ROM

The ��Ƶ and members of the public are taking part in a virtual community consultation organized by the City of Toronto for the new building planned for 90 Queen’s Park.

The site was acquired by U of T in 2009 and is envisioned as a major centre of scholarship in urban issues, as well as a city landmark and key gateway to the St. George campus. Located on the site of Falconer Hall and the former McLaughlin Planetarium, it is adjacent to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

The university hopes to obtain approval for the building in September and begin construction in the spring of 2021 on what would be a three-year project.

The building will be home to U of T’s new School of Cities as well as the departments of History, Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, the Institute of Islamic Studies and an arm of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. It will include spaces for the Faculty of Music, Faculty of Law and the ROM. A public plaza, outdoor café and 250-seat recital hall are also among the designs for the building.

Since 2010, there have been many community meetings and workshops over U of T’s plans for the site, with resulting refinements and improvements. Ahead of the latest consultations, U of T News spoke to Assistant Vice-President, University Planning, Operations and Real Estate Partnerships Christine Burke, about the building, its envisioned impact on Toronto and the importance of the community engagement.

Tuesday’s virtual consultation follows over a decade of community meetings and consultations. Why has U of T placed so much importance on consulting with the city and community members on this particular project?

We always consult broadly on our projects, but this one in particular has far exceeded what is typical for consultation on a project in the City of Toronto. At the university level, because this site has been in conception all the way since 1997 and then in our 2011 Campus Master Plan, there has been significant consultation both by the city as well as ourselves even before hiring architects.

There have been several U of T-hosted consultation meetings held in advance of making the secondary plan application for the St. George campus in 2016, over five city-hosted consultation meetings as well as five additional city-led meetings, including Community Council and Council in 2017-18 on the secondary plan for the St. George campus, and this is one of the development sites covered in the secondary plan. But more specifically on this project, we’ve had two Community Liaison Committee meetings in advance of submitting a development application in February 2019, a public, joint city and U of T design review panel meeting and the city has hosted a community consultation.

We’ve also had four additional working group meetings led by the local city councillor, and those included resident associations and other members of the public that are outside the typical radius reached during consultations.

So this project in particular has had a significant amount of consultation, and we think that’s important at this gateway location. We have modified our plans significantly through this engagement, and we are pleased with how the design of the building and its significant public realm component has evolved. Tuesday’s further consultation is an opportunity for us to present all the changes and once again participate in public dialogue and clear up any misinformation.

Does this project involve a heritage district and are there plans for demolition of any heritage buildings?

There has been some community discussion about an existing Queen’s Park heritage district, but there is no such district. This site is not located within a heritage conservation district.

However, we acknowledge that the site is critical given its proximity to key open spaces like Philosopher’s Walk as well as many heritage buildings like Falconer Hall, the ROM and being across the street from the buildings at Victoria University.

We have heritage consultants who are working closely with us to ensure that the approach to the site is appropriate. One of the ways we’ve done that is, for example, the proposed building exposes the southern façade of the east wing of the ROM and allows the ROM heritage façade to remain clearly visible.

We’re also cantilevering a very small portion over the rear part of Falconer Hall, which is one of our heritage buildings, so that it really maintains the prominence of Falconer Hall on Queen’s Park. The former Planetarium, which is not listed on the heritage register or designated, and determined to not be suitable for reuse, is being removed to make way for the large public plaza and new entrance/café.

It’s true that the site is a complex one and has a significant number of heritage structures in its vicinity. There has been a lot of discussion with city heritage staff along the way and there has been special care taken to make sure that this is done right and we are working hard to blend the old and new in a thoughtful design.

What measures are being taken to ensure that the building is in step with the surrounding neighbourhood from an aesthetic standpoint?

Design excellence is important to the University in all of its capital projects. We play a key role in Toronto in terms of being a city builder so we take design excellence to heart.

This is a prominent site in the city in the Bloor Street Cultural Corridor, so we felt that meant we needed to find the right architects for the project because it will be a landmark building. We engaged Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with Architects Alliance as the local firm, a firm of international renown, whose projects have included reimagining the High Line in New York City and several buildings at Columbia University.

For this project, because of its integration with heritage and contemporary architecture, we were really looking for a firm that would be able to provide a calibre of design that would be unexpected but beautiful, have a presence and perform, at this key gateway to the campus.

That doesn’t mean it would detract from its heritage context but rather try to find a design solution that would both engage the city as well as contextually fit in its very unique landscape. With this project we have integration of a historic building with a brand new building and a critical role to play along the street, to engage and welcome in the city.

How has the design of the building changed since the first proposal?

