We believe that the first duty of a good masterplan is to create great public spaces where people meet or cross through, to foster those incidental interactions that make urban life exciting, interesting.
– Alfredo Caraballo

Allies and Morrison has designed the masterplan for a new urban lakefront neighbourhood in Toronto with areas with greenery and water, public spaces and mixed-use promenades.

The Humber Bay Shores site is located to the west of Toronto city centre and the Humber River and is intended to form part of a new high-density centre in the city.

Currently empty, the triangular, 11.5ha (28ac) site is positioned between one of the city's main expressway arteries and numerous high-rise towers, close to Lake Ontario.

The masterplan is designed to take advantage of this location by creating a community with a variety of uses that is both urban and green.

Public realm spaces, prioritising the experience of pedestrians and cyclists, will include squares, parks, a linear ravine landscape, streets and promenades.

There will also be a covered galleria at the centre of the development with a variety of commercial leisure offers.

The scheme will be well connected to the rest of Toronto, with a new transit hub and routes to and from the other areas in the city knitted through it.

Alfredo Caraballo, partner at Allies and Morrison, said: "We believe that the first duty of a good masterplan is to create great public spaces where people meet or cross through, to foster those incidental interactions that make urban life exciting, interesting. This is why the first sketch we did for this project was not of buildings, but of the spaces between them. Herein lies the DNA of a great piece of city."