Exposing Toronto’s Landscapes At Massey Harris Park there are many indicators that point to success. At a pragmatic level, the park is bounded by residential buildings on three sides and by a busy street on the fourth. This is a ‘Jane Jacobean’ prescription for a safe and well-watched space. Even during construction people were using the park and finding their own transverse routes using a variety of the differing path options available. The success of the park will depend on the effectiveness of these paths and the options they present. I look forward to seeing this park grow with its neighbourhood. g
Brown Storey Architects have been an active voice in land-use trends in the City of Toronto. Their work is typified by a close and frank examination of given urban conditions, including history, ecology and infrastructure. Their consistent goal is to expand Toronto’s landscape vocabulary, which is painfully constrained to the typical rectangle of grass and trees overlaid with a “union jack” asphalt path system. There is so much that can be done better. In the late eighties the firm did much to focus attention on Toronto’s buried ravines, particularly Garrison Creek. Many of these ravines became sewers and were ultimately backfilled and levelled. These backfilled ravines were difficult to develop and were ultimately used for schools and parks, whose open spaces inadvertently provide clues of the hidden watercourses below. BSA created a new archaeo-botanic paradigm for Toronto to re-examine its buried ravines and re-invigorate the bordering neighbourhoods.
architecture and land
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