Ismaili Centres are found in 25 countries, marking the presence of this branch of Shi’a Islam in communities around the world. When complete, the Ismaili Centre & Jamatkhana of Don Mills will celebrate more than 50 years since the first immigration of Ismailis to the Greater Toronto Area, and mark the site of the first Ismaili prayer hall in Ontario. The site is located in a low-density employment zone in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park, a suburban Toronto neighbourhood near the Don River. Thorncliffe Park was established in the 1950s as an employment and residential node, and is still constrained by the segregated land uses imposed by mid-century urban planning. The Don Mills Jamatkhana re-defines what constitutes “highest and best use” in …

Escarpment House is a multigenerational retreat for a couple, their adult children, and grandchildren, located on a 20-hectare site within a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. It rises up from and rests gently atop the Niagara Escarpment, a ridge of dolomitic limestone circling the western end of Lake Ontario and sweeping northwest to Georgian Bay. Depleted by a century of agricultural use, the terrain is reverting to native species partially through the efforts of landowners including a—A’s client. Embracing this natural richness, the house merges into the crest of the landscape and sits below the brow of a dramatic 30% slope overlooking a spring-fed pond. Set in a planar arrangement of terraces and retaining walls and clad in local …

A three-block site in the West Don Lands offers a new interpretation of the neighbourhood’s language of courtyard buildings and a new take on a–A’s sensitive reinterpretation of the WDL’s heritage warehouse architecture. Vibrant high streets, sheltered publicly accessible courtyards, and intimate residential enclaves combine to augment the creative, ‘coherent diversity’ of Toronto’s eastern waterfront precinct. Blocks 3/4/7 sit immediately north of the Distillery District and west of the Canary District, where a–A established master plans and executed a number of residential and mixed-use projects. The form and massing of the blocks explore the same language that a–A and its collaborator, Cobe, developed for the WDL Block 8. Facetted …

Junction Point serves as a monument to the Junction itself, marking the neighbourhood’s eastern boundary and encapsulating its distinct architectural character: a street of Victorian storefronts and early 20th century warehouses encircling blocks of single-family century homes like a rampart. The three-sided site requires Junction Point to respond contextually to the intensity of Dundas Street West and to quiet residential sides streets. At grade, townhouse units are set back from the street to create a generous public promenade, and screened with brick screens. Above grade, a two-storey expression and terraced west facade break down the massing of the building and preserve the privacy of adjoining homes. Junction Point is the first …

The new Pickering Public Library is a focal point for a new urban community located on lands made available by demolishing the southeast section of the Pickering Town Centre shopping mall. The redevelopment masterplan, created by the architects on behalf of the City of Pickering and the mall owners, weaves housing, retail tenancies, and iconic civic buildings into an active public realm organized around a new Public Square. The Library, a new performing arts space, and seniors and youth centre cluster around the perimeter of the Square and form the living heart of the new community that will be the keystone of Pickering’s Downtown Redevelopment Plan. Highly active public zones such as the learning centre and children's area are located on …

The City of Pickering was looking to redevelop and redefine its urban downtown core as a singular, walkable neighbourhood that arises from the merging of municipal infrastructure retail services and residential intensification. The masterplan developed by architects—Alliance incorporates housing, a central library, youth and seniors centre, and a civic plaza addressing the Pickering City Hall and Esplanade Park. The Pickering Performing Arts Centre (PPAC) will become a key component of this initiative, providing a building that fits within the design aspirations of the masterplan. The PPAC will be the heart of a vibrant new ‘downtown’ community, to be located on a 15-acre site created by partial demolition of the existing Pickering Town …

Block 8 opens the latest chapter in the redevelopment of Toronto’s 80-hectare West Don Lands. The project, a City of Toronto pilot, addresses a pressing need for purpose-built high-quality rental housing at all income levels. a-A and its collaborator, Danish architects Cobe, drew heavily on Block 8’s context of vibrant street life, wild ravines, vestiges of 19th century industry, and intimate Victorian side streets. These elements are reinterpreted into a stacked massing of a robust, low-slung podium, followed by a finely detailed mid-rise component, and topped with sculpted towers that identify the new neighbourhood on the skyline. By 2022, the site will be transformed into a diverse, welcoming new downtown community of 770 units of …

aA breathed new life into a listed heritage waterfront building on a challenging waterfront site – bisected by a regional expressway that stranded the former Loblaws Groceteria building and rendered it commercially unviable for over a decade. aA devised a mixed-use plan that inserted significant residential density at the north end of the site, with servicing and parking access slipped beneath the expressway. The value unlocked by this strategy financed the restoration and expansion of the Art Deco brick building, which has been reborn as a retail magnet for the fast-growing Fort York neighbourhood. A four-storey commercial annex sits lightly atop the 1928 heritage structure, clad in glass with a steel bris soleil and set back from the …

