The Bentway is growing once again. As one of Toronto’s most dynamic urban spaces, the public arts and culture hub continues its mission of transforming neglected areas into vital public assets. The latest expansion, titled The Bentway Islands, will see three large traffic islands between Dan Leckie Way and Spadina Avenue converted into 125,000 square feet of new public space, designed for year-round programming and recreation.

The project is part of a continued partnership between The Bentway Conservancy and the City of Toronto, with design leadership from New York’s Field Operations and Toronto-based firm Brook McIlroy.

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“The Bentway Islands marks an exciting next chapter in our ongoing mission to solidify a new future for the Gardiner Expressway,” said Ilana Altman, co-executive director of The Bentway. The new space will not only offer more recreational and cultural activities but will also foster environmental sustainability and improve connections to the waterfront.

This project will function as a “sister site” to The Bentway’s existing Phase 1, a beloved cultural hub under the Gardiner Expressway that has welcomed over 1.4 million visitors since its opening in 2018. With a focus on expanding community spaces in the rapidly densifying city, The Bentway Islands will further enrich Toronto’s urban fabric by offering new opportunities for play, relaxation and connection. Its design will reflect The Bentway’s commitment to creating vibrant, inclusive public realms.

Field Operations, known for iconic projects like New York’s High Line and Waterfront Seattle, will collaborate with Brook McIlroy, an expert in urban planning and architecture. Both firms were chosen through an international competition, overseen by a jury that included representatives from the local community and Indigenous engagement advisors. The project, which forms the first step in the ambitious Under Gardiner Public Realm Plan, is expected to unveil initial designs in 2025.

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“We’re thrilled to work on this exciting project that will transform underutilized land into a space that celebrates Toronto’s culture and diversity,” said Isabel Castilla, associate partner at Field Operations. Her sentiments were echoed by Calvin Brook, principal of Brook McIlroy, who emphasized the importance of embracing Toronto’s eccentric spaces and creating environments for experimentation and shared experiences.

As Toronto continues to grow, The Bentway Islands offers a promising glimpse of what the city’s future public spaces could look like. Expanding on The Bentway’s role as a cultural and social hub, we’re excited to see how the project further reimagines Toronto’s underused spaces and how they can become vibrant areas for communities to gather and thrive.

The post The Bentway Appoints New Design Team Ahead of Major Expansion appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

At the end of the Yonge-University line, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) anchors a rapidly growing urban community, seamlessly balancing the convenience of city life and the ease of suburban pace. A short walk across to Expo City, you’ll find CG Tower, Vaughan’s tallest high-rise at 60 storeys. Developed by the family-run collective, Cortel Group, and designed by the acclaimed Canadian architecture firm, BDP Quadrangle, CG Tower exemplifies innovative design and thoughtful placemaking.

An impressive 36-month construction for a 60-storey build, CG Tower rose from groundbreaking in December 2021 to roof-topping in spring 2024, with interiors set for completion by the end of this year. This accelerated timeline is largely thanks to the strategic planning of mechanical plant location, vertical circulation, and the choice of window-embedded precast brick panels that form the tower’s facade. Locally manufactured in Vaughan, these panels enabled the installation of 1.5 floors of building envelope per day—reducing typical construction time by 75%.

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Kick-started by Cortel Group, the new Edgley Park and Pond is now being expanded by the City of Vaughan to ten times its current size, soon to become a sustainable green space at the heart of VMC.

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Rather than a single space that often feels overcrowded and impersonal, the design team strategically distributed the amenities throughout sprawling terraces, offering a more catered and personal experience. 

What was once primarily industrial is now a vibrant mixed-use community, as envisioned by Cortel Group’s CEO, Mario Cortellucci, decades ago. As a pioneer builder in Vaughan, Cortel Group embarked on CG Tower to create an iconic landmark. “The building itself is unique from those surrounding it, from the silhouette to the precast’s brick facade,” shares Cortellucci. “In addition, the choice of brick enhances thermal efficiency.”

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Reflecting Vaughan’s history of suburban houses, the brick exterior evokes the warm feeling of home at any scale. “The choice of brick symbolizes Vaughan’s transition from low-rise suburbia to high-density urban development,” explains Witt. “For us, sustainability begins with a strong building envelope and detailing done well.” Rather than focusing on individual sustainable elements, the team adopted a comprehensive, long-term approach from the ground up. 

