Set amidst Toronto’s rich ravines that span across the city like a forested lace tablecloth, Evergreen Brick Works has brought an abandoned industrial site back to life — as a nature exploratory center. As it preserves the city’s past, this new center for the community includes programs to celebrate the site’s geological, natural and industrial heritage. The Evergreen project allows residents and visitors to look at the relationship between people, cities and nature in a vastly different way and serves as a model for creating healthy environments in cities around the globe. This year, National Geographic recognized Evergreen Brick Works as a top 10 finalist in the National Geographic Geotourism Challenge, from a field of 611 original entries from 81 countries.
For nearly 100 years, from 1889 to 1994, the Don Valley Brick Works occupied this space in the Lower Don River watershed. One of the preeminent brickyards in Canada, it produced more than 43 million bricks a year at its peak, and its bricks are found in many of Toronto’s heritage buildings and Canada’s national landmarks. In the 1990s, the abandoned factory lured photographers, urban explorers and graffiti artists.
Instead of letting the buildings decay and the space remain unused, Evergreen, a Canadian charity devoted to greening communities, approached the city of Toronto with ideas for adaptive reuse of the brownfield site. The result: a view of the future of urban sustainability and green design.
The $55 million (CAD) project includes the revitalization of 10 of the original 16 heritage buildings through a process referred to as “adaptive re-use.” Four more are being stabilized and protected for a future phase. One new structure, a five-story LEED platinum-certified office building, serves as the Centre for Urban Sustainability.
While the grand opening is slated for September 2010, many elements of the project are already available to the public. Seasonal activities began in May: a weekly farmers’ market, eco-craft workshops, community art projects, gardening groups and a kids’ Nature Nut Club (for children aged 7 to 12 years). Evergreen Gardens, a year-round retail garden center, is open daily and helps Toronto residents green their home gardens.
By the time the grand opening’s ribbon-cutting ceremony rolls around, the site will include a Welcome Centre, Discovery Gardens (a 20,000-square-foot native plant demonstration space), a winter ice-skating trail, a café, a nature playground for children, the Centre for Urban Sustainability and the Brick Factory — a restored area of the original factory, including tunnel kilns and drying tunnels. According to Geoff Cape, executive director of Evergreen, “By capitalizing on the site’s unique natural and industrial heritage setting and engaging and educating the community about diverse nature-based experiences, people will be able to witness the benefits of nature first-hand, giving them a renewed sense of place and inspiring them to become active participants in shaping a more sustainable future.”
Nature surrounds Evergreen Brick Works. The 40-acre Don Valley Brick Works Park, once a clay and shale quarry, is now teeming with wildflower meadows, wetlands, ravine forests and trails — and managed by Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation.
“Toronto’s ravines are deep-rooted into our culture,” said Anthony Westenberg, Evergreen manager of public relations. “We’re in a city in the forest. Toronto’s grid is overlaid on the ravines, giving it a magical feeling.” Toronto author, Robert Fulford, considered the ravines important to the urban fabric of the city. In his book, Accidental City, he said: “The ravines are to Toronto what canals are to Venice and hills are to San Francisco. They are the heart of the city’s emotional geography, and understanding Toronto requires an understanding of the ravines.” The Evergreen Brick Works site is located 15 minutes away from the downtown core, set in the Don Valley Brick Works Park — in the heart of the city’s ravines.
“Evergreen Brick Works will educate people that nature is something that can be experienced in the middle of a bustling metropolis, not just in the wilderness or confined to a conservation area on the urban fringe,” said Cape. As cities have struggled with degraded natural environments, including water and air quality, attention has turned to making urban space more livable. Evergreen’s keen attention to the Lower Don River watershed opens the gateway to the future of sustainability, and provides a model for bringing communities and nature together.
Photo by DTAH, photo by Shadi Edarehchi, photo by Evergreen.