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AUGUST 2017 | 59 EY Tower RENDERINGS COURTESY KOHN PEDERSEN FOX ASSOCIATES (KPF) an adjacent plaza. "That facade folds out and gestures to the pedestrian scale of the plaza," says Chaiken. The tower also boasts vertical sun shading fins on the east and west faces, and horizontal shading on the south. "The final design closely matches the initial concept, even while it was developed to meet LEED Platinum standards." When pressed to elaborate, Chaiken replies, "For example, the cladding was especially challenging: the tenants understandably would want to maximize natural light, so there were many calculations and adjustments with regards to how much spandrel glass we could use without reducing glazed area. Smith + Andersen deserve a lot of credit for helping to capture as much natural light as possible, while minimizing energy costs." In addition to a high-performance building envelope, mechanical and electrical systems that would contribute to achieving LEED Platinum standards included zoned climate- control systems with dual ventilation systems for temperature and fresh- air supply, daylight and motion sensors, state-of-the-art lighting controls and electric car parking. A green roof near the lower levels doubles as an outdoor amenity area. From the perspective of WSP (formerly MMM Group and the electrical consultants for the project), EY Tower was unique in that "Oxford wanted all the building elements – controls, lighting, security – to be integrated on one network," says senior project manager Alex Petroff. "Usually it's the tenants who demand this, so Oxford was being extremely forward thinking. Plus, given that power is distributed to the IT room and from there is distributed via cable wire to all the different components, you eliminate thousands of pounds of electrical wire." Alexander Lui, WSP's manager, commercial and sustainability, says in addition to a central UPS supporting EY Tower's smart building IT infrastructure, his company was responsible for myriad subtle electrical elements throughout the facility: "For example, we increased the standard lighting levels in the stairwells by 50 percent to encourage people to use the stairs for exercise. Music would also be piped into the stairwells for this purpose." Jackson describes the construction schedule for the tower as "very aggressive; we were finishing one floor every four days, which we're proud of, considering the tower's unique form means that no two levels are exactly alike." Jackson credits close collaboration with Stephenson Engineering for the timely completion of one of the most complex stages of the construction process: a complex web of structural steel that caps the tower atop the two-storey penthouse. "Stephenson designed it with extensive computer modelling, and essentially it provides Ernst & Young with an atrium space rising 65 feet into the air," he says. With Ernst & Young and many other tenants already calling EY Tower home, Chaiken looks back on the project "as one that was enormously complex but handled extremely well by all parties. It's a beautiful facility – and a great example of how one can carefully and incrementally add density to a city's downtown core." A

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