Spring 2026 updates from PLANT
Sky-high landscapes at Concord Canada House (kids and dogs welcome)
Vertically and horizontally, the residents of high-rise buildings in high-density districts often live at some distance from green space. But when podium-level landscapes in these buildings offer amenities comparable to those of a neighbourhood park, that changes the situation dramatically. We’re excited to share our newly completed work at Toronto’s Concord Canada House.
Situated near the CN Tower and the Rogers Centre, this complex comprises two condominium towers, 79 and 81 storeys tall, on a mixed-use podium. Its residents can take their kids to the playground, walk the dog, and even go for a skate – all without leaving the building.
Central to the lower of Concord Canada House’s PLANT-designed podium amenity levels is a Canadian Shield-themed water feature that transforms from a summer pond to a winter skating rink. In summer, a ‘dock’ extends out to the pond’s planted, granite-sided island. In winter, the dock’s removal enables skaters to loop around the frozen pond. Offering spectacular views of Lake Ontario, the lower podium boasts a promenade walk, bench planters with fire pits, a barbecue zone, lounge seating near the pond’s edge, and canopied dining areas.
The upper amenity podium prioritizes kids and dogs, with visually connected but physically separate zones for each. Expanding on the cottage-country theme, the playground slopes down from a ‘shore’ outfitted with a slide and an in-ground trampoline to a ‘lake’ with several climbable elements – including a sunken rowboat and a log pile. The dog park features boulder-studded off-leash space and unobstructed posts, connected to concealed plumbing infrastructure that offers dogs all the relief of a trip to a conventional ground-level park. Completing the upper podium is picnic seating area overlooking the lower podium.
PLANT also designed Concord Canada House’s streetscape, which negotiates grade changes and introduces lush greenery in large planters to soften the edges of an intensely urban environment.
First Avenue: the kitchen sequel
Our relationship with this residence started in the garden and then moved upstairs – and now the action has shifted to the kitchen. We’re talking about the work we’ve done over a 15-year period for two wonderful three-peat clients. We redesigned their garden in 2011 and the dining area and upper floors of their home in 2020, and just recently we renovated their kitchen.
Their townhouse occupies space in a high-ceilinged 1870s building that was originally a dairy. Several decades ago it was vertically divided into three tall, narrow living units. When we renovated the dining area and upper floors, the building’s round-headed windows and our clients’ amazing art collection prompted us to treat the interior as a wood-lined ‘cabinet of curiosities’. We deployed a suite of techniques for framing the distinctive windows, all executed in cherrywood: a wood arch lines the window frame in the dining area; a bulkhead-concealing wood band extends up and over the living-area windows; and in the den, floor-to-ceiling wood panelling surrounds the window.
We’ve now extended the ‘cabinet’ concept into the kitchen, in a way that meets the owners’ request for more storage space and minimal visual clutter. Previously, open shelving lined the kitchen walls. Now, a deep, window-framing cherrywood archway near the entry conceals a closet, pantry shelving, and the refrigerator and freezer. White-painted open steel shelving set into the lower portion of the arch provides a light, modern counterpoint to the substantial millwork.
The kitchen’s new, ceiling-high lacquer cabinetry and boldly veined marble counter and backsplash flow dynamically around a curve. A peninsula topped with the same Calacatta Borghini marble houses a sink, dishwasher, and storage, while providing additional counter space for meal prep and informal dining.
In this front-of-house/back-of-house floor plan, the area between the entry and the peninsula supports the social activities of cooking and dining, while the space that rounds the curve and provides access to the basement stair contains a coat-hanging niche and storage space for the owners’ shoes. For a couple who love to cook and entertain, it’s a convivial yet ingeniously efficient kitchen that puts every square inch to well-ordered use.
Small but mighty – up front and out back
We love all sorts of landscape challenges, and we keep finding new ways to help urban homeowners maximize their enjoyment of their compact outdoor spaces. Our Gwynne Garden client wanted to move back into a narrow Victorian house that he had long rented out. He wanted order and cohesion restored to the tiny, overgrown front and back gardens, along with space that could function as an al fresco office and also host dinner parties.
In the front and back gardens, radially arranged pavers in dark brown and reddish tones ripple outward around the woodland planting beds, edging them with precise curves.
Our design team divided the rear yard into three zones: a patio next to the house, with a built-in covered seat; a middle zone where the patio narrows to a pathway between planting beds; and at the back, a slightly elevated dining platform. An existing fence, newly stained dark red, peeps through a new screen of thermally treated ash.
It’s early days as yet for the plantings, but as they grow taller around the dining platform, they will enhance a sense of seclusion – in a yard that shares side access with one neighbour and is overlooked by several others.
Could your backyard use a Dragon?
Spring is here at last, and PLANT partners Lisa Rapoport and Chris Pommer are all set to enjoy patio season more than ever. Last year, much of their spring and summer revolved around the demolition of their old, on-its-last-legs laneway garage and the construction of its bigger, better – and much greener – successor: the garage/workshop dubbed the Dragon, for its ‘scaly’ texture as well as its singular colour.
PLANT has a long history of using conventional off-the-shelf materials such as shingles in unconventional ways. In the Dragon’s case, instead of using just one shingle shape, which is the usual way of doing things, our design team combined multiple standard shapes into an eye-catching repeating pattern. You can read more about the Dragon here on our website. And if your own garage – or house, for that matter – is looking a little lacklustre, consider the Dragon our calling card for a transformative update.
PLANT gets Mic’d Up
The Architectural Course Union of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science presents a lively series of online interviews with its guest lecturers, called Mic’d Up with ACU. PLANT partner Lisa Rapoport was a recent interviewee. Here’s where to listen in on Mic’d Up interviews with Lisa and other design luminaries.
Media kits, anyone?
If you’d like a media kit and high-resolution images for Concord Canada House, First Avenue Kitchen, or the Dragon, please email PLANT's communications manager, Pamela Young, at pamela@branchplant.com.