This private residence sits on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, overlooking the historic village of Creemore. Located on a high grassland edged with mature woodlands, the residence consists of four linked pavilions, their simple geometric forms inspired by the local vernacular of barns and outbuildings and fortified by envelopes of shou sugi ban siding. The plan is also inspired by local traditions of farmhouse architecture, in which paths or breezeways link the main house, ‘summer kitchen’ and ancillary buildings. In this interpretation, the individual pavilions are arranged axially with glazed connections, oriented to face the edge of the escarpment and create a direct relationship between interior …

A collaboration between a–A and Diller Scofidio + Renfro of New York City, the CCC will provide a new home for the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, the Faculty of Arts & Science [including history, and Near and Middle Eastern civilizations], as well as the Institute of Islamic Studies, an arm of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, and the Archaeology Centre. The new building will also provide facilities for the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Music, with a special performance hall and a 400-seat event space overlooking the downtown skyline. The nine-storey building will foster a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment, and draw the public into ongoing discourse on modern and ancient civilizations and culture. …

Pier 27 is an example of iconic architecture that enriches the public realm while raising the bar for future waterfront development. The first phases of the project consist of four rectilinear pier buildings arranged in pairs, each pair connected by a three-storey cantilevered “bridge” that evokes the gantries used to load cargo on and off freighters in Toronto Harbour. The piers, organized on a north-south axis, frame views of the lake from Yonge Street and gives pedestrians access the public promenade that run along the water’s edge. To maximize lake views, the piers pivot slightly off the north-south axis on upper floors; in the bridge component, all units have views of the lake or the city. A slender tower stands where Queen’s Quay …

This private residence, an original modernist house designed in 1960s by one of Canada’s most significant post-war architects, is set into the edge of a tree-lined ravine in an exclusive Toronto neighbourhood. a–A reimagined the residence’s interior architecture, arranging overlapping planar volumes to allow light to flood into the core of the house. A restrained palette of materials and simple, industrial detailing creates a counterpoint with the organic forms, colours and textures of the ravine setting—the classic minimalism of the former framing the cyclical changes of the latter.

The Farm is located on a rolling field on the Niagara Escarpment that is one of Canada’s most significant landforms and a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. The area, a major agriculture and logging centre throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, is now a popular location for second homes owned by residents of the major cities of southwestern Ontario’s “Golden Horseshoe”. The owners of the Farm are one such family. The Residence is located at the crest of a slope that falls away diagonally across the site from northeast to southwest. The built form of the Residence is inspired by the 19th century farms still visible throughout the Valley, and their vernacular of strong, rectangular forms that hug the landscape. Traditionally, the main …

The second phase of Sky View Parc is a composition of three slab buildings stacked atop a multi-storey shopping centre in a vibrant multicultural neighbourhood in Queens. The three structures, angular and transparent, are oriented on an east-west axis to frame views of the Manhattan skyline. A curtain wall envelope and continuous wrap-around balconies flood residential units with natural light. Themed courtyards between the slabs effectively turn the ‘waste space’ of a mall rooftop into a series of luxurious amenities – a pool and cabana, contemplative garden, and outdoor terrace – set into an expansive 5,110sm planted roof. A dedicated elevator housed in a transparent shaft rises to the courtyard level and lets out onto a covered walkway …

a–A transformed the Tower Automotive Building, a heritage-designated warehouse in Toronto’s Lower Junction, into a new cultural hub anchored by the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada [MOCA], Canada’s newest public gallery dedicated to international contemporary art. MOCA combines a ground-floor public meeting hall, café and temporary exhibit space, with four floors of exhibition halls, workshops and maker spaces, administrative offices and libraries. The top five stories of the building will be occupied by creative practices that are remaking the Lower Junction. The key to the building's revival was a series of unobtrusive interventions that reveal the bones of this extraordinary building – mediations rooted in the history of its …

