Brown + Storey Architects Inc.

We’re excited to announce that our submission for the international Take Back the City design competition has been shortlisted!

In the heart of is 13-hectares of vacant, publicly-owned land. This Summer, Belfast’s Take Back the City coalition announced an architecture and urban design competition to generate sustainable, high-density housing solutions for this site. 🏡

Our submission, “Boundaries in the Making,” transforms this abandoned space into a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly community of garden courtyard apartments. With a large degree of interconnection between multi-family units and a close-knit relationship to the ravine topography, this community represents a new model for collective living and shared outdoor space in Belfast. 🌳🚲

View our design at takebackthecity.ie/ (link in bio!)

Toronto’s newest is now open at David A. Balfour Park! It’s quickly become a hot spot for birds, bees, and butterflies in the Yonge and St. Clair neighbourhood. 🐝

Informed by our Heritage Impact Assessment for the Rosehill Reservoir site and community consultation, we provided landscape and architectural services to the newly re-opened park—check out the new shaded seating areas, pollinator garden, and building. Construction is wrapping up soon!

Learn more about our work on David A. Balfour Park at the link in our bio. (linktr.ee/brownandstorey)

Rent is continuing to rise out of the range of affordability for most people. The crisis is magnified for larger families, seniors, single parents, and new immigrants.



Our entry for Urbanarium’s 2021 Mixing Middle Competition shows our Garden Courtyard Apartment type, a model for affordable, collective housing in the city. Central courtyards, shared outdoor porches, internal pedestrian streets, and retail or workspaces create a residential community that is well integrated into the surrounding urban street grid.

View the site plans and renderings at the link in our bio: https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey

The “Yellowbelt” refers to areas of the city where only single family homes can be built. This restrictive zoning applies to around 70% of Toronto’s residential areas.

While the City has focused on intensifying housing along the avenues such as Bloor Street, our “Un-Avenues” research explores opportunities to redevelop the many north-south, public transit-connected streets that run through the Yellow Belt, like Christie, Ossington, and Dufferin.

These sites have tremendous potential to be transformed into safer, better-performing urban streets with a new network of mixed-use, high-density housing.

View the housing and streetscape plans: https://bit.ly/39THsPr

“The Oculus,” the mid-century modern pavilion in , is one of Toronto’s most remarkable early public buildings. Unfortunately, as the neighbouring Humber Treatment Plant expanded, key elements of the park’s organization—its entrance, parking access, and public wayfinding—were lost. The pavilion, once an ethereal modern version of a Greek temple in an open landscape, became isolated and abused. Understandably, proposals to demolish the washroom building generated significant public interest in 2016.

The recommendations from our 2019 heritage report include:

1) Designating the building as a heritage site
2) Restoring the building’s materials & washroom functionality
3) Improving the building’s accessibility, visibility, & relationship to the park

Find the full report on our website—link in our bio! (https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey)

Roseneath Park at St. Clair West and Oakwood is isolated from the main street, obscured by an asphalt sea of parking spaces. There is no distinguished pedestrian space leading into the park, and no shade or protection from the elements. ☀️🌧

Our proposed new Roseneath Park expands into an existing parking lot, introduces a new pavilion with public amenities (including !), and reimagines Alberta Ave as a shaded linear park leading directly into Roseneath Park proper. 🌳

View our study & proposal at the link in our bio. (https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey)

Learn everything you need to know to support essential pollinators in your community with A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators! 🐝

Co-authored by Lorraine Johnson, researcher, author, and landscape specialist on our public realm project, A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee showcases multiple ways to turn your garden into a thriving habitat for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. 🦋

Check out our Landscape Architect Lisa Mactaggart’s pollinator garden on page 28!

“This is a park that tells a story." In Toronto's former industrial heart on King West now lives Massey-Harris Park. 🌳

"The park speaks of how a city changes and grows."

Read more about the unconventional park design that pays homage to the site's heritage in the link in our bio! 🚜
(https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey)

It’s hot out there! Kids in Chatham-Kent can stay cool this summer in the water feature at Kingston Park!
☀️
Our revitalization of Kingston Park won the Communities in Bloom Award, the Ontario Parks and Rec Design Excellence Award, and the Ontario WoodWORKS award.

What makes this park sustainable?

🌻The park's pavilion is built from local ash trees lost to the invasive Emerald ash borer 🪲

🌻The water from DEW Inc.'s water feature continually drains back to the building, is treated by state-of-the-art UV filters, and is pumped back into the spray fixtures. 💧♻️

Read more about our Kingston Park revitalization in the link in our bio.

We spent the morning exploring with some members from the Bay Cloverhill Community Association and the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association, identifying systems of interconnected parks, laneways, street crossings, and in-between places.

