Overview
Toronto Community Housing is the largest social-housing provider in Canada, and much of its portfolio is decades old. Keeping those buildings safe, dry and usable means constant rehabilitation work, and rehabilitation work starts with knowing what is actually there.
iScano was brought in, working alongside a well-regarded Toronto architecture firm (OAA-registered), on two Toronto Community Housing sites in Etobicoke: a community gym on Islington Avenue that had suffered water damage, and a residential complex on Dundas Street West where the gym, parking garage, pool area, entrance, mailbox rooms and seniors’ community event space were being assessed for renovation. Both were measured with laser scanning and delivered as Revit models and 2D drawing sets, so the design team could plan the work on real geometry rather than on drawings that no longer matched the buildings.
Before any scanning, iScano went through Toronto Community Housing’s vendor registration, including insurance and WSIB coverage, and was engaged and paid by Toronto Community Housing directly. Both projects were delivered on purchase orders issued by TCHC.
Project 1: community gym, Islington Avenue
The problem
The gym, a single-volume community space roughly the size of a school gymnasium, had water damage and years of wear. The rehabilitation needed a true record of the space: the internal elevations of each wall, where the floor actually sat, and the thickness of the walls and the floor structure between levels, because the repairs would have to be detailed against the existing construction.
How it was scanned
The outside of the building was captured mostly with a mobile scanner, with a few terrestrial stations where more detail was needed. Inside, the gym was scanned with a high-precision terrestrial scanner from multiple stations so that every wall, opening and change in floor level was captured in one registered point cloud. Where wall and floor thicknesses mattered, scans from both sides were registered together so the thickness could be measured from the data rather than estimated.
What was delivered
- Registered point cloud of the gym interior and the building exterior
- Revit as-built model at LOD 300, including the roof structure
- 2D AutoCAD drawing set: floor plan, internal elevations, sections
- PDF set for the design and construction team
Project 2: residential complex, Dundas Street West
The problem
The second site is a larger complex: apartment towers and low-rise buildings with shared amenities. Toronto Community Housing was planning renovations to the community spaces, the gym, the pool area, the main entrance, the mailbox rooms and the seniors’ community event space, and, most importantly, the parking garage. For the garage, the design team needed to know exactly where the columns were, whether they lined up as the old drawings said, and where they did not, before renovation work could be budgeted and coordinated.
How it was scanned
Two days on site at the end of October. The exterior and the site were captured with a mobile scanner, walking the perimeter and the spaces between buildings. The interior spaces (gym, pool area, entrance, mailbox rooms, corridors and the community event space) and the full parking garage were scanned with a terrestrial scanner. In the garage, every column was captured from several stations so its position and alignment could be checked against the grid.
What was delivered
- Registered scan data of the exterior, the amenity spaces and the parking garage
- Revit BIM model at LOD 300 of the scanned areas, including the low-rise building and the garage roof
- 2D CAD set: plans, sections and elevations of the amenity spaces and the garage
- PDF set
The column survey in the garage is the piece that mattered most for the budget. Knowing where the pillars are, and where they are out of line, before a renovation is priced means fewer surprises on site, less rework and a coordination drawing everyone can trust.
Why it matters
Social-housing buildings do not get replaced; they get repaired, over and over, on tight public budgets. Accurate as-builts are the cheapest part of that process and the one that saves the most: the design team draws on what exists, the contractor prices what exists, and the money goes into the building instead of into change orders. iScano is glad to do this kind of work: measured documentation for community buildings that people depend on every day.
Project facts
| Client | Toronto Community Housing Corporation, with a Toronto OAA-registered architecture firm |
| Location | Etobicoke, Toronto: Islington Avenue and Dundas Street West |
| Buildings | Community gym (Islington); apartment complex with gym, pool area, entrance, mailbox rooms, seniors’ community event space and parking garage (Dundas) |
| Purpose | Rehabilitation after water damage (gym); renovation planning and garage column survey (Dundas) |
| Method | Mobile scanning outside; high-precision terrestrial scanning inside and in the garage |
| Time on site | Islington: 1 day · Dundas: 2 days |
| Model | Revit as-built models, LOD 300 |
| Deliverables | Point cloud · Revit model · 2D AutoCAD plans, sections, internal elevations · PDF |
| Turnaround | Islington: about 2.5 weeks · Dundas: about 5 weeks |
Planning rehabilitation work on an existing building? See our as-built documentation service, Scan-to-BIM services and 3D laser scanning in Toronto, or read about the difference between static and mobile LiDAR.
