Don Mills Community Recreation Centre

With a design informed by extensive public consultation, the Don Mills Community Recreation Centre removes barriers to participation, bringing a full complement of amenities and social opportunities to serve all residents of its north Toronto neighbourhood. The tight urban site necessitated the stacking of program spaces over two levels, but this compact planning also presented the opportunity to connect the facility’s primary spaces to one another and to the outside. This openness particularly humanizes the typically tough exterior of the facility’s arenas. Double-height colonnades line three of the building’s façades, shading expanses of glazing while also revealing the facility’s interior life and activating the adjacent streets and park.