“BUILD TORONTO” OFFICE BUILDING

IN TRANSIT

This office building scheme over York Mills subway station was initially conceived for ‘Build Toronto’ as a new home for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). Two wing-like office trays levitate and gather around a luminous lobby/core that acts as an organizational hinge and solar chimney for the building.

INTERSECTION: CITY AND NATURE

The commission began with an assignment by the city of Toronto’s real estate management agency, ‘Build Toronto,’ to create a vision for a better, more intensive use of a key city-owned property.

The site is currently a surface parking lot, at the corner of Yonge and York Mills in North Toronto, located directly above the subway.

LOW, SLEEK, DOUBLE WING

Sketch designs for the site suggest a low, sleek, levitating double wing atrium building with a luminous solar chimney at its head, that achieves appropriate density without breaking a psychological height envelope for the site.

TRANSIT EXEMPLAR

Early design drawings imagine the city-owned TTC as the principal tenant, with a transit museum accessible from the subway at the base of the building.