2019 Civil, Environmental & Geological Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Nathaniel Thiessen, Clement Chan, Samuel Oh, Mike Xie

CNMS Engineers has been retained by St. Clair O’ Connor Community to develop a remediation and expansion plan for the existing pool enclosure located at 2701 St. Clair Street, Toronto. The client’s intent is to upgrade their facilities and open them to the public. CNMS has recommended a partial rebuild, finished with a retractable wall and roof system. The design phase of this project includes the demolition plan, structural design and tie-in of the new expansion, enclosure design for the finished facilities, and prototyping.

Sonia Yu, Anthea Lau, Janice Look, Michael Engel

As part of an environmental assessment to connect Veterans Memorial Parkway and Highway 403, the City of Brantford is intending to replace the existing Veterans Memorial Parkway bridge. Pivot Consulting Ltd. has been retained to prepare an advanced schematic timber-hybrid bridge design to support increasing development and enhance the visual aesthetic of the area. The innovative design will optimize the use of timber, minimize cost and construction duration, and will be compared to a conventional bridge design.

Nicole Lawson, Frances Trinh, Philip Cooper and Michael Feiden

In order to expand their Canadian market, Tesla is looking to open a headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario.  The selected design is an open concept timber structure that embraces biophilic and sustainable design. The building will feature biophilic balconies, a large atrium to showcase Tesla products, and solar glass technology to exemplify the core values of the company. The project will tackle the unique constraints of the Canadian climate and unite aesthetics and quality with sustainable technologies.

Ben O'Callaghan, Alex Rudy, Emma Marie Inácio, Karl Jakelski

Recently, there has been a push for environmental stewardship in North America. Canada’s environment has a unique opportunity, as it produces an abundance of natural wood resources. Aiming to be a leading consultant in the field of mass timber construction, RockWood is working on a four-storey large span office building in Toronto. The goal is to provide a no-compromise primarily wood structure compared to its concrete or steel counterparts. This is achieved by providing equivalent large spans as required by standard architectural grids.

Kevin Li, Daniel Ben Yona, Alvin Luk, Jason Britton

The 2009 University of Waterloo Campus Master Plan envisioned a campus with open green spaces and state-of-the-art structures at the campus gateways. The South Campus Hall, located at the main entrance of University Avenue, needs remodeling due to its aging aesthetics. BL Squared Engineering aims to meet the visions of the Campus Master Plan by designing a new, modern, and energy efficient South Campus Hall.

Fook-Yee Yang, Kathy Lin, Kevin Honsberger, Dylan Carroll

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean that regularly experiences extreme weather events and natural disasters. Bridges in PNG are often used past their design lives and the country’s transportation network is nonredundant in many regions. Crossover Consultants has undertaken to design a temporary bridge that can be deployed after a hazard event to quickly restore access for aid and relief efforts. The bridge can be demobilized and redeployed for multiple uses.

Mykela Thorpe, Felix Hou, Michael Murage, Talodabioluwa Abikoye

Hurontario Street is the main transit corridor connecting districts within Mississauga and Brampton. To facilitate the movement of people between these cities, LYL Engineering has designed a solution to alleviate congestion along this corridor. A monorail system - Line10, was selected after an analysis of different mass transit systems. Line10 will run 20km between the two major cities with stations at key locations. Line10 will transport more than 8,550 passengers/hour/direction, improve safety, reduce pollution, and provide a fresh look to the streets.

Maria Roman, Sara Rahman, Rayanne Ward-Bishun, Andrei Aristov

MRS Engineering Ltd. is a consulting firm that is dedicated to providing infrastructure for those in need. This project focuses on the Bidi Bidi Refugee Camp in Uganda that has been having an influx of refugees from the South Sudan Civil War. By integrating innovative engineering practices with humanitarian aspirations, a comprehensive site plan to transform Bidi Bidi into a livable community that addresses not only basic human needs but the social needs of the refugees as a whole, has been created.

Monika Das, Chloe Edwards, Diana Valdés Valle, Michael Felinczak

A scrap and build trend is prominent in Japan’s housing market since homeowners often demolish houses just 20 to 30 years after construction. This unsustainable trend continues to create an abundance of waste that is negatively impacting the environment. As a solution, Ukiyo has designed a single-family residential home with a fully adaptable interior. The design incorporates environmentally conscious features while allowing homeowners to fully customize their space.

