Assiniboine unveils $750K community hub

Assiniboine College added a $750,000 community workspace to its east Brandon campus on Thursday, fitted with modern tools like 3D printers.

The college’s grand opening for the workspace, called the Creative CoLab, took place in the afternoon at the Victoria Avenue East campus. The event showcased features such as a projector, a laser engraver, crafting stations, cameras, scanners and a conference table on a wide-open floor plan.

The facility will be primarily used as a community space, said college president Mark Frison. Though part of the college, it is open to everyone, he said, and the goal is to foster collaboration in the area.

“What it will do is serve as the base for us to bring people together in the creative industry,” Frison told the Sun. “Finding ways for them to come together.”

The college president said the facility would also be a benefit to employers, as the CoLab would be a place to find workers skilled in areas like design.

Equipment in the workshop was chosen for its connection to the digital world, Jana Sproule, chair of media and office tech in the college’s school of business, told the Sun.

The range of equipment, such as wide-format printers and flatbed scanners, plays into that role, she said.

“We know we wanted to lean towards these things,” Sproule said. “We chose things that interface with technology.”

Some features of the workspace also show the purpose-built design, she said. A boardroom table was added so that people have a place to work together, and equipment was stationed near the walls so that there was ample room in the centre of the facility.

“We very purposefully left a big open space so you can host workshops.”

The space was filled with standup tables, catered food and roughly 75 guests on Thursday afternoon during the grand opening.

Derek Ford, co-ordinator for the CoLab, said the facility’s name is a play on the word collaboration.

“That’s the idea, that we’re going to synthesize in here.”

Ford said many of his former students went on to leave Brandon in search of creative opportunities. The graduates were on his mind as he designed the space, he said.

“I want more of those people to be able to stay if they want to,” Ford said. “It’s not enough to educate people and hope things happen, you have to put the pieces together.”

The workspace was designed to foster that opportunity and connection in Brandon.

The area will also be useful for students, he said, as it is located down the hall from the Centre for Creative Media. Ford said students who come from different programs inside the centre could work closely together, putting to work the many different skills that professional projects may need.

The cost for the CoLab was roughly $750,000, Assiniboine College communications specialist Shaun Cameron told the Sun. The space was previously used by the college for shipping and receiving, and had been a shop before that, he said. The development of the CoLab took roughly a year and a half to complete.

In a news release Thursday, the college said the project was supported by Prairies Economic Development Canada, which brought its total investment in the college’s Centre for Creative Media up to nearly $3 million.

A representative from the department told the Sun that Brandon is a great place for this type of creative workspace and that it was a really exciting day to see the project finished.

Frison said the college plans to introduce programming and engagement in the future to drive activity at the CoLab.

“In addition to state-of-the-art space and equipment, we will work with creative industries to create connections, expose opportunities and increase economic activity in knowledge-based industries in the region,” Frison said in the news release.

The college has been in talks with potential partners, such as Westman Immigrant Services, Community Futures Westman and North Forge, an organization that helps business startups.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com