Toronto`s sweetest beach receives international recognition

TORONTO, Aug. 30, 2012 /CNW/ - Canada's Sugar Beach, a popular park on Toronto`s waterfront, has been recognized with another prestigious design award.

The urban beach, located in the new East Bayfront community, has received a 2012 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Honor Award in the General Design category. The award is the sixth major design accolade that the park has won since opening in July 2010.

"This latest award is yet another sign that great things are happening on the waterfront," said Waterfront Toronto President and CEO John Campbell. "Canada`s Sugar Beach has been well used and well loved by Torontonians since we opened it and we are thrilled that it is also admired by the international landscape architecture community."

Canada's Sugar Beach was designed for Waterfront Toronto by Montreal architectural firm Claude Cormier + Associés. The park transformed a former parking lot into a whimsical urban public space that features a promenade, plaza and beach, and offers unique views of Lake Ontario and a working sugar refinery.

The ASLA awards celebrate the top public places, residential designs, campuses, parks and urban planning projects from across the U.S. and around the world. This year 37 awards were bestowed out of more than 620 entries. Other winning projects include the National 9/11 Memorial in New York City, China's Quarry Garden in the Shanghai Botanical Gardens and the Tudela-Culip Restoration Project in Catalonia, Spain.

"Playful and whimsical, this design transforms an industrial space into a real breath of fresh air along the waterfront," said the 2012 ASLA awards jury. "It's a contrived landscape that people are craving."

This is the third ASLA award that Waterfront Toronto projects have received. Previously awards have been given to the Spadina Wavedeck and the plan for the Port Lands Estuary.

To help achieve and uphold its standards for design excellence, Waterfront Toronto hosts international design competitions and works with some of the most highly regarded planners, architects, designers and landscape architects in the world. The corporation also has a design review panel that critiques and guides all projects.

The Governments of Canada and Ontario and the City of Toronto created Waterfront Toronto to oversee and lead the renewal of Toronto's waterfront. Public accessibility, design excellence, sustainable development, economic development and fiscal sustainability are the key drivers of waterfront revitalization.

For background information on Canada's Sugar Beach and construction updates for East Bayfront, please visit www.waterfrontoronto.ca.

For more information about the ASLA 2012 Professional Awards, please visit www.asla.org.

SOURCE: Waterfront Toronto

Samantha Gileno, Waterfront Toronto [email protected] 416-214-1344 x264 or 416-271-1316