As the era of homogenous high-rises fades, CG Tower’s distinct design and innovative development are shaping the future of vibrant, sustainable communities across the GTA.

The post Redefining Urban Living at Vaughan’s Tallest Skyscraper appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

If the social media buzz is any indication, the Waterworks Food Hall has quickly become one of the most popular dining destinations in Toronto. While the concept is not new—The Well opened its own in June, and Chefs Hall established itself as Bay Street’s food court back in 2018—Waterworks offers something unique. It is the heart of a purpose-built, mixed-use development designed to conserve and rehabilitate one of the city’s long-forgotten industrial heritage sites.

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Situated at the northern edge of St. Andrew’s Playground Park, Toronto’s oldest public playground, the scheme is defined by a 1932 City of Toronto Waterworks building which spans an entire city block. Occupying this blueprint, the Waterworks development unveils new opportunities for pedestrian access and pathways through the food hall that enhance neighbourhood connectivity.

The concept is the result of a collaboration among several prominent developers, architects, and designers. Woodcliffe Landmark Properties and MOD Developments led the project, with interior design by Cecconi Simone. Architectural restoration was handled by ERA Architects and Diamond Schmitt, preserving the building’s Art Deco features. Futurestudio, DesignAgency and Steven Fong Architects contributed to the food hall’s more than 20 kiosk designs— with Steven Fong Architects and Future studio executing the fit-out, and BUILD IT completing the kiosk build-out—while Studio Ninth curated the custom artwork which hangs beneath the food hall’s sunlit ceiling.

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Adorned in details that connect the space to its past—including skylights, exposed brick and a crane—the Waterworks Food Hall is just one component of the hybrid mixed-use development at the cusp of Toronto’s King West District and Alexandra Park neighbourhood. 

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Waterworks also encompasses 297 residential suites including 15 affordable suites, an extensive rooftop terrace, public green space and an integrated YMCA planned to open this fall. Spanning 60,000 square feet across two floors, the latter includes a gymnasium, a pool, and versatile multipurpose rooms that are available for local events, all of which overlook the condo building’s Richmond Street courtyard that floods the spaces with natural light.

“By incorporating affordable housing and unique spaces like the food hall and YMCA, we’ve created something unique that truly enhances the local area and brings people together,” says Woodcliffe CEO Eve Lewis. “This project, initiated nearly a decade ago, was ahead of its time in addressing the need for community-focused spaces in Toronto.”

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“Waterworks was always about more than just building condos—it was about creating a space where the heart and soul of King Street could thrive,” says Lewis. “We envisioned a place that would bring people together, not just as a residential community, but as a destination for all of Toronto. That’s why we took on the challenge of transforming a heritage building—which is not easy, mind you. Building a 14,000-square-foot basement under a heritage building is incredibly complicated, but the result is something special.”

As the reimagined block settles into its new groove, a quick visit will reveal a meaningful way to breathe new life into a piece of our city’s industrial past. It’s not merely preserving history—it’s blending the old with the new to create a space where culture can unfold and where the community can truly thrive. This project isn’t just a nod to Toronto’s heritage; it’s a stepping stone toward shaping the future of the neighbourhood, enhancing the quality of life for everyone who calls it home. The development ultimately demonstrates how thoughtful design can respond to the needs of its residents and contribute to building strong social infrastructure and enhance community well-being.

The post Waterworks Is More Than a Food Hall appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

Since its inception in 1950, Hullmark has burgeoned from a modest suburban land development business into a major player in Toronto’s modern urbanization. Founded by the late Murphy Hull, a determined Polish immigrant and plasterer turned real estate visionary, the company today boasts a diverse portfolio of commercial, residential and mixed-use projects across the city—developed in tandem with a network of partners in architecture, real estate and retail. Now under the stewardship of Jeff Hull, Murphy’s grandson, Hullmark is sustaining its legacy of revitalizing Toronto neighbourhoods with purpose-built infrastructure and a commitment to shaping a vibrant and transforming urban space.

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One consistency throughout Hullmark’s portfolio is the seamless integration of high design within a site’s environmental context. From the company’s growing list of commercial projects in Liberty Village to its transformative (and stylish) contributions on Ossington Avenue, Hullmark seems to have mastered the rare ability to revamp a site without sacrificing its history. Instead, creating a new space where meaningful and authentic community growth can be cultivated.

“Design has long been a differentiating factor in our success,” says Hull. “We work very closely with our partners to develop a schematic design that will be both financially successful, which is important, but also contextually successful.”

