Too often, public and private infrastructure locks down otherwise viable public open spaces. The anti-social aesthetic of chain link fences, noise barriers, and grassy no-go zones are a drag on neighbourhood value, street life, and the capacity and visual quality of many of our public parks. From transportation projects to wastewater tunnels, BROWN+STOREY find opportunities to leverage urban infrastructure to create viable public spaces that in turn support and celebrate the civic contribution of those public works.
In a city that seems to still be divided into its pre-amalgamated entities, linear networks like Toronto’s rail corridors present an opportunity to forge new connections that cross geographical and political perceived boundaries. The rail …
The many laneways and courtyard spaces in the Financial District have the potential to be transformed into a new, car-free public realm, welcoming to new businesses and public life. The interior laneway and courtyard spaces within the block bounded by …
A range of concepts have been initiated for the Administrative / Community Facility for the Nawash First Nation that explore different ways of composing the programme elements into unique animal-like figures that give special connections between inside and outside spaces. …
In 2022, Brown and Storey Architects participated in the City of the Future Competition in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a call for architecture and urban design ideas to build an inclusive and sustainable community on the 25-acre former Mackie’s site. Brown …
The roads at Portage and Main are re-visualized in this project to grow beyond a purely topographic and monofunctional traffic corridor into a constructed artefact Winnipeg expressed as a natural element of the total environment of …
Building on their original housing and urban design work for Victoria Park Avenue and the Victoria Park Subway Station, Brown + Storey Architects further developed their proposal for the Taylor Massey community in the Neighbourhoods for Generations Competition in …
Brown + Storey Architects were part of the Public Realm Technical Advisory Team working with SvN and AECOM to provide the bid documents for the Hurontario Light Rail Transit current bidding phase for three shortlisted consultant teams. Over this phase …
The gradual dissolution of the Golden Mile as the fabled automotive golden moment along a stretch of Eglinton Avenue in Scarborough, Ontario is the latest in a number of its evolutionary stages. The compressed rapid succession of these stages – …
The dramatic potential of the Nordhavnen site for a new vibrant and ecologically sound extension of Copenhagen has shaped our proposal. We planned the city as a thick and dense longitudinal cluster along a new subway line with a direct …
Our new charging station prototype is an attempt to rethink what a charging station could be for the modern traveler— a place not only to stop by, but also a place for significant rest, enjoyment, and hotel accommodation. The spatial …
Brown and Storey Architects were selected to submit a design concept for Metrolinx’s Ontario Line Joint Corridor Design Competition, which called on teams to submit innovative urban design and landscape architecture solutions for the Ontario Line infrastructure that will be …
Parkside Drive is rightfully the subject of serious neighbourhood concern. With its asymmetrical relationship to its two sides, Parkside Drive is highly divisive, and with its high-speed traffic, there is no safe public realm. Parkside …
Oracle Square is a receptor and transmitter, an attraction and garden, a passage and a pause, populated by a loose savannah of vertical and horizontal figures that define space and intensity, and introduce interactivity for the Entertainment District A wide …
A client in Toronto’s west end commissioned Brown and Storey Architects to create a laneway house proposal.
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BSA is working with the L.A.M.P. Community Health Centre in Etobicoke and the Rathburn Youth Group to transform a former technology workshop at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute into a new youth community room. By using modest finishes and an open plan …
The name for this project, Restless Ecologies, refers to a primary focus: anticipating a constant movement and exchange – a restlessness – of actions and reactions in an ever evolving interconnected set of ecologies: ecologies that encompass water, energy, biodiversity, …
The frieze is legitimate architectural and historical narrative device for telling a story visually in an abbreviated utilization of symbols. It is usually linear in nature and relies on relief and profile. In particular, it is interpreted as …
In leafy Bellwoods, and in all the neighbourhoods of the Garrison watershed and Greater Toronto, we are haunted by unseen monsters. These are the shadows: of the waters our predecessors buried beneath the ravines and all our other urban dreams …
Brown and Storey Architects Inc. were the lead architects and urban designers to revitalize and restore this iconic 1960’s hyperbolic paraboloid public works building into a gateway to the City of Hamilton which is highly visible from both the QEW …
BSA is the lead project architect working with Black & Veatch Engineering on the renovation and re-purposing of an original building on the Ashbridges Bay site into a new administration office space. This project provides complete restoration of the existing …
The various building options are meant to illustrate the flexibility of built and open space configurations for the Warden development site. In particular the template organization promotes the open void and public spaces, while, at the same time, establishing vertical …
The idea of the new kiosk prototype is to introduce a new and unique structure to Yonge-Dundas Square that is part of the language of the public space and in particular relates to the design aesthetic of its furniture and …
The chief ambition of the Capital Design Strategy for The Discovery District Area is to find the most effective means for the City of Toronto to create a strong identity (or “brand) for the burgeoning biomedical research industry accommodated in …
Our office won the Urban Toronto competition to design a pedestrian bridge over the rail corridor on Front Street.
