Toronto, 19 May 2016 – PLANT Architect Inc. is proud to announce that the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization has received a 2016 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. Completed in 2015 by PLANT Architect Inc. | Perkins+Will Canada in Joint Venture, with Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architecture and Adrian Blackwell Urban Projects, this 13-acre renewal strategically rethinks Toronto City Hall’s iconic 1960s Modernist plaza. “What makes this project so great is that it preserves the essentials of this historic square while adapting it for future generations,” the jury commented.

Awarded every two years by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) and the Canada Council for the Arts, the Governor General’s Medals in Architecture recognize outstanding design in recently completed projects by Canadian architects. The Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization is one of 12 projects to receive this prestigious award in 2016.

Like Toronto City Hall itself, Nathan Phillips Square was designed by Finland’s Viljo Revell and completed after his death. Much of the full potential of Toronto’s signature civic space was left unrealized, and over time the Square became run-down. In 2007, the City of Toronto launched an international competition to redesign it. The multi-level plaza’s phased renewal includes the transformation of City Hall’s austere concrete podium into the City of Toronto’s largest publicly accessible green roof; the relocation and redesign of the Peace Garden that had been added to the Square in 1984; a new outdoor Theatre linked to the Square’s raised walkways; and a variety of ‘green rooms’ at the perimeter that provide landscaped seating areas and strengthen connections between the plaza and its surroundings. In their comments on the 2016 medal winners, jurors Annmarie Adams, Vanessa Miriam Carlow, Gary Hack, Richard Henriquez, and Todd Saunders, described the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization as “courageous” and commended the architects and the City of Toronto for creating “one of the most outstanding public spaces in Canada.” Earlier this year, the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization received a National Urban Design Awards Medal and the new Peace Garden within the Square earned a Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) Award of Excellence. (The Peace Garden’s Rededication Ceremony took place on May 18, 2016.) Awards for the entire Revitalization at the planning stage include a Canadian Architect Award and a Toronto Urban Design Award (both in 2007).

ABOUT PLANT ARCHITECT

PLANT Architect Inc. is an award-winning practice that branches into architecture, landscape, and design. The studio’s areas of specialty include institutional and residential architecture and landscape architecture, urban infrastructure, public space, feasibility studies, and master planning.

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