Join guides from the Toronto Society of Architects on your choice of two optional field trips, both taking place on foot and departing from George Brown.

TOUR 1: East Bayfront
For years, the Queen Elizabeth Docks were a reminder of Toronto’s industrial past, dominated by parking lots with few trees and former warehouse buildings that separated the city (and Torontonians) from the water’s edge. Now, after years of planning a transformation is underway where design is leading the way!

Join us on a tour as we explore this unfolding transformation through some of the buildings and landscapes of Toronto’s newest mixed-use neighbourhood. At the centre of this tour will be imaginative and innovative landscapes and public spaces by prominent landscape architects that have catalyzed this redevelopment, and the ambitious plans of Waterfront Toronto to transform our waterfront. Highlights of this tour include the whimsical Sugar Beach, mass-timber leader Limberlost Place, and the multi-purpose Sherbourne Common. The tour will end with a visit to the new mouth of the Don River in the Port Lands.

TOUR 2: Harbourfront
Once a busy commercial harbour dominated by warehouses, factories, and seafaring merchants, Toronto’s waterfront is now a place for culture, recreation and coming together at the water’s edge.

Join us on a tour as we take a walk along the quays, slips and docks of Harbourfront, Toronto’s premier neighbourhood in waterfront revitalization, and uncover the stories of this multi-decade transformation through its buildings and landscapes. Along the way we will see how old industrial buildings and spaces have been transformed into some of the city’s leading cultural venues and take a look at award winning residential projects and imaginative landscapes that seek to reconnect Torontonians with their lake. Tour highlights include Queen’s Quay Terminal, the Spadina Quay Wetland. and the iconic Simcoe Wavedecks. Our tours will end at the foot of the iconic Malting Silos, currently undergoing a long-waited revitalization.

Note that each tour can accommodate 60 attendees, so register early to secure your spot!