1.5 ConEd Learning Hours
8:30 a.m. ‐ 10:00 a.m.
Cities are never completed—they are a perpetual work in progress. Is Toronto a Victorian city or is this heritage simply one layer in a series of historical layers of its evolution? With the ever‐present impact of intensification on the GTA and depletion of development sites, adaptive reuse of heritage sites has become an alternative for growth in the city. This, however, has become highly contested ground as it has pitted the interests of heritage preservationists, planners, architects, developers, and institutions against each other in finding consensus. This presentation will examine this facet of city building. It will look at how heritage policy, development initiative, design innovation, and the approval process all play a role in the adaptive reuse of heritage sites. It will provide a background and critical overview of heritage intensification with a focus on Toronto and examine its outcome through case study analysis.
Learning Objectives
1. Hear a brief overview of the evolution of the heritage fabric of the city, the approach to its preservation, and the competing interest of intensification.
2. Recognize how design innovation, the regulatory framework, and approval strategy all play a role in the resolution of heritage intensification.
3. Be guided through case studies of built work and work that is under approval and take a critical look at how the regulatory policies, design approach, and approval strategy are manifest in the architectural response.
4. Gain more understanding and appreciation of the regulatory framework, its limitations, and benefits, versus the qualitative challenges of creating architectural resolutions within a heritage context.
Robert Cadeau, OAA, Partner, Architects- Alliance
Robert Cadeau, OAA, partner, project architect, and a founding member of a—A, is an innovative architect with 30 years of experience in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean with a particular expertise in the integration of contemporary built form into heritage structures and precincts, on projects ranging from the delicate St. James Cathedral Centre, to master planning and design concept for 1,028,138‐sf residential, commercial, and retail programming that helped launch the rebirth of the Distillery District, a 19th century heritage industrial site on Toronto’s waterfront. Rob is currently guiding the design of a 132,270‐sf addition to the Château Laurier Hotel in the national capital, and a new contemporary Ismaili Jamatkhana and community center in Thorncliffe Park, which was a recipient of the Canadian Architect Award of Excellence, a Progressive Architecture Award, and a Faith and Form Award. Rob has also served as a visiting critic at Schools of Architecture at UoT, Waterloo, TMU, and Penn State University.