Discipline : Architecture
Categories :
Public Building / Higher Education & Research Building
: Grand Winner
As the first university campus in the City of Markham, a Toronto suburb, York University’s new campus building innovates by challenging the traditional academic building typology and defining a collegial academic community within a vertically integrated 10-storey academic campus. The vertical campus optimizes the compact site and creates a new post-secondary academic presence northeast of Toronto—serving as a catalyst for future growth in the region.
The 400,000sf academic building accommodates 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students across a collection of different programs. Collaboration between the diverse programs and disparate disciplines is supported by interconnected floors, fluid spatial geometry, and visually connected work zones.
Ten floors of highly flexible, and efficient teaching and learning spaces are organized around a dynamic, interconnected, multi-storey atrium. This open central forum is the social and academic crossroads for the university. With the sculptural form of the building, the atrium stair opens a continuous visual language between interior and envelope, with lofty floor-to-floor heights defining the openness of the campus.
Establishing a strong urban presence and identity within Markham’s emerging city centre, the building is anchored by a five-storey podium that opens from a highly accessible entry on University Boulevard fostering connections with the community. Bronze-anodized aluminum clads the exterior, punctuated by a syncopated fenestration pattern. Deep building recesses at mid-levels and curved geometries in plan are among features that distinguish the campus and give it a dynamic presence.
A key challenge was the site’s high-water table and poor load bearing capacity. A six-metre grade change was created as a design solution to address the site’s upward water pressure. Thus, the building opens onto a sloping Campus Green at three levels, strengthening its connection to the new landscape, as well as to future development phases which will include a second academic building and student residence.