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Hullmark’s comprehensive approach to real estate development isn’t just great for the city, it’s great for business. With plans to own and operate every project over the long term, the company is committed to building enduring relationships with the communities it serves—paving the way for collaborative efforts on future projects driven by shared long-term interests.

“Initially, the residents association in Ossington was highly distrustful of real estate developers due to past battles over mid-rise condominiums popping up,” says Jeff. “However, over the last decade, we’ve built a relationship based on mutual trust and a proven record of delivering projects that keep the community’s interests at heart. Truthfully, both communities and councillors alike can sniff out the discerning people solely motivated by self-interest, which is where I think we’ve been able to create another differentiation between us and our competitors.”

Catering to the unique needs of each neighbourhood it works in, Hullmark is persistent in building its design team around each individual project—providing the adaptability to address the unique needs of a site like Ossington Avenue, just as much as it can those of a much larger scale.

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Beyond the narrow streets of downtown, Hullmark Centre north of the city’s core at Yonge and Sheppard serves as a framework for the mixed-use and transit-oriented developments essential to Hullmark’s blueprint for building a future Toronto. Realized in partnership with Tridel— Hullmark’s most longstanding partner to date—the commercial, retail and residential condominium complex features two towers and direct access to the Yonge Subway station.

Ten years since the project was completed, mixed-use, transit-orientated developments are just as paramount in Toronto’s growth and in higher demand than ever before. “Toronto has experienced remarkable growth and optimism as a global city, overcoming downturns in recent years,” says Hull. “I’m proud to say that we’ve played a small role in the city’s urban revival, but we envision playing a much bigger role moving forward.”

In the near term, Hullmark plans to raise the bar with its Beltline Yards development: a transit-oriented community that combines (in a layered family of high-rise buildings) dedicated rental housing, employment space for innovative retail and the light industry, high-quality public space and parkland connecting to the city’s most expansive linear park system. It’s also Hullmark’s first master-planned community.

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Bordered by the stunning natural space that is the York Beltline Trail along its northwest edge, the 320,000-square-foot development adjacent to the Castlefield Design District will be designed by world-renowned architects, Allies and Morrison, and developed in partnership with real estate investment firm BentallGreenOak (BGO).

The project’s aim is to create a neighbourhood that introduces new uses and building typologies to the area. While it will look different from what is around the site today—rows of detached single-family homes—it will draw greatly from the neighbourhood’s history of making. “We want to create flexible spaces at grade that can accommodate the small and large-scale manufacturing facilities that are already prevalent in the neighbourhood,” says Hull. “Beltline Yards’ history is what will distinguish this new community from any other.”

It’s no secret that the Eglinton Crosstown’s transit infrastructure will imperatively transform the context of the neighbourhood as well. Hullmark’s response to this change includes embracing mixed-use development and increased density, alongside the revitalization of the underutilized Beltline Trail—something Hull considers “A crucial piece of civic infrastructure.”

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As Toronto continues to evolve, Hullmark’s vision for sustainable, community-centred development will undoubtedly shape the city’s future urban landscape. If Beltline Yards is any indication of Hullmark’s future endeavours, we can expect a promising trajectory ahead.

“Beltline Yards represents an opportunity for us to apply everything we have learned about design-focused neighbourhood development in a multi-phase master plan where we believe we will help establish a welcoming, lively community in the city,” says Hull. “By connecting the city to the beltline with this master plan, we are creating a destination that will become a calling card for Toronto.”

The post Hullmark’s Blueprint For Building A Future Toronto appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

The original Alexandra Park social housing community—a neighbourhood built in the 1960s, near Spadina and Dundas—exemplified everything great and not so great about postwar urban planning. The apartments and townhouses, offered on a rent-geared-to-income basis, were drawn up by a group of architects, including the late Jerome Markson, a man who began his career in bespoke residential design and went on to create some of the city’s best affordable neighbourhoods.

Alexandra Park embodied the utopian aspirations of the time: the belief that all people should live dignified lives in homes with character and variation and access to the outdoors. It also reflected a ’60s-era preference for self-contained (some might say, isolated) communities. The windows­, a mix of small bays and clerestory bands, were perhaps the most distinctive feature. They were beautiful in the way modernist design so often is—simple, austere—but they didn’t bring in a whole lot of natural light.