Haris Ismail, Hannah Yu, Jake Lee, Anirudh Dharmarajan

First Nation communities often lack well designed homes due to location and funding issues. The project aims to improve the design of homes for the Wahta Mohawks community. Located north of Barrie, ON, the community currently consists of 75 homes. FIRST Solutions Inc. is proposing a design that will achieve three main objectives: reduce energy cost by 25%, improve occupant comfort, and ensure proposed design construction cost do not exceed existing construction cost. The design incorporates economic, social, climate and cultural needs of the community.

Maddison Murch, Adrian Gilles, Brice Celotto

The frequency and magnitude of both earthquakes and wildfires are on the rise due to climate change. Places such as Santa Barbara, California, are located in high-risk zones for experiencing both of these events, while traditional design practices provide only basic protection for residents and their property. True North has developed a mid-rise residential building design that will offer improved performance of the structure and enclosure during these natural disasters to minimize loss of life and damage to the building.

Emanuel Mulugeta, Timur Erkan, Ashik Varghese, Stephen Gade

Traffic congestion is one of the most impactful problems in modern cities. As such, typical solutions used to combat congestion just don’t appear to cut it anymore. EATS Engineering has been assembled to provide an optimal and unique engineering solution for the redesign of the intersection of Hanlon Parkway and Paisley Road (Guelph). This project involves applying various traffic microsimulation models to simulate the forecasted traffic volumes and includes various structural design components to retrofit the current at-grade intersection into a Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI).

Fnane Berhane, Mehroze Akhtar, Talal Shakil, Rafie Mehraban

The demand for energy efficient buildings is increasing around the world as nations are becoming more environmentally conscious due to climate change. SMD Solutions aims to incorporate this demand of sustainability into the steel-framing design of a two-storey office building along with the design of an energy efficient building enclosure. Through structural analysis and energy simulations, SMD Solutions plans to provide a structurally exceptional solution that can provide the energy efficiency that is sought after in today’s society.

Shakeel Ashraf, Tehreem Ashraf, Raazia Zahra, Landon Corcoran

In Ontario, there is a growing demand for sustainable communities that are energy efficient and environmentally friendly. CanPak Life Solutions (“CanPak”) has been consulted to plan a community of 30 houses in the Township of Wellesley that follows these guiding principles. CanPak’s vision for the community incorporates roof-top solar panels, an adjacent solar farm, building materials with minimal carbon footprints, and housing designs that minimize energy consumption. The community will be largely self-sustaining with on-site water sources and a sewage disposal system.

Angela Li, Eva Wu, Tina Lin, Sabrina Renna

In North America, an oversupply of parking is necessitated by personal automobile dependence and minimum municipal parking policy–this translates into the construction of additional or larger parking lots. As these vast expanses of impervious cover increase, so do their environmental impacts. The University of Waterloo’s Parking Lot ‘A’ has been identified as a great investment opportunity for adaptive reuse. The goal of this project is to adapt the existing lot to optimize on sustainable stormwater management and energy objectives, while better serving its users.

Xinyi Zhang, Simin Huang, Jike Wang, Qiao Lei

The University of Waterloo is experiencing significant growth in recent years. However, the existing public transit network cannot deliver sufficient transit service to commuters. To provide more convenient transit service and relief traffic congestion in the surrounding area, the University of Waterloo Commute Hub, a transit facility that integrate multiple forms of transportation including ION LRT, was proposed. Shell & Associates will design a safe and accessible site, and evaluate impacts of the proposed Commute Hub on surrounding road network.

Adib Ahrari, Zaid Al-Sabbag, Kunjan Mehta and Bruce Qu

The City of Iqaluit in Nunavut has some of the highest cost of living expenses in all of Canada due to a lack of affordable housing. The Federal Government of Canada awarded Odin and Sons a contract to provide 160-180 new permanent housing units for the City of Iqaluit. Odin and Sons will be designing an apartment complex by assembling and retrofitting shipping containers. 

