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The Park at CIBC Square
The elevated park at CIBC Square represents a new form of expanded public terrain for Toronto. It creates public space 'out of thin air' by bridging the rail tracks and adding a botanically diverse connection between Downtown and the Waterfront. The park is conceived based on its specific location at the heart of a changing Financial District and uses views and connectivity as the foundations for its design and user experience.
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Location
Toronto, ON
Scope of Work
Landscape Design for Elevated Park
Project Size
2ac (9,000m2)
Role
Landscape Architecture
Client
Hines / Ivanhoé Cambridge
Collaborators
Wilkinson Eyre (Building Design Architect), Adamson Associates (Building Executive Architect), BRV (Programming), MBL (Lighting), Urban Strategies (Urban Planner)
PUBLIC WORK Design Team (Concept)
Marc Ryan, Adam Nicklin, Ben Watt-Meyer, Chester Rennie, Melissa Tovar, Stephanie Braconnier, Talal Rahmeh
PUBLIC WORK Design Team (Detail Design & Delivery)
Adam Nicklin, Marc Ryan, Ben Watt-Meyer, Ben Matthews, Guangyu Zhao, Chester Rennie

Being elevated is both the park’s greatest asset as well as its most difficult challenge. These realities pose two significant questions for the design of the park: How to amplify the park’s panoramic viewing experience; and How to overcome the park’s disconnection from city life at street-level?

The park establishes a botanically significant green core adjacent to the city’s largest mobility hub (Union Station) and invites visitors to enter a unique green oasis above the busiest intersection in Canada. Here is a park that borrows from its context, making connections with its diverse surroundings to weave together the ultimate Toronto experience. The elevated park design incorporates Union Station’s existing green roof construction as well as the rail tracks themselves as part of an expanded landscape within the park’s composition. The park topography becomes a sculptural green climax which makes connections beyond the immediate site to create a panorama experience of the city. CIBC Square is ground-zero for both visitors arriving in the city and people who live or work in the downtown and waterfront area. All of its users will enjoy the best urban vantages while engaging in various landscape-based programming venues. This new park typology creates a horticulturally diverse landscape above a rail yard, providing a public destination that aims to create long-lasting economic, ecological and social value.