We have altered the design of the building significantly to both incorporate city and community feedback as well as ensure that aesthetic elements better respond to its surroundings.

The height of the building has been reduced significantly over the years in response to community and city feedback and meets the test in terms of protection of the Ontario Legislative Assembly, so that is definitely something we’ve been mindful of in terms of determining the height. The height and overall massing and siting also follow a number of important planning and urban design principles. More recently, in response to feedback, we have further reduced the height of the building to 38.7 metres (plus mechanical penthouse), increased the amount of Falconer Hall to be retained, reduced the overhang of our recital hall over our heritage building, and further reduced program size including classrooms to bring the overall size of the building down by approximately 20 per cent of the original building application.

As well, we have increased the amount of landscaped area. The building now has a very large courtyard and fully exposes the southern façade of the east wing of the ROM. This courtyard becomes the primary entrance to the building. The public realm will be enhanced – there’s going to be a lot of soft as well as hard landscaping, a café to draw people in and for the public and university community to co-mingle. In previous iterations, that realm was smaller.

What’s going to happen to the trees currently in the area?

There has been some concern raised that all the trees on the site are being removed, but that’s not accurate. There are four mature trees in front of Flavelle House and these are being protected in the plans. These include two of the largest mature oak trees near the site boundary that is being protected.

While some trees will need to be removed to facilitate construction, only two of these are mature and in good health. All others are either not mature and/or are diseased and infested, or stunted in their growth right next to the foundation wall of the historic house.

We are abiding by the city’s requirements for replacement trees that will be planted at a rate of 3:1, in fact we are exceeding this requirement with the addition of 31 new trees in total. As well, we have worked with a city arborist, and the tree proposal that we have in place has been approved by Toronto Urban Forestry, so we have their full support on the proposal.

Taking a step back, why did the university decide to demolish the McLaughlin Planetarium?

The planetarium hasn’t been operated as a planetarium since 1995 and it closed due to declining attendance and interest years before it was purchased by the university. While there has previously been private sector interest in redeveloping the site, the sale to the university was heralded at the time in anticipation of institutional use, and the opportunity to remain connected to the ROM. The university’s astrophysics group is now leading the effort to plan for a planetarium experience in the heart of the St. George campus.

In terms of the building’s removal, the university made a lot of effort to look at adaptively reusing the building. We reached out to external consultants for their opinions as well and concluded that there were technical difficulties in altering the structure for other purposes.

When you consider demolishing a building, there is interest from the city to consider whether it is a heritage building. Our heritage consultants – ERA Architects – conducted a heritage impact assessment as part of the application and concluded that the planetarium is not a significant cultural heritage resource and it is not appropriate for designation. Conserving Falconer Hall, and the heritage fabric around Flavelle House and the ROM has been at the forefront of the design thinking.

There are some interesting ideas happening around potentially having some kind of commemoration in the area where the planetarium sits today. But the benefits to the public realm that are happening with the building’s removal and opening up the plaza to the ROM and displaying the heritage of Falconer Hall and the ROM have also been key considerations.

What do you see as the future for the new building?

It’s a really fascinating juxtaposition of programs that are being planned for the building – as well as cultural elements such as the music recital hall to engage the city.

What’s so interesting is it will be a place that draws together researchers, students, journalists, city planners and civic leaders from the university and around the world and be a place to explore – with the School of Cities in particular – and think about cities. For example, we can look at how Toronto has drawn people from around the world and from different backgrounds, how we’ve worked together to address challenges and inspire the cities of tomorrow when it comes to city planning and cultural diversity.

So it’s not just about what’s happening inside the building. Its location right at the edge of where the campus meets the city and in the cultural corridor, adjacent to the ROM and near the provincial legislature, makes it an incredible new gateway to the campus.

As with other gateway projects at the edges of our campus, such as the Daniels School of Architecture and the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre, this is an opportunity to interact and connect with the city, and the design reflects that. We want this to be a building where the University and city connect with each other, and we will continue to work hard to ensure that we achieve that.

Note: Further changes have been made to the building’s envelope as part of formal mediation process

500-million-year-old species – detailed by U of T scientists – offers insight into ancient legged worms

ullahnor — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 15:24:35 +0000

500-million-year-old species – detailed by U of T scientists – offers insight into ancient legged worms

ullahnor Tue, 01/31/2017 - 10:24

Cutline

A scientific illustration of Ovatiovermis cribratus shows how this soft-bodied marine animal would have looked like with its front-feeding limbs extended (illustration by Danielle Dufault ©Royal Ontario Museum)

Royal Ontario Museum

Author legacy

Royal Ontario Museum, Faculty of Arts & Science

Topic

Breaking Research

Fossils

ROM

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Earth Sciences

Faculty of Arts & Science

New Species

A new species of lobopodian – a worm-like animal that could stand nearly upright – from the Cambrian period (541 to 485 million years ago), has been detailed for the first time from fossils found in the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Details of the new species, called Ovatiovermis cribratus, have been published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

The new species is only the third lobopodian that has been formally described from the Burgess Shale. It is one of the rarest species found there, and now it's in the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Jean-Bernard Caron, an associate professor at U of T and senior curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is the lead author of the study.

