Скачать или смотреть Toronto Waterfront Redevelopment

Waterfront Redevelopment
Toronto, Ontario
Spring 2007

The City of Toronto has much potential to be realized for the former industrial sites that occupy their valuable waterfront property. While other cities like Vancouver and Montreal have redeveloped their waterfronts to capitalize on their potential, Toronto has struggled. Their problem has centered on an unnatural resolution of the Don River into Lake Ontario and also the abandoned port lands that formerly sustained a lake freighter shipping industry. These problems come to a confluence on the artificial quays and shipping channels. The city has shown a desire to overcome this problem and develop mixed-use zones and reconnect the city to its waterfront through a commercial district.

This proposal reroutes the Don River through a length of the shipping channel, while closing the remainder of the polluted channel to create this new waterfront district. The channel is drained and built upon to become a grand boulevard. The streetscape is composed of smaller, more human scale retail outlets and stores with which pedestrians interface. Further behind those are mixed-use residential units and commercial towers. And being one of the fastest growing cities in the world, Toronto also must address their parking dilemma. To solve this, both the high-rise and low-rise buildings reach down into the former shipping channel by elevator to access a large pool of subterranean public parking which is accessible at the street level for pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

The central feature of the proposal is located in the former freighter turning basin of the shipping channel. A retired lake freighter avoids the scrap yard and finds new use as the long overdue Toronto City Museum. The massive ship's former might becomes tangible while floating along the roadside in a pool of water. The remainder of the turning basin is converted into a sculptural park reminiscent of a ship's wake.

Spring 2007
Design and animation by Drew Weinheimer