Toronto’s new neighborhood, Ookwemin Minising, is turning traditional urban design on its head.
With a goal to make space for more housing without sacrificing green space, planners of the new neighborhood are substituting streets with parks and plazas.
“The street is almost like a public courtyard,” Rasmus Astrup, design principal and senior partner at SLA, the Denmark-based firm that was part of the design team for the new neighborhood, told Fast Company, “like a linear park.”
A half-mile pedestrian route called Centre Commons will act as a car-free main street, home to 400 trees, which the development touts as “Canada’s longest and most ambitious year-round car-free space.”
While other side streets will allow for vehicles, they will still prioritize large areas of green space. Other streets will also serve as climate-friendly infrastructure by reducing urban heat, managing stormwater, supporting biodiversity, and more.
“Rainwater is captured, filtered, and reused through integrated green infrastructure, while diverse planting strategies create habitats for local species and improve microclimate comfort year-round,” a press release from GHD, another firm on the project, described.
The name is also a nod to the design of the neighborhood.
Ookwemin Minising means ‘place of the black cherry tree’ in Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwemowin.
“This name honors the natural history of the land, recognizes a vision of environmental restoration, and highlights the future care of Indigenous plant communities,” a report for the city of Toronto reads.
The tree-forward design will not only honor nature but integrate the community’s infrastructure with the natural environment.
“This project demonstrates how infrastructure and public space can work as one integrated system,” Chris Hunter, GHD’s chief executive officer for the Americas, explained.
“By embedding climate resilience, water management, and low-carbon strategies directly into the streetscape, we’re creating infrastructure that not only performs at a high level but also enhances everyday life and supports long-term sustainability.”
The idea is to make the neighborhood conducive to sustainability while also prioritizing beauty and community gathering spaces.
The teams behind the design are calling it a “Growing Streets” concept, which reimagines streets as “dynamic, living systems.” The sponge-like streets will absorb rainwater, provide walkability and mobility to residents, and offer mixed-use spaces for retail and cultural purposes.
The neighborhood is projected to support about 21,000 people and 2,900 jobs, with occupancy expected in the early 2030s.
“In Ookwemin Minising, we start with life between buildings,” SLA’s Astrup said in a statement. “By designing streets and public spaces first, we create the conditions for a truly great neighborhood, one where nature, culture, and everyday life are deeply intertwined.”
“Growing Streets is about designing urban spaces that evolve over time, that invite people in, and that allow both community and ecology to flourish together.”
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Featured Image: Courtesy of GHD, SLA, Trophic Design, Allies and Morrison
