NOVEMBER 1, 2015

CKAR 310
MATERIALS & METHODS
ASSIGNMENT 02- BUILDING ENVELOPE ANALYSIS

TOBY CHIDOLUE
500737387
 COUNTERPOINT HOUSE

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COUNTERPOINT HOUSE
ARCHITECT: PAUL RAFF STUDIO ARCHITECTS
LOCATION: LYTTON PARK, TORONTO, ON, CA
AREA: 232 m 2 (2,500 ft 2 ); +basement 356 m 2 (3,837 ft 2 )
YEAR: 2014 PROGRAM: RESIDENTIAL

Designed for a family of four from Europe, the Counterpoint

House is an example of how architects can positively use the
building envelope to influence the quality of life in a home.

The architect had to work with a fully south facing exposure on

the street side in an area where most buildings are rather
conservative, dark on the inside and typically closed to the
yards serving them. The result was a lofty home maximizing light
in subtle ways without needing to resort to skylights.

The spaces seem open yet compact and inter-connected,

even to the rear garden, seamlessly enhancing the family’s
shared experience of life within: work, study, play, cooking
dining.

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DESIGN SUMMARY
Natural light is one of the main drivers of this design with bold
window openings creating a desirable feeling of
expansiveness. In order to invite maximum illumination into the
centre of the building, for example, the architect has pushed
the broad-windowed study to the street side façade of the
entrance level and pulled back the second-storey volume from
off the top of the study and entry hall. He has then carved a
horizontal window, almost as wide as the dwelling, in the
façade of the pulled-back portion. Light penetrates deep into
the interior, without resorting to skylights.

This would normally be a problem for a Toronto house facing

south in the winter because of the low and generally harsh and
unforgiving sun. To cope with this, Paul Raff designed and
fabricated a gauzy aluminium screen that would be dense
enough to protect the interior from the glare on the worst days
but still “porous” enough to allow light deep into the house on
even the cloudiest days. This solar reflector screen allows
sunlight into the open first floor plan and bounces it off the high
set ceilings showering the large space with a lovely glow and a
dynamic pattern of reflections.

The ceiling's height in the entertainment space is 16 feet high

for a very specific reason: Raff wanted to take the ceiling out
of peripheral vision, creating the impression that the space has
no lid! This is probably my favorite feature - I love when height is
used dynamically.

In contrast to that intended feeling of expanse, the kitchen and

dining zones are more intimate, yet still encourage flow.

The daylight strategy helps produce a house that is

comfortable, beautiful, energy efficient, and which the owners
describe as “uplifting.”

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ENCLOSURE
The walls of the home are built with structural insulated panels
(SIPs), combined with extensive use of spray foam for unusually
high insulation values. The interior finishes revolve around walnut
floors, stairs and accents, white painted walls and trim and
natural stone.

The SIPs are a composite building material that effectively

replace the entire assembly present in wood frame
construction but yielding similar results at a comparable price
point. It is made up of an insulating layer of a rigid core (e.g.
polystyrene foam) that is then sandwiched between, and
bonded to, two layers of structural board (such as OSB,
plywood, cement or even sheet metal).

This system is said to have structural properties akin to an I-beam

where the rigid insulation acts like the web and the sheathing
replaces the flanges. The SIPs however, also combine the
functions of several components of a conventional building
system (studs and joists, insulation, vapor and air barriers) and
does away with any need for some of them.

Here SIPs have been used for the entire enclosure, including the
walls, floors and flat roof, to greatly save time as well as well as
to increase the simplicity of construction. Together with the
spray foam the insulation values of the house have been
greatly increased to counteract gains and losses from the large
areas of glazing on the north and south of the house. This has
resulted in a building with exceptional energy performance
that still looks very open all at regular costs.

The proprietary SCREEN element most characterizes this house.

It is composed of 250 aluminium ‘slats’ or ‘light shelves’ that
span the width of the house rising from shading the living room’s
clerestory windows on the main level to cover the second
storey’s long vertical windows.

The screen serves the dual purpose of diffusing harsh glare,

while enhancing and reflecting the light becomes a dynamic
design element, its changing quality animating the interior
space from day to day, and season to season.

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DETAILS

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REFERENCES

"Counterpoint House / Paul Raff Studio Architects"

20 APR 2015. ARCHDAILY. ACCESSED 1 NOV 2015.
<http://www.archdaily.com/620758/counterpoint-house-paul-raff-studio-architects

“Paul Raff Studio Designs Counterpoint House in North

Toronto”
08 JUL 2015. ACCESSED 27 OCT 2015.
http://www.houseporn.ca/architecture/article/paul_raff_studio_designs_the_counter
point_house_in_north_toronto

“COUNTERPOINT HOUSE”
08 JUN 2015. ACCESSED 27 OCT 2015.
http://ca.archello.com/en/project/counterpoint-house/2171085

http://paulraffstudio.com/portfolio-item/counterpoint-house/

http://www.sips.org/about/what-are-sips

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_insulated_panel

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 TERRENCE DONNELLY HEALTH SCIENCE COMPLEX

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TERRENCE DONNELLY HEALTH SCIENCE COMPLEX
ARCHITECT: KONGATS ARCHITECTS
LOCATION: MISSISSAUGA, ON, CA
AREA: 6000 m 2 (64584 ft 2 )
YEAR: 2011 PROGRAM: INSTITUTIONAL

The Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex (TS HSC) at the

University of Toronto, Mississauga accommodates teaching
and research facilities for the new medical school to be based
at the Mississauga campus. The campus is known for the
intimate relationship it has with its beautiful natural setting and
its forward-thinking design.

