October 27, 2011

CICADA DESIGN/DIAMOND + SCHMITT ARCHITECTS

An artist’s rendering of the Ryerson Gallery and Research Centre, which is part of the school’s School of Image Arts.

FEATURE | General and Trades Contracting

PCL Constructors faces unusual challenges on Ryerson University project in Toronto

DON PROCTER

correspondent

Ryerson University has taken the practice of adaptive reuse to heart to redevelop its photography department at its downtown Toronto campus.

The nearly completed $70.9-million Ryerson University School of Image Arts , which includes the Ryerson Gallery and Research Centre, will house new classrooms, studios and associated spaces. It will also be home to an 18,000-square-foot world-class black and white photography gallery exhibiting many famous photos shot over an 80-year span of the 20th century.

The building has come a long way from the days when it served as a brewery warehouse in the 1950s.

In the 1970s the school converted the space to class rooms but the latest retrofit brings the department into the 21st century.

The renovation has presented challenges to the builder and the design team. Walls were shifted and ceilings dropped. Meanwhile, about 14,000 square feet was added on three sides to the existing brick-clad structure to accommodate the growing department.

The renovations have been done by general contractor PCL Constructors Canada Inc. Curtis Paddock, the contractor’s construction manager for the project, says like many renovation jobs the Ryerson project has presented unusual challenges. Staging the removal of existing reinforcing steel was among them.

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“It involved the installation of temporary bracing to fend off the destabilization of the impending removal of structural components,” he points out.

The building also had to be reinforced for the addition of the cantilevered second and third floors on the west and north faces of the three-storey building, says Paddock.

Completion of the new cantilevered superstructure involved extensive demolition of the existing concrete to expose steel connections to be tied into new steel reinforcing members. It allowed the building to carry the loads of the addition, says Paddock.

The structural surgery was a time-consuming process.

“The building had existing finishes, so PCL could not open all connection points for the cantilever superstructure because of the weather threat to the building. Instead, PCL had to put up a limited number of connection points, temporarily hoard them and open and close those hoardings for each work period,” says Paddock.

Commercial renovations often reveal surprises during construction, especially when there are no as-built drawings of the original design, as was the case at Ryerson.

“We had faced a lot of unknowns and a great deal of reworking of the building,” says Paddock.

Ceilings and floors, for instance, were removed from about a third of the building to run services to renovated areas.

The construction documents showed some asbestos and lead in the building, but the contractor found more areas with the hazardous materials once it got into the project. Removal was done in accordance with government guidelines that in most areas involved negative air enclosures and wash facilities for crews.

The general contractor also had to modify the building to meet code standards, such as fire code upgrading for stairwells and two-hour wall fire ratings. More washrooms were installed to meet modern code standards.

With no room for material laydown on the tight downtown site, city permits for sidewalk and street closures were obtained and deliveries were scheduled on an as-needed basis. Prior to the construction start in July 2009, Ryerson relocated occupants to other campus buildings and offsite production facilities.

The new museum-quality photo gallery will be home to more than 291,000 black and white images shot by 6,000 photographers, many of whom are famous. Worth millions of dollars, the photographs are part of a collection assembled through the 20th century at the Black Star photo agency in New York City. The images and $7 million were donated to Ryerson by an anonymous philanthropist.

The new school and gallery are a design by Diamond + Schmitt Architects. One of the design challenges was that the building had “never been properly renovated,” says partner Don Schmitt, noting that hazardous materials and structural problems were key issues to deal with.

The architects designed a prominent entry at the university’s Lake Devo, a skating rink and pond. The design also incorporates a new building envelope consisting of a high-performance curtainwall and glazing system that accommodates concealed LED lighting, which features a programmable multi-media wall, says Schmitt.

“It’s a major transformation from what was a bit of an eyesore in the centre of Ryerson’s campus into a new icon.”

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