Pearson parking garage wins 2003 Ontario Concrete Award

Carruthers & Wallace (Andrew Kaminker, principal) of Toronto won the 2003 Ontario Concrete Award for structural design innovation for the Lester B. Pearson International Airport Parking Garage.
Yolles Partnership won an honourable mention in the same category for Pantages Place.
The huge garage at Pearson Airport’s New Terminal 1 (due to open) is one of the largest single structure garages in North America. With 2,000 tonnes of tendons it is also the largest post-tensioned buiding in Canada, and one of the largest to use green concrete (incorporating 25% ground granulated blast furnace slag).
Stage 1 accommodates 9,000 parking stalls and has a gross floor area of 340,000 cubic metres and a construction cost of $220 million. Two later lateral additions are projected.
The garage is supported on 470 drilled concrete caissons and consists of an eight-storey (seven suspended levels), cast-in-place post-tensioned concrete frame built in 13 blocks.
By avoiding the use of shear walls (and concrete shafts), the designers provided a structure that could thermally expand and contract with minimum restraint, tensile stress and cracking. It also enhanced public safety by giving clear sight lines.
Expansion joints of up to 150-mm separate each block. The basic grid is 5.2 m x 18.0 m, increased to 104. m in the drive aisles and 15.6 m at exit plazes. The gross area per level for Stage 1 is approximatelay 42,500 cubic metres. Floor to floor height is 3.65.
The south end of the garage is a semi-circular configuration that matches and complements the curved shape of the adjacent new terminal and a long lightwell extends through several floors in the centre. Moving walkways carry people from the centre elevator core to the pedestrain connections to the terminal building. Scott Associates are the architects.
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New parking garage at Pearson International Airport in Toronto dwarfs the old Terminal 1 to the left.