Media Releases

Environmental Science experts to teach and train in environmentally-friendly, sustainable building

October 10, 2013

TORONTO, ON — The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough broke ground today (Oct. 8) on the tech­no­log­i­cal­ly advanced Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Chem­istry Build­ing (ESCB).

Since the new build­ing will be home to envi­ron­men­tal sci­ences, UTSC is walk­ing the talk: tar­get­ing LEED Gold cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with sus­tain­able fea­tures that include geot­her­mal bore­holes, an Earth Tube sys­tem to sup­ply 100 per­cent fresh air to the admin­is­tra­tive wing, unique frit­ted glaz­ing to min­i­mize solar heat gain, all LED light­ing fix­tures and a high per­for­mance cur­tain­wall. Once com­plet­ed it would become the first new build­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to to receive LEED Gold cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“As a grad­u­ate of UTSC, I have expe­ri­enced first-hand the com­mit­ment to excel­lence that this school has and the new Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Chem­istry Build­ing will be no dif­fer­ent. The University’s choice of a cut­ting-edge sus­tain­able build­ing design is just anoth­er sign of the inno­v­a­tive spir­it of this cam­pus and its stu­dents,” said the Hon­ourable Brad Duguid, Min­is­ter of Train­ing, Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties.

The 110,000-square-foot (9,290-square-metre) facil­i­ty pro­vides inno­v­a­tive design solu­tions for sus­tain­able and high­ly flex­i­ble research and study space. It will house two dis­ci­plines in the Depart­ment of Phys­i­cal and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence, with research and teach­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries, an ana­lyt­i­cal instru­men­ta­tion cen­tre, office and meet­ing space. The ESCB will also include stu­dent study space, a librar­i­an office, a police office, sem­i­nar rooms and mul­ti-pur­pose space.

“Not so long ago this won­der­ful loca­tion was the site of a park­ing lot. In about 18 months, it will be the site of anoth­er beau­ti­ful new build­ing, designed to sup­port the excel­lence of our fac­ul­ty, staff, and stu­dents at UTSC,” said Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Pres­i­dent David Nay­lor.

UTSC’s Depart­ment of Phys­i­cal and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and its chem­istry pro­gram have a his­to­ry of high­ly respect­ed teach­ing as well as inno­v­a­tive water and envi­ron­men­tal research. This build­ing will enable UTSC to remain at the fore­front of prepar­ing stu­dents to work in the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­text of envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence. It will also help train the next gen­er­a­tion of experts to address the sci­en­tif­ic chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by envi­ron­men­tal issues such as ground­wa­ter pol­lu­tion in urban set­tings, restora­tion of degrad­ed envi­ron­men­tal sys­tems, cli­mate change and ris­ing sea lev­els.

“The Depart­ment of Phys­i­cal and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence is a pow­er­house, with a great sto­ry of inno­va­tion and dis­cov­ery,” said UTSC Prin­ci­pal Fran­co Vac­cari­no.  “That sto­ry can now con­tin­ue to unfold and be cel­e­brat­ed in this excep­tion­al new facil­i­ty as it becomes home to the fac­ul­ty and staff of the Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Chem­istry pro­grams, and almost 200 grad­u­ate stu­dents in U of T’s Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence pro­fes­sion­al master’s and PhD pro­grams.”

The new build­ing will be a sci­ence edu­ca­tion and research hub on UTSC’s north cam­pus com­ple­ment­ing devel­op­ment that already includes the Instruc­tion­al Cen­tre and the Toron­to Pan Am Sports Cen­tre that is cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion. The build­ing is sched­uled to open in July 2015; total project cost for this own funds build­ing is $65.1 mil­lion.  The Design/Build con­tract was award­ed to inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned Dia­mond Schmitt Archi­tects in part­ner­ship with Ellis­Don.

About Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough

UTSC offers under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents the aca­d­e­m­ic rigour for which the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is renowned. Com­bined with inno­v­a­tive expe­ri­en­tial edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, a focus on emerg­ing areas of schol­ar­ship and a wide range of pro­gram­ming span­ning the sci­ences, arts, man­age­ment, teacher edu­ca­tion, and U of T’s only co-op pror­grams, UTSC has every­thing need­ed to help stu­dents achieve their life goals. UTSC’s $35 mil­lion fundrais­ing cam­paign is an inte­gral com­po­nent of Bound­less: The Cam­paign for Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, which is rais­ing $2 bil­lion for a suite of ini­tia­tives direct­ed toward Prepar­ing Glob­al Cit­i­zens and Meet­ing Glob­al Chal­lenges. It is the largest fundrais­ing cam­paign in Cana­di­an his­to­ry.  For more infor­ma­tion on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough, vis­it:http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/home/

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough
Don Camp­bell
Media Rela­tions Offi­cer
Tel: 416–208-2938
Dcampbell@utsc.utoronto.ca