Ontario wind engineers propel big name projects

Qatar World Cup Stadium, Burj Khalifa and The Grand Mosque among RWDI's credits

Qatar's future World Cup Stadium, the world's tallest structure in Dubai and Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque - no project is too large or too complex for Guelph, Ontario wind engineers Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. (RWDI).

The Principals of RWDI: Mark Hunter, Anton Davies, VP, Bill Smeaton, Ray Sinclair, and Colin Williams

The company is a global leader in understanding, reducing and controlling the impact of wind and air pollution on buildings and structures. Many of the big name projects the team has worked on are in Asia and the Middle East.

RWDI worked to alleviate the wind impact on Malaysia's Petronas Towers and Taiwan's Taipei 101, each of which was for a time the world's tallest. Last year, the 828-metre (2,716.5 feet) Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, another RWDI-assisted project, topped Taipei 101 by more than 300 metres.

"Wind can be a powerful, and tricky, force," says Anton Davies, RWDI vice-president for international operations. "And the taller the building, the more powerful the winds."

For the Burj Khalifa tower, RWDI conducted extensive wind studies in both its own facilities and at the National Research Council of Canada labs in Ottawa. The design was then modified to reduce the effects of strong winds on the structure and to minimize tower sway effects for its occupants.

The award-winning firm is also providing its expertise to hospital projects throughout the Middle East. RWDI helped design the King Faisal Specialty Hospital and Research Centres in Jeddah and Riyadh. Another RWDI client striving for an international medical reputation is the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi Hospital to open next year.

Work in hospitals may seem mundane compared to working on the world's tallest structures, but when done well, it is life-saving. It begins with lessening the wind impact on exterior glass and upon pedestrians entering or walking outside the building. In colder climates, RWDI works with architects to reduce the impact of blowing and drifting snow through the use of fencing and landscaping. Without these features, snow could cause havoc to emergency department and other hospital entrances. To get it right, RWDI engineers examine decades of meteorological data by the hour, including wind velocities and directions.

Hospital interiors pose a different set of challenges. "A hospital is a building under attack," says Davies. He explains: "There are numerous sources of air pollution within a hospital. Even after they are expelled through vents, the pollutants can return through air-intake systems. Take the industrial-strength detergents used in hospital laundries and kitchens. They emit toxic fumes, and if they are not properly captured and dispersed outside, they can come back in and cause health issues."

"Then, there are the diesel and other gaseous fumes from ambulances and cars idling outside the hospital. Those noxious gases also have to be dispersed or filtered out so they are not brought back into the building."

Another challenge arises from the large public atriums that characterize new hospital construction. "Should there be a fire," says Davies, "we have to ensure that systems will take away or eliminate the smoke before it quickly fills the entire hospital."

RWDI helped develop indoor and outdoor air-conditioning systems to cool hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at in 40C+ temperatures at the The Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia was one of RWDI's first Middle East projects. Two decades ago, the company helped develop indoor and outdoor air-conditioning systems for the holy site. The building's cool air strategically leaks out through its entrances, cooling the courtyard where worshipers gather. RWDI is now involved in a major Grand Mosque expansion that is to make both interior and exterior spaces cooler for the up to some 1.5 million people who pray during the Hajj in temperatures that can top 45 C.

It's not surprising then that RWDI belongs to the design team for the new main stadium in Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup. Qatar's winning bid promised outdoor air conditioning to keep the players and fans healthy and comfortable in the desert heat.

RWDI is also involved in the creation of Masdar City, a new, zero-carbon city in Abu Dhabi. The company is helping develop energy-efficient systems for a 40,000-person community that will become an international hub for clean-technology research and development. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and General Electric are among the partners.

These projects are fuelling RWDI's growth. Revenues last year stood at about $35 million and are expected to grow substantially in the next few years as the global economy recovers.

Davies credits the Ontario government and its Ministry of Economic Development and Trade for helping RWDI through recent tough times. "Government-sponsored trade missions and ongoing help on the ground are proving to be very productive," he says. "The Ontario trade people help break the ice in new markets and are effective in setting up meetings. We could not have made some of the deals we did without them."