Excerpt from the press release announcing the architect's plans for Champlain College, dated 31 January, 1965
T.H.B. Symons, President and Vice-Chancellor of Trent University, today announced architectural plans for Champlain College, the University's first residential and teaching college on the permanent campus of the University on the northern edge of Peterborough. The plans were prepared by the University's Master Planning Architect, Mr. Ronald J. Thom, M.R.A.I.C., of the firm of Thompson, Berwick, Pratt and Partners, of Vancouver and Toronto.
The college will serve as a teaching and residential centre for more than 300 undergraduate students and 30 faculty members. It provides living accommodation for 210 students, 7 resident faculty members, and the Master of the College, and teaching rooms, a dining hall, common rooms, and a college library for the use of an expected dozen colleges, which will form the constituent units of the University.
The name of the college honours Samuel de Champlain, the great explorer, adventurer and founder of New France. It is located on the banks of the Otonabee River, overlooking the waters which Champlain himself descended 350 years ago, in the autumn of 1615, in his expedition through Huronia to the Iroquois country south of the Great Lakes.
The college will occupy a three-acre area along the edge of the Otonabee River, with its two residential quadrangles opening onto the river. The building will be constructed of masonry and concrete, using stone quarried locally, and exposed roofs will be of copper.
The residential study-rooms for students are arranged on the staircase plan, eliminating long institutional corridors. The plan provides for twelve staircases, each of which will give access to five undergraduate rooms on each floor. On the ground floor, at the bottom of each staircase, seminar rooms and faculty offices will be located.
The college is located beside the proposed central library square of the University, and one main entrance to the college will be by descending walk from the library square. Development and landscaping of the University will commence at the same time as work on the college, and will be followed after a few months by the beginning of construction of the University Library.
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Peterborough, Ontario.
Construction, 1966
