The University of Toronto's Scarborough campus (UTSC) boasts an impressive range of architecture spanning from the mid-20th century to the present day, and the suburban satellite campus will soon have yet another landmark that looks like nothing else in town.

Construction is already well underway for the new Myron and Berna Garron Health Sciences Complex (formerly known as the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health) at the corner of Military Trail and Morningside Avenue.

The six-storey building will join UTSC's growing portfolio of impressive architecture, featuring a design by award-winning Netherlands-based architects MVRDV, working with controversial Toronto firm Diamond Schmitt Architects.

MVRDV/Diamond Schmitt

A geometric massing — wrapped in an exterior of integrated solar panels that will contribute to the building's energy usage — will come together in a central glazed reveal mid-section.

MVRDV/Diamond Schmitt

This mid-section will be demarcated in a randomized pattern that makes it appear as if the structure is being ripped apart at a central seam to reveal a five-storey atrium at the heart of the building.

MVRDV/Diamond Schmitt

The design currently under construction follows a previous plan tabled in 2022, which would have brought a wedge-shaped building to the site with a design by architects gh3. An updated design was revealed in 2023, and construction crews mobilized later that year to begin work on the new landmark.

MVRDV/Diamond Schmitt

Work on foundations and the majority of other underground components is complete as of early November 2024, and the building's structural steel skeleton has since begun to emerge above street level.

Fareen Karim

A portion of the building's steel structure has rapidly reached its full six-storey height, though there is still a long way to go before the structural skeleton is complete.

Fareen Karim

Construction is scheduled to wrap up in 2026.

Fareen Karim

Upon completion, the building will join MVRDV's illustrious portfolio as the firm's first completed commission in Canada.

Fareen Karim

The new building is set to house a mix of classroom space, flexible laboratories, and offices for university staff and faculty. 

In an unconventional spin on the typically education-specific uses of institutional buildings such as these, the project also plans to incorporate a pharmacy and a psychology clinic, which will serve the campus and the broader Highland Creek community.

The project is being built with the help of a recent $25 million gift from Orlando Corporation, in addition to provincial funding contributed as part of the Government of Ontario’s plan to increase the number of health care workers in the province.

Speaking at the project's ground breaking last year, Patricia Houston, interim dean of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and interim vice-provost, relations with health-care institutions, called the "vibrant new hub for health education in Scarborough is critical to increasing access to health care."

"It will help provide equitable, integrated and compassionate care in the Eastern GTA – and, ultimately, it will help improve lives across the region," she said.