Storage Space

The municipal governance of Toronto sees regional influence as a cause for densification of its major growth areas and conservation of the natural features that will allow Toronto to retain the distinction of a truly biophilic city. Contrasting to these idealistic goals, Toronto’s 10-year growth rate of over 200,000 residential units and 6.8 million sm of non-residential gross floor area reflects the development pressure that municipal leaders must prepare for in future densification measures. Site specific solutions to these development pressures must reflect an understanding of the needs of the citizen, developer, and the nonhuman inhabitants that rarely have a voice in these land use decisions. Temporary uses of waiting lands offers a mindful approach to development, and may prove a means of slowing or influencing these pressures to incorporate a greater variety of spaces for future generations.
With 790 acres of transformative space, Toronto’s Portlands offer an opportunity to innovate on a unique city realm, which at present is dominated by underutilized film and recreation spaces. Selected sites within the Portlands provide the most appropriate spaces for these interventions, based on connectivity to neighboring city infrastructure to the North and West, and naturalized beachfront and wetlands to the South.
To assist the city and developers with this transformation the project offers a ‘set design’ which can be implemented over time as more interest and investment becomes available. The set design includes a number of surface treatments, programs, and infrastructural improvements. The operations build off of what is currently happening on the site and around the city. They are general enough at this moment to be implemented on other sites around the city where they can then be detailed with more specification.