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All of this is moot now. The project is being gradually torn down to make space for a sprawling mixed-income development, funded partly by private capital and featuring both market and affordable homes. Back in 2021, Azure ran an essay by the architect Tura Cousins Wilson arguing that the old buildings should have been allowed to stay. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this claim. Was the demise of the old Alexandra Park tragic? Defensible? Didn’t the answer depend on what came next? Three years have passed since Cousins Wilson’s essay, and we’re getting a clearer picture of what the new development will look like. In this case, it seems, the losses might just be worth the gains.

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When it first announced the revitalization initiative in 2013, Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), the municipal non-profit that owns the land, pledged to run streets through Alexandra Park, thereby linking it up with the urban grid. TCHC also swore that not a single resident would be displaced. When a dwelling is demolished, there’s a comparable one nearby, waiting to be occupied on the same rent-to-income basis. In the late 2010s, the first round of bright new buildings at the site—a honeycomb assemblage of pods and balconies by Teeple Architects and a row of playful townhouses with recessed windows by LGA Architectural Partners—seemed to portend good things to come.

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Now a new phase of the project is nearing completion. The main addition is a pair of towers by CS&P Architects and SvN Architects and Planners. The towers front Dundas Street, just south of Kensington Market. One will replace demolished homes; the other will feature market condos to help cover the development costs. (The new Alexandra Park is being built by Tridel. They work for money, just like the rest of us.)

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A few architectural flourishes elevate the new buildings above most of their downtown peers. They’re clad in masonry and precast concrete grids, making them more interesting to look at than your average glass-and-steel monolith. The parking lot and loading areas are buried beneath a terraced courtyard that runs between the towers. Because of the slope, amenities on five levels—including the kids’ zone, the childcare centre and the kitchen—can all open onto the greenspace. And the units themselves are big enough for families, a novel feature that, in a healthy market, wouldn’t be novel at all. Before COVID, CS&P consulted with Alexandra Park residents for over a year, and the residents signed off on the design long before shovels went into the ground.

The overall revitalization is still more than a decade from completion. There are other buildings to come. And I still have questions: Will the unbuilt structures be as good as the built ones? Will the built ones be as good in practice as they are in theory? When the revitalization is complete, all of the old community townhouses and apartments will be replaced, and a percentage of the new dwellings will be priced affordably. But how large will that percentage be? Large enough that it justifies building market homes on formerly public land?

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Overall, though, one gets the sense that TCHC and its design partners are trying to do right here. In his essay, Cousins Wilson laments that Torontonians don’t often treat modernist design as worthy of heritage preservation. I agree. But I’d add that if you’re going to preserve homes, somebody has to live in them. And the old townhouses—with their draftiness, their decaying bones and their subpar ventilation—were becoming both unlivable and prohibitively expensive to repair. Cousins Wilson points out that these issues are rooted in neglect, not bad design. Fair point, but shifting the blame doesn’t make the problem go away.

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There’s a historical detail that sometimes goes unmentioned in discussions of Alexandra Park: When the federal government built the original community, it expropriated 16 acres of property and, against Markson’s wishes, bulldozed the elegant gabled homes at the site. Could things have been different? Perhaps. But an argument in favour of preservation at all costs is still an argument against the very process that brought Alexandra Park, as we know it, into existence in the first place.

Then again, there are many ways to honour history—by preserving the structures of the past, sure, but also by creating new buildings that are worthy of what came before. In the ’60s, Markson and his peers did the latter. TCHC can too.

The post Alexandra Park: Once Again, Our Architectural Heritage Meets the Bulldozer appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

The Well – a sprawling mixed-use residential complex in downtown Toronto at Front and Spadina – is named after Wellington Street, which flanks the north edge of the property. Copywriters love the name for its association with wellness. “We only live once,” a tagline reads. “Live well.”

Contrary to the marketers, I’m not convinced that “well” has entirely positive connotations. It can be an expression of diffidence or doubt. For instance, you might ask a friend what they think of the new development. And they might respond, “Well…the design is great, but the retail and cultural programming could be better.”

And they’d have a point. The Well occupies a 7.8-acre city block, the place where the Globe and Mail was once edited, typeset, printed, and assembled. In 2012, the Thomson family, who own the newspaper, sold the land to a consortium of real-estate firms. The consortium opted to build seven high rises at the site – one commercial, six residential – with retail offerings at the pedestrian level. It commissioned Hariri Pontarini Architects to draw up a master plan.