The 11 Charlotte condominium building is embedded in an area characterized by vestigial warehouse buildings and service laneways in Toronto’s King West entertainment district. The challenges of the compressed site are addressed with a composition of stepped and stacked boxes. The transparent double-height base, programmed with the residential lobby and a popular local restaurant, steps back from the street edge and south to meet the principal east-west laneway, animating the lane and creating a generous boulevard along Charlotte Street. A five-storey shadowbox clad with alternating vertical bands of masonry and vision glass tops the base, and projects west toward the street. The slender tower steps east and south again, with a strong …

As intensification radiates from Toronto’s downtown core, the focus of residential development has fallen on sites along the rail corridors linking Toronto's former industrial precincts. 383 Sorauren occupies one of these interstitial sites, on the boundary between the West Toronto rail line and the Victorian Roncesvalles Village. At a distance, 383 Sorauren reads as a pure sculptural form, its brick faces carved with deep rectangular recesses that evoke its warehouse milieu. From the street, it reveals a tripartite scheme. Atop a transparent base of double-height townhouse units, a middle layer stands within the brick frame, stepping back from the west face on Floors 7 and 8 to expose the brick supporting structure of the building. On …

Harbour Plaza is a-A’s most ambitious new mixed-use project located in the rapidly developing area of Toronto's new southern Financial core and Union Station. It is composed of two 70-storey residential towers, a 37-storey office tower and a 4-storey commercial/retail podium, creating an island of urbanity within a dense area of transportation infrastructure between Lower Simcoe, Bay Street, the CN Rail Corridor and Lake Ontario. The massing and form of the development organizes substantial density that maximizes pedestrian amenity, by articulating the podium to create a vibrant streetwall along Harbour Street. The modernist commercial tower meets the ground simply, while the residential tower is raised above the street on pillars, …

a-A co-led the design and realization of a unique mixed-use development that provides 253 units of affordable housing and 787 units of market housing, and serves as a major building block in Waterfront Toronto’s revitalization plans for the West Don Lands. The Integrated Design Team [architectsAlliance, KPMB Architects, Daoust Lestage inc., and MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects] designed a cohesive yet diverse fabric of buildings that gives every resident access to fresh air, natural light and beautiful public green space. The new community reads like an established neighbourhood, with mid-rise courtyard buildings with setbacks, high levels of sustainability, accessibility to a broadly-abled range of residents, and connections to …

Theatre Park stands at a focal point of local culture and history, inserted beside the Beaux-Arts Royal Alexandra Theatre, facing Arthur Erickson’s Roy Thomson Hall, and surrounded by the fabric of Toronto’s 19th-century industrial core. a–A’s design response reinforces the heritage character of the block and drolly acknowledges its compressed 1,030sm site. The 49-storey tower is ‘bound’ with crisscrossing aluminum bands on its west and east façades, and its narrow dimensions exaggerated by prominent floor slabs expressed on the north and south elevations. The tower floats above a shadowbox base that plays with the warehouse window grid, angling each pane to disrupt the geometry of the podium. The facetted glazing casts a shower of light …

Ïce is a three-tower complex that is transforming the former CN Railway Lands at the foot of Toronto’s York Street. Each tower has a distinct personality that reflects its program. The office tower – modernist, rational, transparent – incorporates innovative ‘double-skinned’ building technology that controls solar gain. Two slender residential towers have sculpted, highly articulated profiles that frame views of the Lake. Despite the substantial increase in density, existing view corridors through the site are preserved. Seven-meter high open spaces are situated at the base of each tower, linked by a series of public promenades, open-air walkways and a landscaped urban plaza. A raked podium – the first of its size in Toronto – links the …

