WATERFRONToronto

Winning Design: Port Lands Estuary by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (MVVA), New York & Massachusetts, USA
Limno Tech Inc., Michigan, USA
Applied Ecological Services Inc., Wisconsin, USA
Great Eastern Ecology, New York, USA
Greenberg Consultants Inc., Ontario, CANADA
Behnisch Architects, Los Angeles, CA, USA & Stuttgart, DEU
Transsolar Energietechnik, New York, USA & Stuttgart, DEU
RFR Engineering, Paris, FR
Totten Sims Hubicki and Associates (TSH), Ontario, CANADA
ARUP, Ontario, CANADA
Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA 

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (MVVA) is a landscape architecture firm of more than fifty landscape architects, architects, and support staff that excels in the management of complex large-scale projects involving issues of urban access, ecology, and engineering.  Our 25 years of leading large interdisciplinary teams has resulted in an open, collaborative, design process that is responsive to client needs.  As the prime consultant on multiple urban waterfront park projects, including the $80 million Segment 5 of Hudson River Park in Manhattan, and the $200 million Brooklyn Bridge park in Brooklyn, MVVA has demonstrated tremendous skill in developing innovative solutions that incorporate a rich range of experiences – civic, urban, natural and boundless – in a manner that uses ecology as inspiration for inventiveness.  The structure and functioning of the Brooklyn Bridge Park team, in particular, is a model of integrated landscape planning with strong parallels to what we envision for the Lower Don Lands.  

For the Lower Don Lands project, MVVA has assembled an exceptionally strong team of collaborators, most of whom MVVA have worked with before, to develop landscape concepts to transform the post-industrial lands and waters at the mouth of the Don River into a naturalized riverfront that is both ecologically rich and fully engaged in the life of Toronto.  MVVA’s current role as lead designer for the nearby Don River Park makes us very familiar with both the urban and the environmental context of the competition site.

Design Competition Display Panels (pdf)

Port Lands Estuary Report (pdf)