Named for former BMSC board member and major benefactor, the late Dr. Donald Rix, this now iconic building was designed by de Hoog & Kierulf Architects. The structure of a scallop shell inspired the entry, main reception areas, and roof, the latter requiring a design that could shed rainfall amounts that in Bamfield can be over three meters per year.
With its top floor meeting space used for classes, gatherings and conferences, the Rix Centre also houses research facilities like the Environmental Integrity Lab, Biotechnology Lab supporting biochemistry, physiology, molecular and cell biology work; and the Digital Imaging Facility with its confocal laser scanning microscope for zooming in on microscopic sea life.
Peter de Hoog, the lead architect who masterminded the Rix Building’s design, tells its fascinating back story. It all started, de Hoog recalls, when BMSC’s then Director Andy Spencer and staff walked anxiously into his office on Christmas Eve early in the new millennium. Worried because another architect they’d engaged to deliver ideas had failed to produce anything, time was growing short. They needed something to present at a fast approaching board meeting. So de Hoog was tasked with envisioning something contemporary and unusual. At that first critical board meeting, his initial modern design effort was nixed by Rix, who wanted something more symbolic of a direct connection with the sea.
Sent back to the drawing board, de Hoog recalls sitting at home brainstorming with his young daughter. “I grabbed a bag of seashells that we had collected over time and threw them on the kitchen table and started looking at them,” he says. It was the scallop shell that they realized, when held on a tilt, had potential. “So I drew that,” says de Hoog and “Mr. Rix was happy.” The contractor was harder to convince. “The contractor looked at the drawings and said ‘there’s no way I can build that,’ ” says de Hoog. But eventually, build it they did.
The Rix Centre’s unobstructed view over the harbour was very intentional. We “spent quite a bit of time on site laying the building out to make sure that orientation was angled exactly right to catch that view of the inlet,” says de Hoog.
Upon visiting the site for a final building inspection in 2004, de Hoog says one of his concerns about the interior was its suspected poor acoustics, with the potential for reverberation of sound off the hard surfaces like the extensive glass.
“When I walked in, I was quite delightfully surprised that the acoustics were actually really, really good,” says de Hoog, who suspects that’s due to a combination of the arches, sloped window wall, and shape of the room. He remembers thinking, “This room really needs music. It had that quality to it,” he says. Serendipitously, the following winter during a pub conversation, a friend mentioned his dream to produce a music festival in a venue with a great ocean view. That conversation birthed Music By The Sea, a summer festival that continues to this day.
Dr. Rix’s donation of close to $1 million made possible the construction of the Rix Centre for Ocean Discoveries at BMSC. The Rix Centre for Ocean Discovery, built with his leadership, has become a focal point for the centre. This legacy will contribute to the training of marine scientists for generations.
