Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/177525
oronto's inancial district is spreading south of the tracks with the opening of the Southcore Financial Centre's irst of three buildings, the 26-storey PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) Tower. Originally part of Toronto's waterfront, the site was later covered by rail lines and buildings, then fell into disuse before becoming a parking lot. In September 2011, the building's namesake moved in, along with many other businesses (the tower is 98 per cent leased). "The building provides tenants with a supportive of ice environment that offers incredible access to daylight, seductive views, loft-like space and a LEED-Gold-targeted sustainability approach," says Chris Couse, principalin-charge of KPMB Architects. The building came together using an increasingly popular integrated approach, "synthesizing inputs of the various design professionals, numerous stakeholder groups within GWL Realty Advisors Inc, contracting forces, municipal and regulatory bodies, and adjacent land owners," says Gunars Robeznieks, regional manager with Pivotal Projects Inc and Pivotal's Project Director representative at the PwC Tower. The philosophy of integration spread to the electrical systems. "We worked with the design team to implement systems convergence in the building using Cisco switches," says Joe Berardi, executive vice-president of Mulvey & Banani International Inc., of the building's Cisco Smart + Connected IP network. "All electronic components communicate over one common backbone: lighting control, window blind control, building automation system, security system, electronic metering system. And it's expandable. The same service can be offered to tenants." "We got all the 'proprietariness' of the system out of that facility," explains Stephen Foster, director of ICT services for EllisDon Corporation. "PwC has 646 of ices," Foster offers as an example. "They wanted to install traditional light switches and dimmers. We put the light switches on the phones and saved them $342,000. There's a myth about smart buildings costing more to build. We have documented proof that we can build it cheaper and make it more ef icient." In Toronto, the stormwater runoff rate post-development must match the pre-development runoff rate. "A rainwater cistern provides both stormwater management and grey water for toilets and irrigation of the development's green roofs and planting beds," notes Kaid Al-Ani, associate partner with The Mitchell Partnership Inc. "We developed an energy-ef icient lighting system," says Berardi. "The whole tower has a dimmable lighting 18 York Street – PwC Tower p.62-67York_Penticton.indd 63 COURTESY KPMB ARCHITECTS T 18 York Street – PwC Tower by Luigi Benetton control system integrated with occupancy sensors as well as photosensors for daylight harvesting." The hybrid Enwave/thermal storage concept may be the most innovative mechanical system in the building. "Many buildings in the downtown core run off Enwave deep-lake-water cooling," says Al-Ani. "The system is close to peak usage, but the off-hours market was still wide open. At night, when the buildings are unoccupied and the solar load isn't there and the temperature drops, there's a substantial drop in load. We found a way to tap into that period of time, to store the energy at night and reuse it during the day." Six 500-cubic-metre tanks, ive of which are full of water at any one time, are part of a closed system used to cool the building. The building cools the water in the closed system at night and uses it during the day, thus bene itting from lower off-peak Enwave rates. Both the lighting and cooling systems contribute to an energy model for the building that projects energy performance better than 37 per cent below the Model National Energy Code for Buildings (MNECB) guidelines. FEBRUARY 2012 /63 1/23/12 10:39:16 AM