BEAToronto Tour: Women of Limberlost

Join BEAT for an exclusive tour of Limberlost Place, led by four women whose contributions were key to the design and construction of this landmark project.

Located on George Brown Polytechnic’s Waterfront Campus, the 10-storey Limberlost Place is Canada’s only—and possibly the world’s first—academic mass timber tower. To accomplish this feat, the team led by Moriyama Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects needed to achieve the longer spans required for classrooms with mass timber, as well as to overcome regulatory hurdles related to the occupant load of an assembly-type building.

Added to the use of mass timber was a host of other sustainability ambitions: a passive, natural ventilation strategy for the building to achieve net-zero emissions, a pre-fabricated façade to save time and materials, and a small-footprint, localized mechanical system that would open up the penthouse to become an events space.

Achieving this tightly integrated design vision required an exceptional degree of teamwork and capacity for creative problem-solving. This tour highlights a few of the several remarkable women who held key project team roles, working to meet these challenges and realize the building.

The tour will be led by:

– Carol Phillips, Partner, Moriyama Teshima Architects

– Nerys Rau, Executive Director of Facilities and Sustainability, George Brown Polytechnic

– Krista Palen, Partner, Transsolar KlimaEngineering

– Kayley Mullings, Senior Interior Designer, Moriyama Teshima Architects