Schulich School of Business

Schulich School of Business in Toronto, Ontario by Hariri Pontarini Architects

Photographs are copyright Ben Rahn/A-Frame Inc.

College buildings give architects a rare opportunity to design for a client with a clear direction. Where an office building for Company A might not be much different than one for Company B -- especially given the speculative nature of office buildings -- an architecture school will be much different than, in this case, a business school. The former will most likely strive to be different, celebrating the crit and studio spaces, though the latter will prefer an air of dignity balanced by a contemporary attitude.

The Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Ontario is such a building, with one foot in the post-graduation, dignified world of business, the other in the fresh and now. Designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects with Robbie/Young + Wright Architects, the 260,000 sf (25,000 sm) building also sits at the entrance to campus, giving it an additional function that it achieves admirably through its intelligent massing, a gracefully curved elevation, an inviting corner entry, and a courtyard oriented to a wooded area bordering the site.

In addition to its large size, the school takes pride in its construction and materiality pointing out how it "features 40,000 tonnes of poured concrete; 2.2 acres (one hectare) of energy-efficient glass; two million pounds (900,000 kilograms) of sandblasted limestone from quarries in Ontario’s Algonquin Region, hand-cut and set into the curved walls; and enough heavy-gauge copper flashing to gild the CN Tower from top to bottom."

The interiors continue that thoughtful care of the exterior, utilizing a palette of concrete, glass, and wood in circulation and functional spaces. Or, as summed up by the school itself: "One enters the building with a sense that things are done a little differently here. And there is, at all times, a feeling that one is about to discover something new."

The Schulich School of Business was a recipient of a 2006 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.