Learning About Green Space and Urban Sustainability

The Green Industries final project for their landscape architecture unit focuses on public space, and the benefits it creates in dense urban settings. What better way to study that than by examining the future site of one of Toronto’s most ambitious and innovative public space projects: Rail Deck park?

The Rail Deck park project is still in its early phases. Once complete, it will be an urban park built over top of the railyards by Blue Jays Way. It is a way of reclaiming green space in the core of Toronto.

To get a better idea of what this sort of project could look like, they first visited the rooftop gardens at City Hall. This ties in with the Toronto bylaw they have been studying in class, whereby new construction projects must include a green roof to help mitigate climate change and combat the urban heat island effect. Students considered the similar potential effects of the Rail Deck park project.

They performed a site analysis, taking measurements and photos, and recording wind, light, and drainage conditions. This was based on similar site analyses and redesign proposals they had done in their own backyards and at Moore Park.

By going downtown and exploring the site, they were able to see it in the context of its surroundings, and consider the potential effects. They got a sense of space and the congestion that this area faces. Hearing the noise of construction and traffic, they began to consider what the park could do to buffer this noise pollution.

On their trip to the future site of Rail Deck park, the Green Industries class got a valuable chance to put their classroom studies into a real world context.