Lower Don Lands, Toronto
with OLM landscape, J.Mayer H. Architects, Baird Sampson Neuert Architects, Prof. Philipp Ursprung, Arup, ReK Productions, 2007
The Lower Don Lands competition is part of a larger vision for Toronto Waterfront. The Don Mouth Park has objectives to converge economical, ecological and leisure interests. The direct correlation between a dense living environment and its immediate natural environment helps foster a new and responsible relationship to nature, where the Don Mouth Park landscape becomes the direct expression of an entirely new form of urbanity. Here, instead of landscape and city being juxtaposed to one another, they complete each other symbiotically and offer a new way of life. For these reasons, the design started from a landscape architecture/infrastructure problematic. Fingers of land, having differentiated topographical edge conditions, defined then the quality of spaces and zoning strategies. The urban design resolved issues of historical preservation, circulation typologies, private & public leisure areas, and defined volume typologies for the real estate project. The final design offered a successful combination of expert knowledge and concerns.