Once hidden, small and outdated, the new Leslie L. Dan Faculty of Pharmacy building now stands tall, its glassy exterior marking off the outskirts of the university at Queen’s Park and College.
The building’s ingenious architecture blends immaculately with the surrounding business environment, yet the fringe location and modern look separate the faculty from U of T’s more iconic, “classic” buildings.
This architectural separation mirrors several flaws in the building’s use and design that have alienated pharmacy students and reduced the quality of the student space in the building.
While the new building is replete with vast open spaces, from the generous (corporate-sponsored) lobby to the vertical channel of open air flowing to the top floor, most of the student space is relegated to the first and second basements. The basements are crowded with lockers, lecture halls, a student lounge, council’s office, and a meeting room, while the lobby and upper floors are luminous and spacious, with upper-floor offices inhabited mostly by faculty members.
Having pharmacy faculty offices on the upper floors is advantageous to students since they are now able to interact with their professors and teaching assistants on a one-to-one basis in a central location. However, the distribution and overall proportionality of student space to faculty and corporate space throughout the building is uneven.
The Leslie Dan building has much more floor space than the old pharmacy headquarters, yet the new student lounge and council office are the same size they were at their previous address. The old building managed to hold a well-used student library. The new building, on the other hand, has a number of resource centers, but no library. Students must trudge to Gerstein to do research or use library materials.
Inexplicably, students in the new building cannot reach the basements-where all the student space is-by using the elevator, but faculty members can. And the fact that the building closes at 8 p.m. prevents students from taking full advantage of what study space is available to them.
The impression created by all these deficiencies and oversights is that this academic building does little to improve the student experience. Instead, the layout seems to cater more to creating an extravagant, prestigious image of the faculty to impress outside donors and guests.
This impression is further confirmed by the building’s design. With the glass walls, the open space concept of the floors, and the pods rising through the hollow centre, it looks like this is a sustainable building able to incorporate many future generations of students. Yet, there are only two lecture halls in the entire building. Did the architects not anticipate growth in class sizes? The current structure and system of space allocation is, in effect, capping off any enrolment increases to the pharmacy program, for no reason.
The glass exterior of the building suggests a transparency that promotes communication and interaction between the faculty and students of pharmacy and the outside world. The walls are no longer dark and confining, like those of the old building. Instead, these are open and liberating. However, the positive energy these walls might generate in students is paralysed by having student space in the basement, where the outside world cannot see in. Once again, students are left out of the equation.
In spite of these many shortcomings, the building does offer a number of facilities that help students. Students find it highly useful to have a faculty building that unites pharmacy students from all levels of study. This central location cultivates a sense of community and allows for increased student participation in faculty events. The building also has enough labs to accommodate several groups of students simultaneously.
The carpeted prayer room located on one of the upper floors is a very thoughtful addition to the services provided, especially since there is not much prayer space on campus.
Yet, although all these resources are important, they seem insignificant when compared to the large sections of the building given over to the faculty.
The old pharmacy building was structurally and technologically insufficient for this expanding program, so by-and-large, pharmacy students are pleased to have the Leslie Dan building. However, this does not diminish the ongoing clash between the university’s focus on creating a prominent image for the pharmacy faculty and student interest in available space and resources.
