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2008 Governor General’s Medals
in Architecture
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Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and
Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto |
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 A slender, transparent 12-storey tower resting elegantly between adjacent heritage buildings is suspended above a new landscaped forecourt and concourse leading from College Street through to the heart of the campus. A five-storey glazed and planted atrium connecting to the adjacent heritage building, together with multi-storey “winter gardens” distributed on upper floors, creates a green and light-filled environment that completely transforms traditional ideas of lab buildings.
The mix of amenity, flexibility and spatial connectivity, the “cool factor” of advanced sustainable design features, and the commitment to innovation implicit in a sophisticated contemporary architecture will enable the University to draw the world’s best and brightest research minds to the TDCCBR.
Clarity and lightness clearly communicates the Centre’ s intentions to the rest of the academic community, and to the public at large. The TDCCBR is intended a symbol of openness and civic-mindedness. It provides an open, approachable home for a rapidly developing area of science about which the public knows little. It literally "renders science visible".
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Jury Comment:
This building presents a generous figure of programme elements, which participate in the urban streetscape while mediating the level change between campus and street with a free-flowing series of terraces and open connections to surrounding exterior spaces. The enlargement of public corridors at several levels, combined with stair connections on the west face of the building, create generous, casual meeting places for spontaneous interaction between researchers. |
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John McMinn |
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