TORONTO — A new nine-storey University of Toronto (U of T) building at 90 Queen’s Park Crescent is being proposed to create an academic and cultural hub on the downtown Toronto campus.
The proposal will come forward for consideration by university governance, states a release issued by U of T.
The building will be designed by world-renowned architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a New York-based firm, working with Toronto’s architectsAlliance. ERA Architects is serving as the team’s heritage consultants.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro will draw on their experience designing cultural and academic spaces to create a building that is hoped to become a Toronto landmark, says Gilbert Delgado, U of T’s chief of university planning, design and construction, in the release.
He added “the building’s location will serve as a gateway that connects Toronto’s cultural corridor with the university.”
The new facility will be constructed on the site of the former McLaughlin Planetarium, which closed in 1995.
In addition to the School of Cities, the building will house the Faculty of Arts and Science, including history, Near and Middle Eastern civilizations, as well as the Institute of Islamic Studies, an arm of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and the Archaeology Centre. It will provide facilities for the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Music and there will also be space designated for classrooms and public spaces as well as for the Royal Ontario Museum.
It will also feature a music recital hall with a large window as a backdrop to the stage, providing the audience with south-facing views of the Toronto skyline. Above the hall will be a 400-seat event space with similar skyline views. There will be a cafe on the ground floor and a multi-storey atrium leading up to the recital hall.
The building will honour U of T’s history and heritage by incorporating the 118-year-old Falconer Hall, part of the Faculty of Law, into its design. Charles Renfro, partner-in-charge at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, says the building is designed to encourage individual scholarship, while fostering collaborative discourse and public engagement.
“This ‘campus within a campus’ is revealed in the building’s dual identity — a smooth cohesive block of faculty offices and workspaces gives way to a variegated expression of individual departments as the building is sculpted around Falconer Hall, the historic home of the law department,” said Renfro in the release. “Several public programs are revealed in the process. At the heart of the building is a dynamic central atrium and stairs linking all floors with clusters of lounge spaces, study spaces and meeting rooms, mixing the various populations of the building with each other and the general public.”
In terms of sustainability, the building will adhere to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ sustainability standards and efforts will be made to reduce energy and minimize the carbon footprint.
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