Project Description
The Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto, once a beacon of futuristic architecture on the edge of Queen's Park Crescent, underwent a transformative lighting retrofit. The building's atrium, initially celebrated for its radiant glow, had seen its luminance wane over time. The design team was commissioned to rejuvenate the lighting system, bringing the space's iconic glow back to life.
Its most striking features, two orb-shaped classrooms that seemed to levitate above the atrium, endowed the facility with a mystical aura, observable both from within and through its transparent base.
Over time, the once state-of-the-art lighting system began to show its age, prompting the need for an upgrade. The retrofit project aimed to not only restore the atrium’s original brilliance but to surpass it. The lighting team at Mulvey & Banani successfully modernized the lighting surrounding the floating pods, integrating a system that could be programmed with an array of color schemes, thus enhancing the building’s interior and exterior visual impact.
This project marked a significant milestone in the fusion of architectural integrity and contemporary lighting technology by re-envisioning the past design and creating a new strategy to provide flexibility and controllability to this feature element. By updating the lighting system, the firm not only preserved the building’s otherworldly quality but also expanded its possibilities, allowing for dynamic lighting effects that could adapt to various events and themes. The Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, with its newly upgraded lighting, stands as a testament to the enduring collaboration between innovative design and advanced engineering, ensuring its place as a landmark of modernity within the university’s architectural landscape.
The lighting design strategy required LED colour-changing fixtures at new positions to create blending effects not possible before. On top of this, a new DMX control system was designed and incorporated to have predetermined scenes to address the University's need for a creative and thoughtful approach to the City’s streetscape.