This LEED Silver certified project includes a complete redevelopment of the existing Guildwood GO Transit commuter rail station and VIA Rail stop along the Lakeshore East Line. As part of an initiative by GO Transit to introduce distinctive identities and contemporary design language to its local stations—using design to promote sustainable mass transit—the GO Guildwood project includes a new station building, platforms and pedestrian spaces at an existing commuter train station in Scarborough.
A simple linear composition of station, pedestrian plaza and tunnel entry pavilions occupies the narrow interstitial space
between an existing parking lot and the bermed rail corridor. The station’s steel framed roof and canopy structure, lined in wood, establishes a horizontal datum against the site’s slope, joining indoor and outdoor spaces, creating sheltered entry plazas. This line is punctuated by an illuminated elevator tower that will act as a beacon to drivers passing by. In tectonic contrast, the internal staff and service spaces, as well as three standalone tunnel entries, are built into the berm, defining and shaping the plaza, waiting areas, and concourse.
The project is located in south Scarborough at a major artery into Toronto. Surrounding development is mainly low-rise commercial fabric, low-density suburban housing and a handful of residential towers. The redevelopment is limited to the rail platforms, landscaped berms, station building with arrival plaza, site perimeter landscaping, and improvements to pedestrian and cyclist access, while the existing parking lots must remain largely unaltered to accommodate the station’s peak capacity. Partially hidden by surrounding development, the new building is glimpsed from the street only from a distant, elevated position. To maximize the project’s visual impact a linear massing strategy was developed by which the station and arrival plaza hug the north berm, occupying the narrow zone between the existing parking lot and the track edge. Three separate tunnel entry pavilions and a utility structure are likewise expressed as green-roofed linear volumes partially buried in the north and south berms.
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