Xing Ye Zhang, Dandi Zhao, Jingyi Guo, Joseph Wong

To provide a safe, self-sustainable and environmentally friendly Ring Road to pedestrians during heavy snow storms, D3J Consultants is designing an intelligent sidewalk system that will reduce snow coverage time on the University of Waterloo Campus. The sidewalk uses Phase Change Material as the heat source, which will release energy to melt snow when temperature drops below certain level. The new sidewalk uses modular concrete-piping system that can be easily installed and maintained.

Wei Lin, Hongyou Wang, Yicong Liu, Alfred Cheng

Toronto Pearson International Airport is the busiest of its kind in Canada. However, due to limited public transit connectivity, the high volume of automobile trips attracted by the airport is presenting enormous pressure on the regional transportation network. To support the role of Pearson as a critical transportation and economic hub, Transalink has developed the functional design of a multimodal transit centre that anchors various rapid transit lines and bus routes to serve air travellers and commuters in one terminal building within the airport proper.

Wenwen Xiao, Jenny Zhong, Sahil Tadwalkar, Joshua DiCerbo

The Peguis community, located in Manitoba, is suffering from annual flood events which has historically resulted in annual evacuations. Flood events are common in this geographic location and the Peguis residents prefer to remain on these grounds due to its historic and cultural importance. BUK Limited is investigating methods that provide sustainable, cost-effective, accessible housing that will mitigate the effects of flooding for the local community.

Gimhani Fernando, Oriana Aguas, Natalia Shershakova, Alexander Beeston

As part of their Regional Express Rail initiative, Metrolinx would like to increase service on the north-south Barrie GO line, which currently intersects with the east-west CN/CP line. This intersection, known as the Davenport Diamond, is already busy, and it will be impossible to increase service without a grade-separation. GONA & Sons will provide designs for an elevated guideway which will bring the Barrie GO line over the CN/CP corridor, reconnect neighborhoods, and create a beautiful public space that can be enjoyed by surrounding communities.

Emily Jackson, Clara Sidrak, Patricia Baranoski, Nick Karl

Cape Dorset, Nunavut suffers from food insecurity due to the remote location and difficulties associated with shipping produce. F.I.R.E Consultants Ltd. endeavours to design a community greenhouse with enough growth capacity and storage for year-round access to fruits and vegetables in the community. The team will use innovative materials and technologies to design the superstructure and building enclosure. A construction plan will also be developed in order to effectively combat the challenges due to the remote location and harsh climate.

Matthew Au, Sean Davidson, Zuoyan (Joel) Wu, John Willsey

Designing a Seismic Resistant Multi-storey Residential Building for Mexico City.

SoJoel Solutions envisions a world where major seismic events do not lead to catastrophic loss of life and valuable infrastructure. One location experiencing constant threat of seismic events is Mexico City. Our team has set out to design a residential building in Mexico City which is both cost-effective and minimizes the infrastructure damage and death toll that usually follows. This will be achieved through the use of an internal damping system.

Maher Shoura, Frederick Chu, Yiran Liu, Hongming Li

The Ministry of Transportation have faced a lot of problems with repaving Highway 401 of Ontario, as the materials that were used for paving the highway is not performing well anymore. The replacement must feature a new pavement structure that includes the use of innovative materials. The design scope will primarily focus on the performance of the asphalt material. Possibly, other considerations will be given to the Life Cycle technologies.

Ajmain Mostafa, Anton Budnyy, Syed Mohammed Tajdar Haider

The Region of Waterloo is currently considering the implementation of an LRT (Light Rail Transit) system to cope with its massive population boom. Our team is working on a suitable design for the LRT for one section of the route – Hespeler Rd between Pinebush Rd and Avenue Rd. The end goal of the design is an LRT system that dosen’t impede traffic flow, private property access for vehicles and pedestrian access to LRT stops as well as enhancing the aesthetic value of the community.

Adrian Ranganathan, Jason (Rongnan) Yuan, Deepak Manoj, Damilare Olaniyan

MTO has identified two hotspot locations on the 401 that regularly experiences the highest number of collision rates (Highway 400 to Keele Street and Whites Road to Courtice Road). MYRO Consulting has undertaken the task of analyzing and proposing congestion mitigation measures in order to combat extended delay times. The final deliverable will involve a comprehensive guideline and set of procedures to be used by government officials at the site of a collision. The ruleset will be supported by relevant statistical data.

