Phase II was finished in 2022 and includes creative space, an administration building, maintenance building, outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven, an addition to the existing kitchen and dining hall, senior staff cabins, more small staff cabins, and a shower cabin.
The centrepiece is Dave’s Place, a multi-arts centre and tribute to founder Dave McKeage, who sadly passed away before Phase II was realized. Dave’s Place is a grouping of four buildings: a pottery studio, a kiln, a messy arts studio, and a music studio, all connected with a large, accessible deck to function as a focal point of activity. Dave’s Place is a place where children and counsellors hang out, perform plays, make pottery, produce arts and crafts of all kinds, and play music.

Originally conceived of as one large “lodge” structure, it eventually became clear that Dave would be better memorialized with an approach that reflected his gregarious, humorous, and humble character. So, the concept evolved into four structures scattered like children’s toys. The building forms utilize forced perspective to enliven the pieces and create playful surprises with the massing as campers approach and occupy the buildings. Built with environmentally friendly materials and fully winterized to National Energy Code standards, Dave’s Place extends the camp season through the winter. The structures are framed with steel “backbones” and wood framed construction at the roof and walls with metal cladding on the exterior.

The Campus Framework Plan seeks to find ways in which the physical environment can support the type of campus envisioned in the Strategic Plan laid out by St. Francis Xavier University in 2016.

Our unique campus environment, rooted in strong tradition, is centered on social engagement and fosters a sense of purpose, community, and active citizenship.

Excerpt from 2016 St. Francis Xavier University Strategic Plan

The Campus Framework Plan is an opportunity-based plan that institutes and formalizes patterns to maintain the campus’s unique spatial characteristics, while identifying opportunities for consistent and harmonious expansion. The plan is comprehensive in scope and is visionary, yet realistic, identifying short and long term strategies driven by a set of planning principles developed by St. Francis Xavier University’s stakeholders:
– Utilize interior and exterior spaces as a living, learning laboratory supporting academic mission
– Enhance and strengthen Campus image and identity through connected green spaces and improved edges, more welcoming Campus entrances and discreet building service areas
– Pedestrianize Campus: Modify circulation patterns to slow and/or discourage vehicular traffic, convert strategic roads into pedestrian walks, enhance wayfinding by providing clear directional guidance for visitors, provide safe and continuous walk corridors across campus by filling in the missing gaps, transition campus roads into more pedestrian-friendly corridors, increase bicycle use by working with the Town of Antigonish to create well-defined regional/campus routes that lead directly to major Campus destinations with adequate bike parking
– Densify the Campus core: identify areas for future growth, collocate associated uses to help promote accessible pedestrian circulation
– Create a cohesive image and campus landscape: move interior parking to the edge and re-imagine the space as future building and/or green space opportunities; protect spaces that have a special place in the life and history of St. Francis Xavier University; form new spaces that reflect the “park-like” character of the historic core, contribute to the institutional culture, and help mark the distinctiveness of key areas;
– Recognize natural features such as wooded areas as valuable campus resources and recognize the Strategic Plan’s goals in terms of inclusivity, internationalization and indigenization.

St. Francis Xavier University

StFX University Campus Planning

StFX University Strategic Plan

The building in which the Institute is housed is also an incredibly important classroom building, replacing close to 80% of the teaching space on campus and inhabiting the geographic centre of the campus, radically transforming the area to embrace an existing hill, that previously divided upper from lower campus, as a unique feature that plays a part in physically and experientially re-connecting upper and lower campus. The design of Mulroney Hall and surrounding site presented opportunities to enhance the rich spatial experience of campus; it is centrally located and poised to become a hub of student activity and a space for intellectual discourse with global impact.

A series of new student-focused interior and exterior spaces were envisioned as part of the project, providing space for formal and informal gatherings – a modern forum and place of discourse and learning.

Nycum and its design partner, SmithGroupJJR, were engaged by St. Francis Xavier University to help the campus develop a set of forward-thinking guidelines and requirements to be used by Design-Builders competing for the opportunity to design and build a significant new project on the University’s campus. We prepared an “illustrative design” as a companion to the guidelines and requirements to depict how they might shape an appropriate response to the campus, to the program and to the legacy of the project’s namesake and benefactor, the Right Honourable M. Brian Mulroney, St. Francis Xavier alumnus and 18th Prime Minister of Canada.

Our design work was completed and formed the basis of a design competition between Design-Builders in October 2016, after which point we transitioned to an advisory role with the University. We provided advice and insight to the University and its stakeholders throughout the competition and into the construction phases.

