The Gardiner SkyPark: continuous productive urban landscape as infrastructure

The concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPUL) was introduced by Andrè Vilijoen and Katrin Bohn in 2004. This thesis project tests the application of the CPUL concept to Toronto, a densely developed North America winter city. It examines: 1. The challenges, limitations and opportunities of an existing high-rise city fabric as a platform for creating new coherent, continuous and active pedestrianized landscapes by reclaiming unused and under-utilized spaces. 2. The implications of merging reclaimed spaces with existing circulation arteries and infrastructure, to improve, invigorate and strengthen connections in the city. Through an iterative research and design exercise, which discovered many hidden potentials within the CPUL framework, this project is able to demonstrate how a linear park system is capable of seamlessly reconnecting a severed Toronto’s waterfront to the dense downtown core. Such projects can substantially benefit community life, and offer new and meaningful forms of urban connectivity that are sustainable and productive.