Hiding Meadow creates a distinct microclimatic contrast between the surface condition and subterranean depth by juxtaposing opposing climatic, textural, and temporal qualities. While the tall-grass meadow appears homogeneous from the surface, visitors discover a series of underground pools only upon physically approaching their edges, creating recurring moments of revelation and surprise as ordered and rectilinear geometry bursts unexpectedly through an otherwise wild and organic landscape. Formed from offshore alluvial deposits, over time wind, current, floods, and erosion, in combination with land reclamation, hard-shore construction, channeling, Indigenous activity, and colonisation, have shaped and reshaped the Toronto Islands over the centuries. Drawing from the layered influence of the natural, human, and historical forces on the site, the project investigates themes of depth, inhabitation, and temporality, drawing attention to our connection to the land, and by extension, our connection to history, asking: what is hidden underneath our feet, invisible to the surface eye?

Plan

Creating a sense of depth

Subterranean pool view

Visitors descend into the controlled and rectilinear excavations before re-emerging onto the wild and organic meadow as they move dynamically across the site and flexibly between conditions of warmth and coolness, dry and wet, rough and smooth, floral and earthy, fast and slow, open and sheltered, etc.

Semi-embedded pavilion section

Water garden section perspective