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T he University of Toronto's Mississauga campus isn't grow- ing as much as it is transforming. And the latest new-build is an infill project to house The Institute for Management & Innovation as well as the registrar's office and one of the campus' largest gathering spaces. UTM's attention to detail and its willingness to see the campus as a canvas for architectural artistry has helped it to develop into more than just a response to a demand for space. Located minutes west of Toronto on a 225-acre protected greenbelt along the Credit River, UTM's 2.5-million square feet of built space offers a range of architectural expression. From the Instructional Building's green-patinated copper strips and the Communication, Culture and Technology Build- ing's contemporary glass exterior, to the Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex's playfully stacked boxes, architec- tural tourists are apt to find something remarkable in most of the structures. Into this rich context comes the Moriyama & Teshima- designed Innovation Complex, a three-storey glass and alu- minum-panelled block that sits on a reflective curtain-wall base and whose upper floors are wrapped in a series of white, powder-coated aluminum fins. Set vertically, the fins, which stand off from the building by a foot, serve to animate the structure as you move around it. From the exterior's paved circulation area, designed by Aldershot Landscape Contractors, the entrance side offers a straight-on view of the upper floor office windows and bright panels. But walk past the black pavers that subtly designate the entrance, and move to a corner and your perspective shifts. The fins align and form a white mass animated by the horizontal shadow that is the light of the windows playing on this white canvas. "To knit this part of the campus together, we needed to do something that was in the palette of neutrality but never- the-less appeared bold in its form as seen from a distance yet rich in expression for the pedestrian experience," explains Location University of Toronto Mississauga, Ontario cLient University of Toronto Mississauga Design-BuiLD contractor PCL Constructors Canada Inc. architect Moriyama & Teshima Architects structuraL consuLtant Entuitive Corporation MechanicaL/eLectricaL consuLtant Hidi Rae Consulting Engineers Inc. LanDscape architect Aldershot Landscape Contractors totaL area 68,000 square feet totaL VaLue of Design-BuiLD- finance contract $35 million Carol Phillips, the principal in charge of the project. The $35-million design-build, a project spearheaded by PCL Construc- tors, was erected to accommodate the growing enrolment in management and economics, and to provide a home to the Institute for Management and Innovation. "Up until these new buildings open, we have been playing catch-up on space in order to provide the right academic experience," explains Paul Donoghue, UTM's chief administrative officer. But the link between the need for new space and increased enrolment, he explains, is not so much about classrooms as it is offices. "If a department wants to recruit more faculty, we have to figure out where to put them." Its second and third floors house as many as 68 faculty offices and the campus registrar's office occupies some 9,000 square feet of the ground floor – with room to expand. Class- rooms are tucked neatly into the lower level where lecture halls, a simulated trading floor and 16 case study rooms are separated from the main corridors by glass walls to keep each interior space bright and animated. The Innovation Complex is fully integrated with the two- storey Kaneff Centre (constructed in 1992 and which houses the management and economics departments), to whom it owes its most distinctive interior feature, the rotunda. The Kaneff Centre's curvilinear perimeter wall served as inspira- tion for what is now a two-and-a-half-storey rotunda. One of the structural challenges involved connecting Kaneff to the Innovation Complex, specifically, connecting it to the atrium. The existing Kaneff Centre columns provide gravity support for roof beams that extend radially from the rotunda perimeter ring beams. In all, there are approximately 20 connections spread throughout the second floor and at roof level. "It was an intricate little puzzle," recalls Cory Raymond of PCL Constructors, describing how esthetic precast concrete panels were removed from the Kaneff Centre to expose some of the structural steel so that "seats" could be welded to the columns to provide a landing for the horizontal supports that extended from the rotunda. "We used sliding bearing connections to isolate the rotunda from the Kaneff Centre and protect it from earthquake and wind forces," says Paul Tomasik of Entuitive Corporation, the project's structural consultant. The rotunda is also set lower than the ground floor of the buildings it serves to join. By dropping the rotunda down a level, it gives the space a sense of occasion, explains Phillips. "A student common is a place where all students can feel connected to the campus identity. It is a place for casual learning, structured learning, socializing and student cen- tered events. But the rotunda is also for ceremonial events, academic and career events showcasing the achievements of students, celebrations, formal lectures and even perfor- mance," she says. The challenge, Phillips explains, was to design a space that bridged these extremes, to design for the individual student and the collective of the university campus. Awash with the flow of activity and bathed in natural light, the rotunda sits like a secret belied by the building's mono- lithic exterior. Inside, the full-bed terrazzo floors and lime- stone walls can light pink when the rays of the setting sun stream through the space's clerestory. Given the tight construction timelines, the interior lime- stone finish in this space was installed using an innovative fas- tening system. The limestone is laminated to a panel with an aluminum honeycomb backing system that can be anchored directly to a wall, thus eliminating the added expense and time of drywall. Joins are caulked with a bead of light grey and the effect is that of mortar and stone. Finding ways to save time was one of the keys to this proj- ect's success. It was awarded to the PCL team at the end of 2012 and by May 2013, work around in an open cut excava- tion in the loose, sandy soil was being carefully managed by the PCL team. "We had one egress to the site," says PCL's Raymond, "and it was off the bus route so we couldn't easily stage trucks and equipment. And we had operational buildings on either side, and students walking back and forth. There was a lot of traffic co-ordination with campus police." Regardless, the space was operational and in use by the start of the academic year in 2014. n University of Toronto Mississauga's Innovation Complex by Yvan Marston courtesy MoriyaMa & teshiMa architects University of Toronto Mississauga's Innovation Complex 44/ oCTober 2014

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