The Indigenous Hub is taking shape in Toronto’s Canary District. The 40,000-square-foot mixed-use development will soon span an entire downtown block, encompassing a community health centre and two adjoining mid-rise residential towers. The project stands as a healing space and an architectural act of reconciliation that reflects Indigenous values and community.

The project presents a template for inclusive, land-conscious urban architecture, created by Anishnawbe Health Toronto (AHT)—the only fully accredited community health centre in Toronto, led by Indigenous leadership and focused on meeting the unique needs of Indigenous communities. It also involves Miziwe Biik, a leader in Indigenous employment and training, alongside a development consortium that includes Dream Unlimited, Kilmer Group, and Tricon Residential.

After two decades of hard work by the late Joe Hester, who led AHT as executive director for many years, the hub represents a collaborative effort to create a space that serves about 70,000 Indigenous people in the city. It provides access to culturally grounded health care, education, child care, training, as well as commercial spaces and housing.

Located on the ancestral lands and hunting grounds of the Indigenous peoples that inhabited these shores since the recession of the glaciers, Ontario’s transfer of the 2.4-acre property to AHT—an act Joe Hester saw as a “return”—provided a rare opportunity to establish a centre for urban Indigeneity and inclusivity.

“We wanted to bring an architecture to the Toronto landscape that represents us culturally, which then, of course, our community would see as something they could be proud of,” said Hester. “The interior spaces had to be able to facilitate our cultural approaches to health and healing because our ceremonies are very important to the healing process.”

An eight-storey podium will connect Canary House and Birch House, with the mid-rise towers rising 13 and 11 storeys, housing about 400 units alongside the Miziwe Biik Training Institute, a civic plaza, and the central Indigenous Peoples Landscape.

The project’s initial master plan was developed by Two Row Architect and Stantec Architecture. When a residential component was later introduced, BDP Quadrangle joined the team, collaborating with Urban Strategies. Harbridge and Cross built the health centre, while BDP Quadrangle and Two Row Architect designed the condo and rental buildings, as well as the Miziwe Biik Training Centre. ERA Architects oversaw the restoration of the historic Canary Building, with construction management by EllisDon. Additional contributors included PRISM Partners, NAK Landscape Architects, Stantec Landscape, and Elastic Architects.

Indigenous and collaborative design

Drawing from the Two-Eyed Seeing principle — where Indigenous and Western ways of knowing are held in balance — the Indigenous Hub embodies a holistic spatial reclamation and healing story about reconnecting people to land, place, and each other—through space. The form, materiality, and disposition of the architectural design honours Indigenous guidelines and was created through co-designing with Indigenous voices for the urban Indigenous community.

“Our role was to guide the translation between Indigenous knowledge and architectural form,” said Two Row Architect partner Matthew Hickey, a Mohawk architect from the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation who was an integral part of every aspect of the design process. An example of this is the building’s commitment to the symbolism of directionality in its structure. “The atrium of the Health Centre faces east,” says Hickey. “That’s the direction of birth, the direction where the sun rises.”

This informed eight key design guidelines used to reflect Indigenous knowledge and history to residents, users and the public through architecture and art in their physical form:

• The ground plane up to the first datum should include materials presented in the Anishnawbe Health Centre such as precast concrete (stone colour) and Corten steel.
• Design for the ground plane should reflect “pebbles in the stream.” This includes placing objects near or in entryways that are rounded in nature.
• The larger block should acknowledge directionality and reference the entire Indigenous population in Canada from coast to coast.
• The design of the architecture above the first major datum line should allow for a lightening of architectural features within the residential blocks.
• The architecture should acknowledge the movement of the sun and its relation to the project.
• The design should be as impactful at night as during the day.
• Green roofs and gardens should be planted with Indigenous species.
• Attention to detail through craft and the use of simple materials in an outstanding or highly-designed way should be evident.

To ground the building and maintain contact with the earth, the design of the AHT building posed an architectural and landscaping challenge. Along with accentuating curves and avoiding square angles as much as possible in the interior and exterior spaces, Hester insisted that the Centre sit directly on the land “with its feet on the ground.” In response, a collaborative process redesigned the block to entirely remove the parking garage from under the Health Centre.

The collaborative effort between Indigenous and non-Indigenous developers and architects shows that urban renewal and Indigenous resurgence are not opposing forces, but can work in harmony.

“It is an honour to contribute to a new and much-needed layer of Indigenous culture and presence within the urban fabric of the city,” said Michael Moxam, project design principal and design culture practice leader for Stantec. “With an approach grounded in the land and landscape, the Indigenous Hub will be a unique urban experience in Toronto.”

At the heart of the Hub, the Indigenous community health centre’s form is inspired by the act of wrapping a shawl around a loved one. This is one gesture that represents a deep search for connection.

“The shawl, also used traditionally for carrying medicine, wraps around the body, but it opens at the heart,” says Brian Porter, principal at Two Row Architect. He is referring to the building’s façade and three-storey atrium that opens to the east, aligning with the sunrise—a direction of beginnings, renewal and spiritual grounding in Indigenous cosmologies and creating an entrance that is fully transparent from front to back, allowing further connection to the ground, sky, and nature.

Another notable gesture is the curved façade of the health centre, with the ground floor being clad in cast in place concrete and above metal panels, which hugs the structure protectively, evoking warmth, strength and cultural continuity.

The design avoids colonial materials like brick, which evoke memories of residential schools. Instead, it uses earth-based materials, such as cast-in-place concrete and lightweight aluminum and weathered steel, for the ground floor.

While the condo and rental buildings use brick as the cladding material for the podium levels, the brick creates a traditional weave pattern that also evokes a blanket enveloping the site on three sides.

 

Located at the back are nature-driven bioswales, footpaths, and an Indigenous Garden. Health care workers and clients can cultivate medicinal plants like sage, tobacco, and sweetgrass, while pebble-inspired elements connect the development to the historic Don River delta.

The Indigenous Peoples Landscape is a raised central landscaped courtyard that sits 6.5 meters above street level and is accessible from the first and second floor of the health centre. Adjacent to that is an outdoor children’s play area and a civic plaza at the southwest corner of the site.

Mixed-use design

The Indigenous Hub is an exercise in true mixed-use design. Working with all of the stakeholders, architects had to create a plan for the entire block, which balances the need for a cohesive design with individual expression for each of the participants.

The Training, Education and Employment Centre, operated by Miziwe Biik, references birch groves native to the Don River in precast concrete panels that were textured to mimic the bark. Panels are staggered between floors and interspersed with vertical windows of varying widths, symbolizing the diverse ages of birch trees.

The development both blends in and stands out, creating a paradoxical presence within Toronto’s urban landscape. This design aims to provoke reflection and dialogue on shared space, reconciliation, and mutual respect.

“It was apparent that the Indigenous Hub needed to be different and that it needed to speak a completely different language – one with which I was not familiar,” said BDP Quadrangle’s Les Klein. The project is intended to spark curiosity at all scales, which would lead to questions and learning about how Indigenous design values can form the basis for reconciliation. “As we got deeper into the design process, I realized that what we had was more than a project – I would say it was a calling.”

Feature photo by Riley Snelling