Toronto’s new island promises a greener, livelier city

Rasmus Astrup has a promise about Ookwemin Minising, the island that will be Toronto’s next waterfront neighbourhood. It will be weird. “This island is a place like nowhere else,” the Danish landscape architect said this week. “The design has to be special; it has to be a little quirky.”Quirkiness isn’t Toronto’s default setting, but Mr. Astrup and his practice SLA will get to bring some. They’ve been hired on a team to rework Ookwemin (formerly Villiers Island), the 40-hectare new district on Toronto’s port lands framed by the Don River. This year they’ll deliver a design for the streets and parks; they will also review the plan to find room for more housing.