2018 MCA Chairman’s Award Goes to Ontario Place Pavilion

The Metal Construction Association (MCA) gave the Ontario Place Pavilion the 2018 Chairman’s Award in the Metal Roofing category.

The decision was unanimous among this year’s panel of distinguished architects: Steven G. Blye of Legat Architects, Steven Ginn of Steven Ginn Architects, and Paul Mankins of Substancearchitecture.

The pavilion, which sits at the end of a performance lawn at Trillium Park and William G. Davis Trail at Ontario Place in Toronto, was designed to provoke curiosity and invite use as a meeting place for small events and gatherings. The steeply-sloped zinc roof is the focal point. With peaks and valleys reflective of the silhouette created by Ontario’s spruce and pine forests, the roofline of the pavilion forms a dramatic sculptural element. Zinc was selected for its naturally weathering patina, starting with a blue-grey color to encourage the process.

The roof’s steep pitch and complicated intersections of panels made construction painstaking, but with striking aesthetic results. “It’s a flat-out beautiful piece of sculpture all by itself,” comments Blye. “It’s taking a very simple roof form and distorting, twisting, and torqueing it to almost suggest a small village.”

Credits: 

Building Owner: Ontario Place Corporation
MCA Member Manufacturer: RHEINZINK America
Architects: LANDinc; West 8
Contractors: Urbacon Buildings Groups Corporation; A-Con Construction

Metal Installer: Semple Gooder Roofing Corporation
Metal Fabricator: Agway Metals

Winners in eight categories were announced at the MCA’s Winter Meeting Awards Dinner in Key Largo, Florida on January 15th. Awards were given in eight categories: Overall Excellence; Residential; Metal Roofing; Education – Primary & Secondary Schools; Education – Colleges & Universities; Institutional; Municipal; and Commercial/Industrial.

Each year, the Chairman’s Awards go to the most exceptional buildings involving MCA member companies. The criteria include overall appearance, significance of metal in the project, innovative use of metal, and the role of metal in achieving project objectives. Recipients for these awards are selected each year from projects submitted by MCA members to Metal Architecture Magazine’s annual Design Awards Program.