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Torontoist got a sneak peak at the newly redeveloped Wychwood Barns earlier this week and our verdict can be pithily summarized as "yippee!" A veritable playground for the ecologically and socially conscious, the newest Artscape endeavour lives up to the hype and anticipation. The Barns project represents a new and particularly hopeful kind of urban redevelopment, and we can only hope to see many more such ventures breaking ground soon.
The Wychwood Barns is a multi-use facility which houses (deep breath): artist studios, live/work units, social housing units, performance spaces, a greenhouse, a sheltered garden, thirteen non-profit organizations, a sports field, a playground, a farmers’ market, a public gallery, and community use space. It is the first heritage redevelopment in Canada to get LEED gold certification, and a host of truly cool environmentally-friendly features have been integrated into the design. Rainwater will be harvested from the roof and sent to an underground cistern; it’ll supply the building’s non-potable water needs and be used for everything from landscaping to toilets. There is low-flow plumbing and a geo-thermal heating and cooling system, and 75% of waste was diverted from landfill during the construction process.
The Wychwood Barns began life in 1913: opened by the city as a hub for linking the different rail systems then in use, they were soon folded into TTC operations and served as streetcar housing and transit testing facilities. Left vacant by the mid-eighties, it took the combined efforts of three levels of government, the persistent advocacy of Joe Mihevc, participation from the private sector and several non-profits, an inspired collaboration between Artscape and The Stop, and several years of concerted effort to bring the site back to life. It shouldn’t have been quite as hard, and shouldn’t have taken quite so long: the merits of the project now seem entirely obvious. Despite a few similarly inclined developments in the city, however, the multi-use model is still relatively new: hard to explain to local residents and hard to classify for potential donors, it can take a bit of extra effort to get this kind of project off the ground.
Joe Lobko described the project as “the healing of a site.” It’s better than that, in fact, for the Barns not only repurposes empty space but creates a new environment for and model of community interaction. Jane Jacobs taught us, decades ago, that cities flourish when mixed-use development allows for the happy mingling of people and cross-pollination of ideas. Shrink that model down to a single facility, throw in a serious raft of sustainability measures, add a good dose of historical preservation, and the Wychwood Barns is what you get. Local residents will be able to enjoy idyllic Saturdays, grabbing freshly-baked loaves of bread before heading outside to the playground or the skating rink. Community groups will benefit from the added public interest and new event spaces. And though the development is resolutely non-profit, commercial investment in the area, particularly in the adjacent St. Clair strip, will be spurred by the excitement this project is generating. Any neighbourhood should be so lucky.
Left to right: architect Joe Lobko, Artscape CEO Tim Jones, Councillor Joe Mihevc, and The Stop Executive Director Nick Saul.
All photos by Hamutal Dotan/Torontoist.
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i only had the pleasure of visiting the Barns once before its conversion.
i initially was sad that such a beautiful urban exploration site was going to be transformed or torn down.
had the chance to take a walk through the Barns on Monday and they did an unbelievable job transforming it (and that's the best way to describe it - a true transformation).
any artist who is living or working there is incredibly lucky. kudos to the city for allowing the Barns to exist. hopefully it will be a great example for the supposed transformation of the Brickworks.
As usual all the media reports have the date of when the TTC stopped using the site wrong. "Mid-1980s" keeps being repeated, but trolley buses were patched up there until 1991, the CIS equipment was installed in all streetcars and buses there in 1990-1991. The last trolley buses were stored in side until 1994, and the last PCC cars were stored inside the barns until the spring of 1996, so I'd hardly say the place was abandoned in the "mid-1980s". I had an occasion to be inside the barn in 1989, and the TTC still had a security person posted there, basically sitting in the office and walking around every once in a while. The facilities were still in good condition as workers were still using it every day. It wasn't until the TTC actually stopped using the property in 1998 that it was truly "abandoned". I guess nobody really bothered to find out the correct date and just pulled out something that sounded good.
Robert,
I appreciate your concern for accuracy - it is one that I share. Not having had the occasion to explore the old Barns myself, I had to rely on official reports about the facility's history. According to documentation provided by both Artscape and the City of Toronto, the site was closed in 1985. You can view the legal backgrounder on the site's history here: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2007/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-4913.pdf (the relevant information is in the first paragraph of the second page). Further background is also available here: http://www.torontoartscape.on.ca/about_the_barns/
If you have direct experience which contradicts that information, I'm of course especially grateful to learn about it.
Cheers.
if you go to Wychwood today, keep this picture in mind:
that's the main open space.
^^by the way, the above photo is courtesy of www.sharp-photo.com