Construction finally finished this month on the
Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at Shuter and Victoria.
The latest addition to St. Michael's Hospital, the two-building, $103-million facility, comprised of the 270,000 square foot
Keenan Research Centre and the
Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, are now connected by a 17-metre helix-shaped glass bridge, constructed in Germany from Italian materials and shipped in one piece to Toronto, where it was installed in October. Glazing of the structural glass was just completed two weeks ago.
"When we started, we didn't submit the bridge for approval," says Matt Smith, project architect for Diamond and Schmitt, "because it was unclear whether the city would permit us to build the bridge, and so it was added as an eleventh hour addition to the project linking the main hospital to the knowledge institute, and as it turns out, its everyone's favourite part of the building.
"St Mikes is sort of a three-legged stool of research, education and chair and the bridge has come to represent that connection."
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Matt Smith
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