Limberlost Place

Last updated
Limberlost Place
Former namesThe Arbour (2018–2021)
AddressGeorge Brown College Waterfront Campus; 185 Queens Quay East, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 1B6
Canada
OwnerGeorge Brown College
TypeInstitutional (education): School of Architecture and Computer Technology
Capacity 3,400 students and staff
Field sizeHeight: 172 ft/52.50 m 10 stories
Construction
BuiltUnder construction
ArchitectMoriyama Teshima Architects, Acton Ostry Architects
BuilderPCL Construction
Structural engineerFast + Epp Structural Engineers
Services engineerMechanical/electrical engineers: Introba (previously Integral Group)

Limberlost Place, formerly known as The Arbour, is a new addition to George Brown College's Waterfront Campus. It is set to open in summer 2024, and will be home to the college's architecture and computer technology students. [1] With a planned occupancy for nearly 3,400 users, the 225,000 square-foot building will feature classrooms, study areas, staff support spaces, and a daycare facility. [2] The is project designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects alongside Acton Ostry Architects. [1]

Contents

Limberlost Place features low carbon and high-efficiency qualities, which surpass TEDI, TEUI and GHGI targets. [3] Limberlost Place's high-performance envelope and passive systems render it a self-sufficient and sustainable structure. [4] The building makes use of mass timber, a known renewable material [5] and has brought forth new research and attention to the field of mass construction. [6]

Building design

Passive design strategies

Limberlost Place's form is influenced by the use passive design techniques and uses decentralized mechanical systems to control its environment. [3] Its northern facing façade is used to maximize sun light, while heat is captured from the south. The peak of the building, gives way for solar photovoltaic panels to generate energy for use throughout the building, [4] and also contributes to the exchange of air. [5] Depending on atmospheric condition readings sent by its weather station, automated windows controlled by the building's operating system are opened and closed when needed. [4] Through the use of the stack method, air entering the building is guided through transfer grills lining the corridor, [4] and forced to exit out through the east and west, eight-story solar chimneys. [4] The building's top two levels are served through cross ventilation, with air entering the building through manually controlled windows in classrooms and offices, then traveling through hallways and exiting through the solar chimneys. [4] Deep-water cooling is an additional ventilation system implemented in the building's design. [1] Water pumped from the neighboring Lake Ontario circulates throughout the building to cool it down. [1]

Wood as a green material

One of the sustainable strategies employed in the building's design is the use of green materials. Mass timber members, used for floor slabs and vertical supports, make up its primary structure. [7] In line with environmental sustainability principles, wood is a natural, renewable material that can be reused or recycled at the end of its life. [8] In addition to its renewable quality, wood has low-embodied energy, contributing to reducing the building's greenhouse gas emissions. [9] Made from Black spruce harvested from Quebec forests, sustainable material sourcing was implemented in procuring the timber used for Limberlost Place's construction. [6] The building's proximity to its wood source also makes for a low carbon footprint, ensuring minimal negative environmental impact. Through projects such as this one, the Canadian government has made efforts to further implement the use of wood as a construction material by reason of its carbon sequestering capacities. [10] Through initiatives such as the Green Construction through Wood (GCWood) program, the use of mass timber is promoted as a favorable, green material option for all construction projects throughout the country, as part of Canada's efforts to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction objectives. [11] Limberlost Place is among the mass timber buildings financed by the GCWood program. [10]

Construction

External structure/prefabricated panels

The exterior of the structure is encased in prefabricated panels spanning 11.7 meters in height and 4.2 meters in width. [4] The panels were constructed with a building tightness of 0.4 L/sm2 at 75 Pa, exceeding its original target. [4] Testing conducted by the Underwriters Laboratories of Canada revealed it performed more than double in efficiency. [4] The building's walls consist of around 40% windows, [4] placed almost consistently 3 meters apart, and allow for the building to be expanded with the use of demising walls for future projects. [4] Large spanning curtain walls were designed to capture waterfront views and engage with Limberlost Place's surrounding community. [4]

