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Top Glass 2019 seminar – Building Green in Toronto: TGSV3-compliant glazed assemblies

It’s Canada’s largest real estate market, and it has rules all its own. Toronto codes and standards are finally acknowledging the importance of building envelope in overall energy conservation measures. Yet highly glazed buildings continue to be in demand and have to respond to the more stringent requirements.

The Toronto Green Standard is Toronto’s sustainable design requirements for new private and city-owned developments. The standard consists of tiers of performance measures with supporting guidelines that promote sustainable site and building design. Tier 1 of the Toronto Green Standard is required through the planning approval process. Tiers 2 to 4 are higher level voluntary standards associated with financial incentives and verified post construction. The standard addresses the city of Toronto’s environmental priorities to improve air quality and reduce the urban heat island effect; reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from new buildings while making buildings more resilient to power disruptions and encourage the use of renewable and district energy; protect and enhance ecological functions, integrate landscapes and habitats and decrease building-related bird collisions and mortalities; and divert household and construction waste from going to landfill sites.

This presentation will focus on Toronto’s TGSV3 requirements, explaining what facade designers have to do to meet both mandatory and stretch targets. It will also look at proposed changes to the Ontario Building Code and evaluate systems, assemblies, and components for highly glazed buildings and what it takes to achieve higher performance targets.

About the speaker
Hamid Vossoughi is a project principal at WSP Canada. Hamid is driven by delivering unique solutions to complex and challenging problems. He is the leader of WSP Canada’s Facade Centre of Excellence. He has a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University and Master of Science from Cornell University. •