PFS Studio is honoured to announce that Toronto’s Underpass Park is the recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architect’s prestigious Award of Excellence, the highest honour given in the General Design category.
Selected from 459 entries, the ASLA awards honor top public, commercial, residential, institutional, planning, communications and research projects in the U.S. and around the world.
Click here for the ASLA’s announcement and complete list of award recipients.
The September issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM) features the winning projects and is available online for free viewing here.
Top Left and Bottom Photos by Tom Arban | Top Right Photo by Natta Summerky
About Underpass Park
Underpass Park is a unique public space located under and around the Richmond and Adelaide overpasses in downtown east Toronto, this new park transformed a derelict and underused space into a functional and engaging urban neighbourhood amenity, reconnecting new and preexisting neighbourhoods in a dynamic and flexible manner. What was once a “no man’s land” now provides recreational facilities, public art, gathering places and a venue for community events. Residents of the new West Don Lands community, particularly those in the north-eastern section of the community, are now actively connected with new neighbourhoods to the south and with the new commercial heart along Front Street East, also designed by PFS Studio.
Approximately 50% of the park is covered by transportation infrastructure. The design takes full advantage of this weather protection and has incorporated recreational spaces including a skate board park, basketball courts and play structures for all ages. The park also provides a flexible community space that can be used for markets, festivals, food trucks and moveable cafes. In the open areas of the park, dense groves of trees and robust perennial grasses bring much needed green space to the area and create a natural and iconic pedestrian gateway to this area of the West Don Lands.
PFS Studio was strongly supported by The Planning Partnership as well as Paul Raff Studio, who created the park’s public art piece, ‘Mirage’.
Photo by Tom Arban