Open to the outdoors but closed enough for shelter, shade and privacy, our makes the most out of a driveway space.
The trellis walls support growing vines while also being strong enough to store sports or gardening equipment. 🌱 Naturally weather-resistant cedar makes it a low-maintenance parking solution. 🚙

This is Limone from enjoying Jack Darling Memorial Park! 🐕 Our office designed the site plan and urban design strategy for Mississauga's favourite dog off-leash park. 🥎

Working with AECOM and WSP (Genivar), we thoughtfully integrated the new additions to the "buried" Lorne Parke Water Pumping Station below into a landscape of garden walls, terraces, and pavilion-like structures that house the treatment plant’s required vents and stair access.

Learn more about this double landscape in the link in our bio! (https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey)
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Jack Darling Memorial Park

We designed St. Hilda’s Walk in Trinity Bellwoods Park as part of the Linkage Project, a program that reintegrates the course of the historical creek into the open spaces of Toronto. The shaded parallel paths in St. Hilda’s Walk provide distinct spaces for the full range of park visitors, from families to cyclists to dog-walkers. 🐕

Did you know that Trinity Bellwoods Park used to be the site of ’s Trinity College? The college was relocated to The university’s main campus in the 1920’s. 🌳 Learn more about this uniquely historical walk here at the link in our bio!

The 27 acres of R. A. Morrow Memorial Park have been an integral part of the City of Peterborough since the 1880’s. Our design study offers a new vision of the park while respecting its rich history and current programming. Some of our recommendations include:

🌳 New accessible landmark entrances &

🌳 A large trellis for shade & event space

🌳 All-season looping trails with over 1,200 new trees

Find the full report on our website—the link is in our bio! (https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey)

Holodomor Memorial Park was built as a memorial to the victims of the 1932-1933 genocide. The park, located beside the Prince’s Gates at Exhibition Place, provides a gathering area for the Ukranian-Canadians of ’s annual commemoration services, and a contemplative set of small gardens for all visitors.


View the memorial plaques and gardens at the link in our bio: https://linktr.ee/brownandstorey

Our Coronation Park Pavilion has been providing Toronto’s waterfront trail with , shelter, as well as lockers and showers for the local baseball teams for over 25 years! Read about the baseball-inspired structure and view the floor plans here on our website—link in bio!

is the historic ravine on which much of west was built. Although the ravine was buried in favour of residential and commercial development, the river still flows beneath us as part of the city's combined sewage system. (In this system, both stormwater runoff and wastewater flow through the same pipe.) This means that when heavy rainfall or snow melt occurs, the sewage system is overwhelmed and untreated wastewater flows direclty into . 🌊

In our feasibility study, we identify enough open spaces along the route of the original creek to create a series of connected stormwater management ponds. Stormwater from adjacent neighbourhoods could be diverted from the existing sewage system into a series of ponds that recreate the natural drainage pattern of the former creek. Not only can these pond systems collect, treat, and re-use storm water locally, they can also contribute to a series of open spaces knitting both an urban and green infrastructure back to the waterfront.

Learn more and find the entire study here: https://bit.ly/3xCzqVg

The , a 5km linear park system in an active hydro corridor in the west end, is one of the city's most anticipated public green spaces. Our winning submission to the Underpass Redesign Competition seeks to match the social character of the future park with a new underpass design that safely links the street, bridge, and park. Read about our underpass design on near here: https://bit.ly/3KJKoMg

The residential borough of St. Laurent in has lost much of its tree cover, ground vegetation, and biodiversity as the result of residential and commercial development. In our study, "Infinite Ecologies," we propose a master plan for a biodiversity corridor in this region that integrates housing, retail, and the revival of habitats for animals, insects, and vegetation. Read the study here: https://bit.ly/3jBK86c

Brown + Storey Architects Inc. updated their phone number.

Brown + Storey Architects Inc. updated their website address.

Commuting by bicycle is one of the simplest ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Toronto is adding more bike lanes and improving existing ones, but cyclists know it can be difficult to find a place to lock up. Our scalable bicycle storage prototype can store up to 48 bikes and offers a self-serve repair and maintenance station. 🚲 Read about the design here: https://bit.ly/37e5tQr

Partnering with , Brown + Storey Architects Inc. played a key role in the transformation and revitalization of . With rhythmic tree lines and widened granite sidewalks, Bloor has become a world-class retail avenue attuned to the needs of pedestrians. Read more on our website! https://bit.ly/3IzTQjz

Happy ! Did you know that our firm introduced feasibility studies for the TTC's first at Station? This green roof diverts stormwater from Toronto's sewer systems and offers more natural space for local birds and insects.

Learn more about our award-winning urban design here: https://bit.ly/3NhjxJh