Sharp Centre for Design
Address: 100 McCaul Street
Architect: ALSOP Architects Ltd. and Robbie/Young & Wright Architects in joint venture
Landscape Architect: Yuk Woo Lee & Associates Ltd.
Client: The Ontario College of Art and Design

Project Description

The project includes a striking new addition - a two-storey "flying rectangle" raised 26 metres above the existing building and street level.

The raising of the building above the ground allowed for the creation of a new outdoor public space (Butterfield Park) to the south of the existing building, provides pedestrian access between McCaul Street and the Grange Park to the west and preserves the views for the condominium residents on the east side of McCaul Street.

Jurors' Comments

Will Alsop's academic building is an altogether original and welcome enrichment of Toronto's urban fabric: artistically bold and imaginative, and respectful of residents and users in its culturally intense neighbourhood. Held high over the mixed Victorian and modern streetscape by colourful legs plunging earthward like thunderbolts, this addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design is cocky and attractively humorous, an element in the urban scene that holds its own with tough urbanity while allowing new public space to open up beneath it.