The Well

The Well is a large, mixed-use development spread over a complete city quadrant in the centre of Toronto’s West End, designed to provide a space to ‘Eat, Shop, Work, Live, Play’.

The interconnected development includes residential housing, and an urban streetscape of retail experiences and concepts. We designed, engineered, manufactured and installed a stunning geometric freeform steel-and-glass canopy for a 147m long roof that spans the shopping area between buildings.

Brand: Gartner, Permasteelisa North America

Architects: Adamson Associates, Building Design Partnership

Contractor: Deltera Contracting

Client: Deltera Contracting

The project

The concept

The freeform roof, which is at a height of 20m from the floor, consists of a single layer, mainly bolted, tube/node structure made up of rectangular hollow sections and cylindrical shaped nodes. A total of 43 V-columns and L-brackets anchored to the adjacent buildings support the curved roof, which is made up of unique panes of glass – some triangular, some square and some cold-bent.

What did we do?

We provided 3,200 sqm of façade for the canopy, including 1,869 panes of glass, 1,075 bolted nodes, and 123 opening vents. We used parametric modelling to create the fabrication documents for the tubes, nodes and parts of the columns and gutters, as well as for the glass. We also supplied an additional architectural feature, the Vortex Structure, which is fabricated from circular steel hollow sections. This is self-supporting; only under extreme deflections caused by wind loads is it horizontally supported by the canopy. In addition, a bridge that connects the adjacent buildings is located between the columns of the Vortex Structure.