Ashbridges Bay Perimeter Landscape

Brown + Storey Architects Inc. was the winner of a 2010 competition to design a perimeter landscape and linear park to surround the new TTC Streetcar Maintenance and Storage Facility near Leslie Street and Lake Shore Boulevard, opening in 2015. The landscape and additional public open space will mitigate impacts from the new facility, including an acoustic barrier, on area residents and on users of the Martin Goodman Waterfront Trail which runs along the two public sides of the site.

The landscape will improve the space and aesthetic quality of the Martin Goodman Trail, and introduces new amenities including footpaths, seating areas and extensive new native plantings organized to provide combinations of dense growth and open clearings along the length of the trail.

The project has expanded to carry streetscape improvements and greening from the original perimeter north on Leslie Street to Queen (as seen in this plan), as well as south on Leslie to Unwin Avenue (not shown).

A red frieze wall is a main component, creating a visual running pattern of interest for the site and provides a medium for growing plants on the vertical surface.

After the initial competition, the project has been expanded to carry streetscape improvements and greening up Leslie Street to Queen Street (where the new streetcars will turn to enter service), and south on Leslie to Unwin Avenue and the famed Leslie Street Spit. B+SAi has provided urban design details to unify this district and use an infrastructure investment to strengthen the neighbourhood’s pedestrian realm.

A red frieze wall combines coloured patterns and trellises for climbing vines in order to create a running pattern of visual interest and an ecologically useful edge.

The TTC is constructing the Leslie Barns, a streetcar maintenance and storage facility, in preparation for the 2014-2015 entry into service of more than 200 new LRVs.

The Ashbridges Perimeter Landscape will add public space and improve the Martin Goodman Trail, seen here looking north on Leslie St. towards Lake Shore Blvd.

The project now includes urban design improvements at all four corners of the Leslie-Lake Shore intersection.

Updated Images 2023

Read the Toronto Star article here.

Awards

This project won the Ashbridges Bay Landscape Design Competition: 1st Place