At the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building at the University of Toronto, Foster + Partners has turned contextual design on its head. Situated on a grassy lot at the intersection of College Street and University Avenue, the academic tower is located adjacent to the school’s historic Tanz Building. “We looked at the program and decided that instead of aligning the top of our building with the Tanz Building, it would be more interesting to play an inverted game and create a void,” says Nigel Dancey, senior partner at Foster + Partners. As a result, much of the building’s bulk is raised on concrete stilts, leaving room below for a transparent glass cube precisely the five-story height of its neighbor. Within the large, open void, the architects decided to suspend two massive classroom pods that they hoped would look as though they were floating on air. Working in collaboration with Chevy Chase, Maryland–based lighting firm Claude Engle, it didn’t take long for all involved to realize they could make the lozenges the building’s signature feature by illuminating them at night with a show of shifting hues.
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