The University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (UTSC) is set to receive a new student-centered learning and support hub courtesy of ZAS Architects, in collaboration with CEBRA Architecture.
The design of the building is inspired by the form of a 19th century Printer’s Tray. The building’s four distinct facades mirror the tray’s compartments and represent the diversity of spaces and educational environments within. The framed grid that forms the building’s facade creates a design that combines various volumes, scales, surfaces, and spatial qualities.
The facility is described as a dynamic learning landscape that promotes agile and asynchronous education through a complex arrangement of rooms and open public spaces spanning multiple floors. Artificially-created terrain spills from the outside in to create a hybrid of social and study areas that support campus life.
Students will have access to a multitude of flexible, technology-enabled spaces, including 21 classrooms ranging from a 500-seat auditorium (dubbed the Campfire auditorium) to 24-seat active learning environments. The learning spaces sit on top of each other. Creating opportunities for platform and bleacher seating space known as the Knoll, which scales the roof of the 210-seat Butterfly Cave tiered auditorium.
A large study/social space, dubbed the Office, sits atop the Campfire auditorium, which protrudes two meters above the ground floor. Ascending rows allow for spatial flexibility and create a dynamic viewing experience for students, promoting immersive learning in an interactive, asynchronous environment with surrounding digital screens. The learning landscape extends horizontally across the ground floor, which features a recessed facade that is highly transparent with mullion-free structural glass panes. At the top of the building, meanwhile, two rooftop gardens will merge indoor and outdoor spaces to enhance the public realm within the upper floors.
Health and wellness elements are featured throughout, but are central to the fifth floor, where the campus-wide Student Affairs programs will be consolidated and prioritized into one central and accessible space. This will include counseling and mental health resources, a meditation and breastfeeding room, a physician and nurse office, academic advising and accessibility services, and multiple co-working spaces.
Related Stories
| Apr 12, 2011
College of New Jersey facility will teach teachers how to teach
The College of New Jersey broke ground on its 79,000-sf School of Education building in Ewing, N.J.
| Mar 23, 2011
After 60 years of student lobbying, new activity center opens at University of Texas
The new Student Activity Center at the University of Texas campus, Austin, is the result of almost 60 years of students lobbying for another dedicated social and cultural center on campus. The 149,000-sf facility is designed to serve as the "campus living room," and should earn a LEED Gold certification, a first for the campus.
| Mar 18, 2011
Universities will compete to build a campus on New York City land
New York City announced that it had received 18 expressions of interest in establishing a research center from universities and corporations around the world. Struggling to compete with Silicon Valley, Boston, and other high-tech hubs, officials charged with developing the city’s economy have identified several city-owned sites that might serve as a home for the research center for applied science and engineering that they hope to establish.
| Mar 15, 2011
What Starbucks taught us about redesigning college campuses
Equating education with a cup of coffee might seem like a stretch, but your choice of college, much like your choice of coffee, says something about the ability of a brand to transform your day. When Perkins + Will was offered the chance to help re-think the learning spaces of Miami Dade College, we started by thinking about how our choice of morning coffee has changed over the years, and how we could apply those lessons to education.
| Mar 11, 2011
University of Oregon scores with new $227 million basketball arena
The University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena opened January 13 with a men’s basketball game against USC where the Ducks beat the Trojans, 68-62. The $227 million arena, which replaces the school’s 84-year-old McArthur Court, has a seating bowl pitched at 36 degrees to replicate the close-to-the-action feel of the smaller arena it replaced, although this new one accommodates 12,364 fans.
| Mar 11, 2011
Historic McKim Mead White facility restored at Columbia University
Faculty House, a 1923 McKim Mead White building on Columbia University’s East Campus, could no longer support the school’s needs, so the historic 38,000-sf building was transformed into a modern faculty dining room, graduate student meeting center, and event space for visiting lecturers, large banquets, and alumni organizations.
| Mar 11, 2011
Texas A&M mixed-use community will focus on green living
HOK, Realty Appreciation, and Texas A&M University are working on the Urban Living Laboratory, a 1.2-million-sf mixed-use project owned by the university. The five-phase, live-work-play project will include offices, retail, multifamily apartments, and two hotels.
| Mar 11, 2011
Slam dunk for the University of Nebraska’s basketball arena
The University of Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball programs will have a new home beginning in 2013. Designed by the DLR Group, the $344 million West Haymarket Civic Arena in Lincoln, Neb., will have 16,000 seats, suites, club amenities, loge, dedicated locker rooms, training rooms, and support space for game operations.
| Feb 23, 2011
The library is dead, long live the library
The Society for College and University Planning asked its members to voice their thoughts on the possible death of academic libraries. And many did. The good news? It's not all bad news. A summary of their members' comments appears on the SCUP blog.