This project received the 2011 Toronto Urban Design Award.…
Brown and Storey Architects and Richard Gilbert were engaged by the City of Toronto Department of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism to provide a Capital Works and Development Strategy for St. Clair Avenue West. This part of St. Clair extends …
Wilson Avenue from Keele to Dufferin possesses a diverse pattern of different building types. There are large strips of commercial retail space, lengths of compact walk-up apartments, drive in restaurants, …
Following from our initial sculpture plinth proposal for Bloor Street, the Bloor West BIA requested that we apply the prototype to three more street locations; two sites located on the Northeast and Northwest corners of Windermere Avenue and Bloor, …
The Dupont Triangle is a proposed developed precinct centered on a new vehicular and pedestrian roundabout. The roundabout is the coming-together of six different streets: Dupont Street, that passes down the rail corridor, …
The TTC have commissioned urban design studies examining the development potential of the Victoria Park and Warden Subway Stations that build upon the important relationship of new high density mixed use developments, the east-west subway line that travels through Scarborough, …
Brown and Storey Architects perform many different types of architectural and urban design initiatives in which there are no client or commission; we work with a range of community groups and organizations that enable us to create solutions aimed at …
Our approach to the challenge of public electric car charging infrastructure along major highways treats the travelers as agential activators, engaging with technology, media, culture, and landscape. As much as the structures are architectural, they are apparatuses and instruments …
This Project introduces new spatial models for living together that offers direct involvement by the residents in the production and control of their space. The urban narratives of cultural and physical landforms come together in a shared landscape of garden …
This study proposes a re-imagining of Avenue Road to return to its prominent role in the city’s public realm by reducing six lanes of speeding traffic to four and creating new public space. This new space would increase the area …
In 2019, Brown + Storey Architects Inc. worked with EXP to produce a proposal for the development of a community hub centered around a new transit hub in Innisfil, Ontario. Our team produced a sequence of diagrams that show a …
Brown + Storey Architects Inc. have been involved in the research of housing types that intensify the “Yellowbelt” neighbourhoods along Toronto’s north-south transit connected Avenues. This research is intended to explore opportunities to redevelop underutilized neighbourhoods and challenge the viability …
The connection, or disconnection between urbanism and environmentalism – city and nature – is made by the human intervention of “infrastructure”. How we choose to lay this groundwork for the physical support our daily lives can create a disjointed gap …
This prototype for a bicycle storage room proposes a new innovation for cycling infrastructure facilities. The idea of the structure is to retain openness without overly defining inside and outside space as in a container. This anti-container approach utilizes framed …
The City of Belleville has embarked on a forward-looking project to update the infrastructure of their historic downtown core. The project, which is upgrading and replacing both sub-surface utilities and the public infrastructure of the city’s downtown streets and open …
In 2017, the Borough of Saint-Laurent undertook an integrative, innovative competition to create biodiversity corridors. Creating these corridors will connect the natural areas and other green spaces currently fragmented by development, and eventually give citizens access to historic, educational and …
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 City of Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant, Canada’s largest municipal wastewater facility, is undergoing a continuing series of upgrades, retrofits and expansions. Brown + Storey Architects are involved in a number of projects at Ashbridges, including refurbishment of …
The Toronto Transit Commission is undertaking key improvements to the streetscapes of Queen Street East and Leslie Street as part of construction of its Leslie Barns streetcar storage facility, which will rely upon connecting track on those streets to bring …
Metrolinx is expanding its commuter rail corridor through West Toronto in order to provide capacity for the Union-Pearson Express air-rail link and expanded GO Transit service to Georgetown, Guelph and Kitchener. The corridor passes through mature neighbourhoods and present-day brownfield …
Brown + Storey Architects Inc., working on a team led by Stevens Group Architect, produced an innovative and award-winning urban design for the public spaces and bus terminal that surround a revitalized Victoria Park subway station in Toronto. The project, …
The site for the new City of Barrie Surface Water Treatment Plant and the Low Lift Pumping Station and Rain Water Intake is divided between two areas that are north of Big Bay Point Road, accessible from Royal Parkside Drive. …
The CCA publication, ‘The Singularities of a Metropolitan Archetype’, shows a series of figures prepared in 1966 by the City of Montreal Planning Department modeling hypothetical plans for 10 million inhabitants: the star-shaped metropolis, the galactic metropolis, and the concentrated …
The West Toronto Railpath has transformed two kilometres of railway spur line that served Toronto’s west end industries during the 19th and 20th centuries, with a new linear open space supporting a cycling and pedestrian multi-trail. The path is punctuated …
Client:
Waterfront Toronto
Team:
Brown + Storey Architects
ZAS Architects
Nina-Marie Lister
Brookner Studio
Kidd Consulting
Applied Ecological Services
Moffatt + Nichol
Arup
Pine + Swallow Associates
Nitsch Engineering
ConsultEcon
The mouth of the Don River is both a spectacular …
Brown + Storey Architects were commissioned with Rodger Todhunter Associates to produce a Capital Design Strategy for the area around the intersection of Carlaw Avenue and Dundas Street in Toronto. Wedged between more conventional residential neighbourhoods and a historic railway …