The Cairns Complex supports Brock University’s mandate as a regional centre of academic excellence and cutting-edge research, with health science, biotech and biology labs, and facilities for the Niagara Campus of McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. The Centre connects north and west to adjacent buildings via elevated bridges over rolling terrain and allow students and researchers to move easily between buildings. Angled columnar supports beneath the bridges screen a protected courtyard, echoing the modern monasticism of architect Raymond Moriyama’s original plan and architectural designs for the Brock Campus. The Complex achieves LEED® Silver accreditation with ‘green’ design features that include construction …

a–A designed a landmark mixed-use development for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Menkes Developments Ltd., featuring a five-star hotel and luxury condominiums, located in Toronto’s exclusive Yorkville district. The project comprises of two buildings: a 46-storey condo-hotel tower at the southwest corner of the site, and a 30-storey tower on the northeast portion of the property. The base of the first tower includes hotel and residential lobbies, and a Four Seasons restaurant and bar, while the tower itself contains 254 hotel rooms, and 108 Four Seasons-branded residential condo units. An eight-storey extension at the north end of the building houses hotel ballroom and conference facilities, and a 1,858 m2 Four Seasons spa, health club …

a–A was initially asked to undertake extensive restoration and upgrading of the Parish Hall to house outreach programs and the Diocesan archives, and to address a number of pressing structural and maintenance issues. Subsequently, the brief grew to include quarters for the Dean of the Cathedral and accommodations for visiting clergy and laity. The historic facade of the Hall was retained, with three levels of new construction. The program includes grade-related outreach and community assembly space, fronting on to Adelaide Street East and in to St. James Park; below-grade archival, choir and instructional space; and second and third floor administrative and residential space. A new extension reinterprets the traditional cloister, linking …

The Canadian Chancery is a “country within a country” – a part of Canada within a foreign land. Its role is both protective and expressive: it offers refuge to Canadians abroad, while expressing our national character to foreign hosts. The brief for Canada’s mission to the Netherlands allowed us to explore ideas of connection and distinctiveness, tradition and innovation, and public/open versus protected/secure space. Our new annex to the Chancery is linked with the existing structure across a transparent courtyard, and houses expanded immigration, consular offices, and international business development facilities, and a new reception room for 100 guests. Sustainable design features meet the stringent Dutch building code. State-of-the-art …

The Thompson Hotel and Residences, combining private and highly public, socially active spaces, represents a type of development that is relatively new to Toronto and which has reimagined an important 19th century reighbourhood. The program of residential, hotel and hospitality uses is clearly expressed in the built form. Three rectilinear buildings span a city block from north to south, linked by a fourth building set along the northern edge of the site. The first building, clad in clear and translucent glass, houses the 95-room boutique hotel and rooftop lounge and marks the intersection of Bathurst and Wellington as a social destination. The remaining three buildings house private residences, and the bays between each form a pair of …

The University of Toronto is a world leader in the field of genome research. Together, architects–Alliance and Behnisch Architekten designed and created an advanced research facility that reflects the University’s leadership in the quest for links between genes and disease. The facility is a sustainable, transparent building that promotes collaborative research within flexible, loft-style laboratories. On the ground floor, a planted multi-story atrium connects the Centre to an adjacent heritage campus building. Above, winter gardens and staff lounges punctuate a system of open corridors and stairwells between lab floors, encouraging the informal, serendipitous, interdisciplinary contact on which scientific discoveries are built.

Open, welcoming and transparent, the new Kaiser building establishes a strong presence for the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering on UBC’s Main Mall. The building form – an elegant glass box slipped over an existing structure and linked directly to another – clearly expresses the program of teaching, research and administrative space, and creates a new entry into UBC’s engineering precinct. Light floods the engineering complex. Offices arranged around the perimeter have floor-to-ceiling windows, fritted with a subtle organic pattern that gives solar protection and suggests reflections from the oaks of Main Mall. Windows at the ends of all corridors provide light and outside views. Even labs receive indirect, controllable …

The Residence responds to its long, narrow site, sandwiched between existing buildings and looking south onto a major campus roadway. The L-shaped podium extends over 90 meters along Pond Road, a patterned glass and concrete box that appears to hover above a transparent ground floor. A nine-storey residential tower caps the east end of the podium, creating a U-shaped form that shelters a new courtyard to the north of the residence. The Residence adds urban vitality and contemplative green spaces to a suburban campus. As the first sustainable student housing built to withstand the +40° / -40°c climactic extremes of central Canada, the Residence significantly advanced York’s green design agenda. It uses the same energy as conventional …