Skylines of sameness are mushrooming around the world. Love Park in Toronto is a deliberate effort to break from the grid and assert an open space character that reinforces Toronto’s evolving landscape specificity, while introducing a unique signature that expresses the spirit of the city. A new metropolitan icon to capture the Toronto brand, Love Park will equally fulfill its role as a local park for the diverse mix of residents, workers, visitors and tourists in the burgeoning Waterfront Neighbourhood.

A space of simplicity and grandeur, Love Park will accommodate a myriad of flexible and open-ended uses, responding to continually emerging community needs, while sustaining its own conceptual integrity and personality over time.

The interplay between clearing and tree cover, sun and shade, as well as watching and revealing all combine to make a green oasis of quiet yet stimulating repose. This breathing room in the city is qualified by a looseness in layout that promotes freshness and flexibility. Unobstructed sight lines through clearings and trees across the park, to the surrounding towers, as well as the harbour to the south promote safety without imposing an overly rigid structure of occupancy. A pavilion trellis of intersecting arcs by gh3* Architects reinforces the geometry of the park layout, its lace structure becoming more pronounced as the Wisteria grows to envelop it over time.

Quietly watching over the park is a suspended illuminated heart, a “guardian angel”, an icon for the district, waterfront, and city.