Building Design

Will Alsop's redevelopment of the Ontario College of Art & Design is an audacious intervention in the heart of Toronto's downtown. A new tabletop building supported on a series of splayed steel legs has been floated nine storeys above the original college. Alsop has injected Toronto with hallucinatory design. But the raucous look of the building is tempered by a remarkable new urban square located underneath the elevated college. Established in 1876, the Ontario College of Art & Design (Ocad) is Canada's oldest design institution. The college is an integral part of the art scene in Toronto, sandwiched as it is between the creative hustle of Queen Street West and the Art Gallery of Ontario, undergoing a major redevelopment by Canadian-born Frank Gehry. But Ocad was bursting at the seams. A revamping of the high school educational system in the province meant a doubling in the number of first-year students — they began flooding the gates last September while the college was still under construction.