An enclosed bridge was also added to the structure, connecting Limberlost Place to the existing George Brown Daphne Centre for Health Sciences. [12] The triangular truss design of the elevated bridge provides an alternate path of travel through its adjacent campus buildings. [12]

Mass timber

Along with a steel core, mass timber components make up much of Limberlost Place's structure. [13] The 10-story building features some of the continent's largest mass timber columns, standing at 3 stories tall. [13] Column-free classrooms were designed, allowing the use of partition walls to accommodate different programs, as well as maintain unobstructed views of the waterfront. [4] The construction process of these mass timber components began off-site, where cross-laminated timber (CLT) slabs were prefabricated, before being brought to site for installation. [14] Totaling 1,190 CLT and 571 glue-laminated components, each were organized according to their designated location within the building's structure, and brought to site for efficient assembly. [14]

Fast + Epp Structural Engineers achieved a structure void of conventional beams, by designing a floor system made up of 7-ply CLT panels spanning north-south, with thinner CLT panels spanning the opposite direction. [4] The slab of CLT panels is reinforced by a concrete topping, with the floor system resting on glulam columns. [4] This system eliminated the need for beams, while also allowing 9.2 meter spans. [4] Through these features, Limberlost Place has achieved the highest level of municipal targets amongst Toronto buildings, meeting Tier 4 of the Toronto Green standard. [1]

Innovation

Though mass timber construction is not a new concept, it has not yet been used for an assembly occupancy building of this height. [4] As the first building of its kind in Ontario, obtaining proper permits proved to be an issue throughout the design and construction processes, as Limberlost Place exceeded the six-story height allowed by the Ontario Building Code for timber construction. [15] Through meetings with jurisdiction authorities, the required permits were obtained and construction began. [16] Soon after, Limberlost Place's design began to alter national and provincial building regulations. [13] As of July 2022, mass timber buildings can be constructed up to 12 stories high— double the previously regulated height. [17]

Following Limberlost Place, downtown Toronto is seeing the addition of similar buildings. Just around the corner from Limberlost Place is T3, another mass-timber building currently in the final steps of its construction. [1] The project has also resulted in numerous research publications, contributing to furthering large-scale mass-timber construction in Ontario. [16]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontario Science Centre</span> Science museum in Toronto, Ontario

The Ontario Science Centre is a science museum organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its original main location, which was permanently closed to the public on June 21, 2024, was located near the Don Valley Parkway about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) northeast of downtown on Don Mills Road in the former city of North York. It was built down the side of a wooded ravine formed by one branch of the Don River located in Flemingdon Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Brown College</span> College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The George Brown College of Applied Arts and Technology is a public, fully accredited college of applied arts and technology with three campuses in downtown Toronto. Like many other colleges in Ontario, George Brown College was chartered in 1966 by the government of Ontario and opened the next year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Moriyama</span> Canadian architect (1929–2023)

Raymond Junichi Moriyama was a Canadian architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canada Centre Building</span> Canadian federal office building in Scarborough, Toronto

The Canada Centre Building is a 12-storey postmodern federal government office building in the Scarborough district of Toronto. It is located at 200 Town Centre Court, between the Scarborough Civic Centre and Scarborough Town Centre shopping mall, and next to Scarborough Centre station. The building houses offices of Service Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, Passport Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, providing services for Scarborough and Central Ontario. Opened in 1985, the building is most notable for its energy-conservation systems, which include one of the first successful full-scale applications of aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa</span>

The Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is representational office of the Ismaili Imamat in Canada and includes the headquarters of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada. It is located between the Embassy of Saudi Arabia and the Lester B. Pearson Building on Sussex Drive. It was opened in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross-laminated timber</span> Wood panel product made from solid-sawn lumber

