East Point Bird Sanctuary

This project is part of a citywide initiative to enhance and protect bird habitat and increase birding activity through public education programming. East Point Park is the first of six key sites to be developed and improved over the next several years. Its two Phase One architectural structures, a Viewing Pavilion and Bird Blind, are complete; a Soundscape Pavilion is planned for Phase Two. Connected by new and rehabilitated paths and framed by interpretive signage and seating, these unobtrusive architectural interventions enhance the structure of the site to promote public use and foster stewardship in support of bird habitat in the city.
The design explores the use of architecture as a means of framing, enhancing, and respecting the natural qualities of one of Toronto’s most beautiful parks. Folded into shapes evocative of flight, sheets of weathering steel form the pavilions. Laser cut through the Viewing Pavilion’s walls are clouds of birds on the wing and names of species spotted at this significant migratory flyway stopover site.