Winner of an Honourable Mention for the 2025 WLA Awards – Concept Public Space category
For 50 years, David Crombie Park has been a much-loved community park in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Neighbourhood – an affordable community that boasts an eclectic mix of co-op buildings, townhouses, and mid-rise apartments, blending with retail and recreation facilities, as well as elementary schools and daycares.
The park is just as diverse: The linear space includes sports courts, schoolyards (for kids from all three schools, open to all), and places to linger. However, with many of the park’s elements approaching the end of their lifespans, the park is in dire need of an upgrade.
Size and impact
David Crombie Park covers 1.6 hectares and six city blocks, making the revitalization one of the City of Toronto’s largest open space projects in over a decade.
The revitalized park will serve the neighbourhood’s 35,000 people and three schools, just as it will add much-needed pedestrian routes and bicycle paths to downtown Toronto (a feature currently under heavy pressure from the Ontario State Government).
Approach
In 2020, the City of Toronto commissioned a conventional and heavy-handed “concept design” (not led by the applicant) that called for demolishing the park’s sports courts, concrete benches, and half-walls, while the historical wading pool, beloved by neighbours, would be replaced with a modern splashpad.
The applicant won the job to “implement” this design. But, after extensive visits and conversations with the park’s many users, the team chose to revise the plans significantly with a much humbler approach centered on revitalizing and celebrating (rather than obliterating) the uniqueness of the place.
By studying the park’s history, usage, values, and importance to the local community, we proposed a three-stringed design strategy: To preserve, revitalize, and unite.
Social Impact
The design preserves the park’s historical character by retaining as many of the existing structures, programs, materials, and greenery as possible.
A core component of the intent to revitalize the park was the decision to minimize the park’s embodied carbon by upcycling the existing elements. This approach was met with the addition of new elements – such as wooden seats, benches, and platforms – and by adding new trees and landscape zones that create a series of biodiverse and social habitats for humans and local wildlife alike – creating a sense of community, continuity, and progression.
Finally, the design unites the community by strengthening the park’s main promenade, introducing a new ‘adventure route’ through the park’s many new social programs, and connecting the park to the broader neighbourhood.
The park’s design also unites Indigenous placemaking elements, including Seven Sacred Teachings boulders, designated spaces for Indigenous community members to have sacred fires, and opportunities to learn the Anishinaabe language.
Environmental impact
The park’s extensive greenery, bioswales, and soft landscaping will climate-adapt the neighbourhood and make it resilient against thunderstorms and urban heating.
The key sustainability component is minimizing the park’s embodied carbon by retaining as much of the existing structures as possible. By upcycling the park’s structures, we avoid 500 tons of emissions that would have come with new construction.
Using Dynamic Carbon Modelling, the team ensures the offset of the project’s carbon footprint through carbon sequestration. Ultimately, the project will reach carbon neutrality 15 years after completion – and climate positivity every year after.
David Crombie Park Revitalization
Location: Toronto, Canada
Designer Credit: SLA
Client: The City of Toronto
Collaborators: Arcadis, Tawaw Architecture Collective, Third Party Public, Marcel Dion Lighting Design
Image Credits: SLA