint of zero.”
Seneca College Health & Wellness Center’s Concept
The Seneca Student Federation (SSF) will be moving into its new digs in the Centre. It will also house other student-centric services for their total well-being on all levels (physical, psychological, social, and spiritual). The drum circle, representing harmony, unity, and completeness, is said to have inspired the Seneca College Health & Wellness Center’s design.
The two firms claim that numerous eco-friendly features will be implemented, such as a green roofing system, solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling, and sustainable construction materials, such as mass wood. Part of the design, financed by SSF capital fees collected by students over a few years, involves a center drum courtyard with a fire pit flair.
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Ultimately, as Erik Skouris of Two Row put it, “The drum-shaped symbolism of the finished design reveals that the Seneca College Health & Wellness Center will offer more than just drumming to its pupils; instead, it will give a therapeutic method based on original worldviews and philosophies.”
Skouris elaborated, saying, “The circle symbolizes harmony, equilibrium, completeness, and linkage in many teachings across Turtle Island.” The circle is continuous because it has infinitely many identical, interconnected spots. All living beings, including the students, congregate around the Creator in the courtyard. All other programs branch out from this, each uniquely connected to the whole. Drumming together as a community expresses our oneness with all of creation and solidifies our relationships with one another.