The complex provides much-needed space for research

laboratories and U of T’s internationally renowned biomedical
communications program. Medical students study along side
scientists and benefit from clinical training at the Credit Valley
Hospital and Trillium Health Centre. This complex will form part
of a ‘quad’ being the first of 3 proposed new buildings on the
campus.

The $36m TD HSC is an award-winning structure featuring

staggered floor plates at each level that cantilever
dramatically on the different sides of the building to create an
effect like different ‘stacked boxes’. The piled boxes are eye-
catching but also functional, dilineating different ‘user-groups’.
The building, elevated by the slight slope of the landscape
stands out with its simplicity of form and a delicately executed
tectonic skin.

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DESIGN SUMMARY
The shifting floor plates of the TDHSC accentuate the soft
landscape to the east south and west while the building’s north
face in its’ vertical uniformity provides a more formal façade to
the Academic Quad.

The functional programming of TDHSC supports three primary

user groups: the new Mississauga Academy of Medicine, the
Department of Biomedical Communications and the
Department of Anthropology and Forensics. The program at
TDHSC includes video conference-ready lecture theatres,
classrooms, seminar rooms, faculty and administrative offices,
and instructional and research laboratories.
Each of the three
user groups has very
distinct space,
adjacency and
identity requirements.
A series of stacked
‘boxes,’ where each
‘box’ shrinks or
enlarges from floor to
desired program
adjacency
requirements while
maximizing views and
access to daylight.
The outdoor spaces
created between the
stacked ‘boxes’
accommodate
accessible terraces
overlooking gardens
of indigenous
planting. The
teaching, office
laboratories float in
greenery.

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ENCLOSURE

A cladding system of shimmering metal fins animates the

stacked box arrangement of volumes, and gives the building a
distinctive set-piece quality amid its campus neighbours: The
faceted stainless steel façades capture both natural and
ambient artificial light ensuring its landmark presence is
articulated 24/7.

The configuration of the stainless steel panels is determined by

an arithmetic sequence of angles 15-30-60-90 that imposes
both a varied appearance to the cladding that acknowledges
the Campus’ admired natural setting and strategically
minimizes solar gain at the glazed areas. The reflective
properties of the stainless steel panels and their configuration
also has a bioclimatic benefit; in the summer solar heat is
deflected from the building envelope and in the winter the
warm air trapped within the panels provides an insulating
blanket of tempered air around the building envelope.

The project was originally conceived as a steel structure but,

due mainly to escalating steel prices, it was switched to a
concrete structural frame. This allowed the custom steel
cladding to be manufactured within budget constraints.
Basically the entire structure can be summarised as a delicate
skin of glass and undulating steel panels wrapped around a
series of stacked concrete boxes stepping up the existing slope
of the site.

The exterior stainless steel panels are custom fabricated using

CNC cutting technology and assembled together using
structural silicon adhesives to achieve a seamless skin. The
entire building envelope is designed as a dual system; an
insulated and water tight primary skin and an independent
outer skin to reduce heat gain utilizing the stainless steel panels
to reflect heat and shade glazed areas.

This double skin, together with sustainable construction

practices and building systems as well as the inclusion of green
roofs, helped the building to attain LEED Gold certification.

The rest of the structure is pretty straightforward, with repetitive

dropped concrete slabs and beams used to achieve visual
simplicity and abstract quality of the stacked boxes.

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DETAILS

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REFERENCES

"TERRENCE DONNELLY HEALTH SCIENCES COMPLEX / KONGATS

ARCHITECTS".
29 OCT 2012. ARCHDAILY. ACCESSED 01 NOV 2015.
http://www.archdaily.com/286624/terrence-donnelly-health-sciences-complex-
kongats-architects/

“UTM OPENS HEALTH SCIENCES COMPLEX”

MISSISSAUGA NEWS, BY JULIE SLACK. 01 OCT 2011
http://www.mississauga.com/news-story/3121939-utm-opens-health-sciences-
complex/

“Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex, University of

Toronto”
CANADIAN ARCHITECTS REVIEW (e-magazine).
http://www.canadian-architects.com/en/projects/33275
Terrence_Donnelly_Health_Sciences_Complex_University_of_Toronto

http://us.archello.com/en/project/terrence-donnelly-health-sciences-complex#

http://boundless.utoronto.ca/initiatives/the-terrence-donnelly-health-sciences-
complex/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Toronto_Mississauga_buildings#Terrence_D
onnelly_Health_Sciences_Complex

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