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High Park Hillside Pavilion
High Park Hillside Pavilion
Toronto, Canada
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Other Projects by SOCA | Studio of Contemporary Architecture
High Park Hillside Pavilion
Toronto, Canada
Type
STATUS
Under Construction
YEAR
2025
SIZE
0 sqft - 1000 sqft
BUDGET
$500K - 1M
High Park, one of Toronto’s oldest and largest public parks, is a cherished place of recreation, rest, and connection to the region’s rich ecological heritage. It welcomes over a million local and international visitors annually, with a springtime surge drawn by its famous Sakura blossoms. To better serve this growing use, the City of Toronto engaged SOCA to revitalize the aging washroom pavilion adjacent the cherry grove, enhancing the comfort and inclusivity of the park.
The project reflects on the role of the public washroom typology in a growing and diversifying city, and its potential to foster resilient, inclusive, and participatory public spaces. Reflecting the City’s commitment to accessibility and inclusivity, the expansion accommodates four new all-gender stalls, replacing the previous single-gender washrooms in the existing structure with a universal stall and storage. A large bench and generous sheltering canopy create a welcoming third space, inviting shelter, rest, and informal gathering.
Originally constructed nearly a century ago, the existing pavilion featured a distinctive green combination roof and brick facade in the Arts and Crafts style. SOCA’s design echoes this movement’s spirit of modesty, natural connection, and craft, while introducing contemporary elements that root the building into today’s social and ecological context. The revitalization consolidates the roof into a concise hip design with an extended canopy that spans across a new volume to the south. Each structure is clad with fibre-cement panels, a durable material that ensures the building’s longevity and ease of maintenance. Adorned with a fluted pink-and-white petal motif, the facade evokes the spectacle of the spring blooms, while a new R-40 value insulated envelope provides the thermal performance required to prolong use of the building through the winter and summer months. A durable tile interior finish and high-efficiency fixtures further improve the sustainability and resilience of the facility into the future.
High Park embraces one of Ontario’s last remaining Black Oak Savannah ecosystems, an oak-dotted grasslands offering an urban home for a remarkable diversity of flora and fauna, including Snapping Turtles and Midland Painted Turtles. The Hillside pavilion, in both process and programming, attends to the needs of these charismatic and threatened members of the park’s more-than-human community. In addition to the universal washroom, the larger volume provides storage space for the Turtle Protectors/Mishiikenh Gizhaasowin, an Indigenous-guided stewardship program that supports and protects the well-being of turtles across the city. Working in collaboration with the Turtle Protectors, SOCA carefully planned the project’s design and phasing to minimize disruption to these tiny neighbours, with construction taking place between the end of the turtles’ migration and the beginning of winter. SOCA’s design accommodates this constraint in the schedule by retaining as much of the existing infrastructure as possible and incorporating high-quality concrete block for the expansion, minimizing the need for additional finishes.
More than a renovation, the revitalized pavilion invites the public to expect more—an expanded sense of enjoyment, belonging and care—from the civic environments that serve them.
The project reflects on the role of the public washroom typology in a growing and diversifying city, and its potential to foster resilient, inclusive, and participatory public spaces. Reflecting the City’s commitment to accessibility and inclusivity, the expansion accommodates four new all-gender stalls, replacing the previous single-gender washrooms in the existing structure with a universal stall and storage. A large bench and generous sheltering canopy create a welcoming third space, inviting shelter, rest, and informal gathering.
Originally constructed nearly a century ago, the existing pavilion featured a distinctive green combination roof and brick facade in the Arts and Crafts style. SOCA’s design echoes this movement’s spirit of modesty, natural connection, and craft, while introducing contemporary elements that root the building into today’s social and ecological context. The revitalization consolidates the roof into a concise hip design with an extended canopy that spans across a new volume to the south. Each structure is clad with fibre-cement panels, a durable material that ensures the building’s longevity and ease of maintenance. Adorned with a fluted pink-and-white petal motif, the facade evokes the spectacle of the spring blooms, while a new R-40 value insulated envelope provides the thermal performance required to prolong use of the building through the winter and summer months. A durable tile interior finish and high-efficiency fixtures further improve the sustainability and resilience of the facility into the future.
High Park embraces one of Ontario’s last remaining Black Oak Savannah ecosystems, an oak-dotted grasslands offering an urban home for a remarkable diversity of flora and fauna, including Snapping Turtles and Midland Painted Turtles. The Hillside pavilion, in both process and programming, attends to the needs of these charismatic and threatened members of the park’s more-than-human community. In addition to the universal washroom, the larger volume provides storage space for the Turtle Protectors/Mishiikenh Gizhaasowin, an Indigenous-guided stewardship program that supports and protects the well-being of turtles across the city. Working in collaboration with the Turtle Protectors, SOCA carefully planned the project’s design and phasing to minimize disruption to these tiny neighbours, with construction taking place between the end of the turtles’ migration and the beginning of winter. SOCA’s design accommodates this constraint in the schedule by retaining as much of the existing infrastructure as possible and incorporating high-quality concrete block for the expansion, minimizing the need for additional finishes.
More than a renovation, the revitalized pavilion invites the public to expect more—an expanded sense of enjoyment, belonging and care—from the civic environments that serve them.
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