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Earning themselves another esteemed nod from the Toronto design community, Hariri Pontarini Architects have been announced as the winners of the St Lawrence Centre for the Arts design competition, for their proposal designed in collaboration with LMN Architects, Tawaw Collective, Smoke Architecture, and SLA. Their submission, framed around the theme of ‘transparence’, was one of five designs shortlisted for the redevelopment of the aging theatre centre, a project initiated by the partnership of CreateTO and TOLive to reinvigorate the brutalist building in a way that meets the needs of the contemporary arts community.
“International competitions like this showcase design excellence and the range of ideas and concepts presented by the shortlisted teams demonstrate a passion and commitment to city building and highlight the potential to create exciting civic spaces,” said Vic Gupta, CEO of CreateTO. “The proposal led by Hariri Pontarini Architects is an innovative design for the heart of the St Lawrence neighbourhood that envisions new state-of-the-art spaces where artists and the community can come together to create, perform, and share ideas.”
The announcement comes just three days after the five shortlisted proposals were presented to the jury at a community meeting at the St Lawrence Centre; the meeting was well attended by the public with roughly 900 observers attending the hybrid event. In a press release published by CreateTO earlier today, the jury’s decision making process was described as follows:
The seven-member jury, made up of leaders in the fields of culture, planning, urban design, architecture, Indigenous design, and landscape architecture, based its selection on the following:
- Demonstration of a creative, imaginative and innovative response to the opportunities of the site, the building and landscape open space programs;
- Innovations demonstrated and identified around sustainable and accessible design, including how the design responds to the requirements of the Toronto Green Standard, as well as the extent to which designs meet or exceed the Toronto Accessibility Design Guidelines;
- Interpretation of the vision of the reimagined St Lawrence Centre and the policy, guideline and consultation framework that shaped that Vision, including how the design supports the Indigenous Creative Community;
- Demonstration of a thoughtful response to the heritage guidelines pertaining to the existing building and site;
- Construction cost estimate including cost effectiveness of the proposed design, quality, and completeness of the cost estimate; and
- Quality and completeness of the submission as reviewed by the Technical Advisory Panel.
Referring back to the details of the winning submission, the proposal generated immediate interest with a high-performance glazing system that wrapped around the existing structure, creating a new facade expression defined by transparency. In this way, the sculptural wood detailing of the new interior becomes part of the building's impression from the street.
Furthermore, the proposal reimagined the central axis of the theatre by rotating the orientation of the stage 90 degrees, allowing the building to address the larger public space fronting Scott Street on the site’s western border. Endowing this public plaza with significant landscaping improvements that connect the outdoor space more intimately with the building, the proposal imagines the plaza as an extension of the theatre, creating more public-oriented programming opportunities.
Discussing the proposal’s strengths, jury Chair Meg Graham, Partner at Superkül, explains how, “in rotating the main theatre and wrapping it with a lobby open across its north and west edges to the street and a new plaza on Scott Street, the winning scheme masterfully brings the theatre to the street, and the street to the theatre – creating in one deft move a seamless theatre and civic space open to the world.”
With the selection of the winning proposal now completed, the design team will begin the process of refining their proposal to deliver a more complete draft of the project which will be reviewed by City Council in the coming months.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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| Related Companies: | Hariri Pontarini Architects |
