Downtown Yonge Artwalk

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Untitled

  • Yellow birch heartwood, eastern white cedar, Eramosa limestone, river rock and red slate
  • 2010
  • 30 College Street, Toronto

About the artwork

The challenge for this project was to create a place that would reconnect urban Indigenous individuals with nature in the heart of the city and project a bold visual presence for the First Nations community.

The architects collaborated with Indigenous artists, a graphic designer and a landscape architect to define the centre with art, environmental graphics, natural materials and plantings that are native to the Great Lakes region. These features give the building its cultural identity and also soften its institutional nature.

Large-scale graphics line the interior walls and floors, carefully using images that are culturally broad, dignified and contemporary. For example, regional Indigenous textiles inspired the stylized “woven” motif pattern on the ground floor. It is meant to function as a giant welcome mat that links the building’s north and south entrances.

Green plants cascade down a vertical wall that rises from behind the ground floor reception desk to unite the interior with nature and connect all four floors to the rooftop garden that has a fire pit, green “teaching hills” and native agricultural plantings including sweetgrass, sage, tobacco, corn, beans and squash.

About the artist

LGA Architectural Partners is a skilled team of architects and building scientists based out of Toronto who create sustainable, contextually-sensitive and socially-minded architecture.

They aspire to make open architecture — one that can catalyze cultural and economic progress through the creation of inviting public spaces that encourage interaction.

Their research-based process involves engaging many perspectives, each enhancing the breadth and quality of their work. They tell the unique story of a place and its people, through the careful shaping of space, and the resourceful detailing of materials.

Design is an essential tool for improving people’s lives, and they believe that all architecture should be intrinsically sustainable, beautiful, and built to adapt to the needs of future generations.

Fun facts

  • The building’s material palette is composed of unusual local materials including yellow birch heartwood, eastern white cedar, Eramosa limestone, river rock and red slate.
  • Safe, recycled rubber surfaces provide a soft play area for children while boulders, climbing mounds and natural wood seating add interest.
  • Around the perimeter, native Ontario plant species like prairie wildflowers, grasses, sumac, serviceberry, colourful sedums, bittersweet and wild grape vines create a natural screen.