Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning

The 21-story Hospital for Sick Children's (SickKids) Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning is believed to be the largest health center in the world devoted to children's health research. It houses more than 2,000 scientists and staff, with room for 260 PIs—previously scattered in six different locations—conducting state-of-the-art genomics, cancer, stem cell, brain behavior, and organ research.

The entire building was designed to enhance collaboration and encourage scientists, clinicians, and students to fuel innovation. The top 17 floors of laboratory space are grouped into six specialized neighborhoods, each spanning two to three floors—brain and behavior; organ systems and disease; patients, population, and policy; genetic and genomic medicine; cancer and stem cell biology; and molecules, cells, and therapies. Each neighborhood has its own expansive atrium and is connected to the other neighborhoods through staircases and shared spaces. These shared “water cooler” spaces include kitchenettes, white boards, and comfortable furniture to encourage gathering and the incubation of new solutions to treating childhood diseases.

All of the laboratories, which make up approximately 70 percent of the building, are designed with ultimate flexibility, including benches—6 feet long in trains of three—that can be easily moved, connected, and disconnected from utilities in the ceiling. These open, easily reconfigured labs are clustered around core facilities, including an applied genomics lab, imaging center, and vivaria. To put the scale of the laboratories into perspective, it has been calculated that the building houses more than three miles of laboratory bench top, with 112 work spaces per wet lab floor and 140 work spaces per dry lab floor.

The building also contains:

• A 250-seat auditorium with video conferencing capability and a push-to-talk microphone at every seat for easy interaction
• Two 75-seat event/classrooms on the second floor and one on the third, both of which can be divided in half; video conferencing is available for distance learning
• A 59-seat seminar room with video-conferencing capability
• A 2,336-sf gallery on the second floor

The tower is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.