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Canada Science

Ontario Science Center To Close Immediately Over Roof Collapse Risk (www.cbc.ca) 24

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
The Ontario Science Center, a world-class science and cultural institution in Toronto, is shutting down immediately due to the risk that the building's roof could collapse, the province announced Friday. CBC News: The abrupt closure, which the province says could last years, comes after the government's controversial announcement in 2023 that the popular landmark and attraction would be moved to the Ontario Place site -- a move it says will save costs. "The actions taken today will protect the health and safety of visitors and staff," said Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma in a news release. "We are making every effort to avoid disruption to the public and help the Ontario Science Centre continue delivering on its mandate."

An engineering report this week by Rimkus Consulting Group showed each of the centre's three buildings contain roof panels in a "distressed, high-risk" condition, the Ministry of Infrastructure said in a news release. The panels require fixing by Oct. 31, 2024 to "avoid further stress due to potential snow load which could lead to roof panel failure," the release said. Fixing the roof will cost between $22 million and $40 million, the ministry said, requiring the centre be closed for up to two years. "These estimates are incomplete and subject to change," said the ministry, noting the costs make up only a "small portion" of the funding needed to keep the science centre open. The government says the centre needs $478 million to tackle its "failing infrastructure" and sustain programming.
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Ontario Science Center To Close Immediately Over Roof Collapse Risk More

Ontario Science Center To Close Immediately Over Roof Collapse Risk

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  • Trudeau (Score:2, Troll)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

    Bottom line, how can we blame Trudeau for this?

    • What does Doonesbury have to do with it?

    • Re: Trudeau (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kiddo 9000 ( 5893452 )
      Don't worry, we'll find a way to blame Trudeau for Doug Ford wanting to build a spa where the science center is currently located.

    • Bottom line, how can we blame Trudeau for this?

      ONTARIO Science Center - not under Trudeaus jurisdiction. It is under Premier Doug Fords however.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        ONTARIO Science Center - not under Trudeaus jurisdiction. It is under Premier Doug Fords however.

        But we hate Trudeau. Everything is his fault, even if he has nothing to do with it.

        Your toast fell butter side down? Trudeau's fault.
        You spilled your coffee on your shirt? Trudeau's fault.
        Step on a crack and broke your mother's back? Trudeau's fault.

  • So, we knew there was something wrong with the roof - but we kept people coming to the building. We release the news the roof is a danger AND have a cost already determined to repair, ALL in ONE day! Yeah nothing fishy going on hereâ¦
    • If you actually read the report, you would have seen that bit where it says it was released on the 18th, only 3 days ago. This is a very reasonable time frame for the government to go over the results and weigh all their options. They wouldn't know the condition until after the survey was completed.

  • How does a roof replacement cost $22M-$40M?!

    Something's wrong with this figure.

    • It's a massive, sprawling, brutalist building constructed in the '60s. That figure doesn't surprise me at all.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      If the roof is in imminent risk of collapse, that means there's a lot more wrong than just the waterproofing layer. We're talking a lot of girders and trusses here. A lot of engineering required. To say nothing about the cost of shoring and bracing so that workers can safely erect scaffolding to work inside the roof structure. Not surprised at all about the cost.

      If your home had a roof that was at risk of collapse you would need a lot more than just new shingles!

    • Re:How does a roof replacement cost $22M-$40M?! (Score:4, Informative)

      by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @09:13PM (#64568311) Journal
      The roof (and most of the building's structure) is a reinforced concrete. As the article explains, it's a particular kind of lightweight concrete (aerated, so full of small voids) that was popular in the 1960s when it was built, but has not held up well over time. The problem here is structural: much more than re-tarring the roof of a commercial property, or the shingles on your house. The concrete will need substantial repair and reinforcement, or outright replacement. That'll be a tricky design challenge even before work begins: most options will add weight to the roof, and the underlying structure may itself need reinforcement to take the added load.
      • Or you could place stainless steel panels on top, with heated snow cutter blades over the most stressed parts - or run current down a moving wire rope and stainless steel nets underneath with glued on stress and movement sensors. The problem is redesigned to avoid peak snow load and be a slippery dip for snow. The next issue is as the snow block speed off the roof, not to hit pedestrians below. Solved by a shipping container rented entrance during winter. In Portland they even built a domed igloo roof str

    • The building was constructed for $23M ($169M today). It is basically a brutalist (concrete Soviet architectural style) government building, it was not meant to be maintained for this long, it is mostly a flat roof and a small area has a dome shape, so snow adds a huge load every winter. But given the construction, you basically have to cut the existing roof out and replace most of the building structural support, itâ(TM)s not just some shingles.

