OCADU Onsite Gallery

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project summary

Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD University and its experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. This 8,000-square-foot gallery provides a new display and conservation environment that enables experiential learning opportunities for new media, art curation, and conservation studies. Designed to achieve precision environmental control and exacting ‘Class A’ ASHRAE conservation standards, the gallery is undergoing certification by the Canadian Conservation Institute to receive artworks made available through international lending and travelling exhibition programs.

Located on the ground floor of a conventional condominium tower, the gallery is crisscrossed by a network of pipes that service the upper-level residential development. This constraint gave rise to a unique ceiling system that protects the art from the risks of possible leakage, provides exceptional capacity for lighting control, power distribution, and projections, and provides the capacity to suspend objects and manipulate the display space of the gallery –  all of which are vital to an experimental art venue.  Facilities also include a Class A conservation and archival space, office and collaboration areas, including a workroom for curatorial work with artists and students, and other back-of-house facilities.