Tours

Healthcare Site Visit - Bloor Kids Rehab and CNIB

2007 represents our largest site visit program yet! Choose from three very different tours focusing on Healthcare, LEED and Architectural Innovation. Please register on-line through our registration system.

SAT 01
SATURDAY, SEPT 29TH
9:00AM

Bloor Kids Rehab
The amalgamation of Hugh B. MacMillan Children’s Centre with Bloor Hospital resulted in the creation of Bloor Kids Rehab, a long-term care facility that is much more than a children’s hospital. It contains a full school, library, gym, therapy and recreation pools, prosthetics labs and community spaces. The design of Bloor Kids Rehab was a collaboration of Montgomery Sisam Architects and Stantec Architecture with Carlyle Design Associates. “In a real way this building welcomes children and families from the surrounding communities, both disabled and able-bodied,” says Anne Carlyle, principal with Carlyle Design Associates. Situated at the edge of a ravine, the building integrates with its surroundings – natural materials such as limestone, brick, wood, glass and zinc are used throughout. The facility contains many works of art that were commissioned for it, and it was conceived as a physical landscape of discovery that would foster movement and exploration.

Tour guide: Anne Carlyle, RCA, ARIDO, ASID, founder and principal of Carlyle Design Associates, is an award-winning interior designer with extensive experience in planning and design for public and institutional facilities. Anne has earned a reputation for fostering collaborative design strategies and for creating places that successfully meet complex user needs, enhance quality of life and work, and vibrantly express the purpose and character of a client organization or community.

CNIB Tour
Designed by Sweeny, Sterling Finlayson & Co Architects, the 140,000-square-foot Toronto headquarters of the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) is a model of universal design and a new city landmark. Its design is entirely in keeping with the CNIB’s longstanding role as Canada’s primary provider of support services to the blind and visually impaired, and with the new Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). “The goal was to make a unique building that was not extravagant, but exceptional, one that worked on many levels so that it would be an enjoyable experience
for people of all abilities,” says partner-in-charge Mary Jane Finlayson. Accessibility-enhancing design features throughout the building include unique lighting solutions, talking signs and podiums, podiums that adjust to people’s heights, and textured floors and walkways for wayfinding.

Tour guide: Lesley MacDonald is the CNIB’s national co-ordinator of accessibility services. Lesley has worked with the CNIB in a number of capacities for more than two decades and has served as an accessibility consultant for the Toronto Transit Commission and in the design of the new Terminal 1 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

The Healthcare Tour will depart from the Direct Energy Centre, in front of the HALL B at 9:00am and be divided into two groups. Group One will tour the CNIB followed by Bloor Kids Rehab; Group Two will tour Bloor followed by the CNIB. Both tours will end at approximately 1:15 pm and return to the Direct Energy Centre.

Fee $95 until September 15th and $105 after that date.

LEED Site Visit - St. Gabriel’s Passionist Parish and the Toronto Botanical Garden

SAT 02
SATURDAY, SEPT 29TH
8:45AM

This year’s IIDEX/NeoCon Canada LEED Tour features two truly inspirational projects.

St. Gabriel’s Passionist Parish
Globe and Mail architecture critic Lisa Rochon describes St. Gabriel’s Passionist Parish as “an exemplar of high, minimal design supported not by flying buttresses but by its serious grounding in environmental design and place-making.” Designed by Toronto’s Larkin Architect, this church is Canada’s first LEED Silver religious space. Its sustainable aspects include passive solar heating, natural daylighting, a heat recovery wheel, a living wall, rainwater collection, and a green roof above the underground parking area. Clear glazing on the entire south facade of the worship space allows for efficient use of the sun’s energy and opens the sanctuary onto the gardens outside. St. Gabriel’s uses 40 percent less energy than a comparable, conventionally built modern building. “While reducing energy costs was one of the reasons for building a green church,” says Fr. Paul Cusack, C.P., current Pastor at St. Gabriel’s, “our primary motivation was to establish a link between the sacredness of the gathered community of Faith and the sacredness of the Earth.”

Toronto Botanical Garden
This year’s other LEED Tour destination is Toronto Botanical Garden, a green space with a compelling architectural history. Raymond Moriyama designed the original 1964 building on the site; Jerome Markson added on to it in 1976. Now Toronto’s Montgomery Sisam Architects has planted an extensive LEED Silver addition that reshapes the complex and amplifies the Toronto Botanical Garden’s commitment to educational outreach and sustainable design. Along with two dramatic green roofs – one sloping and sedum covered, the other a lush planting of native vegetation – the new pavilion incorporates water-conserving fixtures, energy-efficient lighting, and special fitted glass that screens out 70 percent of the heat gain. It forms an elegant, lantern-like counterpoint to the captivating profusion of gardens that surround it.
Attend the LEED Tour for an illuminating look at green design that celebrates the beauty of heaven and earth.

Tour guide: A founding partner of Montgomery Sisam Architects and a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, David Sisam has over 30 years of experience in a wide range of building types. He has directed the design of several of the firm’s award-winning projects, including the Humber River Bicycle Pedestrian Bridge, Providence Healthcare, and the Administration Building at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus. David led the design team for the George and Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticultural Excellence at the Toronto Botanical Garden. Montgomery Sisam has a project under construction for the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority that is targeted to achieve a LEED Platinum rating.

The LEED Tour will depart from the Direct Energy Centre, in front of the HALL B at 8:45am and will return to the Direct Energy Centre at 1:15pm.
Fee $95 until September 15th and $105 after that date.

Architectural Site Visit - Royal Ontario Museum

SAT 03 - 9:45AM
SAT 04 - 11:15 AM
RENAISSANCE ROM TOUR – SATURDAY, SEPT 29TH

Renaissance ROM is one of the largest museum projects in the world and one of the most significant cultural projects in Canada today. The initiative has already added Daniel Libeskind’s remarkable Michael Lee-Chin Crystal to the cityscape; over time it aims to fully restore the Royal Ontario Museum’s heritage buildings and galleries, and spark a wider cultural renaissance in Toronto. This tour offers a comprehensive look at the new Crystal, which opened in June 2007. Guiding it are key members of the Bregman + Hamann Architects team that worked with Studio Daniel Libeskind on the project in joint venture partnership, and also the ROM’s director of facilities management. You’ll see the lobby, the museum shop and Gloria Hyacinth Court, and also ascend through the galleries to the Crystal 5 Restaurant.

Tour guides: Al Shakoli is the Renaissance ROM’s executive director of the Project Studio and the executive director of facilities management at the ROM.

Bregman + Hamann Architects partner Paul Gogan, B. Arch., M.Arch., OAA, MAIBC, MRAIC, AIA, NCARB, is the associate partner-in-charge for the Renaissance ROM project. He has expertise in the design and development of institutional projects and has been responsible for programming, planning, designing and managing projects throughout his career.

Bregman + Hamann Architects associate Huxley Hogeboom, B.Arch., BES, OAA, MRAIC, is project manager for the Renaissance ROM Exhibit work, responsible for co-ordination of the B+H design team through design development, tendering and contract administration. He has several years of specialized experience in the design of cultural institutions and themed commercial environments.

Tour groups will meet at the ROM’s Crystal Palace Entrance, located on Bloor Street east of Avenue Road; admission to the ROM is included in the price.
There is a choice of tour times. The first group will meet at 9:45 am for a tour that will conclude at 11 am. The second group will meet at 11:15 am for a tour that will conclude at 12:30 pm.

Fee $55 until September 15th and $65 after that date.