PLANT received one of three Honourable Mentions for our competition entry for the landscape of the Ontario Association of Architects’ headquarters.
The current site: A hilltop building with a thin, static landscape and clay soil that propels stormwater downhill, uncleansed.
Our concept: A hilltop building with a thick, dynamic, soil-enriching landscape that slows and cleanses stormwater – demonstrably.

View from the Road

Landscape isn’t a blank canvas awaiting an architect’s vision. Landscape is connected – it extends far beyond property lines. Merely thinking about the topography and vegetation of the OAA headquarters’ site isn’t enough. You must consider how stormwater travelling down from the Oak Ridges Moraine passes through this site, funnels into the Don River ravine system, and ultimately reaches Lake Ontario. You must ask: how could this site support an ever-richer array of plants, fungi, pollinators, birds, soil microorganisms, and other life forms native to this region to contribute to that system?

CATCH/RENEW/RELEASE celebrates the centrality of water to life. It slows the path of stormwater to cleanse it in ways that the stewards of the land now known as Ontario implemented and respected – many centuries before sewer systems existed here.

Our concept envelops the building and goes below grade. It’s dynamic and resilient, anchored in native plant models, in flux both seasonally and year to year. It addresses long-term, transformative climate change effects and imagines the future beyond the 100-year storm. It is a succession of improvements that will, over time, greatly enrich the experience of visiting the site – and even the act of driving past it.

From shedding to catching + From invisible to visible
From thin line to thick immersive system

CATCH/RENEW/RELEASE transforms the experience of arrival. Currently, arriving at the OAA headquarters is all about arriving at a building. The only pedestrian access runs alongside the vehicular route to the carport entrance. It’s efficient, but it ignores the potential of the landscape. Our concept provides pedestrian access from multiple directions. It retains a direct pedestrian route, while offering meandering pathways to explore a landscape that will become more engaging with each passing year.

Arrival – from efficient to experiential
Entry with the Vessel

CATCH/RENEW/RELEASE proposes five didactic Water Collection elements, connected across the site. The site goes from static to dynamic; it becomes a teaching garden.

Water collection story didactic elements

STORMWATER: By allowing stormwater to be visible, and utilizing natural functions to attenuate and infiltrate flows, CATCH/RENEW/RELEASE’S five didactic Water Collection Elements help the landscape become diverse, healthy, and characterful. Collectively, they abstractly and functionally represent water’s moraine-to-lake journey, with The Weir as the moraine; The Vessel, The Channels and The Rain Gardens corresponding to the Don River Valley’s interconnected tributaries; and The Wash marking the journey’s end.

Stormwater Management and Landshaping Diagrams

The Weir: Three stepping pools cascade down the slope near the front of the building, filling with rainwater that is purified as it descends from tier to tier.

Section through the weir – spring

The Vessel: A sculptural table whose rain-collecting surface depicts the watershed.

The Vessal – plan

The Channels: Six open water channels cross the road, connecting each of the water collectors into a visible system. 
The Rain Gardens: By collecting stormwater south of the building, these gardens enable an increasingly varied mix of native-species plants to flourish.

Section through The Channels and The Rain Gardens – spring

The Wash: South of the entry road, The Wash abstractly represents the Don Valley. Lined with plants and gravel, this meandering channel will have water streaming past its jagged precast concrete forms following significant precipitation. In drier periods, the flow will subside or stop, with water continuing to collect in tidal pool-like cavities. A below-grade detention tank retains excess water from the most severe storms.  

The Wash in winter

PLANTING: CATCH/RENEW/RELEASE’s stormwater strategy integrates topography, planting, and soil modification to create an increasingly varied landscape over time. Plants have natural capacities to attenuate and infiltrate flows in ways that purify stormwater and improve soils. These actions in turn facilitate plant community diversification. The planting plan uses plant community reference models drawn from ecosystems along the moraine/​river/​lake route. The community placement of plants addresses site variations in slope, sun access, and exposure/​enclosure. It preserves healthy existing trees and encourages communities already present in this system to thrive.

In myriad ways, CATCH/RENEW/RELEASE deploys nature-based solutions to promote climate resiliency.

