Beverley Place, also known as the Hydro Block, replaced plans by Ontario Hydro, the provincial hydro-electric corporation, for a 12-storey transformer station in the midst of an established residential neighbourhood. Following the emphatic objections of the community, CityHome (Toronto’s newly formed non-profit housing company) stepped in, acquiring the site and commissioning Diamond and Myers to design a high density residential project that respected the scale and material qualities of the existing neighbourhood. Unlike the architects’ earlier Sherbourne Lanes project, not all the existing Victorian homes were saved, as many were structurally unsound; however, the 12 original houses that could be saved were converted into multi-unit residences, and the architects also introduced a single, block-long new building in a Modernist language that by virtue of scale, material treatment, and proportion is successfully integrated into the existing fabric. Beverley Place received a City of Toronto Non-Profit Housing Corporation Neighbourhood Development Award and an Urban Design Magazine Award. In addition to its innovative design, the project is notable for demonstrating how the making of the city is essentially a political process: the architects challenged zoning and development bylaws, and engaged in the vigorous community activism of the day, reflecting a belief in the potential of architecture as a democratizing force, and a view of the city not just as built artifact but as a living, evolving social organism.

Marco Polo