Wendy Chikowero, Keming Zheng, Michelle Yong Xin Fan, Sophia Eugeni

Flood events in Dhaka, Bangladesh yield disease outbreak and illness resulting from the loss of access to medical care during and after the disaster. Oscillate Engineering Ltd. has designed a medical facility that can rise and fall with the flood elevation to provide uninterrupted access to essential emergency response services. The design features the use of buoyant foundation technology in combination with a secondary lifting mechanism.

Daniel Tenney, Jacob Macdonald, Thomas Chan, Mitchell Finnson

In urban environments, concrete channels are commonly used to control water flow. In some cases, the use of these channels can lead to issues with flooding control and managing water quality. One such watercourse is Schneider Creek; a channel which conveys flow between Victoria Lake Park and the Grand River. CREEC has developed a natural stream design to replace a portion of the concrete stream that limits the flood risk to the surrounding community and improves the aquatic habitat.

Silvia Chou, Sungmin Lee, Phoebe Yung, Luca Zambonelli

The Tulsequah Chief Mine was abandoned in 1957 after being in operation for seven years. Since then, acid mine drainage from the site has been discharging into the Tulsequah River, posing serious threats to the aquatic system. Previous attempts in treating the mine drainage failed due to excessive costs and inefficient treatment solutions. Antacid Corporation has designed a treatment system combining multiple passive treatment processes. The intent is to reduce metal and sulphate concentrations from the drainage prior to releasing drainage into the Tulsequah River.

Adam Schneider, Bill McLaren, Darin Shore, Gary Voorthuyzen

Scientific progress has made the colonization of Mars more technologically feasible than ever before. Establishment of a 100-person colony is planned for the coming decades, which will require a closed-loop water and wastewater treatment system in order to survive and thrive in the hostile environment. ARES Engineering has designed a solution using physical/chemical processes with low energy and chemical requirements. Grey-water reuse, water replenishment, and nutrient recovery strategies were implemented in order to improve process efficiency and robustness.

Christine Gomez, Tania Gill, Morgan de Kroon

The Canagagigue Creek experiences some of the highest nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in the Grand River Watershed due to agricultural and industrial runoff. High nutrient concentrations have led to algal blooms, depletion of dissolved oxygen and overall degradation of the ecosystem. Blue Heron has developed a robust solution incorporating innovative and tradition technologies to reduce nutrient concentrations at the creek’s outlet into the Grand River

Cameron Adams, Chase Konecny, Erin Kennelly

The Neil Drain is a small tributary of the North Thames River which passes through an on-line reservoir impounded by an earth dam. The Municipality of West Perth and the Upper Thames Conservation Authority would like to consider restoring natural, cold-water flows in the drain. Hydrophilics has designed a bypass channel which will restore a natural flow state while maintaining the wetland habitat afforded by the reservoir. Ecosystem and communal benefits are incorporated into the proposed design.

Michael Li, Juan Park, Shuai Yuan, Tianyi Yu

InSight is aiming to provide an innovative and industry-leading solution toward more efficient pipe inspection processes. With a smart assistance platform, storm and sanitary sewer pipe features can be effectively identified by simply uploading the CCTV inspection video to the computer. This AI model has been trained on 40,000 pieces of data and tested on real-life conditions to ensure its accuracy. Additionally, with the report function, the AI model can also summarize all the features into an inspection report for the user to review.

Savannah Knorr, Isabelle Cleroux, Julia Knorr, Daniel Chisholm 

Sustainable development initiatives are at the forefront of the University of Waterloo’s new Northwest Campus expansion, however a stormwater management plan that supports the natural ecosystem and meets the university’s development goals does not exist. KCKC’s stormwater management solution incorporates Low Impact Development strategies and continuous modelling to support the design of a zero-runoff system for the 90^th percentile event. The design successfully mitigates concerns around water quality and quantity objectives while also accounting for increases in storm intensities resulting from climate change projections. 

