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AUGUST 2018 | 87 North York Central Library Renovation PHOTOGRAPHY BY LISA LOGAN PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY DIAMOND SCHMITT ARCHITECTS North York Central Library Renovation by LAURIE JONES T he North York Central Library has been a gathering place in Toronto for over 30 years. Part of a complex that includes a hotel, subway access, food court, and shopping areas, it is the busiest library in the city, accommodat- ing 1.5-million visitors each year. "The North York Library has six floors plus a concourse level, for a total of seven floors," says Gary McCluskie, principal, Diamond Schmitt Architects. "The first three floors were addressed in phase 1, and the two remaining phases of construction will include lev- els four and five in the fall." He adds the third phase will focus on mechanical equipment, chillers and coolers, and a lot of the infrastructure of the building. "Everything on the inside of this 30-year-old building has been touched," McCluskie explains. "It will be interesting to see how the public reacts because it has been upgraded, updated, and has a completely new environment and spirit on the inside of the building. For the users and commu- nity members who know the space, this should be quite a dramatic change." McCluskie says the evolution of media in the library setting has led to a more intensive use of spaces. "We rethought the space and how the public uses of it. In particular, a lot of people still use quiet spaces for reading and study. All of that has been maintained." What the public will notice is how much more access to usable space is available at the heart of the build- ing. "In this area there is a five-storey atrium that brings light into the struc- ture. In the past the atrium was just for circulation. Now we have brought active user/reader spaces to the entire perimeter of the atrium. The stairs have been widened so they can be used on one side as amphitheatre seating. The atrium is now entirely wrapped with informal reader spaces. When people walk into the ground floor, look in at the new entrance and up, they are going to see the spaces that they can inhabit. There are informal, reflective spaces and a number of quiet study rooms have also been added." He says they have doubled the number of seats or spaces within the library. Programs within the library include the Kid's Stop, a program for early liter- acy, and equipment such as 3D printers, green screens, a recording studio with sound baffles, and other media that are creating a system where the library will have access to the emerg- ing technical infrastructure. "It's an opportunity to experiment with the equipment," says McCluskie. Steve Rambajan, senior project manager with Struct-Con Construction Ltd., says the city of Toronto is updat- ing and modernizing many of its facilities, and the North York Library is one of them. "We are installing divider walls and study cubicles in the spaces where students can go in the room and close the door, turn on the laptop and have a quiet room to study or do work." Rambajan notes one of the wow factors is the design of the feature staircase. "When people walk into the library off the main floor they get a visual of grandness with stainless steel light troughs and decorative ceilings. When you stand on the main level and look up at the atrium, you see a lot of architectural glass, curved features, and half-wall balconies." Rambajan says these have added to the movement within the library. "Instead of just having elevators to get off at designated levels, we have enhanced specific floors. The stair- well accesses all floors with decorative balconies, and tempered glass and stainless steel handrails." Sean Lou-Hing, senior engi- neer, Entuitive Corporation, says the primary structural renovations to the existing building were mostly around the reshaping of the atrium. "The original building from the 1980s was a bit dated, so the aspirations were to express a more flowing and curved slab with glass balustrades. Structurally we had to reshape all of the existing slabs which meant taking out concrete and adding new concrete and steel in other areas." Lou-Hing says the feature staircase has been designed to extend part of the existing concrete stairs. "We dou- bled the size of it to create some study terraces and reading platforms or bal- conies. This was quite challenging because the platforms were canti- levered off the floor slabs and were essentially floating in the air." He notes large bays of existing structure had to be removed to have two- or three-sto- rey height spaces to help interconnect the levels. While, for the most part, the library's mechanical needs were already in place, Heather Zilstra, proj- ect manager for Smith + Andersen says the focus was on updating the existing services – HVAC, plumbing and sprin- kler systems – to accommodate the new structural layout. "We also added some kitchenettes because there are a lot of staff spaces in this building." New plumbing fixtures such as toilets, replaced the old units. The electrical systems needed a slightly more significant overhaul to accommodate the library's new design and modern technology. "A lot of elec- trical was redesigned in the library to suit today's needs, which has a lot more digital requirements than when the building was first designed in the 80s," says Michael Baioff, electrical designer with Smith + Andersen. "The visual media lounge, conference rooms, meet- ing rooms and study rooms weren't previously there. Updating the elec- trical systems was important in order to adequately support these new pro- grams and the electrical load. We also had to rework some of the existing sys- tems to make them compatible." Baioff says that many of the exist- ing lighting systems were replaced with LED options. The new feature staircase required specific lighting to accommo- date the double-height ceilings. "We had to specify light fixtures that had a higher lumen output to support a uniform look throughout the building, while also meeting the desired light levels." A LOCATION 5120 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario OWNER/DEVELOPER Toronto Public Library ARCHITECT Diamond Schmitt Architects GENERAL CONTRACTOR Struct-Con Construction Ltd. STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT Entuitive MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT Smith + Andersen TOTAL SIZE 168,000 square feet TOTAL COST $27 million 7:57 AM

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