![](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2024/06/05161913/Azure-AZ-Awards-2024-Urban-Design-Unbuilt-Downsview-1600x900-1.jpg)
The 2024 closure of Downsview Airport, an industrial airfield in Toronto, will liberate 210 hectares of transit-accessible land. A group of architects and planners has drawn up a framework plan for the new Downsview based on the popular “15-minute city” typology. The development will comprise 10 mixed-use neighbourhoods expected to host 85,000 dwellings, 1.1 million square metres of business space and 40 hectares of parks and open spaces. The centrepiece will be the old airport runway, repurposed as a pedestrian-focused thoroughfare. A piece of hard infrastructure that once launched planes into the sky will instead nurture life on the ground.
![AZ Awards 2024 People's Choice: Downsview](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2024/06/05165721/Azure-AZ-Awards-2024-Urban-Design-Unbuilt-Downsview-04.jpg)
Team: Michael Sørenson (HLA), Kevin Bridgman (KPMB), Rasmus Astrup (SLA) and Emily Reisman (USI) with Santiago Orbea, Gregory Haley, Francis Aguillard, Evan Shieh and Grant McCracken (HLA); Laurence Holland, Sahana Dharmaraj, Shirley Blumberg, Bruce Kuwabara, Geoffrey Turnbull, Jonathan Graham, Nellie Jalal-Zadeh and Andy Barat (KPMB); Salka Kudsk, Nicoline Heather Madsen, Alessia Cacopardo, Francisca Álvarez, Anne Sofie Sørensen and Kristine Kjørup Rasmussen (SLA); Frank Lewinberg, Michel Trocme, Christine Fang- Dennisov and Giuseppe Tolfo (USI)
Following the 2024 closure of Downsview Airport, a group of architects and planners have drawn up a blueprint for the new Downsview.