PLANT ‘bang for bucks’ projects gain Ground coverage

The latest issue of Ground, the magazine of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, contains a “Costs and Benefits” feature coordinated by Graham MacInnes. Two of PLANT’s recent projects, Vermont Square Park and a residential backyard garden on Toronto’s Vernon Avenue, receive coverage in this roundup of major improvements achieved through modestly priced design interventions. At Vermont Square Park, our big move was the Art Bench, which forms a desired boundary between the playground and other activity zones while sociably providing seating on both of its sides and across its top. On the Vernon Avenue project, we used readily available round concrete pavers in an unconventional way: upside-down installation exposed their textured undersides.