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To no surprise, HPA delivered. The centrepiece of the project is what partner David Pontarini calls “the spine,” a pedestrian thoroughfare that knits the buildings together and draws people in from the street. “The idea was to make the block super porous,” Pontarini explains. If there’s a single inspiration at work here, it is the classic 19th-century shopping arcade: a sunlit atrium, beneath an assemblage of balconies and walkways. Gorgeous versions of this typology include the County Arcade in Leeds and the Cleveland Arcade. Less gorgeous versions include the Toronto Eaton Centre.

Like the best arcades, The Well Toronto is skylit. It sits beneath a massive glass-and-steel canopy, which undulates like a frozen river, bringing icy lyricism to a neighbourhood of old, rectangular warehouses. But there are equally wonderful, if less conspicuous, flourishes: the footbridges with their exposed beams and wooden soffits, the benches made of reclaimed timber, the grand promenade on Wellington created by setting the buildings back 15 metres from the street. As a parting gift to Toronto, Claude Cormier, the late great landscape architect, has decked out Wellington with polychromatic flagstones and generous planters.

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But the main feature of The Well is surely the arcade. The advantage of this typology, Pontarini explains, is that you can cram a lot of retail into a seemingly small area without making the space feel crowded. And lord knows there’s no shortage of retail at the Well. In a single visit, you can stop by Design Republic for mid-century furniture, Le Creuset for enamelled cookware, Gotstyle for bespoke suits, and Bone and Biscuit for homeopathic dog treats. As you go from store to store, you’ll start forming an image in your mind of the people who are likely to buy into the Well – international investors looking to park capital in Canada, perhaps, or financiers seeking a pied-à-terre in the city, or tech bros who think Drake’s For All the Dogs is a good record.

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On its website, The Well is billed as a place of “fluidity, creativity, and connectivity.” This may be a suitable description of, say, Yorkville in the ’60s – a dirt-cheap coffeehouse district, where Neil Young jammed with Rick James – but it’s an inapt description of The Well. Synergy happens in free-form spaces, where people (many underemployed) can commune with one another without having to part with much of their money. At The Well, 100 per cent of the homes will be priced at market rate, which, as everybody knows, is punishingly high. Will there be art? Or inexpensive neighbourhood cafes? Right now, there’s Arcadia Earth, an augmented reality exhibition and selfie trap, as well as three new restaurants by the high-middlebrow chain Oliver and Bonacini. The other cultural and dining options are mostly similar: they are places of consumption not creation or discovery.

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Oh, well. Things could have been better. Also, they could have been worse. The Well Toronto is a source of housing stock and tax revenue, two things the city desperately needs. The architecture, moreover, is thoughtful and sensitive. But it’s also at odds with the spirit of the endeavour. Cormier and Pontarini have brought a democratic ethos to the project, but the investors who commissioned that project clearly understand it as a market exercise. The website for The Well promises that it will “draw people from near and far” into downtown Toronto. Really, it’ll appeal most to folks who are already there.

The post The Well Is a Beautiful Missed Opportunity appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

When I was a kid, somebody told me that Honest Ed’s, the beloved discount shop at Bathurst and Bloor, was visible from outer space. I believed this statement wholeheartedly. The place was so outlandish, with its whorls of coloured lights and labyrinthine interiors, that I might’ve believed anything about it. As the vibrant centerpiece of Mirvish Village, Honest Ed’s was not just a store; it represented a unique blend of commerce and creativity in Toronto.

TORONTO, CANADA – 12TH JULY 2014: The outside of the Honest Eds Store in Toronto during the day.

I loved it, not only for its blingy, Vegas Strip charm, but also for what it represented. Its proprietor, Ed Mirvish, the son of a Kyiv shopkeeper, understood that salesmanship is indistinguishable from showmanship. He promoted store events by bringing in trombone-playing clowns or painting an elephant pink. With his mix of chutzpah and hucksterism, he embodied a mid-century, Jewish-immigrant sensibility. I came from people just like him.

In 2013, his son, David, an art collector with patrician tastes, sold the business along with Mirvish Village — a district of cafes and galleries that Ed Mirvish developed at the behest of his artist wife, Anne — to the luxury developer Westbank Corp., which opted to demolish the building and create something new.  Everybody involved in the project promised to honour its history. The architect of record, Toronto firm Diamond Schmitt, proclaimed that the new complex “will carry on the legacy of the neighbourhood.”

