Ryerson University wants to build the first 100 percent, digitally activated building in the world, only to demolish it in the coming years.
Detailed back in March in a funding announcement, the Ryerson University Smart Campus Integration and Testing Hub (SCIT Hub) would “enable exploration and testing of ‘smart building’ products and management strategies” that could help offset climate change.
A new application submitted to the city offers new details about the SCIT Hub, part of a complex that Ryerson is planning on 136 Dundas Street East, on the northwest corner of Dundas and Mutual Street. The site has mostly been vacant for years, and currently there is a temporary research trailer and a concrete cushion that was used for a previous Ryerson research project.
Looking northwest across Dudas Street East toward the site of the proposed temporary buildings. Photo via Google Street View.
The trailer would remain seated and be joined by two new temporary buildings: A two-story mass-timbered structure would wrap around the southeast corner of the site in an L-shape to be used for the SCIT Hub, and a separate three-story research building would erect to the west.
Designed by WZMH Architects, the SCIT Hub will include a laboratory – including a smart home mock-up, workshops and test areas – looking at forward-looking technologies, with studies led by Ryerson architectural science professor Jenn McArthur.
“It’s designed to be the world’s first 100 percent digitally activated building,” McArthur said back in March. “This facility is designed to serve as a model for what sustainable construction can look like after 2030.”
“We aim for net-zero carbon over the building’s life cycle and really use it as an opportunity to showcase the advanced technologies we need to mitigate climate change,” McArthur continued.
Some pretty impressive technology would be used to achieve this ambitious goal, including experimental systems like “intelligent structural panels” that act as plug-and-play smart tablets you can walk on, and many more sci-fi-feeling- functions.
And despite all the high technology planned for the SCIT Hub, it and the planned research building to the west would not be long-term additions to the city, their small size and limited functionality that are hard to justify in such a first-class country.
Designed to be of a temporary nature, the two buildings proposed for the site will eventually be demolished, which will likely make room for something much larger and taller.
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