In Toronto, a contract has just been signed between Infrastructure Ontario (IO), the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming (MTCG) and Ontario Science Partners, the team that won the tender called in 2024 for the design, construction, financing and maintenance of the New Ontario Science Centre, and which includes the firms Hariri Pontarini Architects and Snøhetta for the architectural design, Sacyr Canada Inc and Amico Design Build Inc. for the construction phase, Johnson Controls Canada L.P. for the management and Agentis Capital Advisors for financial advice. The intervention is part of a broader regional enhancement program aimed at boosting Ontario's attractiveness on a global scale in terms of scientific development and innovation, and involves the construction of a new building for exhibition and educational use that will rise in Ontario Place, an iconic destination for scientific learning in the city, and the preservation of the adjacent 1970s Cinesphere and Pod, the first permanent Imax cinema (and the largest in Canada). And because the innovation here is in the process as well as in the product, a complex procurement process based on a public-private partnership (DBFM - Design Build Finance Maintain) has been initiated to implement the work, which involves public institutions as clients and private entities as contractors and managers, devolving to the latter the honors, duties (of construction and management) of the intervention and the business risks, against better control of costs and timing and work quality, in comparison with other contractual arrangements. From what can be gleaned from the renders, the new building will emerge from the land stemming its full-bodied mass through an organic volume somewhere between a giant origami and a snow sculpture shimmering with light on water, and will boast the best energy and carbon footprint abatement performance. As the architectural design team states,  “we were inspired by the site’s power as a place of connection between the city and Lake Ontario, between sky and the water, and as a threshold for the imagination: a place to spark curiosity and wonder. The constellations of our night sky became a metaphor for connecting all of the elements of the new Science Centre, including the existing five Pods and the Cinesphere at Ontario Place. The program is expressed as a series of connected molecules or modules attracted to each other to create meaningful experiences inside and out. On the exterior, a tracery of scalloped and arced silhouettes organize to form this constellation inside.  The journey of moving up and through these connections makes science visible, tangible and fun". Complementing the project, an urban design of new public squares, paths and greenways will integrate the area more closely with the city context, making it increasingly lived in and usable in everyday life. The work is scheduled to start in spring 2026.