Upcoming Events

Join us as we kick off the 2019 building tour season with a visit to the recently completed Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto!

“…we are interested in architecture that aspires to an idea of engineering precision while encouraging the messy and chaotic activities of human beings, an ideal of the mind with plenty of room for the body. Essentially, a building for engineering study occupied by engineers.”

Robert Davies (Montgomery Sisam Architects) and Peter Clegg (Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios)

Project Description

The Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship heralds a new era in engineering education with dynamic, flexible environments that bring students, faculty, researchers, alumni, and industry partners together to foster collaboration, encourage active learning and accelerate innovation. The eight storey building features 500 seat lecture theatre, state-of-the-art collaborative classrooms, workshops, lab spaces and fabrication facilities as well as several large multidisciplinary research centres and institutes. It balances 7,500 square metres of net program space with an additional 7,500 square metres of shared social learning spaces, including lounges, coffee bars, atria, and event halls.

Located next to Simcoe Hall and fronting St. George Street, the Myhal Centre occupies the last unbuilt site on the campus’s main thoroughfare the campus’ main and historic thoroughfare, and is designed to have positive, transformative impact on both the streetscape and the campus at large. The transparent and permeable double-height entrance hall and exhibition space engages passersby and creates a sense of vibrancy at street level. It opens onto a new forecourt with a two-storey colonnade that runs the length of the façade. The building’s expression is premised on a dignified and restrained architecture respectful of its academic setting in terms of material, composition and scale. The intuitively obvious bioclimatic design of the facade results in four distinct strategies corresponding to the cardinal solar orientations – all without sacrificing generous access to light and views.

Designed to an energy intensity index of 100 ekWh/m2, the Myhal Centre opens as one of the three most sustainable post-secondary facilities in Canada. It targets a useful service life of 100 years and adopts an on-going verification process to monitor its performance.

Project Team

Montgomery Sisam Architects + Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Robert Davies, Peter Clegg, Jason Dobbin, Simon Doody, Tony Ross, Shannon Wiley

Tour Guides

• Robert (Bob) Davies, Principal, Montgomery Sisam Architects
• Shannon Wiley, Associate, Montgomery Sisam Architects

PLEASE NOTE: TSA Members can join for free! Use the code in our last TSA Bulletin to gain access to your free ticket! Not a member yet? You can join the TSA and get access to discounts and free member programming by registering online using this link.