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TORONTO, ON – July 16, 2015 –
The Journal of the American Institute of Architects, "ARCHITECT magazine", has recognized our project, Queen Richmond Centre West, with an R+D Award for its architectural, engineering solutions and innovations. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) issues the R+D Awards annually to nine outstanding projects out of hundreds of entries, celebrating the most innovative building research, materials, and technologies worldwide. The international entries are judged on their potential or documented innovation in fabrication, assembly, installation, and performance as well as their efforts to advance the aesthetic, environmental, social, and technological value of architecture. The Queen Richmond Centre West, developed by Allied Properties REIT, offers a brilliant example of adaptive re-use through its integration of two existing heritage buildings into the construction of a new 17-storey office building. The new office tower springs from a tabletop that spans above both buildings (70-feet above street level) and is perched atop three architecturally-exposed structural steel delta frames comprised of 40-inch diameter concrete-filled steel pipes and 35,000-pound cast steel nodes. The innovative delta frames create a soaring open air atrium that sets this development apart from any other, with the cast steel nodes, allowing each of the delta frame’s legs to effortlessly curve while subtly merging with its neighbouring legs at
a point 35-feet in the air. The latest technologies in BIM, 3-dimensional solid modelling, numerical stress analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and casting solidification modeling, in addition to state-of-the-art rapid prototyping, CNC-tooling production, 5-axis machining, and laser scanning technologies were used in the industrial design, engineering, and production of the complex cast nodes. This year’s R+D Awards jury was made up of French architect Marc Fornes, Principal and Founder of
Theverymany, Joyce Hwang, AIA, Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Buffalo and Director of architectural practice and research office Ants of the Prairie, and
Steven Rainville, AIA, Principal and Director of R&D at Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects. For a more detailed profile of the project, please refer to the featured article in ARCHITECT Magazine.
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