Rees Ridge

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:

wHY's winning design for Toronto's newest waterfront park, Rees Ridge, is inspired by the region's signature bluffs. The Rees Street parking lot will be transformed into a dynamic vertical garden that offers play, culture, and nature spread over an elevated landform for residents and visitors to enjoy.

The Rees Ridge was unanimously selected by the competition jury after a six-week design exercise and public exhibition at the Toronto City Hall. The jury report note, "The Jury was impressed by this large singular move to a difficult site – it pushes back and can hold its own against the Gardiner. It was felt that the Rees Ridge would change the relationship of the waterfront to the downtown by visually removing the Gardiner for one long city block. This proposal, alone among the entries, achieved the appropriate scale and proportion for this challenging site."

Located in Toronto's waterfront district, the 2.3-acre Rees Ridge will act as an ecological filter, celebrating the drama and scale of the city and its infrastructure. Planted with local species native to Lake Ontario cliffs, the park will become a one-of-a-kind botanical experience within Canada's largest city.

"Toronto has always been a forward-looking city—a city of the future. This design seeks to embrace that optimistic energy while calling to mind what was here before—the natural foundations upon which everything else is built and the intrinsic peace that lies beneath the surface. This is a place where I hope residents and visitors can go to rediscover themselves, to rebuild their own foundations—within the city itself—so that they can return to the urban spaces feeling stronger, reenergized, and invigorated. The landscape must embrace the city and create a beautiful layer of green over the grey—for people, plants, and our ecological future,” says Mark Thomann, Landscape Director, wHY.

The Ridge is a welcoming space, a new vantage point for viewing Lake Ontario and a backdrop for the activity of the park and city below. Activated by ramps, stairs, slides, swings, hills, and slopes, Rees Ridge offers three-dimensional play for all ages, elevated areas surrounded by native vegetation to view the lake and city, and an interactive water wall to animate the seasons. The flatlands, nearest Lake Ontario’s shore, provide open space for pick-up games, lounging, and events, while the park opens to Lake Shore Boulevard through the ridge, creating visual and physical links between park and city.

A landslide of garden seating turns the park into a cultural stage for performance, art and city life. Public activities and amenities are concentrated in the ‘Ridge’, which provides spaces for a café, community room, and restrooms, while maximizing the gardens. The Ridge structure and plantings filter the air, enhance biodiversity, and challenge one to think about the potential of landscape and infrastructure in the city.

This is the second big international competition win for wHY. Last year, the firm beat out 125 teams — made up of some 400 individual firms and representing 22 countries to win the Ross Pavilion & West Princes Street Gardens competition to reimagine the iconic bandstand and public gardens beneath Edinburgh Castle.

“We have firmly established wHY as an ecology of disciplines where cross-disciplinary design minds may collaborate and co-create unique solutions. These projects are impactful and sustainable for the livable cities and communities we are proud to be a part of,” explains Kulapat Yantrasast, Founder & Creative Director, wHY