Catch / Renew / Release

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.

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.


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.


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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.


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.


- A Conversation of Views
- Admiral Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Residence
- Albany Avenue Residence
- Alcina Garden
- Alexandra Park
- Alwington Landscape / Garden Pavilion
- Aporia Records
- Ardwick Townhouses
- Asphalt Poetry
- – Poem
- Baby Point Gardens
- Beach Garden
- Beach Village BIA Master Plan
- Beaty Residence
- Bennington Hts Garden
- Bennington Hts Ravine Garden 1
- 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
- Brahms Townhouses
- Browning Avenue Residence
- Brunswick Avenue Residence
- Camp Arowhon Offices
- Canadian Firefighters Memorial
- Catch / Renew / Release
- Channelled Buried Moved Lost
- Chocolate Loft
- City Instrument
- Clarendon Garden
- Conversation Piece
- Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
- Creemore Farm
- Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
- Danforth Parkettes
- 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
- Jean Tweed Addition + Laneway House
- 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
- May Street Ravine
- Midtown Yonge Streetscape
- Montreal Holocaust Memorial Competition
- Mount Dennis Parkettes
- Mulock Park
- Nathan Phillips Square
- – Streetscape
- – Peace Garden
- – Podium Roof 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
- The Sara Jackman Playground
- 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
- UW Mathematics Landscape
- Venice Biennale 2012
- Vermont Square Park
- Vernon Avenue Garden
- Walker Townhouse Courtyard
- Walk the Walk
- Walmer Road Residence
- Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
- Wellesley Cottages Garden
- Wells Street Residence
- Wendat Square
- Westminster Residence
- Weston Village BIA Masterplan
- With Words as Their Actions
- Woodlawn Avenue Residence
- Woven Stories
- Wynford Drive Residences
- York Park
- Yorkwoods Townhouses
- Young Centre for the Perfoming Arts