National Urban Design Awards - 2024 Recipient

Transforming a vacant space below the Gardiner Expressway into a living laboratory, Bentway Staging Grounds collects and leverages runoff water from the highway above to irrigate large planters in the space below. These planters support the growth of diverse, flowering native plant species such as Milkweed, Agastache and Yarrow, while passive water filtration and retention helps to reduce the risk of local flooding.  

In order to track how the system is doing, monitoring technology in the experimental planters tests for water quality, flow volume, and soil health. This information informs ongoing maintenance requirements to keep the planters operational and provides valuable insight into how stormwater management can be improved across the Gardiner Expressway.  

The design for Bentway Staging Grounds introduces a network of ramps and elevated walkways that allow visitors to travel deep into the space as an extension of Canoe Landing Park to the north. These new pathways continue The Bentway’s ongoing efforts to transform the Expressway into a better connector for pedestrians and cyclists, celebrating their procession to surrounding waterfront parks and trail systems.  

Over the project’s two-year duration, The Bentway will commission artists to present original, rotating artworks on a series of scaffolding towers that line the site facing Lake Shore Boulevard West. 

As a new type of public infrastructure, Bentway Staging Grounds cultivates a heightened awareness of the ways in which infrastructure and nature can collaborate under the Gardiner, blending art and education, public space and experimentation, and repositioning the Gardiner as a site of environmental regeneration. 

Bentway Staging Grounds draws people from all parts of the city and all age groups with an interest in design and environment to learn about change and what is possible. It is a great example of how urban fragments can unite a city with infrastructure and human behavior. 

CLIENT The Bentway Conservancy: Robert McKaye, Jess Misak, Joshua Harskamp DESIGN TEAM MEMBERS SHEEEP: Reza Nik, Sam Shahsavani, Connor Stevens. Agency—Agency: Tei Carpenter, Jake Rosenwald, Tanya Maneeintr STORMWATER ENGINEERING Buro Happold STORMWATER MONITORING Toronto & Region Conservation Authority GRAPHIC DESIGN Neil Donnelly Studio INDIGENOUS DESIGN & PLANTING Brother Nature SCAFFOLD ENGINEERING S3 Specialized Scaffold Services ADDITIONAL CONSULTING City of Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation; City of Toronto Engineering & Construction Services; City of Toronto Transportation Services AREA 2,500 m2 COMPLETION September 2023