Toronto, Ontario, Canada

RDH Architects have designed the conceptually inspired Scott Street Signal Tower Generator for Union Station in downtown Toronto, creating a new dynamic facade for the street. 

For this new City of Toronto Metrolinx infrastructure project, the architects were commissioned to design the structure and enclosure for a new generator building that services the main railway station of Toronto. 

The project is located immediately adjacent to the historic Scott Street interlocking signal tower and replaces an existing generator that has come to the end of its life and will be de-commissioned after construction. 

For its inspired design, Scott Street Signal Tower Generator has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Awards Honorable Mention by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The Scott Street interlocking signal tower was designed in 1930 for the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) by John Wilson Orrock, the chief engineer of buildings. 

This tower is one of three signal towers built in Toronto for the C.P.R. during the same era, the Cherry Street, Scott Street, and John Street interlocking signal towers. 

As such, this building has been treated as a significant piece of heritage infrastructure. 

The new addition attempts to respect this historic building and bring a similar level of design attention to what are often overlooked but highly essential pieces of hidden engineering and infrastructure in the city. 

The conceptual approach for this project uses a process of carefully analyzing the existing architecture to help guide and inform positions regarding building scale, form, facade articulation, and attention to detail. 

Found geometry and scale impact the size and shape of this small building with the aspiration of creating a highly functional piece of infrastructural architecture comprised of a generator, a structural system, and a naturally ventilating skin that reflects the image of the existing building in terms of perception, footprint and facade composition.

Project Name: Scott Street Signal Tower Generator
Architects: RDH Architects Inc.
General Contractor: Black & McDonald Limited
Client: RDH Architects Inc.
Photographs Courtesy of the Architects