A long-range vision for Toronto’s waterfront

Located minutes from downtown Toronto, the Port Lands is a stretch of former industrial waterfront that has been identified as a key area for urban regeneration. The Port Lands Planning Framework, established in 2017, sets out a vision for the area’s transformation into a place that will benefit all Torontonians—with the goals of restoring the natural environment, increasing resilience, and celebrating the waterfront as a civic amenity. Basin Media Studios is one of the first developments to be initiated under the framework.

Revitalizing this important stretch of the Toronto waterfront represents a landmark collaboration between the world’s largest film and television studio owner, operator, developer and production services provider and SOM. Incorporating over 13 acres across four city blocks, the studio will breathe new life into the district and set the tone for future development. Basin Media Studios anchors the development and expansion of the district’s Production, Interactive, and Creative (PIC) Core, which envisions a growing hub for media and creative companies.

Prioritizing ecology, heritage, and the public realm

The design for Basin Media Studios and the public spaces it provides honors the site’s rich cultural and ecological history. Toronto/Tkaronto has historically been the territory for many nations from across Turtle Island and is home to many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples today. SOM is working closely with the City of Toronto and our consultant team to implement arts programming, narrative signage, and plantings that recognize Indigenous stories and honor the significance of the land.

Before the site’s industrialization, a vast marshland marked the mouth of the Don River on the shores of Lake Ontario. The project’s landscape design reintroduces marsh plantings that support pollinator species and migratory birds. The Sun Oil Company Building, a listed heritage asset constructed in 1930, is retained and repurposed as production office space to memorialize the site’s industrial past.  

While production studios require privacy and security for operations, our design promotes active, walkable, and distinctly urban edges. A waterfront promenade provides public open space and access to the once-private water’s edge.

Designed for the future of media production

As a purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility, Basin Media Studios will support a growing industry and create high-quality jobs, while reinforcing Toronto as a global destination for media production. The project includes 12 sound stages, production offices, mill and support spaces, parking, and associated basecamp and backlot facilities. The sound stages are organized in pairs with convenient access to production office and support facilities. Full-height, operable partitions are included between some stages, allowing for combined stage areas up to 5,500 square meters—one of the largest offerings in North America.

Basin Media Studios is designed as an engaging, healthy, and equitable workplace to support the varied demands of productions. It is planned with direct links to transit, convenient parking, and well-appointed bicycle facilities. Workspaces are oriented to take advantage of daylight and views of the promenade and the waterfront.

Creating a distinctive sense of place

The design for the studio buildings draws inspiration from the architectural and infrastructural heritage of Toronto’s industrial waterfront. The architecture reimagines the Art Deco verticality of the nearby Hearn Generating Station and the clustered volumes of the Commissioners Street Incinerator in simple forms that express the unique uses of each structure. Material choices evoke the infill masonry frames of the Sun Oil Building, the distinct hue of Toronto Limestone, and the green filigree and gateway signage of the Distillery District in a refined, industrial palette of green metal, glass, and buff-colored brick. These elements come together in a contemporary expression that is distinctly of its place.

Architecturally distinct gateways with landscaped outdoor plazas emphasize moments of arrival, marking the transition between the production facility and the public realm. Conceived as outdoor “rooms,” these plazas each have a distinct character, with landscape and furniture elements that support outdoor gatherings or events. In total, these elements aim to instill a sense of dignity, community, and place through design.

An exemplar of sustainable development

Sustainability and environmental stewardship are the center of the design and planning of Basin Media Studios, which will meet Toronto’s Green Standard (v4 Tier 1). Basin Media Studios will be one of the first all-electric production facilities in the world and will operate with net zero emissions. Stormwater will be captured in cisterns and used to irrigate landscaping, while bird-friendly glazing will protect migratory birds. The heat generated by lighting and production equipment on the sound stages will be recovered by a central plant and reused to heat office and support spaces in Toronto’s colder months. The sound stages will be constructed with a framed metal enclosure rather than conventional tilt-up concrete, reducing the embodied carbon in the stage structures by more than 80 percent—a design decision that saves the equivalent of the carbon sequestered by 4,600 acres of forest in one year.