On January 6, 2014, the STM building (Société de transport de Montréal) opened to about 111 bus drivers and maintenance employees to the new Stinson bus garage in Quebec. This giant, two-story building has the capacity for up to 300 buses, including 100 articulated (double) buses. The building has also been fitted to eventually house electric buses.
Lemay Associés Architecture Firm designed the 165 million dollar building according to the principles of sustainable development. Everything possible has been attempted to ensure a LEED gold certification by creating a low impact development (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), to meet some of the highest industry standards. LEED certification recognizes the design, construction, and performance of high-performance green buildings.
A large part of the sustainable design of this building, a very large part in fact, comes from STM's massive green roof. In October 2013 green roofing company, Toits Vertige, installed over 80,000 square feet of HYDROPACK to make the STM building the largest green roof in Quebec, Canada.
Though the project was initially split between two different green roof organizations, upon realization of the logistic supremacy and ease of installing HYDROPACK, the project was quickly converted to use Vegetal i.D.'s "Green Pavers" for the entire project.
A press release describing the building project mention that, "Its unique feature is the immense roof, conceived essentially as a fifth façade and composed of strips of green space and enormous skylights in the form of trusses that echo the mesh of roads in the neighborhood below. It stretches the length of seven football fields. To limit the noise and the sight of such a high concentration of buses, the new building was designed as a fully enclosed structure, covered by a 35,000 square meter (37,6736 ft2) roof."
In addition to the green roof, the building uses enormous ventilation skylights to naturally light the interior of the building during the day. Another noteworthy sustainable innovation of this building is a vehicle heat reuse system that recycles about 85% of the heat generated by the vehicles to the heating and air conditioning systems. Lemay Associés Architecture Firm complimented the larger sustainable innovation features by implementing sustainable design into every detail of the building.
"We wanted to create a transport center that embodies our commitment to sustainable development and maintaining a constant dialogue with citizens," said Jocelyn Leblanc, the STM's project director.