Today, despite cost overruns and some messy legal disputes, construction is nearing completion, which means you can visit the site and see for yourself that it doesn’t achieve this goal. It doesn’t really try. But that hardly makes it a failure. One can’t judge the new Mirvish Village by comparing it to the old one.

Few people on Earth are as grandiose as the folks who write marketing copy for property developers. The website for Mirvish 2.0 describes it as “the most important experiment in community-building in Toronto’s history,” a project unlike any you’ve ever seen. In reality, it’s an apartment complex with retail amenities on the ground level – a sight as familiar in this city as raccoons, pigeons, and gridlock on the DVP.

Still, as Toronto apartment complexes go, it’s among the best. Instead of the tower-and-podium monoliths we’re all so used to, the new Mirvish Village is an agglomeration of 33 buildings, which vary in size and form. The colourful facades, with their panels of precast concrete and brick, seem to gesture, albeit vaguely, to the industrial warehouses of the old city. Gregory Henriquez, founder of Henriquez Partners, the design architects on the project, says he was inspired by Tokyo, a city where assorted buildings – short, mid-sized, and tall – “sit cheek by jowl,” creating a dynamic streetscape.

And while most property developers proclaim that they’re creating spaces of synergy and dynamism, Westbank is at least trying to deliver on this promise. The lower-level spaces, we’re told, will have artisanal shops, art galleries, and a music venue. There’s even a mural by Frank Stella, one of David Mirvish’s favourite artists.

The most important amenity at the new Mirvish Village will be the dwellings themselves – roughly 900, all available for rent and nearly half at below 30 percent of the median household income. Even these “affordable” units will be unattainable to many Torontonians: the new Mirvish Village is unlikely to make the surrounding Annex neighbourhood much less class segregated than it already is. But, in a housing crisis, an increase in supply is always a welcome change. There’s extensive research showing that, in densely populated cities, an influx of new apartments will exert downward pressure on prices overall.

To nostalgic Torontonians, the new Mirvish Village will nevertheless feel like a letdown. A suite of high rises now sits in the spot once occupied by the city’s quirkiest landmark. Again, our collective heritage has lost out to the diktats of the housing market. This critique isn’t new. One hears a version of it every time somebody proposes a medium-rise development in a leafy Victorian community and NIMBYs start howling about the threat to neighbourhood character.

The NIMBYs aren’t wrong, but neither do they have their priorities straight. History matters, but present-day people matter more. In Toronto, few needs are more critical today than the need for many more homes. I miss the old Mirvish Village. As for the new one: I can’t get as excited as the marketers who hype it up, but I still think it’s a win for the city.

The post Unveiling Mirvish’s New Facade appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

“Cranes are communicators,” says Kenneth Lavallee, the artist behind the public art in Toronto’s new Dr. Lillian McGregor Park. “They’re the tallest bird and the loudest voice, like mediators between different clans.” These were important tenets to the park’s namesake, Dr. Lillian McGregor (1924-2012), a nurse and community leader from the Whitefish River First Nation who dedicated herself to promoting Indigenous culture and education in the city.

In May, the City of Toronto marked the official opening of the 6,400-square-metre park near the intersection of Yonge and Wellesley. Like many things in this city, the park sits atop an underground parkade and between two condominium towers. It features a playground, grass lawns, masses of stones, multifarious plantings, wooden benches, a fenced-in dog area, and, at its heart, a mosaic medicine wheel set into the ground.

Its most striking features are the public art pieces designed by Winnipeg-based Métis artist Kenneth Lavallee, which include a soaring feather canopy, turquoise laser-cut waves reminiscent of reeds, and a family of cranes (for once, not the lifting machine). “I created reeds to protect the birds from the outside world and this little quiet space to raise a family and go through the four stages of life,” says Lavallee.

The crane imagery originated with Dr. McGregor’s family clan sign. The simple elegance of the cranes was inspired by graphics Lavallee had seen as a child while visiting Toronto City Hall. “There were these underground tunnels or parking passages marked with signage of animals: an otter, a caribou. Those stuck with me my whole life,” he says. “I wanted to reference that in the design of the cranes in a simplified, mid-century style.” The rocky outcrops and reed features came from Dr. McGregor’s childhood home on Birch Island.

