A glass tower to celebrate cutting-edge research and establish itself as Toronto’s most prominent innovation address.

MaRS Phase 2 functions as a state-of-the-art laboratory, office complex and forum for the convergence of ideas. Situated on a prominent street corner adjacent to the seat of the Ontario provincial government, Toronto’s world-class academic and medical institutions and the city’s cultural and financial districts, MaRS Phase 2 serves as a campus of innovation drawn from the overlap of research-based studies, applied medicine and entrepreneurial experimentation. The vertically-stacked building’s concentrated volume of research laboratories serve the needs of leading minds in research, while the exhibition space and public plaza invites the public to engage with scientific innovation. As the final piece of the MaRS Centre, MaRS Phase 2 not only doubles the size of the existing MaRS Phase 1 facility, but also becomes the new anchor of the overall MaRS complex and Toronto’s Discovery District as a whole.

The building’s overall shape was triggered by the L-shaped site outline that resulted from the placement of the neighbouring General Hospital Heritage Building. The podium level ‘jewel box’ exhibition space acknowledges the Heritage building with a modern sensitivity – terracotta screens and panels respond to the terracotta cornices of the heritage Building. The terracotta extends into the public, interior atrium, providing a complementary materiality to the brick-faced Heritage façade. A tracery of terracotta bauguettes fastened to a screen-like structure also works to increase natural light to the second floor lab office areas.

The tower portion of Phase 2 is designed as several articulated masses. Like a protective skin being peeled away to reveal the inner tissue, a portion of the building is clad in blue-silver tinted glazing while another recessed portion is clad in ultra-clear, low-iron glass to exhibit the building’s inner workings. Other exterior cladding reflects the random sequences and magnified scales characteristic of genetic discovery and nano technology.