St. Francis Xavier University
StFX University Campus Planning
Mulroney Hall Breaks Ground

• Change Readiness for New Emergency Department, Aberdeen Regional Hospital. Culture change, process redesign, generation of new SOP and other protocols, scenarios based system and team testing and go-live implementation, New Glasgow, NS, 2017.
• NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program “Experiments in Access” (Role Play Pilot Project). This won a Quality Award at the CDHA annual Quality Summit in an online vote. Halifax, NS, 2013.
• “Working Differently – Sackville”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Sackville, NS, 2014.
• “Working Differently – Dartmouth”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Dartmouth, NS, 2014.
• “Working Differently – Simpson Landing”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Simpson Landing, Woodside, NS, 2014.
• “Working Differently – Halifax”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Halifax, NS, 2014.
• Halifax HUB re-imagining, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Halifax, NS, 2014
• HUB Member Orientation and Access Process Change, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and integration Program. Halifax, NS, 2014.
• The Spot (Youth Mental Health Arts Program) Strategic Plan Facilitation. Halifax, NS, 2014.
• Windsor Elms Village Culture Change Facilitation. Windsor, NS, 2014 (in partnership with David Green, S.A.G.E.)
• Shiretown Nursing Home. Pictou, NS, 2011. (in partnership with David Green, S.A.G.E.)
• Ivey’s Terrace Nursing Home. Trenton, NS, 2011. (in partnership with David Green, S.A.G.E.)
• New Dawn Enterprises Strategic Plan (in partnership with Lesley Southwick-Trask)
• Election Campaign Strategic Plan Facilitation and Executive Coaching, for Provincial Member of Legislature. Halifax, NS, 2016
• 10-year Strategic Facility Plan for Guyana’s National Psychiatric Service (integrated with policy and training components)
• Sambandh Health Foundation (Delhi, India) – 10 Year Horizon (Strategic Expansion) Plan

Our Strategic Planning methodology focuses on progressive activities, which are divided into 4 phases and led by our team:

Phase I: Identifying Needs & Considerations
This phase focuses on the defining elements, tasks and triggers that lead to the creation of a Strategic Plan. These include: identifying main objectives and contributing pressures, identifying champions and stakeholders, and determining the processes to achieve desired outcomes.

Phase II: Organizing
This phase organizes resources for the Strategic Planning process, including detailed planning and rallying participants to focus on the objectives of a Strategic Plan.

Phase III: The Plan
This phase is implemented through facilitated, open platform session(s), building from activity to activity in a progressive format. This includes environmental scans, SWOT, themes, focus areas, objectives, tasks and implementation strategies. The result of this phase is a Strategic Plan document.

Phase IV: Implementing The Plan
The final phase includes refining the implementation plan, organizing, introducing task responsibility and accountability, and concludes with reflection, an evaluation of effectiveness and renewal of the Strategic Planning process.

In The Convoy scheme, each of the three main programmatic components, the Shiphouse, the Interpretive Centre and the Memorial Hall, is housed in a distinct volume. These elongated bars then shift apart as they respond to the dynamic influences of city and harbour. This design was based on a heavylift docking system for HMCS Sackville.

The Shipyard scheme is conceived as a two-bar arrangement with a covered central arcade celebrating Halifax’s maritime heritage and functioning as an activity space for the entire city. A glazed enclosure to the south provides full profile views of HMCS Sackville from the approach along the boardwalk from the cruise ship terminal. This design was developed using a shiplift with lateral transfer.

The Gateway (Crossing the Bar) approach recalls the historic gateway arch which used to stand on Sackville Landing and the temporary arches that were traditionally built across streets and at Grand Parade in Halifax to celebrate victories in battle or visiting royalty. The Shiphouse, oriented parallel to the shoreline, is located at the eastern edge of the site, as far out in the harbour as possible. A corresponding structure containing the interpretive and memorial functions rises along the boardwalk. The large opening carved from its mass frames full profile views of HMCS Sackville from the city. This design is based around utilizing a graving dock which allows HMCS Sackville to remain at a natural waterborne elevation.

SmithGroupJJR, memorial, museum and cultural architecture, material preservation specialist, civil engineering, lighting design, landscape architecture and urban design
Ralph Appelbaum Associates, exhibit and interpretive design
Hepburn and Sons LLC, graving dock designer
William Cogar, facilitator and scholarly expert (naval history)
F.C. O’Neill Scriven & Assoc’s Limited, mechanical and electrical Engineering
PINTO Engineering Ltd., structural engineering
Hanscomb Limited, budgeting and cost planning.

Since 2011, Nycum has designed and run a one-week workshop for Masters of Architecture students focussed on introducing the National Building Code of Canada, applying it to real-world situations, and viewing it as a design tool.

In the summer of 2012, Nycum’s Noah Epstein partnered with Dalhousie and Brigadoon Village Camp for Children with Chronic Illnesses to lead a FreeLAB group in the design and construction of some sort of response/interpretation/investigation at the camp. Building on a long relationship with Brigadoon, that resulted in the opening of the camp in 2011, Noah – with support from other Nycum staff – guided students through the project starting with an intensive analysis of the site in order to understand its latent qualities and opportunities and to collaborate with the camp’s programming and maintenance staff to understand what the “Client” wanted to achieve.

The amazing and talented student team developed an expandable site intervention that was founded on the campfire as a key element of the camp experience, developing a campfire area with performance/viewing platforms that helped to identify a critical part of the site as a focal/gathering point. The design integrates key aspects of circulation, procession, shelter and camp mythology to create a lasting memories for generations of campers to come.

A day in the life