The site under construction. Photo courtesy ASTOUND
This morning, Canada?s largest shipping container market opens its gates in Toronto. Stackt is a bold urban intervention and a revolutionary market and cultural space, made possible by daring to rethink what constitutes the retail marketplace in every sense ? its concept, site, building materials and user experience.
LGA Architectural Partners designed the two-block, 2.4 acre site to provide Torontonians and their visitors with a lively cultural destination and community hub with anchor and pop-up shops, food and beverage vendors and an onsite brewery, woven with courtyards, pedestrian paths, and open spaces for community programming and events. Surrounded by new developments and condo construction, a daycare center, railway tracks, Fort York historic site and the Bentway?s new public outdoor space, stackt embraces the area?s unique and changing characteristics while augmenting them with an additional amenity. Photo courtesy ASTOUND
The concept was born from the idea of leasing and activating a dormant City of Toronto-owned property at Bathurst and Front Streets while the City prepares for its future use as a public park. Shipping containers pay homage to the industrial nature of the site, while creating a retail setting with a unique personality. They also mean that stackt?s physical structure can be picked up and deployed elsewhere ? even in a different configuration ? at a future date.
A front line of containers faces B...