SUGAR BEACH / JARVIS SLIP
TORONTO (ONTARIO), CANADA

SUGAR BEACH / JARVIS SLIP

TORONTO (ONTARIO), CANADA

Project
An urban beach rooted in fun and whimsy, across the slip from a sugar factory

Client
WATERFRONToronto

Year
2007-2010

Status
in progress

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. Starting from the city’s beach typology, the proposed design for Jarvis Slip playfully recomposes other signature elements of the city, with Toronto playing the role as its own design precedent. And above all, the omnipresent horizon of the lake.

A sequel in a new wave of urban beaches, this time designed with a sweet twist. Tinted by sugar spray carried on westerly breezes from the neighboring Redpath Sugar Factory, dozens of candy-coloured 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, Leni Schwendinger Light Projects, Beth Kapusta

Surface
4000 m2 (1 acre) approx.

Credits

1. View towards the lake, CCAPI, January 2008
2. Photomontage of umbrellas in winter, CCAPI, January 2008
3. Photo of Redpath Sugar, WATERFRONToronto, December 2007
4. Candy reference, source unknown
5. Site Plan, CCAPI, January 2008
6. Tree layout, CCAPI, January 2008
7. Axonometric view, CCAPI, January 2008
8. Vignette - umbrellas, CCAPI, January 2008
9. Vignette - toe rail, CCAPI, January 2008
10. Vignette - bedrock on beach, CCAPI, January 2008
11. Vignette - Muskoka chairs, CCAPI, January 2008
12. Vignette - foot showers, CCAPI, January 2008
13. Vignette - beach house cabane, CCAPI, January 2008
14. Vignette - bedrock amphitheatre, CCAPI, January 2008
15. Vignette - preliminary lighting concept, CCAPI, Leni Schwendginger Light Projects, January 2008
16. Vignette - maple allée, CCAPI, January 2008
17. Vignette - seating, Diana Cabeza, CCAPI, January 2008
18. Vignette - willow, source unknown
19. Vignette - tilted wedge of sand, CCAPI, January 2008
20. Section, CCAPI, January 2008
21. View towards the city, CCAPI, January 2008
22. East Bayfront Precinct Plan, CCAPI, January 2008
23. Paris Plage, Flickr
24. Berlin Beach, Flickr
25. Toronto Amber Necklace, CCAPI, December 2007
26. Central Waterfront, CCAPI, WATERFRONToronto, January 2008
27. An Afternoon at la Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, 1884-1886
28. Bathing at Asnières, Georges Seurat, 1884
29. The Seine at la Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, c.1887