First Avenue Garden
This garden fronts a re-purposed nineteenth-century industrial property that now houses three apartments. With a limited outdoor area, we faced the challenge of including a lounge area, seating, dining facilities, a BBQ, storage space, bicycle access and storage, privacy screen, plantings and the main entry to the house. The solution is a garden plan with three distinct zones: a cooking and storage area, a lounging and dining area, and a concealed garden to look at through the apartment’s large interior side window. All three of these areas are surrounded by Japanese Maples and Pagoda Dogwoods to ensure there is ample privacy from the street, both for the garden and for the interior of the complex.
Industrial, salvaged and recycled local materials were used throughout the space. Dyed, sandblasted concrete paving and crushed Ontario granite replaced the existing, randomly placed stone paving. The old paving was preserved, trimmed and reused as garden edging. A long table and bench were custom-made using salvaged Toronto beams, and the existing kit-shed was re-clad with perforated metal and painted. Set on steel bases, the bench and table form a border around the yard, framing the yard’s activities and accenting the garden’s plantings.
Japanese Maples and Pagoda Dogwoods serve as more intimate tree canopies under the larger, existing maple canopy. In the private corner of the garden, a Paperbark Maple stands squarely in front of the garden-facing window, allowing residents to closely observe the tree’s exfoliation process all year round.
In 2020, we refreshed the garden with new edging and planting.
- A Conversation of Views
- Admiral Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Residence
- Albany Avenue Residence
- Alcina Garden
- Alexandra Park
- Aporia Records
- Asphalt Poetry
- – Poem
- Baby Point Gardens
- Beach Garden
- Beach Village BIA Master Plan
- Beaty Residence
- Bennington Heights Garden
- Berkeley Street Residence
- Bin-Scarth Garden
- Blink and you miss it.
- – Poem
- Block 22 Landscape
- Bloor St. Apartment
- Blue Note
- Booth Avenue Residence
- Boustrophedon Garden
- Braemore Gardens Residence
- Browning Avenue Residence
- Brunswick Avenue Residence
- Camp Arowhon Offices
- Canadian Firefighters Memorial
- Channelled Buried Moved Lost
- Chocolate Loft
- City Instrument
- Clarendon Garden
- Conversation Piece
- Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
- Creemore Farm
- Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
- Dickson Park Garden
- Dilworth Residence
- Don Landing Revitalization
- Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
- Duncanwoods Townhouses
- Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
- Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
- East Point Bird Sanctuary
- Eglinton Ave Forecourt
- Eglinton Park Master Plan
- Elizabeth Fry Society
- Ellsworth Residence
- Face to Face | Tête à Tête
- First Avenue Garden
- First Avenue Residence
- Flyover Canada
- Foote’s Pond Wood
- Forest Hill Village Streetscape
- Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
- Global Affairs Monument
- Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
- Gormley Garden
- Governor's Bridge Lookout
- Greener P
- Greer Road Garden
- Greer Road Residence
- Guelph Bridge
- Head in the Clouds
- Helena Ave Residence 4
- Jackman Institute for Childhood Studies
- Junction Craft Brewery
- Kelpies Competition
- Kew Gardens Streetscape
- King's Landing Apartment
- Kipling & Islington Developments
- Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
- Le jardin du repos
- Lenticular Curtain
- Leslie Slip Lookout Park
- Liberty Village Parkettes
- Liza’s Garden
- Lynwood Garden
- Macroscape
- Makwa Waakaa'igan
- Markham Garden One
- Markham Street Residence Two
- Massey College Landscape Restoration
- Midtown Yonge Streetscape
- Mount Dennis Parkettes
- Mulock Park
- Nathan Phillips Square
- – Streetscape
- – Peace Garden
- – Podium Roof Garden
- Noel Garden
- Octane Medical Campus
- Orchard View Garden
- Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
- Owl Cottage
- Paperstone Scissors
- Pendrith Residence
- Peripheral Sitings
- Pottery Road Crossing
- rare
- Ravine Forecourt
- Ribbon of the Lower Don
- Riverside BIA Master Plan
- Roxborough Garden One
- Roxborough Garden Two
- Schulich School of Business
- Sheridan College
- – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
- Spadina Quay Wetland
- St. Anne's Road Garden
- St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
- Stratford Market Square Competition
- Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
- Superkids Dental
- Superlegible
- Sweet Farm
- Sweet Farm Pond House
- Swift Medical Offices
- The Meadows Reconsidered
- The Red Sash
- Thick & Thin
- Thistletown II Townhouses
- Tipping Point
- TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
- TMU Science Building
- Tranby Garden
- Tree House Residence
- UBC Okanagan – The Commons
- UHN Tunnels
- University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
- Venice Biennale 2012
- Vermont Square Park
- Vernon Avenue Garden
- Walk the Walk
- Walmer Road Residence
- Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
- Wellesley Cottages Garden
- Wells Street Residence
- Westminster Residence
- Weston Village BIA Masterplan
- With Words as Their Actions
- Woodlawn Avenue Residence
- Woven Stories
- Wynford Drive Residences
- York Park
- Yorkwoods Townhouses