Waterfront Toronto and City of Toronto officially open Love Park

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love park

Ontario Construction News staff writer

The City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto officially opened a new waterfront park in June.

Two-acre Love Park is described as โ€œa lush urban refuge for surrounding residents, workers and visitorsโ€ on the waterfront. The site is a new green space that repurposes the former Gardiner Expressway off-ramp at York Street and Harbour Street.

โ€œLove Park embodies the ongoing efforts and leadership to embrace innovative and exciting community spaces through collaboration with the Government of Canada and multiple waterfront partners,โ€ said Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie. Our combined dedication has helped create North Americaโ€™s largest urban redevelopment program and one of the most extensive waterfront revitalization efforts in the world.โ€

The parkโ€™s design was inspired by an international design competition with the winning submission from landscape architects CCxA in collaboration with gh3* and Arup.

Features include:

  • Large shallow, heart-shaped pond at the parkโ€™s centre, combined with existing and newly planted trees to create a tranquil area amongst the bustling city streets.
  • Pathways and seating areas
  • Nine bronze-cast Canadian animals and moveable cafรฉ-style tables and chairs sponsored by the Waterfront BIA.
  • Off-leash area for dogs.

โ€œDesigned to respond to the communityโ€™s desire for flexible public spaces that provide sanctuary from the bustle of downtown, this new park provides an inviting green space for people to connect with nature and the waterfront,โ€ said Stephen Diamond, chair, Waterfront Toronto.

Waterfront Toronto, in partnership with the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation, called on international design professionals to develop a vision for two new waterfront parks and invited talented and experienced design teams to pre-qualify for a competition seeking design proposals for Torontoโ€™s York Street Park and Rees Street Park.

More than 40 design teams from 18 cities world-wide submitted proposals during the pre-qualification stage of the competition, which launched in partnership with the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation in February 2018. The five shortlisted teams for each park were:

York Street Park

  • Agency Landscape + Planning (Massachusetts) + DAVID RUBIN Land Collective (Philadelphia)
  • Claude Cormier et Associรฉs (Montreal)
  • Hapa Collaborative (Vancouver)
  • PLANT Architects (Toronto) + Mandaworks (Stolkholm)
  • Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects (Massachusetts) + MJMA (Toronto)

Rees Street Park

  • PUBLIC CITY Architecture (Toronto)
  • SCAPE Landscape Architecture (New York)
  • Snรธhetta (New York) + PMA Landscape Architects (Toronto)
  • Stoss Landscape Urbanism (Boston) + DTAH (Toronto)
  • wHY Architecture (New York) + Brook Mcllroy (Toronto)

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