The new headquarters of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) incorporates mass-timber construction, with an aesthetic approach echoing the landscape and containing windows and open spaces that maximize daylight.Supplied/Tom Arban
The new headquarters of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), inspired by its bucolic setting overlooking Toronto’s Don Valley ravine, reflects the group’s core value of health and well-being, and it uses mass timber as a sustainable solution.
Moriyama Teshima Architects accounted for these factors at every stage when designing the revitalized three-storey building, a 124,000-square-foot structure that also reflects the rich history of the OSSTF, founded in 1919.
The area dedicated to the union’s headquarters opened last May, and the rest of the space is waiting to be leased by future tenants.
“Every day we go to the window and see three to seven deer on our lawn,” says Jim Spray, the OSSTF’s chief financial officer. “We often joke that we’re working in a zoo.”
How timber is shifting the conversation
When deciding the future of the OSSTF’s headquarters, the group grappled with whether to retrofit or demolish the building, originally constructed in the 1970s.
After reflecting on the long-term financial, energy-saving and human benefits of mass timber, the organization concluded that retrofitting was not an option since the costs didn’t justify the benefits, nor would a retrofit meet the union’s efficiency and sustainability objectives.
“We realized that we would have had to destroy the majority of the building and take it down to the bricks to meet all of our sustainability goals, so at that point, it just made more sense to go all-in on mass timber,” says Mr. Spray, who has worked for the OSSTF for more than three decades. “We were sold on the idea of mass timber, and Moriyama Teshima’s reputation in this area spoke for itself.”
The OSSTF engaged Moriyama Teshima to create a new vision, a mass-timber commercial building project. The award-winning architectural firm is reimagining what healthy, cost-effective and sustainable work environments look like across Canada, one mass-timber project at a time.
Other recent mass-timber buildings in the firm’s portfolio include Limberlost Place – part of George Brown College – on Toronto’s eastern waterfront, the Canada Revenue Agency’s new facility in St. John’s, and the British Columbia Institute of Technology Campus Services Building in Burnaby, B.C.
“While with the OSSTF headquarters there were aspirations to do a mass-timber building that was highly sustainable, we also had to push all of our decisions through the lens of functionality and how these decisions were bringing value to the project in other ways – whether it was connecting people, creating opportunities for celebration, or creating higher value spaces for future tenants of the building,” explains Carol Phillips, design leader and partner at Moriyama Teshima Architects.
Connection to Mother Nature
Beyond a third-floor terrace that offers westward views of the Don Valley, the project’s attachment to nature is shown through the innovative design dreamed up by Moriyama Teshima and Kasian Architecture, Interior Design and Planning, which worked on the 40,000-square-foot OSSTF workplace portion of the building.
The aesthetic combines cross-laminated and glue-laminated timber and echoes the landscape, with an abundance of windows and open space to maximize daylight.
The warm yet subdued palette reflects the OSSTF’s brand and is aimed at creating an inviting space that is sustainable, promotes health and wellness, and leverages architecture to embody identity, purpose and long-term environmental impact.
“Our approach to the interior design was to create a neutral but warm backdrop that allowed the mass timber to shine,” says Scott Norwood, managing principal at Kasian Architecture, Interior Design and Planning, one of Canada’s largest integrated firms of its kind. “It’s a sophisticated yet simple, timeless aesthetic.”
Studies show exposure to natural light and views of nature are some of the most sought-after workplace perks as they improve employee engagement, productivity and well-being. The OSSTF structure was built with this in mind, with open workstations lining the building’s perimeter, while closed offices were built in the interior middle. The walls between the closed offices and open offices are fully glazed, with a 50-per-cent window-to-wall ratio to reduce the need for electric lighting and maximize the use of daylight.
At the OSSTF headquarters, a solar chimney naturally ventilates the building, while rooftop photovoltaic shingles capture sunlight to generate clean electricity.Supplied/Tom Arban
Other sustainable solutions
Over the past decade, sustainability in design has evolved into wellness architecture – an approach that, according to the Global Wellness Institute, uses socially conscious systems and materials to create built environments that support physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual well-being while regenerating the natural world. Sustainability guides Kasian’s culture, so the organization was a natural fit to collaborate with Moriyama Teshima.
“The distance between the core areas and the windows of the OSSTF headquarters is quite shallow, so the penetration of natural daylight throughout is amazing,” Mr. Norwood says. “It’s a wonderfully bright, open space with a beautiful flow. That speaks volumes for the health and well-being of the occupants.”
The OSSTF headquarters harnesses the sun’s energy in several other ways, including through a solar chimney that uses the sun’s radiation to drive ventilation throughout the building. On the roof, solar power is collected through photovoltaic shingles to convert sunlight into electricity.
The building, which is targeting LEED Platinum certification, also taps into another renewable energy source by using geothermal heating and cooling.
Respecting the ravine
The OSSTF created a building that not only connects with its occupants, but also with the community. One way the group engaged neighbourhood residents was by inviting students to plant hundreds of trees and reintroduce native species such as trilliums on the edge of the ravine.
The OSSTF property collects run-off water from adjacent properties and the surrounding roads. The federation committed to restoring the ravine-edge by removing invasive species and replacing existing turfgrass with rainwater gardens, as well as by planting beds to encourage biodiversity.
On the southwest part of the property, the top of the embankment had collapsed into the ravine, so Moriyama Teshima rebuilt and stabilized the banks with a series of armor, stone, rocks and plantings that slow the flow before it hits the ravine.
“In many ways, the ravines are much more ingrained in the psyche of Torontonians than [Lake Ontario],” Ms. Phillips concludes. “This project was an amazing opportunity because the site sits at the edge of the ravine. It’s a part of the watershed and part of the overall system of how Toronto thrives.”