Balmori & Associates seems to have the best plan. I don't really care for Janet Rosenburg's at all.

On another note, how did George Stroumboulopoulous end up on the jury??
 
The Balmori entry has a great little detail I almost overlooked because it wasn't directly mentioned, but luckily there was a small rendering -- Gardiner chandeliers! What a great idea, to take the Gardiner expressway, often considered an eyesore, and make it artistic.

I was just thinking the other day as I passed by on Bathurst street, that even something as simple as installing uplighting on each of the pillars under the Gardiner would make a huge impact, and help to transform it into something sculptural and nice from the ground level.
 
i do hope this park gets completed on schedule. the design looks very beautiful and will certainly have an enormous role in connecting the city, particularly fort york and cityplace, to the waterfront.

peter kuitenbrouwer worried that the design firms were overly concerned with new age aesthetic. callwood herself said she wanted the park to one in which little children could play. i do hope this design lives up to her expectations.

New June Callwood Park etches ‘kindness’ into the earth

Posted: January 09, 2009, 5:23 PM by Rob Roberts

The winning design for June Callwood Park, between Fort York and the waterfront, goes to the city’s parks and environment committee next week.

Submitted by the firm gh3, it literally articulates a quote Ms. Callwood gave in her last interview before her death. A voice wave of “I believe in kindness,†will be translated into a “sinewy path that runs north to south through clearings†in an urban forest that will be planted with native Canadian trees “that would have inhabited the Lake Ontario shore line at the time the city was settled.â€

The winning bid will also feature corian benches that light up at night, and a reflecting pool.

“The park is loosely zoned into six clearings: the Puddle Plaza, the Puzzle Garden, the Maze, the Pink Field, Time Strip Gardens and Ephemeral Pools, each with its own unique character and aspects of unprogrammed play,†the report states.

The $2-million park is slated to be completed by 2011.
 
GH3's wonderful, promising, and winning proposal can be found here.

42
 
GH3 design looks great. How big is this park supposed to be. By the looks of things, it will be very small. What sized park will it compare to? Is it similar in size as the Toronto Music Garden?
 
as the plan outlines, it is similar in size to battery park in new york.

basically, in toronto terms though, the park will extend, i believe, from fort york (basically the gardiner), and lakeshore blvd.
 
If the gh3 proposal were chosen, I would fret only about a couple of things. First, I like it a lot, but I am afraid that given this city's wonderful reputation on nurturing, saving or even caring for trees, that many of the trees that they are anticipating would surely be dead before long. Next, I really wonder if it would be possible to get as many types of trees into the space as they are proposing? I would hope so, but trees and their roots need quite a bit of space, especially ones with large spindly branches - like birches.

I just don't think the park would be quite so amazing if it didn't have as many trees, so naturally I am all for them and as many as possible in order to get that effect of cascading light through the canopies etc. The last point I wanted to make is about the scale of the park in some of the renderings - and this goes for many of the entries, if not all.

p5
 
ya, gh3 is definitely the way to go!! What is the deal with the weir proposal with all the 3d letters in it?? looked terrible!
 
It strikes me as a poetic and lovely design solution that's conceptually pure - plantings of the indigenous flora that were found in Toronto when the first Europeans arrived, coupled with an optimistic message about happiness. And the combined effect is projected into the future, for the benefit of as yet unborn generations ... by the inexorable growth of those same plants.
 
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=11144

International design competition for Park at base of Fort York in Toronto awarded to gh3

GH3, a Toronto-based architecture and landscape design firm, has been announced the winner of the international design competition for June Callwood Park.

The slender park, named after the Canadian journalist and social activist and located just south of Fort York, is designed as an intensified urban forest with a series of interconnected clearings. A sampling of Callwood saying, "I believe in kindness," taken from the last interview she gave before her death, was physically mapped onto the site to form the pathways and clearings between the trees and benches.

The plantings are composed of native Canadian trees and other specimens that would have been present at the time the area was settled. The park's six clearings each have their own unique features. Shallow puddles that collect rainfall, extruded organic benches, a stainless steel maze, a pink field, linear strip gardens, and pools which, when warmed by ground-source heat become a mist garden, all seek to create intimate, memorable, and playful outdoor spaces in the city.
Click to expand...
 
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