Keating Bridge Landscape

A major portion of Toronto’s Port Lands Flood Protection mega-engineering project is the conversion of former industrial lands on the central-east waterfront into a fully detached, 40-hectare island. Named Ookwemin Minising – Anishinaabemowin for “place of the black cherry trees” – the island is being redeveloped to add expanses of parkland and a new complete community close to the city’s core.

PLANT is the landscape architect on the competition-winning team led by WilkinsonEyre and Zeidler Architecture for the pedestrian bridge that will link the new island south of the Keating Channel to the urban shoreline. Tracing a graceful S-curve across the water, this connector is called the Equinox Bridge: its orientation aligns the seating areas at its two inflection points with summer solstice sunset and winter solstice sunrise, enabling the bridge to frame spectacular views of these seasonal turning points.

PLANT’s landscape design signals the bridge’s city-side access point with an Indigenous marker tree at the north landing and provides a tranquil green transition into the island’s parkland at the opposite end.