Water Education Centre

RC Harris Water Treatment Facility

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Students were asked to design a Water Education Centre, and later, to add a swimming facility to the program. From the project brief:

A Water Education Centre is desired at one of the most charged and iconic sites in Toronto: the R C Harris Water Treatment Plant. The new WEC is expected to be unique and of its own time, and yet respectful of the context in which it resides.

This project proposes a kind of filter building to mediate between the historical R C Harris Water Treatment Facility and the surrounding urban context. The proposed programs of a Water Education Centre and Recreational Swimming facilities are organized along a bar building that acts as a defining edge between the historic landscape and the ever-evolving city. The concept of the aqueduct is employed to introduce voids along the length of the building allowing the free flow of pedestrian traffic between the street and the water treatment facility grounds.