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is a subcategory of engineered wood panel product made from gluing together at least three layers of solid-sawn lumber. Each layer of boards is usually oriented perpendicular to adjacent layers and glued on the wide faces of each board, usually in a symmetric way so that the outer layers have the same orientation. An odd number of layers is most common, but there are configurations with even numbers as well. Regular timber is an anisotropic material, meaning that the physical properties change depending on the direction at which the force is applied. By gluing layers of wood at right angles, the panel is able to achieve better structural rigidity in both directions. It is similar to plywood but with distinctively thicker laminations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embassy of Canada, Tokyo</span> Diplomatic mission of Canada to Japan

The Embassy of Canada to Japan is the main diplomatic mission from Canada to Japan, located in Tokyo. This embassy is Canada's third oldest "foreign" legation after Paris and Washington, D.C..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ismaili Centre, Toronto</span> Mosque in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The Ismaili Centre, Toronto is a congregation place and community centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the sixth Ismaili Centre in the world. Situated in a park that it shares with the Aga Khan Museum adjacent to the Don Valley Parkway in North York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Centre represents the permanent presence of the Ismaili Muslim community in Toronto, Ontario and Canada.

Fast + Epp is an international structural engineering firm headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia with offices in Edmonton, Calgary, New York, Seattle, and Darmstadt, Germany. The company first achieved international acclaim following the design of the roof structure for the 2010 Richmond Olympic Oval and has become a world leader in the design of timber and hybrid steel-timber structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbon12</span> Mixed-use in Oregon, United States

Carbon12 is a wooden building in Portland, Oregon's Eliot neighborhood, in the United States. The eight-story structure built with Oregon-made cross-laminated timber (CLT) became the tallest wood building in the United States upon its completion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Sears (architect)</span> Canadian architect (1929–2003)

Henry Sears was a Canadian modernist architect, and an urban and gallery planner. He was a founding partner of both Klein & Sears Architects and Sears & Russell Architects Ltd. His work centred around social housing development on a neighbourhood scale. It spanned Canada, the United States and Europe.

LGA Architectural Partners (LGA) is an architectural firm based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that specializes in creating sustainable, contextually-sensitive and socially-minded architecture. Their diverse portfolio "represents a wide range of building types that are unified in their commitment to strengthening social objectives". The firm, which has been in practice for over 30 years, is known for its socially responsible architecture and "have been leaders in encouraging this approach". They are also known for their work as advocates for social and affordable housing. According to the RAIC's 2019 Architectural Firm Award jury, "Their community-minded approach, combined with innovative design strategies and a sensitivity to sustainability, makes their architecture both aspirational and impressive".

BNKC Architects is a Toronto-based design firm founded in 1969. Originally known as Joseph Bogdan Associates and Bogdan Newman Caranci Architects, the firm's name change to BNKC was established in 2019.  

Michael Green Architecture Inc., commonly referred to as MGA, is a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based multi-disciplinary architecture and interior design firm founded by Michael Green (architect) in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BDP Quadrangle</span> Canadian architecture and interior design firm

BDP Quadrangle is the North American studio of UK-based global architecture, design, and urbanism firm, BDP.

Natalie Telewiak AIBC, M.Arch., LEED AP is a Canadian architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Place des Arts (Sudbury)</span> Canadian arts center

Place des Arts opened its doors as the first multidisciplinary arts centre in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, in 2022. The architecture firms Moriyama & Teshima and Bélanger Salach were tasked with designing a building to house seven prominent francophone arts and culture organizations united under the Le Regroupement des organismes culturels de Sudbury (ROCS): Carrefour Francophone, La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Centre Franco-Ontarien de Folklore, Concerts La Nuit sur l'étang, Èditions Prise de parole, Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (TNO) and the Salon du livre du Grand-Sudbury.

