The Open Space Master Plan

In March of 1998 the University began the process of creating an Open Space Master Plan to guide future site planning and landscape design for the St. George Campus. The plan was to address both public and private precincts and corridors and explore the possibility of reintroducing natural and historic landscape elements of the St. George Campus.

Investing in the Landscape is the end result of the process begun in 1998, but it is not an end in itself. It is a new beginning for the University. Prior to the St. George Street reconstruction there had been no defined plan for the landscape of the campus and no collective effort at improving open spaces beyond the regular operations and maintenance procedures of the University. Investing in the Landscape is the first comprehensive set of targeted actions in the post-war period for the spaces around and between the buildings of the St. George Campus. It represents thinking about the place rather than about isolated projects. It represents the ecological mission of the University and presents a broad range of conditions and ideas for the revitalization of the open spaces, which are built upon a long-standing history of policies and concepts contained in both the existing Campus Master Plan and the Part II Plan for the University of Toronto Area.

Investing in the Landscape can guide the University toward revitalizing significant and historic campus spaces such as King's College Circle.

Investing in the Landscape provides coherent direction for a broad range of physical improvements and additions to the campus. It is the next stage in the continuum of University area planning and campus improvement.

There are many opportunities to seize.

The courtyards on campus represent a unique open space resource and present opportunities for detailed landscape improvements in association with academic departments and special interest groups. The central open spaces on campus present opportunities to reconnect a significant landscape resource in the centre of the city.

Several of the large academic buildings on the West Campus will be rethought in the near future. Their revitalization can include improvements to general open space conditions and enhanced connections between the buildings and the streets.

An expansion of residence opportunities as outlined in Raising Our Sights may decrease the volume of automobiles entering and parking on the campus, allowing a new balance to be struck between automobile traffic, bicycles and pedestrian amenity. Street redesign based on an understanding of the differing characters and roles of the various campus corridors, particularly in the West Campus, can establish a distinctive University of Toronto street design that reflects the importance of streets as a primary part of the open space system. The success of St. George Street can be expanded by focusing on the many east-west linkages and crossings on campus. Pedestrian connections between buildings and between the west, central and east parts of the campus can be aesthetically enhanced and made safer.

The major edges of the St. George Campus are primary thoroughfares. Queen's Park Crescent and College Street represent major opportunities to improve the streetscape conditions. Spadina Avenue and Bloor Street can both benefit from an improved relationship between new buildings and the street.

There are some 20 intersections where the St. George Campus and the city meet. Each of these locations is an opportunity to build upon the integration of the campus and the city and to recognize the University's presence in a unique way.