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Ryerson University's 2019-completed Daphne Cockwell Health Sciences Complex brought a new landmark to the institution's presence along Church Street in Downtown Toronto, with the 27-storey building housing eight levels of institutional space in an academic podium, while student residence floors tower above. Throughout the course of its planning, construction, and subsequent occupancy, we followed along with the broad strokes of the project, though the minutiae of the building's inner workings avoided our focus. One aspect of the project integral to the building's overall accessibility, safety, and security was the over 1,300 doors throughout the project, supplied, installed, and programmed by Trillium Architectural Products.
Trillium's involvement with the project dates back to the design stages, working with architects Perkins + Will to develop the hardware schedule and specification to meet the complex's interior aesthetic, as well as consulting closely with Ryerson University to address site-specific requirements including the need to provide keyless entry for the student residence, along with several other door types to serve specific functions.
Across the building, a number of specialty openings were employed. Among the most notable systems used to meet Ryerson's requirements, Trillium incorporated the Sargent IN120 lock, manufactured by Assa Abloy, into the doors for student residence units. This Wi-Fi technology communicates over the building’s existing wireless infrastructure, simplifying the coordination, installation, and security integration process, while significantly reducing the cost of cabling and door frame preparation work. These locks can also be programmed to open using a keycard or a smartphone.
Todd Farrell, Director of Communications at Trillium Architectural Products, tells us that "The advantage that these locks provide is that they are wifi lock sets. They use the same card reader system that you would see in a lot of other buildings, but they don't have to be hardwired: they just communicate over the building's existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. There are no cables to run to every single door."
Adding to the ease of installation and maintenance of wifi locks, Farrell told us this system is better suited to the needs of student residents than traditional solutions, saying that "the reason that you use access control is so that you don't have to use mechanical keys. In the student residence, you're dealing with young adults who are leaving home for the first time and maybe more prone to losing their keys. It's a big operational issue to manage the keys in a building like that. Whereas with a card, if it gets lost, you just wipe it out of the security system and issue the person a new card."
Other door types and associated hardware were required for the many different spaces and functions throughout the complex, including a mix of wood and hollow metal doors, hardware, and automatic door operators, as well as the supply of hollow metal doorframes. Porthole-style lecture hall doors were among the hollow metal doors, while wood doors were finished in natural maple laminate.
Glass doors integrated into full glass walls for light-filled group study rooms were another type of installation, along with temperature rise doors at stairwells, a 'Total Door System' at the main loading dock, and pairs of large fire-rated doors in the basement, measuring 1.2 metres by 2.95 metres.
Similar to the smart lock systems, Trillium also brought in Assa Abloy's Traka Locker system to serve the complex, a smart locker system where users are granted access based on unique PIN codes, fingerprint scanners, or RFID credentials. The implementation of all of these touchless features well before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has placed the building on an excellent footing for the post-pandemic return to normal.
You can learn more about Ryerson's Daphne Cockwell Complex from our Database file for the project, linked below. If you'd like to, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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| Related Companies: | Crossey Engineering, Eastern Construction, Trillium Architectural Products, Walters Group |
