CONTEXT

The Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at The University of Toronto was established in 1890. Since 1961 the Faculty had been located in a former dentistry building at 230 College Street in Toronto. In 2009, the Faculty launched a competition to transform their existing building into a framework more relevant to their teachings and aspirations. DFALD required a new working prototype of sustainability, to accommodate a program of studio space, fabrication workshops, classrooms, offices, library, cafe, exhibition space, auditorium, and state of the art ‘urban theater’. By 2011 it was clear that the appropriate step would be relocating to a landmark position in the city, One Spadina Crescent, thus launching a two-phased approach to renovate and expand the iconic structure formerly known as Knox College. A rare circle that interrupts Toronto’s grid at the intersection of the city and the University, One Spadina Crescent is a highly visible site that provides magnificent views south, straight down to the lake. The new building will more than double the school’s facilities from 73,000 (existing) to 156,000 square feet, at a site with the capacity for future growth. The site and Knox College building have had a long history that eventually led it to a state of dilapidation. One Spadina has been in succession a green prospect, a religious cloister, medical laboratories, and is now being reincarnated as a school devoted to design and the kinds of creative industries that are today making Toronto an internationally recognized capital of culture and commerce.

PERFORMANCE

As befits a school devoted to architecture, landscape, art and urban design as cosmopolitan enterprises, the building has become a think-¬tank where students of many disciplines collaborate on the toughest problems facing 21st-century cities. The renewed Circle includes amenities and pedagogical moments for both students and the public with improved circulation for pedestrians and cyclists. An Interior Street on the ground floor links all the public functions –Galleries, Library, Principal Hall, and Café with the city fabric. The large principal hall has already hosted several large lectures and events. The hall is dramatically punctuated by a series of openings to ancillary spaces with lounges, crit rooms, and bleacher seating which has produced a highly collaborative “heart” to the building. The workshop/fabrication labs house advanced technologies for metal, wood, photographic, waterjet, laser, 3D printing, plotting, and robotic fabrication, that are advancing students’ technical abilities. A conservatory-like design studio on the top floor offers a column-free hall, where the students have a new platform for collaborative work. The ceiling is its own landscape, a part of the structural, lighting and water drainage systems. (Collected stormwater is satisfying 100% of the building’s irrigation needs.). The roof features an expansion of the Faculty’s award-winning state-of-the-art Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory (GRIT Lab) where an interdisciplinary group of researchers has established a series of projects to study the materials and techniques that improve the benefits of green roofs in the North American, urban climate.