An enclosed walkway connects Beanfield Centre and Hotel X Toronto, and it is made entirely of glass. Located between Princes' Boulevard and Lake Shore Boulevard West, it runs east-west on a slight slant across Newfoundland Road, connecting the Beanfield Centre and Hotel X Toronto's mid-block conference levels between the two avenues.
According to a recent announcement, the design by NORR Architects and construction by EllisDon includes aninsulated glass panels wrapping that encloses the architectural exposed steel framework, as well as a three-color interlayered film on the exterior. . Colored five-millimetre dot patterns are used to reduce solar heat gain and prevent birds from colliding with the insulated glass that runs from floor to ceiling on both sides of the bridge.
There is a pedestrian walkway that is 36. 3 metres in length and covers an area of 110 square metres on the site. Natural limestone panels laminated to an aluminum honeycomb core serve as the exterior cladding and soffit on the building's exterior.
NORR Architects and Engineers' Silvio Baldassarra explained that the Sky Bridge is the culmination of three projects that spanned more than a decade and that it serves as a critical link between a historic and new structure through the use of an inconspicuous, light, and transparent design. "The Sky Bridge is the culmination of three projects that span more than a decade," Baldassarra said. Excellent buildings and structures, we believe, are the result of our clients' commitment to a long-term vision and dedication to the project. They have achieved their long-term goal, which began with the rehabilitation of a 1929 art deco automobile building, now known as Beanfield Centre, in 2009 and continued with the construction of Hotel X in 2018, and most recently, with the official opening of Sky Bridge in 2019.
The floor and roof girders, columns, and rod braces of the walkway act as a vertical truss, resisting longitudinal, lateral, and gravity loads as they pass through them. In order to withstand lateral loads, columns and transverse roof beams are used to form moment frames in the transverse direction. For wind loads, the in-place braces, floor and roof girders, and transverse beams act as horizontal trusses, which are supported by the transverse beams.
Both the existing structure of Hotel X Toronto and a central pier provide support for the walkway at various points along its length. The structure at the Hotel X Toronto's connection point was built in collaboration with structural engineering to provide increased capacity in preparation for the connection to the elevated pedestrian walkway that will be built later. An 18-foot-long cantilever extends from the opposite end of the bridge, towards the Beanfield Center, with no structural connection to the rest of the bridge structure. By using a delicate connection, the impact on the historic structure is minimized, and the bridge can be used as a temporary solution that can be reversed.
Comments (0)