Section through the Don Valley flooded
Section through the Weir, the Channel and the Wash

  1. A Conversation of Views
  2. Admiral Road Garden
  3. Airdrie Road Garden
  4. Airdrie Road Residence
  5. Albany Avenue Residence
  6. Alcina Garden
  7. Alexandra Park
  8. Alwington Landscape / Garden Pavilion
  9. Aporia Records
  10. Ardwick Townhouses
  11. Asphalt Poetry
  12. – Poem
  13. Baby Point Gardens
  14. Beach Garden
  15. Beach Village BIA Master Plan
  16. Beaty Residence
  17. Bennington Hts Garden
  18. Bennington Hts Ravine Garden 1
  19. Berkeley Street Residence
  20. Bin-Scarth Garden
  21. Blink and you miss it.
  22. – Poem
  23. Block 22 Landscape
  24. Bloor St. Apartment
  25. Blue Note
  26. Booth Avenue Residence
  27. Boustrophedon Garden
  28. Braemore Gardens Residence
  29. Brahms Townhouses
  30. Browning Avenue Residence
  31. Brunswick Avenue Residence
  32. Camp Arowhon Offices
  33. Canadian Firefighters Memorial
  34. Catch / Renew / Release
  35. Channelled Buried Moved Lost
  36. Chocolate Loft
  37. City Instrument
  38. Clarendon Garden
  39. Conversation Piece
  40. Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
  41. Creemore Farm
  42. Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
  43. Danforth Parkettes
  44. Dickson Park Garden
  45. Dilworth Residence
  46. Don Landing Revitalization
  47. Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
  48. Duncanwoods Townhouses
  49. Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
  50. Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
  51. East Point Bird Sanctuary
  52. Eglinton Ave. Forecourt
  53. Eglinton Park Master Plan
  54. Elizabeth Fry Society
  55. Ellsworth Residence
  56. Face to Face | Tête à Tête
  57. First Avenue Garden
  58. First Avenue Residence
  59. Flyover Canada
  60. Foote’s Pond Wood
  61. Forest Hill Village Streetscape
  62. Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
  63. Global Affairs Monument
  64. Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
  65. Gormley Garden
  66. Governor's Bridge Lookout
  67. Greener P
  68. Greer Road Garden
  69. Greer Road Residence
  70. Guelph Bridge
  71. Head in the Clouds
  72. Helena Ave Residence 4
  73. Jean Tweed Addition + Laneway House
  74. Junction Craft Brewery
  75. Kelpies Competition
  76. Kew Gardens Streetscape
  77. King's Landing Apartment
  78. Kipling & Islington Developments
  79. Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
  80. Le jardin du repos
  81. Lenticular Curtain
  82. Leslie Slip Lookout Park
  83. Liberty Village Parkettes
  84. Liza’s Garden
  85. Lynwood Garden
  86. Macroscape
  87. Makwa Waakaa'igan
  88. Markham Garden One
  89. Markham Street Residence Two
  90. Massey College Landscape Restoration
  91. May Street Ravine
  92. Midtown Yonge Streetscape
  93. Montreal Holocaust Memorial Competition
  94. Mount Dennis Parkettes
  95. Mulock Park
  96. Nathan Phillips Square
  97. – Streetscape
  98. – Peace Garden
  99. – Podium Roof Garden
  100. Octane Medical Campus
  101. Orchard View Garden
  102. Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
  103. Owl Cottage
  104. Paperstone Scissors
  105. Pendrith Residence
  106. Peripheral Sitings
  107. Pottery Road Crossing
  108. rare
  109. Ravine Forecourt
  110. Ribbon of the Lower Don
  111. Riverside BIA Master Plan
  112. Roxborough Garden One
  113. Roxborough Garden Two
  114. Schulich School of Business
  115. Sheridan College
  116. – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
  117. Spadina Quay Wetland
  118. St. Anne's Road Garden
  119. St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
  120. Stratford Market Square Competition
  121. Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
  122. Superkids Dental
  123. Superlegible
  124. Sweet Farm
  125. Sweet Farm Pond House
  126. Swift Medical Offices
  127. The Meadows Reconsidered
  128. The Red Sash
  129. The Sara Jackman Playground
  130. Thick & Thin
  131. Thistletown II Townhouses
  132. Tipping Point
  133. TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
  134. TMU Science Building
  135. Tranby Garden
  136. Tree House Residence
  137. UBC Okanagan – The Commons
  138. UHN Tunnels
  139. University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
  140. UW Mathematics Landscape
  141. Venice Biennale 2012
  142. Vermont Square Park
  143. Vernon Avenue Garden
  144. Walker Townhouse Courtyard
  145. Walk the Walk
  146. Walmer Road Residence
  147. Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
  148. Wellesley Cottages Garden
  149. Wells Street Residence
  150. Wendat Square
  151. Westminster Residence
  152. Weston Village BIA Masterplan
  153. With Words as Their Actions
  154. Woodlawn Avenue Residence
  155. Woven Stories
  156. Wynford Drive Residences
  157. York Park
  158. Yorkwoods Townhouses
  159. Young Centre for the Perfoming Arts