Eladia Smoke is an Indigenous Canadian architect based in Hamilton, Ontario. She is Anishinaabekwe, Ojibwe from Obishikokaang, Lac Seul First Nation, with family roots in Alderville First Nation. Graduating from the University of Manitoba, Smoke has been working as an Architect since 2002. Founder and principal architect of Smoke Architecture, Eladia Smoke's work consists of light-filled public buildings that connect with the natural environment and brings light to indigenous voices. Smoke is best known for her designs of the award-winning Mukqua Waakaa’igan Indigenous Centre of Cultural Excellence in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, and her carbon free design of Centennial College’s A-block expansion in Scarborough, ON.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bélanger Salach Architecture</span>

Bélanger Salach Architecture is a bilingual, full-service architectural firm that is located in Sudbury, Ontario. The firm was founded in 1964 by Arthur Townend along with his partner John Stefura. Since its founding, it has been involved in the design of numerous buildings within the landscape of Sudbury.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Schofield, Shane (March 29, 2022). "Limberlost Place: Leading the Mass-Timber Movement". WaterfronToronto. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
  2. ↑ Weder, Adele (October 3, 2023). "Spreading the Wood: Three projects that are leading the way in Canadian mass timber innovation". Canadian Architect. Retrieved February 23, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 Future, Rethinking The (2022-11-21). "Limberlost Place | Moriyama & Teshima Architects (MTA) and Acton Ostry Architects (AOA)". Rethinking The Future Awards. Retrieved 2024-02-25.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Lam, Elsa (2023-04-18). "2023 RAIC Awards: Limberlost Place". Canadian Architect. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  5. 1 2 3 Toronto, Waterfront. "Waterfront Toronto celebrates design excellence with first ever Waterfront Design Review Panel Awards". www.newswire.ca. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  6. 1 2 "Moriyama Teshima Architects". LOOP Design Awards. September 22, 2023. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  7. 1 2 Future, Rethinking The (2023-11-21). "Limberlost Place | Moriyama Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects". Rethinking The Future Awards. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  8. ↑ Martin, Jason (2021-11-23). "Coming full circle: wood and the circular economy | n:w explains". naturally:wood. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  9. ↑ Souza, Eduardo (2020-12-07). "After All, Is Using Wood in Architecture Sustainable?". ArchDaily. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  10. 1 2 Mohammad, Mohammad; Tourrilhes, Julie; Coxford, Richard; Williamson, Miranda (2023). "Recent Advancements in Mass Timber Construction Technologies in Canada". World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2023): 4518–4527. doi:10.52202/069179-0589. ISBN   978-1-7138-7329-7.
  11. ↑ Canada, Natural Resources (2017-09-29). "Green Construction through Wood (GCWood) Program". natural-resources.canada.ca. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  12. 1 2 3 "Canada Shines on Global Design Stage as Architizer A+ Award Winners Announced | UrbanToronto". urbantoronto.ca. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  13. 1 2 3 "Ontario's First Mass-Timber, Net-Zero Institutional Building Closer to Completion". PCL Construction. August 21, 2023. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  14. 1 2 Mazzucco, Lucy (2023-09-22). "Ontario's First Mass-Timber, Net-Zero Institutional Building Tops Out". Canadian Architect. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  15. ↑ Kuitenbrouwer, Peter (2021-12-14). "Work begins on George Brown 'plyscraper'". Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada): A6.
  16. 1 2 3 4 "Limberlost Place gears up for WAF award presentation - Link2Build". link2build.ca. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  17. ↑ "Building Code updates". Ontario. November 20, 2023. Retrieved 2024-02-25.
  18. ↑ Moffatt, Laura (2019-04-07). "The Arbour". Canadian Architect. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  19. ↑ Future, Rethinking The (2019-03-18). "The Arbour' - George Brown College Tall Wood Building | Moriyama & Teshima Architects & Acton Ostry Architects". Rethinking The Future Awards. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  20. ↑ "The Arbour Receives Gold World Architecture News Award". Introba. 2019-10-15. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  21. 1 2 azureproduction (2019-06-12). "AZ Awards 2019 Winner: The Arbour". Azure Magazine. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  22. ↑ "The Arbour Receives Future Project Award Sustainability Prize". Introba. 2019-03-22. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  23. ↑ "ACEC-Ontario 2021 Awards Engineering Excellence Finalists and Winners". ACEC-Ontario. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  24. ↑ "Winners 2022 Global Future Design Awards" . Retrieved 2024-02-24.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.