Overview of the Project

The airport exists simultaneously as a place and as a gateway. All destinations, whether to a nearby city or some far continent are equalised and seemingly inconsequential. What does matter is punctuality, personal identification and processing. Airport space is city space, filled to capacity with urban life. In danger of being lost in the functionality and ambiguousness of this in-between space is a distinct sense of anticipation and cultural and social identity that belongs to the city and country that the airport is in. Our proposal attempts to create a unique Canadian experience for both the departing and arriving passenger. From the air, the sinuous form of the Main Terminal is perched on the edge of a canyon, its curbside blanketed with trees and natural vegetation. The image is of a gateway both into the city and into the wilderness. From the ground, the sleek ground-hugging form creates a momentum, a feeling of motion and the image of terminal as a river becomes more apparent. Upon exiting the main terminal on the curbside of the airport, the passenger is provided a view of the tree-blanketed canyon and the forested hill beyond, towards the city. The exodus from the airport also creates an experience of exiting the wilderness and entering the city, as the terminal building disappears behind the hill and the trees, and the passenger enters the urban life of the city. This experience gives the airport a distinct sense of place, a place that is uniquely Canadian, both separate from and integrated into the urban fabric of Toronto. The airport is not merely an extension of the grid that becomes a mammoth port for airplanes, but creates its own fiction as a place in the wilderness, a place that attempts to provide the passenger with something other than simply a forgettable place of transition.

These pages designed by Kendall Anderson and Andrew Smith. Pages constructed by Kendall Anderson.