Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport

• Kimel Family Field House - Double court, international-competition-grade facility with retractable bleachers seating 2,000 guests
• Strength and conditioning centre (SCC) - Includes: squat racks, free weights, strength & cardio equipment, turf lane, Olympic-weightlifting platforms

• Fitness studio - Includes: wood flooring, mirrors, permanent bars, and sound system
• David L. MacIntosh Sport Medicine Clinic - A comprehensive care and teaching facility 
• Seminar and conference rooms, and research laboratories

Changing rooms are located on the second floor. The men’s and women’s change rooms are accessible and have both open-style and cubicles for showering. Change tables are available in each room. Lockers are available for rent here. 

There are alternate change rooms available for any user at the far end of the hallway: the Accessible Change Room, All Gender, and Family Change Room. Both have shower and washroom amenities inside the area. Lockers for these change rooms are just around the corner. 

An additional single user washroom is located on the mezzanine level.

Metered, street parking is available along Devonshire Place. There is also a Green P Municipal Parking lot at Bedford Rd. and Bloor St. W. 

Bike racks are available in front of the building along Devonshire Pl. 

The Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport is a short walking distance from St. George Subway Station (Bedford side). 

The Ontario Association of Architects Award recognizes the innovative skills of Ontario architects in creating spaces, buildings and communities that respect and enhance the environment and enrich human activity. The award placed the building in the running for the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Design Excellence, as well as the People's Choice Award available to the 10 Awards of Excellence winners.

This award cited the elegant design solution that reduced the bulk of the building by dropping the field house partly below ground and making each large space transparent to the street. “This award is a recognition that the building has made a significant contribution to the city’s urban life, going beyond the programmatic requirements and delivering a sense of place,” said Ted Watson, the partner in charge at MacLennanJaunkalnsMiller Architects (MJMA).

“This a tremendous honour for U of T, the architectural firms, Patkau and MJMA, and builders EllisDon, to be recognized for the vision they had for the Goldring Centre,” said Blake Goldring, whose family was one of the founding benefactors of the building. “The building’s structure and design represent a new paradigm for sport and physical activity in Canada because of the way in which it brings together research, teaching, training, fitness and competition - all in one amazing facility. It’s incredibly exciting to be a part of this legacy.”

This award, along with the Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine, recognizes consulting engineering firms and their projects in terms of high quality, innovation and technical excellence. “The tight urban site for this sports research and recreation complex necessitated a top-down built structure, in which the lower floors were suspended from a large truss.” The jury admired “this unusual arrangement which required complex detailing to deal with load deflections in the truss and movement in the lower levels. The designers [Blackwell Structural Engineering Firm] had to surmount a major challenge: building setback requirements meant there was not enough space on the site for the field house, so it had to be located below grade. The resulting design is in essence a three-storey bridge. A system of six parallel truss sections running lengthwise across the building span 54 metres at each bay. The second and third floors containing offices, labs, and fitness facilities, are suspended from the centre truss sections. Many innovations were required to address the finer engineering requirements resulting from this design.”

“The Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport forms a new and vital hub for sports, research and therapy, serving both varsity athletes and the wider campus community. The facility features a 2,000-seat competition venue for basketball and volleyball; a large strength and conditioning center; a sports medicine clinic; and sports science research laboratories. The core of the program is a pair of very large rooms: the field house and the strength and conditioning center. Due to site restrictions, the field house was too large to fit within the permissible zoning envelope, requiring the courts to be placed below grade. To preserve the clear span required for the field house, the strength and conditioning center and upper floors are suspended above using 180-foot-long trusses. In overcoming the challenges posed by a constrained urban infill site, the project was rewarded with a singular public expression on the street: a heroic steel frame vaulting over a cavernous excavation.” (November issue)

This award honoured the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport with its top award for Sports Stadiums/Athletic Facilities, calling it an "Ingenious solution to a difficult urban context.” This is the premier showcase celebrating the best in education design. “Transformative facility that provides both a new center and a gateway to the campus, while setting up the college for a brilliant future, “ according to the 2015 jury.

This facility is considered one of the two or three premiere international Architectural magazines by architects. “The glamorous new 140,000-square-foot Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport on the University of Toronto’s (U of T) downtown campus [is] located among the elite cultural institutions on Toronto’s central and rarefied Bloor Street. Goldring brings a contemporary edge to the historic U of T campus—not just with its glowing glass façade but also with its concept of putting athletes on public view. “This breaks with the tradition of the introverted sports facility,” says John Patkau, Hon. FAIA, lending the building a reality-TV edge.

The vision for the voyeuristic facility stemmed from the fact that a full program of regulation basketball and volleyball courts, lobbies, training, and sports medicine facilities had to be stacked vertically to fit the compact urban site. And that’s where the voyeurism comes in: The east-side truss is left completely visible behind the cable-supported glazing, a transparency that allows the lobbies to look down into the basketball and volleyball courts, and gives the double-height Strength and Conditioning Centre a strong presence from the street. This visual showcase theatrically fulfills the objective of promoting health and wellness on campus.”

Canadian Architect Magazine celebrates the building as an exemplary model for design excellence on campus. There will also be an online video feature accompanying the article to capture the building in context with games and other activity going on.