Ontario Provincial Police Headquarters

Functionally, the Ontario Provincial Police wanted to consolidate in one location an array of facilities scattered throughout southern Ontario. Strategically, they sought to shake off their urban-centred image and place themselves in the middle of the province. Practically, the OPP needed a facility which could respond to the sophisticated needs of crime fighting at the end of the 20th century. Settling on Orillia for the new command headquarters with W.M. Salter & Associates in a joint venture would modernize their operations with a tailored architectural solution.

On the skyline, the first impression from Memorial Drive is of a silhouette of angled skylights and arching metal roofs. The compound appears as a picturesque town or campus precinct, while the large size of the building is concealed and minimized by the arrangement of the semi-circular two-storey street space in front of four-storey office pavilions. A large asymmetrical canopy of stylishly shaped metal and glass signals the entry. The project successfully mirrors the scale and character of its neighbours, particularly the small campus of a community college across the road and appears comfortable in its surroundings.

A secure internal street connects the atria, each of which is capped by a tilting arched roof and lit by north-facing clerestory windows. A third ring extends out beyond the office/atrium blocks, comprising the shed-like, metal forms that contain forensic and photography laboratories and a police-vehicle service garage. The natural slope of the site facilitates service access to this area, which is one floor below the level of the secure street.

Much thought went into the headquarters presenting public openness with glimpses into the workings of the building, while maintaining a staunch security strategy with a campus model deals with the complexities of the program by dividing it into manageable pieces, facilitating the separation of public and private spaces.

The building’s planning strategy is based on surrounding an open core with a secure periphery. The publicly accessible zone is the inner ring of the radial plan, to which the more secure program elements are visually connected but not physically accessible. Atria bridge the gaps between four-storey brick office blocks. The two-storey mass of the glazed street tempers the scale of the higher office volumes beyond. While the public can look from the street into the secure atria in the office blocks, there is little of note to be seen. Most police offices are behind the walls of the atria; police circulate along parallel, unseen corridors and are rewarded with the magnificent views from the upper levels of the pavilions.

The police headquarters sits on a 60-acre site that slopes down to the north, allowing the large service garage to be tucked behind the main building. The rest of the functions are located in remote buildings for canine training, storage, rifle range and an emergency operations centre (including a helipad).

Project successfully designed and delivered as Joint Venture W.M. Salter & Associates (Successors Salter Pilon Architecture) / Dunlop Farrow Inc.