Carolina Mahecha, Nina Huang, Allie Kennington, Ian Buck, Maria Vazquez-Romero

Plant Pals Technology is developing a holistic smart crop management system called FieldSmart. FieldSmart is a complete package that includes data collection mechanisms and software to synthesize the collected data to create fertilization plans and recommendations. Our system will help farmers make better use of their resources to reduce environmental impacts and maximize profits. FieldSmart will help grow a brighter tomorrow.

Beth Gatenby, Kylie Knox, Colby Maier-Downing, Armin Zafari

The Mad River in Angus, Ontario is a watercourse that was significantly altered by natural processes and anthropogenic impacts. This resulted in intense annual flooding and downstream water quality issues. In response, the local conservation authority retained Reach Beyond Engineering to design an innovative solution to rehabilitate a section of the Mad River to address these concerns. The new river design not only mitigates the extent of flooding and improves water quality, but also enhances the natural habitat for native and migratory biota.

Michael Wong, Celeste Cameron, Manal Chaudhry, Anny Huang

Located in the Don River Watershed, Wilket Creek is experiencing considerable erosion and degradation due to heavy urbanization and flash flooding. This has resulted in historical damage to local infrastructure and deterioration of creek health. Water quality in the creek is declining due to both turbidity from excessive erosion and contaminants contained in urban runoff. WCH Consulting is proposing a sustainable engineering design that focuses on attenuating high storm flows and improving water quality. This solution will rehabilitate the creek ecosystem and ensure long-term stability.

Yaroslav Chudin, Brittany Russo, Liesly Dykeman, Morgan Molyneaux

In an underground mine, ore is stored in a loading pocket before it can be carried to the surface for processing. At Mine X, the current loading pocket is not large enough to store the quantity required for the future growth of the mine. AuXtract developed an innovative and feasible solution involving an additional loading pocket to not only resolve this problem, but to maximize mine efficiency, improve safety, incorporate emerging mining technologies, and minimize waste.

Taskia Alam, Kelvin Cheung, Adam Malek, Victor Fasullo

With the increasing need to provide electricity to the community, OPG has proposed a new 82 MW capacity hydroelectric generating station on the Madawaska River. The project site is located in Arnprior, Ontario; approx. 50 km west of Ottawa. OPG plans to add a dam, located 2 km upstream of the generating station, which will raise the upstream water level, creating a reservoir.  FACM‘s goal is to produce the design of a dam which will be structurally stable and operable given the existing site conditions.

Suman Sahadevan, Michael Chan, Minsu Kee, Aman Bains

The Hyperloop is regarded as the future of on-land transportation method, which significantly reduces travel times and negative impacts on the environment while improving the comfort of commuting. The Hyperloop structure, however, imposes large static and dynamic stress on foundations. Magnetorheological fluid (MRF) is an innovative technology currently used as a dampener in several industrial settings. To dissipate the dynamic stresses in the soil caused by the travelling pods, Hyperloop Foundation is incorporating the MRF in the Hyperloop foundation design to improve foundation performance.

Drake Oldfield, Natalia Kanda, Eric Walton-Ball, Matthew (Seung Yeob) Kim

OdysseyBit Solutions has been commissioned by Epiroc, an original equipment manufacturer, to improve their tricone drill bit design by identifying and classifying first-order geological parameters. Currently, drill bits are designed with a mechanical focus, targeting a single material type. OdysseyBit seeks to improve the drill bit design by considering geological factors as a primary focus, allowing bits to be site-specific.

Haley McLean, Cynthia Lane, Thomas de Boer

Exploration missions to Mars have identified the Red planet as a prospect for future mining ventures. Asterox has been tasked with designing a mine on Mars for the extraction of an ore deposit within Gale crater. This project is focussed on designing a mine that is specific to the geological, and gravitational conditions on Mars. The design will include mine processes as well as the transportation of mining equipment from Earth to be used on Mars.

Emman Haider, Paula Przybylski, Sara Turner

Pulse Home is a panelized housing technology addressing the Canadian Indigenous housing crisis. Pulsed partnered with Habitat for Humanity, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and three Atlantic Indigenous communities to develop a housing solution that will address the housing shortage on reserves while enabling employment of community members. Expandable roofing, foundation and wall assemblies can be easily constructed by unskilled workers. This provides small affordable homes for youth that can be expanded to meet growing family needs.