Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship, University of Toronto

The Myhal Centre showcases an architecture that is disciplined and quiet. It is not about itself, but about the activities that will occur within it and change over time. This is an architecture that is robust and enduring. Located at the heart of the city centre campus, the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (MCEIE) serves the University’s wide range of engineering disciplines, from heavy mechanical engineering through to computer engineering. The Centre signals a new era for engineering education through a design that encourages group work outside the traditional seminar room, providing dynamic and flexible environments that break down artificial barriers between people, foster collaboration, encourage active learning and accelerate innovation. Occupying the last unbuilt site along the University’s historic St George Street, the building acknowledges its significant position as a building in the round, providing a transparent and permeable ground floor that creates both physical and visual connections to its surroundings. The eight-storey building includes a sophisticated 500 seat collaborative lecture theatre, workshop and lab spaces, innovation incubator suites allied to industry presence rooms, versatile design studios and a doubleheight extra-curricular club space called ‘The Arena’ large enough to allow for drone flight and testing. This 7,500 square metres of net programme space is balanced by an additional 7,500 square metres of non nett area, including shared social learning spaces, common areas, coffee bars, atria, and event spaces. Designed to be an exemplar of low-energy design for the city and university the building has an anticipated energy use intensity (EUI) of 100 kWh/m², less than half that of its university neighbours. Collaboration, active learning and innovation The MCEIE is designed to enhance the student experience and enable collaboration between students, faculty, alumni and, particularly, industry partners. The sense of how the building could facilitate this was a prime driver behind the design. Clustering accommodation around and within an atrium space not only allows visibility between the different users, but encourages informal meetings at open staircases, balconies and walkways. Transparency of rooms and open plan space which faces onto the atrium facilitates this, whilst adding life to this communal space. The design reflects the Faculty’s spirit of creativity, inclusivity and leadership, supporting and enabling the existing culture of innovative start-ups and patents coming from the school. University of Toronto St Georges Campus St Georges Campus in downtown Toronto is the oldest of the three University of Toronto campuses, made up of a mix buildings from the late 19th century to the present day. Located next to Simcoe Hall and fronting onto St. George Street, the Myhal Centre is designed to have a positive, transformative impact on both the streetscape and the campus at large. The transparent and permeable double-height entrance hall and exhibition space engages passers-by and creates a sense of vibrancy at street level. It opens onto a new forecourt with a 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 bioclimatic design of the façade results in four distinct strategies corresponding to the cardinal solar orientations – all without sacrificing generous access to light and views. Projecting vertical pre-cast fins shade the East and West façades. A dominant horizontal fin then shades the south façades. MCEIE was designed with a 100 year design life, and opens as one of the three most sustainable higher education facilities in Canada. Constructed to Toronto Green Standard Tier 2, it has anticipated energy use intensity (EUI) of 100 kWh/m², compared with 200–300 kWh/m² for the typical existing UoT Campus buildings. This figure represents a 25 per cent efficiency improvement over the Ontario Building Code. The annual energy production of the building is estimated at approximately 70,000 kWh. Some of the features leading to this enhanced energy profile include: • A high-performance building envelope, including R-22 walls and an R-26 roof • Energy-efficient LED lighting, with occupancy sensors and perimeter daylight harvesting controls • Collection of storm water for irrigation • Localized instantaneous electric domestic hot water heaters, to avoid the energy loss of a domestic hot water recirculation system. • An 80 kW rooftop photovoltaic system • Exposed thermal mass • Well insulated, shaded façade with optimised glazing percentages.