SUGAR BEACH
TORONTO (ONTARIO), CANADA

SUGAR BEACH

TORONTO (ONTARIO), CANADA

Project

Client
WATERFRON Toronto

Year
2008-2010

Status
Built

Sugar Beach is the second urban beach proposed for Toronto’s downtown waterfront, and the latest addition to the amber necklace of Toronto’s lakefront beachscape. It is a sequel to HtO, the waterfront’s first beach park. The proposal for Jarvis Slip playfully recomposes other signature elements of the city, with Toronto playing the role as its own design precedent. The omnipresent horizon of the lake and adjacent industrial buildings recalls Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières (1884). Tinted by sugar spray carried on westerly breezes from the neighboring Redpath Sugar Factory, a series of hard rock candies with colored stripes and dozens of pink umbrellas are scattered across a sandy wedge of beach along the Jarvis Slip. Integrating the future Waterfront Promenade, along with a plaza for programmed and unprogrammed events, the design playfully adopts some of the most enduring elements from Toronto’s emerging landscape identity—beaches, bedrock, trees, and water—as well as the urban horizon and a trace of the city’s past industrial mood.

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Partnership
The Planning Partnership, Halsall Associates Limited, The Municipal Infrastructure Group, Dillon Consulting Limited, Éclairage Public, Andrew Jones Design

Surface
4000 m2 (1 acre) approx.

Credits

1. Photo, Eastern Construction, July 2010
2. Photo, http:/urbantoronto.ca,androiduk, July 2010
3. Photo, http:/urbantoronto.ca,androiduk, July 2010
4. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
5. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
6. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
7. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
8. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
9. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
10.Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
11. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
12. Photo, Eastern Construction, July 2010
13. Photo, CCAPI, July 2010
14. Rock, St-Alexis-des-Monts, Québec, CCAPI, September 2009
15. Rock extraction, St-Alexis-des-Monts, Québec, CCAPI, November 2009
16. Rock assembly, Jarvis Slip, Ontario, CCAPI, January 2010
17. Perspective, CCAPI, January 2009
18. Vignette - Umbrella, CCAPI, March 2010
19. Vignette - Girl on the rock, March 2010
20. Vignette - Muskoka chair, CCAPI, March 2010
21. Vignette - Toe rail, CCAPI, January 2008
22. Vignette - Beach house, CCAPI, January 2008
23. Vignette - Willow, CCAPI, January 2008
24. Toronto Amber Necklace, CCAPI, December 2007
25. Plan, CCAPI, January 2009
26. Perspective, CCAPI, January 2009
27. Photomontage, CCAPI, March 2010
28. Perspective, CCAPI, January 2009
29. Christmas card, CCAPI, December 2008
30. Perspective, CCAPI, January 2009
31. Plage Toronto, CCAPI, January 2008
32. Plan, CCAPI, January 2008
33. An Afternoon at la Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, 1884-1886
34. Bathing at Asnières, Georges Seurat, 1884
35. The Seine at la Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, c.1887
36. East Bayfront Precinct Plan, CCAPI, January 2008
37. Photo of Redpath Sugar, WATERFRONToronto, December 2007
38. Candy reference, source unknown,