Toronto's Indigenous Hub featured in Azure
The Indigenous Hub has been profiled by Azure Magazine, highlighting its role as a transformative model for reconciliation, community building and inclusive urban design.
Located in Toronto’s Canary District, the Indigenous Hub is a 440,000-square-foot mixed-use development that exemplifies reconciliation through design. Conceived through a landmark collaboration between Dream, Kilmer, Tricon, Anishnawbe Health Toronto, Miziwe Biik, Two Row Architect, Stantec, ERA Architects, EllisDon, Joseph Sagaj and BDP Quadrangle, the Hub integrates health care, housing, education, child care, training and commercial spaces within a culturally grounded campus.
Anchored by an Indigenous Community Health Centre and training facility, the project also includes residential buildings, a restored Industrial-era heritage landmark and public gathering spaces. Its design process was centred on Indigenous values of ceremony, land connection and community voice - reinterpreting materials and spatial traditions to create a site of cultural resilience. Landscape elements reflect natural and symbolic narratives, while ceremonial requirements shaped foundational design decisions. As a precedent-setting model of Indigenous self-determination and inclusive urbanism, the Hub transforms a once-contaminated industrial site into a place of healing, learning and belonging.
BDP Quadrangle’s role encompassed site master planning and the design of the Training, Education and Employment Centre (TEEC), operated by Miziwe Biik. The TEEC includes a carpentry workshop, classrooms, arts and culture offices, child care facilities and spaces that foster skill-building for the next generation of workers. Through the master plan, we orchestrated circulation, gathering spaces and courtyards that embed Indigenous values, land-based programming and ceremonial practices into the fabric of the site.
Design motifs across the Hub reinterpret materials and forms to tell cultural stories - from brick façades woven like baskets to precast concrete recalling birch bark. These elements, along with native plantings and commissioned artworks, restore Indigenous presence and meaning to the downtown landscape.
The Indigenous Hub is more than a collection of buildings - it is a precedent-setting model of reconciliation in practice, bringing together health, housing, culture and community within one resilient urban block.
Read the full feature in Azure: Toronto’s Indigenous Hub Has Healing Powers
