RC107 JulyAugust2023 - Magazine - Page 14
renamed in 2021 when Toronto philanthropist Jack Cockwell, who also bequeathed 10,000 acres to the Limberlost
Forest and Wildlife Reserve in Ontario’s Muskoka region,
donated $10 million to the project.
The new building will house to GBC’s schools of
architectural studies and computer technology as well as
the Brookfield Sustainability Institute. It will also house a
fitness centre and a child-care centre on the ground floor
that will service the Waterfront Campus and serve as a
training platform for students in GBC’s early-childhood
education program.
“This is really exciting for our school and our students,” said Nerys Rau, GBC’s project director for Limberlost Place. “The goal is for the building to become a
Structural topping out
of the main structure
of mass timber and
steel for George Brown
College’s Limberlost
Place is expected to
be finished during the
summer of 2023.
living lab where students will learn within and from it.”
In addition to the building’s mass timber components,
many of which were designed and developed specifically
for the project, Rau praised its space- and light-enhancing
design and many cutting-edge sustainability features and
smart building systems that can be updated and adapted
to meet future academic and student needs.
Those features include connection to Canadian energy
company Enwave’s sustainable district energy system in
downtown Toronto, which includes deep water cooling
from the depths of Lake Ontario to photo-voltaic roof
panels and a unique passive solar chimney system that
creates natural convection and draws air up and through
the building’s manual operable windows on every floor.
It also has a weather station on the roof that senses air
quality, air speed and temperature. When all three metrics
14 RENEW CANADA – JULY/AUGUST 2023
are good, a notice will be sent to staff saying it’s alright to
open windows.
The building’s long-span, beamless structure will allow
for the use of demising walls to expand or contract classroom sizes while providing both ample room for labs and
offices and stunning vistas of the surrounding waterfront
and Toronto’s master-planned East Bayfront community.
Structural topping out or completion of the main structure of mass timber and steel is expected to be finished
this summer. It will take another year for the interior finishing work before project managers hand the keys over
to GBC in the fall of 2024.
“Every week there are massive changes, it’s amazing
to see how fast it’s going up,” Rau told ReNew Canada in
late March, when construction had reached
level nine with steel and level seven with
wood. “Working on this project feels like
being part of the history of an important
legacy building for our college and the city
of Toronto.”
Toronto architect Phil Silverstein shares
those sentiments—and then some. A
seasoned designer, project manager and
job captain with Moriyama Teshima who
works with the firm’s design leader and
senior partner Carol Phillips, one of the
brains behind Limberlost Place, he says
the new building is both an architectural
wonder and a testament to the promise
of mass timber for low-carbon building
construction.
“Because Limberlost is for students and
it’s on the lakefront, where it’s breezy and
open, we wanted to give the impression or
feeling that it is a living, breathing thing,
like a tree rooted in the ground,” said
Silverstein. “We wanted it to be airy with
natural ventilation and access to fresh air
and sunshine in the heart of the city.”
Limberlost Place, he added, will perform
differently than typical buildings in terms
of acoustics, climate control, daylighting,
and fresh air. “Occupants will have a much
higher level of engagement and interaction
with the building systems.”
He also noted that Limberlost Place’s fresh air ventilation system will be shut off six months a year—something
that would translate into a whopping 75 per cent savings
in operational energy from the hypothetical reference
building used in the project. The exterior envelope also
features energy saving features such as high-performance
glazing, less glazing with a 50/50 window/wall ratio.
Despite the considerable operational energy savings
that the building’s sustainability features will help to
achieve, Silverstein believes its biggest impact will be
cultural.
“Limberlost is an extraordinary building due to the
high level of innovation—but our hope is that it becomes
ordinary,” he said. “We tell the many architecture students who tour the building that what we’re doing [here]
should be their starting point in design.”
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SALINA KASSAM
CONSTRUCTION
