McDonald Family Richmond Street YMCA
Toronto, Ontario
In Collaboration with DSAI
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Aquatic Centre, Gymnasium, Fitness Centre, Fitness Studios, Multipurpose Room
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Structural: Blackwell
Mechanical / Electrical: Smith + Andersen
The MacDonald Family YMCA demonstrates how thoughtful adaptive reuse and civic programming can work together to create urban social infrastructure that also reconnects heritage architecture with contemporary community life. One of four recent MJMA-designed YMCA projects that have been incorporated within larger multi-use developments, the 54,000-sf facility is a central component of the Waterworks, an initiative by Build Toronto, a city corporation that rejuvenates publicly-owned properties with the aim of advancing the lives of their surrounding communities. Led by DSAI, the Waterworks development occupies and expands a 1930s Art Deco water utility building in a dense and vibrant downtown neighbourhood. The project houses Eva’s Pheonix, a transitional-housing agency for youth, as well as food market spaces, retail, and a large public courtyard that directly extends the public life of the city into the building. The YMCA is stacked over parts of the lower four floors of the development, with its service level below grade and a tower holding 300 condos and 15 suites of affordable housing above. Extra measures were taken in the waterproofing of the YMCA’s pool volume and the acoustic controls for the gym, to ensure the new facility exists peacefully with its fellow tenants in the building.
The development takes up the majority of a city block. The YMCA supports a growing mix of young families, condo residents, downtown workers, newcomers, and multi-generational users. The facility has become one of the YMCA’s busiest membership communities, reflecting both the demand for accessible wellness and social infrastructure downtown.
To promote local and pedestrian use, the YMCA’s entrance lobby, with stair and elevator access to the program spaces on the upper levels, is on the busy Richmond Street thoroughfare. Some 40,000 residents live within walking distance.
Within the street-level elevator vestibule, a residual arrival space was transformed into a curated full-height glazed gallery box. Programmed by the YMCA with changing local community artwork and installations, the gallery introduces a moment of pause and cultural engagement into an otherwise transitional area.
A blue glazed brick-like tiled circulation core provides orientation and identity. This vertical landmark within the facility creates a continuous visual thread of colour to guide movement and reinforce the themes of water and wellness found in both the history of the Waterworks building and the new YMCA.
The layout of the YMCA is a model of intensified but efficiently organized programming. Located on the facility’s second and third levels, its amenities include a 25m lap pool, gym, community rooms, and fitness space. These programs open to one another with fluid access and views, creating a sense of spaciousness that belies the constraints of the building’s tight urban site. Clerestory windows in the pool hall rise above the roofline of an adjacent building.
