AZURE features the Landscape of Landmark Quality

January 16, 2026

AZURE has featured the Landscape of Landmark Quality project at the University of Toronto in an article by editor-in-chief Elizabeth Pagliacolo, who toured the renewed campus with KPMB founding partner Shirley Blumberg and associate Nick Jones last fall.

Led by KPMB with landscape design by MVVA (Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc.), the Landscape of Landmark Quality project is an ambitious revitalization of the historic St. George campus core.

By relocating surface parking below grade and redesigning the site’s landscapes with an array of new plantings and paved pathways, the Landmark project has transformed 17 acres of the site into a pedestrian-focused and fully accessible green space — all while complementing the campus’s historic architecture.

“[The] design team certainly aspires for King’s College Circle to be seen and felt as belonging as much to the greater public realm as to the campus proper,” writes Pagliocolo.

“I promised our clients that this would be Toronto’s Central Park, because it’s an extraordinary space. It’s right near downtown, and the city grows up around it, so the surrounding community has embraced it as well,” Blumberg told Pagliacolo while exploring the campus.

Complementing the at-grade interventions, Canada’s largest urban geothermal exchange was installed beneath the central King’s College Circle lawn as part of the Landmark project. This sustainable heating and cooling system reduces the University’s greenhouse gas emissions by 15,000 metric tons annually, making it the single largest contributor to its ongoing carbon reduction efforts.

Read the full article at AZURE.

(Lead image: Salina Kassam)