Tommy Thompson Park Entrance Pavilion - Ontario Concrete ...

Tommy Thompson
                 AWA R D

                 Ontario Concrete Awards 2021

                 P R OJEC T N A M E

                 Tommy Thompson Park Entrance Pavilion

Park Entrance
                 P R OJEC T S TR EET A D D R ES S

                 3 Leslie Street, Toronto, Ontario, M4M 3M2

                 C OM P LETI ON D ATE

                 April 13, 2021

Pavilion
                 P R OJEC T TEA M

                 DTAH / Project Lead, Architecture + Landscape Architecture
                 FaetLab / Structural Engineering
                 Thomas A. Fekete Limited / Mechanical + Electrical Engineering
                 SCS Consulting / Civil Engineering + Stormwater Management
                 LEA Consulting Limited / Traffic + Transportation Consulting
                 SMART Watering Systems / Irrigation Consultants

                 C LI EN T

                 City of Toronto in collaboration with the Toronto Region
                 Conservation Authority

Tommy Thompson Park evolved with
Toronto’s growing downtown metropolis
as part of the Leslie Street Spit, which
was created by twenty years of lakefill with
post-construction and demolition materials,
including concrete, rebar, sandstone and
brick cast at Evergreen Brick Works. This
continuous lake filling allowed the park to
grow to more than 250 hectares in size
and stretch over five-kilometres into Lake
Ontario, mutating from a post-industrial
wasteland into a natural oasis filled with
more birds and butterfly species than any
other City park.

The pavilion building’s cast-in-place concrete
exterior is given texture through chiselling,
exposing the locally-sourced aggregate within.
This type of finish is rare in Canada but prevalent
in Europe, where it is valued for its rich texture
and anti-graffiti properties. The concrete trade
on site had never produced this finish before, and
therefore multiple mock-ups of the building exterior
walls were used to test pneumatic and electric
chisels, varying bits and pressures. The concrete
was chiseled by hand ensuring a unique finish that
provides visual stimulation and blends well with the
park’s rough-hewn character.

                                                       Chiseled by hand to expose the aggregrates in the
                                                       concrete, revealing materials sourced from the Spit.

                                                                                   THE FINAL CHISELED CONCRETE
                                                                             FINISH IS DURABLE AND TACTILE. IT’S
                                                                            MATERIAL CHARACTER GIVES WARMTH
                                                                             TO THE STRUCTURE AND INTEGRATES
                                                                                 IT INTO ITS POST-INDUSTRIAL AND
                                                                                         NATURAL SURROUNDINGS.
Cast-in signage provides a bold welcome for
visitors — here it is shown next to the cast-in-
place concrete before it was chiseled.

The aggregates in the concrete are locally sourced, linking the
concrete structure to the sculptural gabion privacy screen that
displays a gradient of the generations of rubble used to build
the Spit, including brick, concrete, steel, and plastic elements
sourced with the TRCA’s permission from the Park’s shoreline. In
this project, concrete was not just a building material, but a core
aspect of the design that ties the pavilion to its surroundings –
demonstrating that the Spit is both a man-made construction, as
well as a place of natural beauty and ecological importance.

The design maintains the look and feel of the existing
Tommy Thompson Park infrastructure, to strengthen
the identity of the Park as a whole, whilst integrating a
number of design features that draw their inspiration from
the natural landscape and the industrial past of the site.

The pavilion and surrounding landscape were designed to be durable and resilient,
given their heavy use and the limited surveillance of the site by Park’s staff. The
design relies upon the native properties of the materials in both the landscape and
architecture to withstand all forces applied against them. All building materials and
systems were chosen for their durability and longevity: they are locally sourced,
bird-friendly, vandal-proof, and require little to no maintenance.

The site design seeks to demonstrate best practices in low-impact development
by creating a built-space knit into its natural setting, structured with landscaped
berms and bioswales to support stormwater management, habitat expansion,
and visual screening strategies. An extension of the Martin Goodman Trail passes
adjacent to this area allowing for seamless bicycle and pedestrian access into the
Park, and the entrance multi-use trail is re-imagined as a “tabletop” pedestrian
priority area - an elevated roadbed just beyond the pavilion. This tabletop can
be transformed into an event space for the bird migration festival, the butterfly
festival, and the other programs. The tabletop is contiguous with the pavilion
and controlled by a series of gates that remove significant conflicts currently
experienced on site between pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles.

The cantilevered roof creates a covered,
outdoor interpretive area that serves as
a gathering and educational space. The
use of weathering steel for the pavilion’s
soffit echoes the flame red dogwood
underbrush that surrounds the entrance
site, and stands in clear material
contrast to the chiseled concrete --
allowing both primary building materials
to register independently and elegantly.

As day rolls into night, the material quality of the building appears dramatically
different as it reflects the integrated lighting onto the concrete surfaces.