“Although Ovatiovermis is no longer than my thumb with all limbs stretched out and is only known from two specimens, this new species provides fantastic new insights into the ecology and relationship of lobopodians, a group of mainly Cambrian marine invertebrates which are key to our understanding of modern tardigrades, onychophorans and the largest group of animals on Earth – the arthropods,” said Caron, a researcher in the departments of ecology and evolutionary biology and earth sciences at U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science.

Caron and Cédric Aria, a PhD candidate in U of T's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, believe that strong recurved claws on the back limbs may have allowed Ovatiovermis and other related species to anchor themselves on hard surfaces and stand more or less upright. Two long pairs of flexible and spinulose (hairy or spiky) limbs at the front of the body would then have been used to filter or collect food from water and bring it closer to the animals’ toothed, eversible mouth.

“The various adaptations of this new animal to anchored particle feeding are reflected in its name,” said Aria, a co-author of the study. “The species, cribratus, is the Latin for “to sieve,” whereas the genus name, Ovatiovermis, refers to that posture it must have ordinarily taken along the bottom of the sea: a worm-like creature that stood in perpetual ovation.”

This specimen, the holotype for “Ovatiovermis cribratus,” was collected in 1994 by the Royal Ontario Museum at the Walcott quarry, located in Yoho National Park, British Columbia (photo by Jean-Bernard Caron ©Royal Ontario Museum)

Even though lobopodians have long been known and studied, and occupy an intriguing position in the tree of life of invertebrate animals, their ecology had remained poorly understood. The authors of the study also think that their findings provide new views on the evolution of lobopodians and their relatives.

“Lobopodians have mostly been seen so far as an eclectic group,” Aria said. “We think that suspension feeding was common among them and turned out to be important in the initial ‘burst’ of that colossal group that gave rise to water bears, velvet worms and arthropods. Interestingly, today, skeleton shrimps (Caprellidae), which are arthropods and thus much more complex living relatives of the lobopodians, have adopted a very similar lifestyle, and you can see them waving in the drifting water possibly much like Ovatiovermis used to.”

Caron said the study also adds to what's known about suspension feeding.

“These results contribute to cumulative evidence that suspension feeding was already a widespread mode of life during the Cambrian period,” Caron said. “Its emergence has been important for the elaboration of modern marine ecosystems and must have played a role in the rapid diversification of the first animals.”

Excavation work in 1994 by a team from the ROM at the Walcott quarry revealed new fossiliferous layers below the Walcott quarry (photo by Desmond Collins ©Royal Ontario Museum)

The researchers were surprised however to find that unlike many other lobopodians, O. cribratus, did not have any hard structures to protect its body.

“Contrary to its relatives, this species does not have any spines or plates on its body for protection,” Caron said. “Its ‘naked’ state begs the question of how it was able to guard against predators.”

The absence of ornament in the new species demonstrates that organisms that lived in the Cambrian period did not exclusively develop hard defensive structures to protect themselves.

The researchers speculate that O. cribratus may have lived in sponge colonies to avoid predators, or that by analogy with modern animals it used camouflage or was toxic or distasteful to predators. However, this is a question that is difficult to solve with fossils, and it may remain forever one of Ovatiovermis’ secrets.

The Burgess Shale, located in Yoho and Kootenay National Parks, is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site. The holotype specimen was discovered by the Royal Ontario Museum in the Walcott Quarry, the original Burgess Shale site, in Yoho National Park. It remained the only known specimen of this new species for nearly two decades until a park visitor serendipitously discovered a second specimen while on a recent Parks Canada sponsored guided hike to the Walcott Quarry.

Parks Canada protects the Burgess Shale, and supports peer-reviewed scientific research that continues to enhance our understanding of these rich palaeontological deposits. This new discovery adds another element to the story of early animal evolution that Parks Canada guides share enthusiastically with hundreds of park visitors every year.

Illustration of “Ovatiovermis cribratus” showing how the holotype specimen became trapped in the sediment, partially sideways, before becoming a fossil (illustration by Danielle Dufault ©Royal Ontario Museum)

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500-million-year-old species – detailed by U of T scientists – offers insight into ancient legged worms