Downsview is a double award winner at the World Architecture Festival
Downsview has received a double accolade at this year’s WAF, awarded overall category winner of WAF Future Project: Masterplanning, as well as being recognized as a 2022 WAFX award winner. Part of the World Architecture Festival, the awards celebrate international projects that display effective design approaches for tackling the world’s most pressing issues, from climate change to building sustainable and resilient communities.
In collaboration with Toronto-based firm KPMB Architects, Danish landscape architects SLA, Urban Strategies Inc., and engineers Ramboll and Transsolar, we have reimagined the future of an expansive, 520-acre former airfield site in north Toronto’s Downsview district.
People, place, and nature come together in our vision for a green-minded, human-scale and people-first community. The Framework Plan will convert the site into a residential and transit hub, inclusive of diverse and affordable housing developments for 80,000 residents; transformations of existing buildings for sustainable reuse; a new community center; community-led programs like markets, maker spaces, and urban farming; collaborations with Indigenous peoples; green infrastructure linking new parks and open spaces; and a multitude of new job opportunities.
Our plan for Downsview prioritizes a carbon-neutral future through low-rise mass timber buildings. The design intertwines nature and architecture, with lush green corridors and enhanced biodiversity offering residents and visitors a sense of retreat from the hustle and bustle of the urban setting without needing to leave the district.
Designed according to the “15-Minute City” concept, the project exemplifies the design team’s focus on creating a socially sustainable and equitable proposal where everything residents and workers need will be easily accessible with a short walk, bike, or public transit ride. The plan anticipates a car-free future, fosters a connected community, and promotes well-being and healthy, active lifestyles for inhabitants through the public realm.
“To provide for the current rate of population expansion, we would need to make a new city for 1.7 million people each week,” says Michael Sørensen, our Design Director for North America. “The city is an inevitable fact of the future. So, in order to ensure not just quality of life for future populations, but also the conservation of nature, it is essential that the relationship between city and nature is both/and not either/or. Downsview is a commitment to that vision.”
Read more about the project.