It was a challenging number of elements to build atop an underground parking garage in the dense area. What began as a casual conversation about transforming the unused lot into a park among community members in 2011 led to months of activism, petitions, and letter-writing campaigns. An initial call for public art proposals went out in 2016 with an optimistic plan for the park to be completed by 2018. But it took a whopping eight years, with pandemic-related delays and other hurdles, until Dr. Lillian McGregor Park’s official opening ceremony in 2023. The park is a result of collaboration between multiple community groups and organizations including the family of Dr. McGregor, the Bay-Cloverhill Community Association, the Church-Wellesley Neighbourhood Association, landscape design firm DTAH, Lanterra Developments, and the City of Toronto.

Dr. McGregor would be only too pleased to see how the space has already brought so many people together under a common desire. “Dr. McGregor is not some person from the distant past,” says Lavallee. “She is still making ripples in these communities. To be a part of that is a huge honour.” A city park has the power to transform a community and, even though it’s only been open for a few months, this one already has.

The post Yonge-Wellesley Gains Vital Community Green Space appeared first on Designlines Magazine.

As the season changes and cooler days creep in, a new discovery project in the city gives reason to spend time outdoors. A previously-vacant 20,000-square-foot space at Dan Leckie Way and Lake Shore Boulevard has been repurposed in The Bentway’s latest offsite project dubbed Bentway Staging Grounds. Designed by New York-based Agency—Agency and local architecture firm SHEEEP, Bentway Staging Groundscollects and leverages runoff water from the highway above to irrigate oversized planters in the space below.

The project was completed in collaboration with Buro Happold (engineering), Neil Donnelly Studio (graphic design), and Brother Nature (horticultural consulting).

During its official opening event on September 18, The Bentway co-director Ilana Altman expressed that “The Bentway has always believed that the Gardiner can, and must, do more for the city,” The project’s dual-design aims to unlock a new public space under the Expressway while simultaneously discovering new strategies for water filtration and planting that could one day be applied across its length.

Adding a burst of colour to the otherwise bare lot, Bentway Staging Grounds is the most recent marker of the non-profit organization’s continued effort to extend the spirit of the iconic Skate Trail east and transform the Expressway into a better connector for pedestrians and cyclists, celebrating their procession to surrounding waterfront parks and trail systems.

The Bentway Staging Grounds is a temporary installation set to remain in place until the initiation of the Gardiner Expressway Rehabilitation by the City of Toronto, which is currently slated for late 2025. THEBENTWAY.CA

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It’s no secret that Toronto is a city in desperate need of housing. Specifically, diverse and affordable housing fit between single-family detached homes and high-rise apartment buildings. To revive the city’s “missing middle,” local architecture group Studio JCI recently completed two mid-rise, multi-residence projects designed to promote greater density and efficient land use. Moreover, both projects reflect sustainability ideals by reducing energy consumption, increasing green space, and supporting the preservation of existing infrastructure.

Broadview Terraces

In the heart of the city’s Riverdale neighbourhood, three unique structures were upcycled in Studio JCI’s sophisticated renovation of Broadview Terraces. By repurposing two commercial office buildings and retaining an adjacent three-storey walk-up, the 12,000-square-foot complex has brought 11 modern residential units to the rapidly changing east end district. On the ground floor, three independently owned retail spaces enhance neighbourhood walkability.

Sustainable architectural solutions are integral to Broadview Terraces’ design. As 50 per cent of the existing structure was maintained during construction, Studio JCI significantly reduced the project’s carbon footprint. Additionally, the project augments tenants’ usable space by affording all rear-facing suites access to a cascading series of green rooftop terraces. Where from the outside, the project’s sleek metal facade gives the impression of a simple new build, Broadview Terraces is a complex that marries old and new, and proof that mid-rise, sustainable housing has a home in Toronto.

River Street Infill

South of the ongoing Regent Park revitalization, the River Street Infill project stands out among single-family and stacked-town typologies. In bridging the gap between traditional single-family homes and high-rise apartments, this project addresses the missing middle by offering diverse housing options to meet the needs of a broader range of residents. Its five storeys with 26 single and two-bedroom units further densifies the area, while artist-style live/work units at grade address the neighbourhood’s demand for mixed-use housing.

Though compact and uniform to the neighbourhood’s red brick palette, the 28,000-square-foot project impresses most with its use of geothermal energy as a primary source of power, significantly reducing its overall energy consumption and carbon emissions. To further enhance the project’s sustainability, Studio JCI added a rooftop community garden to support biodiversity and create accessibility to nature for residents. STUDIOJCI.COM

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