A new indoor play space is being designed on the third floor of Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre and Library. The play space will be developed with the help of community feedback and will focus on fun and creative play opportunities for children.
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The timeline is subject to change.
This project has been classified as an Involve project based on the International Association of Public Participation Public Participation Spectrum. This means we work directly with the public, stakeholders and rightsholders throughout the design process to ensure that ideas and aspirations are understood and considered in the design process.
During this phase of the community engagement process, the City worked with local community members to define an overall vision for the indoor play space, including a series of guiding principles and big moves which will guide the development of two design options in Phase 2.
A vision statement is a short description of the ideal future indoor play space. It inspires everyone toward a common understanding of the project’s overall goals. The vision for the play space is:
The indoor play space will be a fun and joyful place where children can unleash their imagination, creativity and playfulness through play. It offers a variety of equipment that focuses on the physical, creative and social skill development of children between the ages of five and 12. It is a place where children can learn, grow and thrive through play, especially during the winter months when the outdoor playgrounds are too cold.
Guiding principles are high-level directions that reflect the community’s most important values and ideas for how the indoor play space should look and feel. They help guide how the play space should be designed so that the vision statement can be achieved. The guiding principles for the play space are to:
Big moves are the main priorities for the design of the indoor play space. They are specific directions to the design team that flow from the vision and principles and help to make them a reality. The big moves for the play space are to:
From October 20 to November 26, 215 community members provided feedback on the vision for the indoor play space. The feedback collected in this survey will inform the vision statement, design principles and big moves, which together will guide the draft design options for the indoor play space.
The indoor play space aims to activate playful mindsets and foster a range of interactions among children and their caregivers. It has the potential to support the development of various skills, such as social, cognitive, emotional, physical and creative skills. Respondents were asked to select their favourite skills from six choices and the results were ranked according to the total percentage of responses. The results are as follows:
The results show that physical skills are the most important for the respondents, followed by creative and social skills. Cognitive and nature skills are also highly valued, while emotional skills are the least preferred.
Respondents were asked to share words that reflect their vision for the new play space. The words will help assemble a vision shared by community members. The following words were the most frequently used with the total number of responses in brackets:
These words reflect the vision for the new indoor play space as a place where children can have fun, feel joyful, use their imagination, play with others and be creative.
Respondents were asked to select their favourite types of play equipment from eleven choices and the results were ranked according to the total percentage of responses.
Play equipment ranked as the top six choices included:
Less popular play equipment options included:
The key findings suggest:
On November 10, children ages five to 12 took part in an interactive design workshop at the Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre. The workshop was part of the ARC after-school program and was facilitated by students from the University of Toronto St. George Campus. The students had designed the activities with guidance from the project team. The children were shown examples of other indoor play spaces and were asked to create a collage with their favourite ones.
Overall, the key findings suggest that children value:
On October 28, over 150 community members joined a pop-up event at Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre. The event was held in the atrium during the Halloween festivities. Two team members facilitated family-friendly activities to collect feedback from the participants. One activity was a voting exercise, where participants indicated their preferences for different types of skill development by adding a paper ball to a tube. The types included social, physical, cognitive, creative, nature and emotional. The tubes were transparent, so participants could see how their choices matched with others. Another activity involved reviewing hand-drawn illustrations of different types of indoor play activities, such as a giant slide, pretend play or oversized objects and sharing their preferences using emoji stickers.
Transparent tubes and paper balls were used to collect data on the preferences for different types of skills that they want to develop or practice. The numbers in brackets represent the number of votes each option received. The following is a ranking of the results:
A display board with hand-drawn illustrations of different types of play equipment was used to collect preferences for different types of indoor play equipment. Dot stickers were used to represent the number of votes each option received. The following is a summary of the results:
Overall, the key findings suggest:
In this phase of the community engagement process, the City and its design consultant will work off the outcomes of Community Engagement Phase 1 to develop two design options for the indoor play space. These were presented to the community for feedback, with the input collected used to develop a final design for the indoor play space.
The anticipated outcome of this phase is the selection of a final design.
In this design, children aged five to 12 can take on various roles: as builders, they can construct a house with interactive elements; as engineers, they can design a coaster or assemble an arch, beehive or igloo. They can also explore design by creating art on the noodle wall or styling outfits with magnetic clothes. As acrobats, they can test their balance by walking on stilts. This play space provides diverse, hands-on opportunities for exploration and learning.
This design offers a range of active and interactive experiences, including a house with a climbing structure and air cannons, plus the High Five, Low Five wall to measure jumping height. Children can balance, rotate and slide on adjustable obstacle courses, develop upper body strength with hang-on bars and build their own coaster. The play space also includes spinning elements, providing diverse opportunities for physical activity with unique features that set it apart from Design Option 1.
From January 20 to February 20, 104 community members provided feedback on the design options for the new playground in an online survey.
Overall, Design Option 2 was the most preferred. However, specific features like “An Acrobat: Walk on Stilts” and “An Engineer: Build a Bee Hive/Igluu” from Design Option 1 were favoured over the “High Five, Low Five Wall” in Design Option 2. The project team will consider integrating features from both options to create a final design that meets spatial and budget requirements.
Survey respondents provided additional ideas for designing a play space. Themes from the 15 responses include:
On February 1, an open house was held at the community recreation centre to gather community feedback on the new play space. At the event, community members could preview the design options and had the opportunity to try out various play equipment. Children enjoyed activities featuring moveable coasters, giant foam blocks for building, an optical illusion spinner and arch blocks to construct a bridge. The event was co-led by The Ontario Science Centre, the design consultant, who hosted the games and explained the science behind the activities. Children and their parents shared their thoughts by voting with dot stickers and leaving comments on sticky notes on boards displaying pictures of the design options and proposed features.
Features ranked from favourite to least favourite:
Participants’ responses to the following statements are shown by the number of ‘agree’ votes (in parentheses):
Features ranked from favourite to least favourite:
Participants’ responses to the following statements are shown by the number of ‘agree’ votes (in parentheses):
In this phase, the final design for the new indoor play space will be posted on this page and project mailing list. The project will move into the detailed design phase, where the design team will work through the technical details and plans for the construction contractor.
The City of Toronto’s Public Art and Monuments Program has designated a public art project for the Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre Indoor Play Space. In collaboration with Anishinaabe curator Tessa Shank, the City led the artist selection process with a panel of Indigenous arts professionals and community members to evaluate applications from invited Indigenous artists. The winning design was selected in Fall 2023. This artwork celebrates the spirit of play and the joy of community, incorporating Indigenous worldviews to enhance the space with beauty and unity. The artwork will be printed onto vinyl decals and will be installed high on the eastern and western-facing walls of the play space.
Below are the preliminary sketches, which are not final. For questions on the public art process, please contact Catherine Machado at Catherine.Machado@toronto.ca.
Completed in 2023, Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ (pronounced Etta-nonna wasti-nuh) is a multi-use Community Recreation Centre with an Aquatic Centre, Child Care Centre and a Toronto Public Library branch.
