Summer is finally here, and that means many people will be out enjoying the parks throughout their cities. They may not know it, but what is now a beautiful green space may have once been the site of a landfill.

Vincent Javet, who will be starting the Daniels Faculty’s Master of Landscape Architecture program this fall, and alumnus Michael Cook (MLA 2014) recently published an article in Ground Magazine documenting landfill sites throughout Ontario that have been converted — or are about to be converted — into public parks.

“In a not too distant past, we buried garbage anywhere and everywhere, ultimately weaving our trash into the fabric of many of our parks,” write Javet and Cook. “Dozens of Toronto parks, including waterfront sites, ravine and valley destinations, and neighbourhood green spaces, sit atop sites where garbage or mixed fill were buried between the 1800s and the 1970s.”

Titled "Garbage Opportunities,” the article spotlights the Leslie Street Spit/Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto, which Javet and Cook write “has become Ontario’s premier demonstration site for the capacity of intentional design and ecological succession to produce value from waste materals.” The piece also includes a comprehensive map of amenity parks, naturalized parks, and planned park sites throughout the GTA and beyond.

Vincent Javet is a Senior Researcher for Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the North American green roof and wall industry association. Michael Cook is a landscape and urban designer at Brown+Storey Architects, and the author of Vanishing Point, an urban exploration blog. In 2015, Canadian Geographic named Cook one of Canada’s 100 greatest modern explorers, alongside other pioneers such as Ed Burtynsky, Les Stroud, and Chris Hatfield.

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects. Its goal is to provide an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to the profession of landscape architecture. Visit Ground Magazine’s website to read the full article.