Day Hall Renewal Project, University of Guelph
WINNER OF A 2025 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
This highly performative, multi-faceted campus intervention at the University of Guelph is exemplary in its response to its context and heritage-listed ‘host’, Day Hall. The scheme includes landscape, new gathering and teaching spaces, labs and numerous carbon-reducing measures across the project. However, its architectural triumph is the diaphanous, translucent glass veils of the Hall’s new extensions—whose proportion and atmosphere will quietly enhance their context. – Alison Brooks, juror
LOCATION University of Guelph, Ontario
This net zero-targeted project involves integrating a new two-storey-plus-basement addition with an existing listed heritage building in the heart of the University of Guelph Campus. The original Day Hall building, constructed in 1895, will be largely preserved, restored, and transformed through this expansion to provide space for the university’s Master of Engineering program and other programs.
In addition to a computer lab, workstations and classrooms, the Day Hall Renewal will provide significant quantities of social and collaborative space. A link to the adjacent MacKinnon Building ensures that Day Hall’s main student and faculty congregation area, which accommodates up to 120 occupants, is accessible to students in multiple programs.
The transparent above-ground new construction flanking the east and west sides of the heritage stone-and-brick building strikes a fine balance between deferring to the older structure and providing an engaging contemporary counterpoint to it. These volumes nestle under the hipped roof of the 1895 building, and the older building remains the principal point of entry. Day Hall’s vertical and horizontal datums determined the bay width and floor height of the addition’s façades, and near the main entry, the concave arc of the west addition echoes the semicircular curve of the half-moon window above the older building’s doorway.
The new east and west façades are clad primarily in glazed, custom-fritted curtain wall. On the west side, electrically powered venting skylights integrate into the counter slope of rooftop PV panels. On both sides, electrically powered thermal louvres are slotted between the façades’ slightly saw-toothed glazed panes, creating a breathable curtain wall that allows for through-wall ventilation. Other sustainable features include solar shingles on some new and heritage roof faces, extensive and intensive green roofs, a cross-laminated timber structure, a rainwater collection system, and mechanical tie-in to the university’s de-carbonized central plant.
Within and without, accessibility is seamlessly integrated into the project. The new landscape’s sloped walkways unobtrusively connect the heritage building’s elevated main entry to surrounding destinations. Similarly, on the ground floor of the main, double-height gathering space, ‘stramp’ seating threads a zigzagging ramp through informal, stepped seating.
Near the main entry a feature stair links all levels. At the top, the renovation transforms the attic space under the heritage building’s hipped roof into a design studio.
CLIENT The University of Guelph | ARCHITECT TEAM Tyler Sharp (MRAIC), Bob Goyeche (MRAIC), Sanjpy Pal, Tori Hamatini, Jim Shi, Luca DiGregorio, Kode Ume-Onyido, Sara Ghorban Pour | HERITAGE Stevens Burgess | STRUCTURAL Entuitive | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL MCW | LANDSCAPE NAK Design Strategies | CIVIL LEA | AREA 2,500 m2 | BUDGET $25.9 M | STATUS Contract documents | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION December 2027
As featured in the Canadian Architect December 2025 Awards of Excellence issue.
Read our jury’s full comments here.
You can see all of the 2025 Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence winners here.
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