Ethennonnhawahstihnen' Community Centre and Library
Toronto, Ontario
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Aquatic Centre, Gymnasium, Track, Fitness Multipurpose Rooms, Meeting Room, Youth Room, Games Room, Community Kitchen, Branch Library, Child Care, Playground, TTC Accessible Entry Plaza
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Structural: Blackwell
Mechanical / Electrical: Smith + Andersen
Civil: WSP (formerly MMM)
Landscape: MJMA
Encompassing recreation, leisure, creativity, and learning, the Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre forms a vibrant hub for an urban neighbourhood in the North York district. The Centre brings together a collective of City-run organizations, including Parks & Recreation, a Toronto Public Library branch, and Toronto Child Care services, combining these with aquatics, athletics, and wellness amenities.
Corresponding to its elongated and sloped site, the building is organized in two parallel, multi-level ‘bar’ volumes with a central lobby and stair. The eastern bar is higher in elevation, to respond to new developments to the east and to contain the larger program volumes of the library, natatorium, and gymnasium. Grade level is higher on its western side, so the lower storeys here are embedded into the site, while its other faces appear to float above the ground, allowing the large facility to occupy its tight urban location lightly.
A central social and infrastructural node for an established but still-developing community, the complex is designed to be conscious of its neighbours on every side— single-family residences to the west, a new park and high-rises to the east, a subway station immediately north, and a planned school to the south — while it manages vehicular access and contributes pedestrian and cycling routes.
A 9m-wide, tree-lined walkway and boulevard along the building’s eastern façade integrates the building with the adjacent park.
The complex is packed with programming, but its straightforward planning, with ample views opened up between spaces, creates intuitive wayfinding while also filling the building with soft natural light.
Interior finishes — which include black granite, limestone, and white oak (native to the nearby Don Valley greenbelt) — are durable but also inspired by local materials and the building’s relationship to its site typography. One wall of the long corridor that opens into the aquatics hall changerooms is clad in custom-sintered stone mosaic tiles that are a blend of blues and lit from above, evoking the feeling of walking within a glistening glacial crevasse.
