Simon Fraser University's history is reflected by its world-class architecture. Situated on top of Burnaby Mountain, the University's design was conceived through a competition held in 1963 by the newly appointed Chancellor, Dr. Gordon Shrum. The competition sought out to yield five winners. The overall design of SFU would be awarded as first prize to one architect, while the other four winners were invited to construct a section of the campus under the winner's supervision. Only three drawings were allowed to be submitted by each applicant in order to permit maximum access to the competition. All entries were limited to British Columbia residents.
Dr. Shrum's informal guidelines - his directive - entitled, "Notes from the Chancellor," formed the building block of SFU's design. Based upon his prior experience at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Shrum listed many of the components that he felt were essential to the new University. He recommended that students should be able to travel between parts of the University without leaving the indoors, and that large lecture halls be concentrated rather than scattered throughout the campus. One of the most significant criteria was that the SFU of 2000 would resemble SFU of 1965; it should appear to be a finished University, but facilitate expansion.
The finalist of the design competition was a young UBC architecture professor, Arthur Erickson, and his colleague Geoffrey Massey. The other four winners were William R. Rhone and Randle Iredale; Zoltan Kiss; Duncan McNab, Harry Lee, and David Logan; and Robert F. Harrison. The Erickson and Massey design received unanimous support from the judges, and fulfilled all the requirements outlined in Shrum's memo.
Erickson's design at the time was innovative in several key points. He took inspiration from its mountain top location, which propelled him to reject presumptuous multi-story buildings. The acropolis in Athens and the hill towns of Italy, where the mountain was incorporated into the design, gave Erickson insight towards his designs. Erickson designed the campus in a way where the buildings are terraced and retains the harmony with the landscape's contours, and he stressed the horizontal rather than the vertical expansion of structures.
With the traditional notion of separating faculties and departments into individual buildings being discarded led to a more innovative design, where the universality of the University was emphasized over the specialization of knowledge. Erickson wanted to foster interdisciplinary work and a closer relationship between faculty and students. As a result, buildings, which would contain several departments and classrooms, were incorporated into the design. This paved the way to reducing the travel time between classes for both students and faculty, as well as facilitating an intimate learning environment.
The University was completed on schedule for its opening ceremonies on September 9, 1965, and was greatly proclaimed across the world as an architectural achievement. Its advance "ahead of its time" design, coupled with its extraordinary pace of construction, created a structure that is now known as "the instant University."
Since its inception, the University has grown over the past 30 years with the addition of several new buildings, such as the spacious and open Maggie Benston Student Services Centre and the West Mall Complex, which houses the Faculty of Business Administration, Department of Economics, and the Department of Criminology. Each remaining faithful to its founding architect's design principles.
Source: SFU - Archives: SFU's Architecture
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