Special to Ontario Construction News
Limberlost Place, a 10-storey mass-timber structure on Toronto’s waterfront, has been named Global Best Project of the Year by U.S. magazine Engineering News-Record.
Owned by George Brown Polytechnic and constructed under the management of PCL Constructors Canada Inc., Limberlost Place is an institutional building targeting net-zero emissions that could contribute to revisions of national and provincial building codes to allow for mass-timber buildings greater than six storeys.
Lead design firms Moriyama Teshima Architects & Acton Ostry Architects collaborated on the project that opened to students last fall as home to George Brown’s School of Architectural Studies, School of Computer Technology, and Canada’s first Tall Wood Research Institute.
The project also won the Best Education/Research award at the annual program that recognizes innovative and influential construction projects worldwide. A panel of industry leaders selected thirty-two projects from approximately ninety entries across twenty-four countries.
The panel said the project sets new standards for sustainable construction, incorporating natural ventilation, solar chimneys, and deep-water cooling.
The facility includes a slab band structural system that advances the use of mass timber in multi-storey buildings, along with North America’s largest mass timber columns that are more than three stories tall and a mass timber stair spanning levels three to five.
Limberlost Place, which has two solar chimneys that create natural convection, uses Enwave’s Deep Lake Cooling and Heating System to draw energy from Lake Ontario. It has a steeply sloped roof optimized for solar panels, oriented south for maximum energy capture.
Edmonton-based PCL in a statement said its Toronto team worked with mass timber experts from its Denver office through preconstruction and construction. PCL’s in-house workforce completed specialized training from the local carpenters’ union to build its expertise in mass timber construction.
The building’s name was inspired by the Limberlost Forest and Wildlife Reserve near Huntsville, Ontario when Canadian business leader and philanthropist Jack Cockwell donated $10 for the project in 2021 in addition to his gift of $8 million in 2015.
