The LED system in the cladding of the new Ryerson Image Centre and School of Image Arts building on Gould Street glows red in this photograph by Tom Arban …

… and offers a bold multicoloured pattern as seen in this Tom Arban photo

Light fantastic: One of my favourite new downtown buildings — the Ryerson Image Centre and School of Image Arts on the Ryerson University campus — has won an architecture industry award for the colourful impact of an LED lighting system built into its exterior.

The faculty and gallery building, designed by the team of Donald Schmitt, Peggy Theodore, Steven Bondar, Liviu Budur, Zvonimir Cicvaric and Tara Plett at Toronto’s Diamond Schmitt Architects, recently received the 2012 AL Light & Architecture Design Award for Best Use of Colour. The annual award is sponsored by Architectural Lighting Magazine whose editor, Elizabeth Donoff, said of the new Ryerson facility: “The work shows moments of articulated restraint as well as moments of exuberant celebration.”

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