Don River Memorial

Design Studio
University of Toronto,1st year MArch
Rhino, Illustrator, Photoshop
Individual work

The aim of this project was to develop a design strategy that activates the landscape in a manner that promotes participation, engagement, spectacle, and play while maintaining, reinforcing, and improving the park as a lens to the City. The panorama from the western edge of Broadview Avenue, a few blocks south of the Danforth, envelops the diversity of Toronto’s landscape: the grand sweep of the Don Valley, the tree ridges bordering historic neighborhoods and, on the horizon, the towers of the financial district.

The shoulder of the park slopes steeply down from the road and there are no easy access points. The landscape is marked by informal paths carved into the terrain over time but the descent to the lower region of the park remains an exercise for the agile. Save accessibility to the slope is of a high priority.

The Design is an abstraction of the city of Toronto in 1856, the year when the Don Valley land was purchased by the city to expend. The Concrete block that resemble the different city districts are arranged according to the slope of the hill, so that when a person stands at the bottom they can see a historic footprint of what used to be, versus standing on top seeing the modern city today.