The University of Toronto Academic Resource Center is located at the heart of John Andrews’ 1960’s-brutalist Scarborough campus. The new building is envisioned as a ‘town square’ or ‘intellectual heart’ for the University, in contrast to Andrews’ serpentine hill-town aesthetic along the valley edge. Using the precedent of the Great Mosque in Cordoba, a non-hierarchical or democratic space for information access is created. It is a kinetic environment wherein academic and technical staff are empowered to roam among students and interface within a ‘virtual’ space known as the Teaching and Learning Commons.

This project involves the creation of a new central library to serve the entirety of the Scarborough campus, along with a new 500-seat lecture theatre and a small art gallery. The project includes 18,000 square feet of renovated space and 80,000 square feet of new construction on two floors. The program incorporates 17,000 square feet of stacks, study spaces for 665 persons including 90 networked study spaces, labs and workrooms for an 8,300 square foot Teaching and Learning Center, extensive Collections Management and Circulation Areas, Advising and Career Center, and support offices.

The complex program was organized through a participatory design process with various user groups. The resulting consolidated scheme was given architectural form by conceiving the building as a series of five parallel 25’ wide ‘boats’ which hold all cellular program elements. Double-height sky-lit circulation ‘alleys’ with suspended walkways run between the boats while a major transverse ‘street’ punches through them. The theatre, foyer and study halls create double-height courtyards, interrupting the rhythm of the boats and forming natural gathering places for the students, faculty and staff.

The building’s limited material palette reflects a clear ‘infrastructure approach’, where discrete rational building systems correspond to each of the building trades, resulting in a building that was 15% under budget. The simple, repetitive ‘grove’ of exposed concrete columns and floor plates is articulated separately from the ground-faced concrete block boats. The suspended circulation system is steel while all millwork is cherry plywood. The standing-seam copper skin wraps the whole building exterior and folds over to form the theater roof.