At the mouth of Toronto’s newly renaturalized Don River, a new paradigm for waterfront urbanism is slowly beginning to take shape. The opening of Biidaasige Park last summer offered an early glimpse of the formerly industrial area’s potential, quickly drawing hikers, cyclists and kayakers to the reconfigured river landscape. For now, the park functions primarily as a destination for visitors from across the city. But as the surrounding Ookwemin Minising neighbourhood (previously known as Villiers Island) comes to fruition, it is also poised to become a defining public space for future residents. Formed through the Port Lands Flood Protection project, the new man-made island on the eastern waterfront will see parks, housing and ecological infrastructure developed in tandem. On April 30, the design — a collaboration between professional services firm GHD, Danish landscape and urbanism studio SLA, Indigenous consultants Trophic Design and architectural lead Allies and Morrison, among others — was unanimously approved by Waterfront Toronto’s Design Review Panel.

The early renderings already demonstrate a radical shift from Toronto’s typical planning patterns. The mixed-use community is planned around an ethos of ‘Growing Streets’, a holistic approach that treats streetscapes as living ecosystems that boost biodiversity, sequester carbon and offer vital connection to nature. Pedestrians will take priority over cars, and conventional grid-and-podium developments are reimagined as what SLA refers to as “quirky density,” a patchwork-like approach that makes for a more engaging public realm. Access to green space is integral to the design, reflecting the designers’ Scandinavian approach to landscape and urbanism and an embrace of Indigenous values. Of course, it goes without saying that this is the common-sense standard by which all urban communities should be planned.