The Landmark Project featured in Canadian Architect

November 7, 2025

The Landscape of Landmark Quality Project is featured in the November issue of Canadian Architect. The article, “Re-greening the campus” by Pamela Young, charts KPMB and MVVA‘s efforts to to remake and pedestrianize the University of Toronto’s downtown St. George Campus.  

Completed in 2024, the Landmark Project has reinvigorated the nearly 200-year-old campus with new landscapes, a necklace of pedestrian- and cyclist-focused pathways, and a major new geothermal heating and cooling system, which is tucked below the lawn of King’s College Circle. 

KPMB founding partner Shirley Blumberg and associate Nick Jones spoke with Young regarding the project’s complexities — many of which are hidden underground. A web of subterranean utilities and infrastructure, for example, complicated the task of identifying where to plant new trees. KPMB also designed a transparent pavilion that accesses an underground parking garage, which enabled surface parking to be removed from the site.  

“The main garage-access point — deftly placed in front of [the Medical Sciences Building] — is a graceful, de-materializing little pavilion with a green-roofed canopy and mullion-less glass walls that echo the sinuous lines of the Necklace’s gardens,” writes Young.  

The article also highlights the project’s commitment to accessibility, with large stairs replaced by gentle slopes. 

“[The] care and ingenuity that went into grading is impressive,” adds Young. “The grade modulates gently and seamlessly throughout the site, with curving granite seat walls emerging almost like natural outcroppings at points where the most significant changes in elevation occur within the new, variously sized plazas.” 

Learn more about the Landmark Project at Canadian Architect.  

(Lead image: Salina Kassam)