The pri­ma­ry goals for the rede­vel­op­ment and revi­tal­iza­tion of the brown­field site of the Impe­r­i­al Oil lands are to strength­en access to water­front and its ameni­ties, while re-ani­mat­ing the east­ern side of the Cred­it Riv­er. We cre­ate an urban pock­et south of Lakeshore Road that curates new places for meet­ing, liv­ing, work­ing, learn­ing, and con­nect­ing, now uni­fied by robust streets, green­ways, parks, and land­scape ele­ments that invite the pub­lic pedes­tri­an scale first.

As Mas­ter­plan Archi­tect, GPA leads a com­plex team of land­scape, traf­fic, civ­il, and plan­ning con­sul­tants to deliv­er a com­plete com­mu­ni­ty of streets, squares, and parks, lined with mixed-use office, retail, cul­tur­al and res­i­den­tial build­ings includ­ing town­hous­es, mid-ris­es, and tow­ers.

Bright­wa­ter is envi­sioned as a con­tem­po­rary 21st Cen­tu­ry vil­lage that, despite its over­all size, is designed to oper­ate and ani­mate at the walk­a­ble human scale with a hier­ar­chy of pub­lic spaces and streets. As a holis­tic com­mu­ni­ty, it is designed to pro­vide an excep­tion­al qual­i­ty of life to its res­i­dents in a con­tem­po­rary set­ting, pro­vid­ing them with access to the water­front and best-in-class retail expe­ri­ences and ameni­ties. Inspired by ham­let towns like East Hamp­ton, it is the sym­bi­ot­ic con­nec­tion to the water that forms the foun­da­tion­al con­cept of the project.

The mas­ter­plan address­es and refines the City’s ambi­tion to sec­tion the site into three strate­gic zones: pri­ma­ry com­mer­cial, pri­ma­ry res­i­den­tial and mixed-use cam­pus. Brightwater’s north­ern edge along Lakeshore Road is lined with retail store­fronts, to draw the activ­i­ty and ani­ma­tion of Port Cred­it west­ward. The entrance to the devel­op­ment lies in its main arte­r­i­al road, Street A, which trav­els along the north/south axis from Lakeshore to the water­front. Street A widens to a prom­e­nade in the cen­ter of Bright­wa­ter, lead­ing to a pub­lic square, cam­pus court, and final­ly lake­front park—exposing res­i­dents to a diverse set of expe­ri­ences while draw­ing peo­ple from the main street to the water. There is inten­tion­al­ly no mate­r­i­al dis­tinc­tion between the side­walk and road, allow­ing for a seam­less pedes­tri­an expe­ri­ence. The cur­va­ture of Street A is designed to cre­ate a buffer from the harsh con­di­tions of the lake­front in the win­ter.

Town­hous­es occu­py the east and west sides of Bright­wa­ter, which are adja­cent to exist­ing low-rise neigh­bor­hoods. These tran­si­tion to mid- and high-rise build­ings at the cen­ter of the devel­op­ment, which them­selves are sculpt­ed to pro­vide the appro­pri­ate street wall. They also form a sense of enclo­sure and pro­tec­tion from the ele­ments. The tow­ers derive the least amount of impact in terms of shad­ow to the adja­cent park and pub­lic realm spaces.

Oth­er notable pro­gram­ming of the site includes a block of Peel Region­al Hous­ing, pro­vid­ing afford­able hous­ing for over 150 fam­i­lies. Along the east­ern perime­ter, a new school will also be erect­ed with empha­sis on pro­vid­ing an abun­dance of out­door space for recre­ation­al activ­i­ties for stu­dents.

Pub­lic green­space is a cru­cial part of the Bright­wa­ter project. A main tenet of the mas­ter­plan aims to revi­tal­ize the park at the south­ern edge of the water­front. The inte­gra­tion of the two devel­op­ments near the park­way is exe­cut­ed by lead­ing trails around the build­ing. An open-air amphithe­ater sits in the cen­ter of the park, which is acces­si­ble for pub­lic pro­gram­ming like the­atre pro­duc­tions and con­certs.