Canada’s Sugar Beach Named 2014 Great Place

May 28, 2014, Toronto, ON—Canada’s Sugar Beach has received a 2014 Great Places Award for excellence in environmental design. The award was presented during the 45th annual Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference in New Orleans.

When selecting a winning project, the EDRA jury pays close attention to the relationship between physical form and human activity or experience. They look for projects that “engage our attention and imagination.”

Sugar Beach, designed for Waterfront Toronto by Montreal architectural firm Claude Cormier + Associés, has been capturing the public’s imagination since opening in July 2010. It transformed a dismal parking lot into beautiful public space while celebrating industrial uses on our waterfront. People of all ages love to sit on the beach and watch the sugar boats unload.

The park also includes a plaza space and tree-lined promenade. The plaza – with its large candy-striped granite rock outcropping – creates dynamic spaces for public events. The plaza’s three grass mounds give unique vantage points for concerts and performances. Between the plaza and the beach, a granite promenade offers a shaded route to the water’s edge with benches along the way to sit and enjoy views to the lake, beach or plaza. Underground, a network of silva cells ensures that the promenade’s trees mature and stay healthy. Since opening, the trees have almost doubled in size.

Canada’s Sugar Beach was one of six projects in architecture, planning, landscape architecture, and urban design honoured with a 2014 Great Places Award. Previous Great Places Award winners include the Dublin Grounds of Remembrance, The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet and Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle.

Canada’s Sugar Beach has received numerous awards to date including an Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architecture, a National Urban Design Award and an Award of Excellence from the Toronto Urban Design Awards.