Students’ design ideas to help reshape site of former airport
Teens pitch proposals for recreation space at Downsview airfield
A group of presenters placed their prototype before a panel of judges, as the audience of their peers fell to a hush, ready to hear the next big idea. This wasn’t a board room or “Dragons’ Den,” it was an event for high school students to share their vision with developers looking to reshape the site of the former Downsview Airport.
At this year’s 1UP Toronto Conference, an annual event for students from across Ontario to learn about urban design and architecture, dozens of students pitched their proposals for a recreation space on the airport’s former runway to developers from Northcrest Developments. Developers say the ideas sparked by the teens in the competition will directly shape the outcome of this space.
The recreation space is expected to open in the summer of 2025, ahead of the 30-year-long development of the 370-acre property, which Northcrest is calling the largest project of its kind in North America.
“It’s cool that we have the power to do something serious — even if we’re not the winners, we’re making an impact,” said Ciara Doody, a Grade 11 student from Markville Secondary School. “It’s good to know that people do listen.”
The strip of tarmac students were tasked with redesigning was a large, open canvas — Mitchell Marcus, executive director of site activation and planning for Northcrest, said it is about the same as the distance between Bloor Street and Front Street in downtown Toronto. But, the former airfield poses significant limitations. It is a flat, windy, largely uninhabited area at a high elevation and it has no water, electricity, or gas service.
Many groups proposed skate parks, space for community art or murals, music venues, playgrounds and places for the community to walk, skate, or cycle. To overcome the challenges of the space, some proposed using wind, solar, or even kinetic power from pedestrians and cyclists to power lights. Others wanted to recognize the history of the site by incorporating decommissioned plane cabins in their design or creating places for Indigenous art and culture.
Marcus said unhindered, big-idea thinking is a unique perspective that sets teenagers apart from adults when it comes to creating plans and solutions for city spaces.
“We’re talking about a project that’s going to last for 30 years — the group that’s here will be the people who eventually live at Downsview,” he said, referencing the plan to eventually build a mixed-use residential and commercial community around the former runway. “I think for them to influence some of these early interventions with their needs that aren’t being met in other places in the city, (it) may allow us to put a bit of a unique stamp on this.”
The winning prototype was assembled by students out of Post-its, plastic jacks, sponges, and pipe cleaners. But what it represented, said Grade 12 student Jaydon Ly, was something far greater: an art garden, a space for morning meditations, and a lookout point to see the city’s skyline.
The former air force base most recently was the home of Bombardier Aerospace. After flying its last plane from the site on Saturday, Marcus says the plane manufacturer is set to leave the property April 1.
Northcrest has started to host events — such as a solar eclipse viewing party next month — on the tarmac in an effort to bring members of the community together while the development gets underway. They aren’t the first developer to gain insight from Toronto teens, said conference organizer and coexecutive director of Urban Minds Angela Ng. Last year, students shared ideas for the Bentway underneath the Gardiner Expressway, such as winding walkways, which translated into paths connecting parks and sculptures along the route.
Ng says that alongside inspiring students interested in urban planning and design, her main intention is to provide a place for high school students to see the power they have to shape their communities.
“A lot of these students aren’t really aware that they have a say and can make a change today and into the future, so (we’re) providing that platform,” she said.
Students may not always see direct or immediate results from their ideas — at the first conference, in 2017, students pitched greenspaces and free Wi-Fi along the King Street corridor — but for at least one day, they have the ear of the city’s decision-makers.
“Urban planners and developers, they’re building these things that will last,” said Ly. “If it’s strongly built then it’ll be used by future generations, so they should have younger generations like us in mind when they do develop.”