      You could probably just demolish it and build a better arc

      • It is basically a brutalist (concrete Soviet architectural style) government building,

        Sheesh! You really should take at least one look at a building before commenting on its architectural style. The complex shares nothing at all in common with a Soviet era office block (and BTW, the Brutalist movement Originated in the UK, not the USSR).

  • A long time coming, probably (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @07:45PM (#64568225)

    I'm in my 50s. The OSC was a standard school trip for students in the Greater Toronto Area when I was a kid, and back then most of the exhibits worked. I took my kids a decade or so ago and it seems like most of the exhibits were broken - presumably the place was never properly funded after the initial setup.

    It's a shame, it's an interesting building on beautiful property, and we really should have a nice practical science exhibit available to the population.

    But the last time I wanted my kids to have that kind of experience, I drove 4 hours north to Sudbury and visited Science North. It's smaller, but it's in great condition and staffed by a bunch of young very enthusiastic people and we had a hell of a time there.

    My understanding is the government wants to relocate the OSC to the old Ontario Place grounds. That wouldn't be the worst location, but Ontario Place isn't all that much newer so I question the viability of the plan. If you're going to do some kind of major reno, I think it'd be better to fix the existing location.

    • I remember the Ontario Science Center when I was a kid in the 70s. The exhibits where amazing and arrange in such a way that you would learn one concept and then build on it. Levers -> mechanical advantage -> incline plane -> screw. Frequency -> wave length -> resonance. Gas volume -> pressure and temperature -> ideal gas law. When I took my kids in the 2000s the exhibits were the exact same physical exhibits and maybe 1/4 were broken, 1/4 missing but worse they had been rearranged

    • Re:A long time coming, probably (Score:4, Informative)

      by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @10:41PM (#64568411)

      It's a shame, it's an interesting building on beautiful property, and we really should have a nice practical science exhibit available to the population.

      It IS a shame. And I bet Doug Frod, (intentional misspelling), is absolutely salivating at the prospect of selling that land to his developer buddies so they can build multi-million dollar homes on prime ravine land. After all, this IS the province that one wag defined as "three developers in a trench-coat, walking a Premier on a leash".

      My understanding is the government wants to relocate the OSC to the old Ontario Place grounds. That wouldn't be the worst location, but Ontario Place isn't all that much newer so I question the viability of the plan.

      I seem to remember that the plan for Ontario Place called for a much smaller building for the Science Centre, which would be part of an amusement park or some such nonsense. To provide parking for all this activity, the plan called for a parking garage. With two or three levels underground. On an artificial island in Lake Ontario. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

      It wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that these morons are planning to build on the Leslie Street Spit.

      • >salivating at the prospect of selling that land to his developer buddies so they can build multi-million dollar homes on prime ravine land.

        That was my assumption, but I assumed condo apartments.

      • Found it in today's news:

        âoeThe reason heâ(TM)s doing this is to justify the $600-million parking lot (and) the Therme spa that weâ(TM)ll be building on public land,â Crombie said during the rally, referring to the provinceâ(TM)s Ontario Place redevelopment plans that feature a private, water-themed spa.

    • I visited OSC a few times in 60s-70s. The cloud chamber display was mesmerizing. Went one time to see Buckminster Fuller give a talk. Maybe the roofs would have lasted longer if they had been geodesic domes.

    • Ontario stopped funding the science centre years ago, and let the main entrance bridge fall into disrepair. You now have to enter most of the building by the back door.
      Raymond Moriyama, the world-famous architect, designed it "for the ages", so the bridge failure already made me wonder.

      Then they cut the budget and laid off a bunch of exhibit designers.

      Then Mr Ford, the Ontario Premier, announced they were going to shut it down in favour of a new space adjacent to a private spa at Ontario Place.

      This w

  • My BF and I are in the Toronto area and went to OSC on Wednesday. I guess our timing was good.

    It's too bad the building is in such disrepair. I have many great memories of visits there.

  • Many schools and hospitals in the UK were constructed with RAAC [bbc.co.uk] (Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete). UK Government report [parliament.uk]

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