Custom drawings are available for qualifying projects. Lunch is served. A “ghostly,” translucent, expansive channel glass rainscreen by Bendheim defines the upper levels of the recently constructed Fort York Visitor Center. The project is the winner of an international competition to design and construct a new visitor centre at the Fort York National Historic Site in downtown Toronto. Dates: Scheduled for completion in 2012 for the Bicentennial Commemoration of the War of 1812, Awards The complex site chosen for the Visitor Centre sits directly beyond the Gardiner Expressway which runs along the southern end of the site. The entrance is below the Expressway, across a bridge which spans the liquid foreshore below. Please help us complete the Visitor Centre by making your donation to the Fort York Foundation today. Ce belvédère offre une expérience intime de l’histoire topographique de l’emplacement, qui retrace avec éclat la transformation des terrains et de la ville au fil des ans. Fort York National Historic Site Visitor Centre. Joining with the scale of the Gardiner Expressway above, the new wall forms the backdrop to a great new urban space for Toronto. The outlines of former structures on the Common are projected down onto the urban site. Hospitality Concept for Fort York Visitor Centre. This 24,000 square foot building will serve as gateway and hub for the entire national historic site. Above, the city is partially edited out, flatness recalls purpose, structures reorient to allow for ghosts, re-enactments of a past reality; evidence of time and history is presented. fort york, the historic military base located in downtown toronto, will soon be graced with a new visitor centre designed by patkau architects with kearns mancini architects. It takes the difficult underbelly of the expressway as the raw foil for an architecture of robust simplicity. The original location, on the shore of Lake Ontario protecting the harbour of York, now Toronto, has been altered by two centuries of infill so that it is now 500 metres from the shoreline of the Lake and located almost immediately below the elevated Gardiner Expressway. Strategically situated along the edge of the site, the centre is fortified and defined by a series of monolithic weathering steel panel walls, which resonate with the design of the fort just beyond, and define the horizontal datum of the battlefield immediately to the north. Inside the centre the connection from new/down to old/up is central to the visitor’s experience. They run horizontally, participating in both the existing lines and liquid landscapes of the fort. A sequence of ramps and displays link the centre below to the Common above. The plan was devised to be sympathetic to both the linearity of the site and to the act of emerging from the history of the site. Client: City of Toronto 250 Fort York Blvd. An ‘events dock’ will reach out into this liquid landscape, stretching from the entry bridge to an existing ‘liquid light’ art installation under the Gardiner. The building won a Canadian Architect Award of Excellence for Design in 2011. Photos: 5,14,15,16 Patkau Architects, Ontario Association of Architects Awards of Excellence Honourable Mention. Les plaques d’acier vieilli rappellent le passé industriel du secteur. Lines & Liquid LandscapeThe delicate forms of Fort York as a defensive site produce an architecture that is mostly about subtle lines. My hope is that the Centre, by bringing people in close proximity to this discussion, will nurture a kind of latent understanding of the severity our cities face in being able to successfully tend to both issues in years to come. Des corridors, comme le tunnel de l’époque, offrent des aperçus saisissants sur la période à laquelle le fort a été construit par des présentations multimédias et par l’exposition d’artéfacts et des dioramas. Le long du parcours, ils peuvent se renseigner sur l’histoire des fortifications. Fort York Building. Kids hang out. All Canadian cities are facing the hardships of decaying highways and bridges. The space features a theatre room/presentation centre, a cafe during the day, formal dining area for the evening, and bar area for the night. McCarthy & Associates Inc.QUANTITY SURVEYOR A.W. Read Jones Christofferson Consulting Engineers, City of Toronto Green Development Standard: Non-Residential Buildings, 3 Storeys or Less, James Eidse, Mike Green, Dimitri Koubatis, Shane O’Neill, John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, Thomas Schroeder, Luke Stern, Michael Thorpe. Heritage: Unterman McPhail Associates Its robust materiality and relentlessly repeated forms suggest the ramparts of the original fort. Fort York Visitor Centre Toronto : Building. Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Text description provided by the architects. Vancouver BC The recently completed Visitor Centre is our new front door and is located at 250 Fort York Boulevard. Governor General’s Medal Winner: Fort York Visitor Centre. It offers a robust layer of protection to the buildings’ structural walls, shielding them from wind & moisture. It offers an intimate experience of the topographical history of the site, which vividly recounts the transformation of the grounds and the city through the decades. The Fort … Set in our SF-60S framing system, the channel glass facade rises from the landscape and runs the entire length of the center as the back wall. The site has long been isolated within the urban fabric by the processes of development – waterfront land reclamation and infrastructural corridors of rail and elevated highway. Neighbours will continue to use the flatness of the Common for play, dog-walking and general recreation. ArchDaily 2008-2020. Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. … Hooker Quantity SurveyorsLIFE SAFETY AON Risk SolutionsFOOD SERVICES FS StrategyAREA 1,980 m2 BUDGET $12.3 MCOMPLETION December 2012, 2011 Design Exchange Award Winners announced, Call for innovative seismic design projects for 2012 Design Exchange exhibition, Prevailing Forces: M2 Mixed-Use Building, Calgary, Alberta, Urban Animation: Îlot Balmoral, Montreal, Quebec, International Icon: Vancouver House, Vancouver, British Columbia, Blythe Road Residence, Mississauga, Ontario, 05nov(nov 5)1:00 am08(nov 8)1:00 amADFF:VancouverVancouver, BC, 5 (Thursday) 1:00 am - 8 (Sunday) 1:00 am, The Vancity Theatre & Scotiabank Dance Centre, 19nov(nov 19)1:00 am22(nov 22)1:00 amADFF:TorontoToronto, ON, 19 (Thursday) 1:00 am - 22 (Sunday) 1:00 am. The design unapologetically celebrates the infrastructure around it, and invokes the concept of earth and the idea of fortification. The grassed defensive moat in front of the Fort and the surprisingly low berm rampart are both quiet and subtle. At night, the softly illuminated site and ghost screen encourage community events, signalling a new, safe, active and unique urban place to reconnect with history and play out the occasions of modern life. Traces differ in surface from contemporary terraces and are inscribed in various ways with text. Despite having been value-engineered within an inch of its architectural life, the centre is exquisitely detailed and spatially coherent. Lors de l’invasion des troupes américaines, en 1813, c’est au fort, situé à l’extrémité du lac Ontario, qu’a eu lieu la bataille de York. It was time to remind Torontonians, Canadians–and perhaps the world–of how we stood guard for our country. A multi-media immersive ‘time-tunnel’ portraying the dramatic events of the War of 1812/14 rises from the entrance level to emerge on the Commons, connecting the modern city below to the Fort above. At this height, an overview stretches between Fort York and the small cemetery to the west. Fort York Visitor Centre: Biscuits & Wine Hospitality Concept for Fort York Visitor Centre. The steel escarpment re-establishes the original sense of a defensive site, stretching across the site to meet the grassed escarpment directly below the Fort. Recent residential development nearby presented an opportunity to make the Fort the focal point of these new neighbourhoods – both as urban amenity and cultural anchor. To the north is Garrison Common, the site of the Battle of York in 1813 and a potentially rich source of archaeological remains. The space was designed to create a sense of community for all the locals in the Fort York area, … As this wall is not the original line of the defensive landscape, its materiality is decidedly new, a major new infrastructural and landscape-scaled dashed line. Fort York, considered the birthplace of Toronto, is a National Historic Site. The Visitor Centre acts as a hub for the interpretation of the entire 43-acre (17.4-hectare) site, containing permanent and changing exhibits, a Battle of York immersion experience, and facilities for education, research, staff and community use. The delicacy of Fort York as a defensive site produces an architecture than is mostly about lines. Corridors, such as the time tunnel, offer vivid insights into the period in which the fort was built through digital media presentations and curated artifact displays and dioramas. The joint venture team considered the site as the birthplace of Toronto; the fort is home to one of the oldest collections of fortifications in Canada, dating back to the War of 1812. They are experienced as a ‘liquid’ rolling of the land, a delicate ‘wave’, but one with severe consequences. You cannot print contents of this website. Fort York, considered the birthplace of Toronto, is a national historic site. Architecural Development in Ontario, Canada – Design Competition. Both additive and subtractive in its composition, the building speaks to the ongoing exploration of the history of the site. This is where Fort York welcomes the modern city with large-scale events. The Fort’s layered historical themes and associations with a rich archaeological past reinforces the need for sensitivity in design; the larger challenge of this project is not only to present the above-ground cultural heritage resources and to preserve the below-ground archaeological resources, but also to contribute in making the social, military and intangible histories of this site more present and palpable. When the American troops invaded in 1813, the fort at the edge of Lake Ontario was the ground for the Battle of York. Le plan a été conçu pour s’adapter à la linéarité du site et pour donner l’impression qu’il émerge de l’histoire du site.