Parc Downsview Park
CANADA LANDS COMPANY, TORONTO
Originally home to de Havilland Canada, and then the Canadian Forces Base, Parc Downsview Park is now a large urban park, rich in history, offering a wide range of recreational activities, amenities and cultural events, and boasts an important hub for innovation, education, and commercial ventures.
KDA designed a property-wide bilingual signage system that is unique to the inherent attributes of Parc Downsview Park and contributes to an exciting and exuberant ‘sense of place’, creates a unified narrative, and supports future program expansion.
To establish the design criteria for the development of the system, KDA created, led and moderated in-depth stakeholder consultation sessions with both the public and private sector.
Narratives from these sessions provided the strategic dialogue that lead to a meaningful framework for the recommendation of regions, recognition of places and spaces, sign type and content hierarchy, circulation flow patterns and ultimately the enhancement of the user-experience.
572 Acres
4 Regions
Expansive in scale, KDA’s program for Parc Downsview Park strategically solves complex wayfinding challenges by creating four distinct Regions within. Each Region is colour-coded and purposefully named to embrace the land’s historic past and exciting future.
The Signage and Wayfinding Program at Downsview Park looks terrific! The KDA Team did a wonderful job.
A Story-telling Journey
Through an engaging, entertaining and educational story-telling journey, KDA’s interpretive signage program draws in the visitor, captures curiosity, develops interest, and leaves the visitor with an undeniable sense of place and a heightened understanding and appreciation of the Park itself.
a rich history
The 1940s airfield played a significant role in the war effort by training pilots and supporting aircraft production.