WANDERING ECOLOGIES
Before Toronto was a city, thousands of tributaries and streams formed the Don watershed, leading to a river that released into Lake Ontario through Ashbridges Bay – the largest wetland in southeast Canada. As Toronto grew, industry transformed the mouth of the Lower Don river into a concrete landscape, terminating the free flow of water to make room for a new port.
Roadways, expressways, and overpasses crossed over the Don, concealing a nature that had once sustained vital aquatic and terrestrial habitat. Floods, sediment and debris resulted from this superimposition of industry and infrastructure, creating an untenable and unsustainable landscape.
Now, as a growing international city, Toronto has an opportunity to transform a place of lost nature into a place of many natures.
WANDERING ECOLOGIES establishes a new identity for this site, where recreational, living and cultural activities are free to wander and overlap. Urban life and ecology are reciprocal conditions that together can transform Toronto's Lower don Lands into a new cultural and ecological paradigm.
Lake Ontario landscapes, brilliantly represented by first nation painters and the Group of Seven, are dynamic, fluid and colorful. Inspired by this legacy, WANDERING ECOLOGIES envisions a vibrant park within the city, where multiple rather than singular natures are seen side by side.
Releasing the Don River establishes a new framework to introduce landscapes that reveal the latent beauty of the existing infrastructure and industrial landscape.
We believe there is beauty in the reciprocity of multiple ecologies. Natural, cultural and recreational landscapes, superimposed in this setting, create a new paradigm – a relaxed balance between urban life, industrial heritage and nature.
Diverse identities and destinations in the park are shaped by the overlap and engagement, where seemingly oppositional landscapes, create a park that is distinct. WANDERING ECOLOGIES amplifies the intensely diverse identities of Toronto: a thriving international metropolis and a place of natural beauty.
City and water, infrastructure and ecology, destination and retreat, the essence and potential of Toronto's Lower Don Lands resides in celebrating these multiple ecologies.
(From competitor's text)
The jury felt that the Weiss Manfredi scheme was very clear and architecturally elegant, noting the dramatic outlook back to the city. In terms of built form, the jury appreciated the creation of a relatively low urban neighbourhood without towers in the Port Lands, but had questions as to whether the design meets the competition requirement for 10,000 residential units. The design was also seen as effectively reconciling the tension between contemporary approaches to landscape with a naturalized river mouth. The connections to the neighbouring communities and the city were viewed as very strong particularly the extension of Parliament Street into the Port Lands. However, the jury felt that the introduction of more elevated roadway construction to achieve this was not appropriate given the goals of the competition and the desire to create a more naturalized mouth of the Don.
The jury felt that the integration with the West 8/DTAH central waterfront promenade was effective, although some jurors questioned the appropriateness of the sheer amount and scale of the wood decking proposed for the Lower Don Lands. The jury appreciated the acknowledgement of the industrial past through the use of heritage pieces within naturalized areas.
The ecological function of the river was considered less developed compared with the other teams' submissions. The design itself did not fully explore the ecological layers of the project to play a more significant role in the formation of the project. The jury also had concerns about the feasibility of transforming 480 Lake Shore, a heavily contaminated site, into a major ecological wetlands area. The scheme also provided less park space than the other schemes. In terms of the river, the jury did not feel that the connections were strong enough between the river and the community to the south. The jury was also concerned that the open river would interrupt the continuity of the urban inner harbour with development in the Port Lands.
Given these strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that the primary objectives of the Lower Don Lands competition were focused on the treatment of the river including naturalization, flood protection and habitat restoration, the jury did not select the Weiss Manfredi design as the winner but considered it a strong second place runner up in the competition.
(From jury report)
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