Architects: Architects Alliance; Page + Steele Architects + Planners
Role: Full structural engineering services
The $2 billion CDN, 20-residential-tower CityPlace development occupies 44 acres on Toronto’s downtown waterfront area. It is the largest residential development ever attempted in Toronto and will be under construction for the next 10 years.
Halcrow Yolles is providing full structural engineering services for Blocks 21-22 and 24-26. These initial phases of the project consist of 135,748m² of residential construction including two 50-storey towers, two 40-storey towers, a 30-storey tower, a 27-storey tower and an 18-storey tower, as well as an eight storey loft building. Other components include a three-storey, 2,300m² retail amenity building and a three-level, 52,750m² underground parking garage.
The economic focus of the whole design team resulted in an optimised structure which utilised non-typical structural solutions for the lateral load resisting systems for some of the taller residential projects. The proposed system resulted in a reduced number of shear walls which resulted in significant cost savings and more architectural freedom and space.
For the tallest tower, a window wall system was chosen for the building façade as this option represented the best solution within the established set of parameters. At the design building height of 50 storeys, the selection of this type of system, especially with lake exposure, required significant coordination between the cladding and the structural designers to resolve the complex integration issues.