Designing for Community: The Toronto Indigenous Hub

In this episode of Architecturally Speaking, host Ryan Schwartz sits down with Les Klein of BDP Quadrangle and Matthew Hickey of Two Row Architect to explore the intersection of culture, history, and modern design, and how architecture can serve as a powerful tool for community healing and connection.

Using the recently completed Indigenous Hub in Toronto's Canary District as a backdrop, Les and Matthew explain that culturally significant buildings are born from humility and mutual respect rather than conventional construction norms. They highlight unique design choices, like replacing traditional brick with a "woven blanket" facade to symbolize healing and protection.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in how architecture can go beyond mere functionality to foster reconciliation and deeply honor the community it serves.

Subscribe now to Architecturally Speaking on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Architecturally Speaking - Ep.20

Ryan Schwartz: 00:04 - 01:09

Hi and welcome back to another episode of Architecturally Speaking. This podcast series is brought to you by the Ontario Association of Architects and I'm your host, Ryan Schwartz. As always, the goal of the show is to pull back the curtain on the world of architecture by chatting with architects and other industry professionals to give you a little peek behind the scenes. Today, we're talking about Indigenous architecture and the new Indigenous hub development that was recently completed in the Canary District of Toronto. And we're joined by two architects who were deeply involved with that project. So we have Les Klein. He's an architect, principal, co-founder and studio head of BDP Quadrangle's Toronto studio. He's the former national director of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and has won numerous awards, including the Order of Da Vinci by the OAA for exceptional leadership in the profession. So welcome, Les. 

Les Klein: 01:10 - 01:12

Thank you. Happy to be here. 

Ryan Schwartz: 01:13 - 01:20

And we also have Matthew Hickey, a Mohawk architect from Six Nations of the Grand River and a partner at Two Row Architect, where he leads culturally grounded, community-driven projects. And he's a leader in his own right. He teaches at OCAD University and he brings an Indigenous perspective to Waterfront Toronto's design review panel and the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario. So welcome, Matthew. 

Matthew Hickey 01:21 - 01:24

Thanks, Ryan. 

Ryan Schwartz: 01:25 - 01:29

So from what I understand, this isn't the first time you guys have teamed up to chat about this particular project. So I'm just kind of curious, where did you guys first meet? Maybe it wasn't this project or was it earlier than that?

Les Klein: 01:30 - 01:54

It was indeed this project. I was working very early on, but we were not the first people involved in the project. Matthew was involved in the initial phases of the development. uh, really from its inception. Uh, so maybe he should, uh, talk about that and then I can jump in later and tell you how I got involved and my learning began.

Matthew Hickey: 01:57 - 03:15

Yeah, I mean, Les, it feels like we've been working on this together since the beginning. It's been a long process and quite a complex project in companies encompassing multiple different typologies of buildings and an entire city block to some degree. And as Les loves to say, an industrial heritage building as well. The sites, you know, as you know, uh, we, you know, it kind of irks me that we call it the canary district when there was actually no canaries ever in this area, you know, kind of, it's no different. Right. It's named after a restaurant that was there, but if you take a look at the history of this site, it goes back thousands and thousands of years. Even pre-human civilization or pre-human occupation of this site is extremely important for us to remember. This is one of the things that we tried to bring forward in this work. So when you think about this project or when we think about Turo's involvement in this project or my involvement, it really goes beyond just that moment when we start working with a client or really trying to think about all the other things that were there. And in this case, it's the Don River Delta or what we now call the Don River. So I think I'm trying to rig my brain about the first time we met last, but it was either in a design meeting or it was in design review panel standing on the other side of that panel one day.

Les Klein: 03:16 - 07:03

Well, let me give you my, my memory because, um, and I, perhaps we should just set the stage for what the indigenous hub is. Yeah. Um, so, um, I'm going to roll back the clock 25 years. the province of Ontario came up with this great idea of creating a new, beautiful, mid-rise residential development east of the St. Lawrence neighborhood. The much vaunted building development and that neighborhood concept mixed social classes and different types of housing tenure. So they, overnight, expropriated many, many, many acres of land in the east end of Toronto and published a new plan for the development, only to discover, as I understand it, or as I remember it, that the entire area was within the floodplain of the Don River. and having been industrial uses for a century or more, was highly contaminated. That famous neighborhood, which was labeled Ataratiri, which was an indigenous name, sat for 25 years empty. It was only when the City of Toronto was named the winner of the Pan Am-Parapan Games in 2015 that suddenly there was an impetus to develop. And in the overall plan for the redevelopment of that site, the cleaning up, the building of a massive land berm as a flood protection zone, and the creation of a park, that the different development blocks were identified. And the initial idea was that this area would become first the athlete's village for the Pan Am Games, and then ultimately turned over via a development group that would win a competition for it to further development. But in the earliest stages of this plan, there was always an area marked out as a site for an indigenous hub. And of course, the powers that be said we are going to give this land to the indigenous community to develop an indigenous hub very, very quickly. I learned that that was really not the right way to say it, but more like giving back some of the land to the indigenous community to build an indigenous hub. So that's kind of the background. And when we became involved, by that time, the people who were charged with developing this hub, I guess they were led by Joe Hester, and Joe Hester had a vision primarily driven by the idea of creating a purpose-built, ground-up indigenous health center that would combine and offer to the community both traditional indigenous medicinal practices and modern medicinal support. And I think that's when you got involved. And that was before you started working with Stantec on the indigenous, sorry, the AHD, the Anishinaabe Health Center. And maybe you should tell a little bit about that and then I can get into the rest of the development as it occurred.

Matthew Hickey: 07:04 - 09:11

Absolutely. Les, and thanks for setting that up. I mean, even thinking back earlier in my career, there was a point in time when they were going to do the Indigenous Hub at Bridgepoint Health, which is up on Dundas Street. So we've been involved, you know, pre-2025 working with Anishinaabe Health. I live very close to one of their old buildings. Anishinaabe Health was being housed under three small buildings previously. One a Victorian townhouse on Girard, you know, a yellow brick, very typical of Toronto. 1960s bank right here at the corner of Sherbourne and Queen, really kind of terrible places to go have your services, your health services delivered to. And neither one of them really having any outdoor space to be able to facilitate that work. When the option for Anishinaabe health to take over this block came into play, there was an RFP that was put out. We were on one of the competing teams and I think quickly realized that the programming for Anishinaabe health wouldn't fill up this entire block. And this is where this kind of relationship came into play with the developers on the side, Dream Kilmer Tricon. And a strong relationship came for them to be able to build a retail, rental and condo in exchange for support for the health center itself. So when you take a look at the block, the block contains the health center proper. It contains the garden, which spans in between all the services, all the different typologies. There's a training, education and employment building, which is which is run by MISB now and contains a child care center in it. There's the industrial heritage building, the former Canary restaurant on the corner, some retail, condo, and then rental that kind of wraps all the way around these services, all sharing this central courtyard, which I think is quite powerful. Identity runs all through that. And that was really a driver from Joe Hester. And I mean, unfortunately he passed away just before the project was finished. But if it wasn't for his, you know, 30 year vision of actually building a purpose-built healthcare center, none of the other aspects of the hub would have happened either.

Les Klein: 09:12 - 12:58

I should maybe throw in a little bit of a kicker because one of the very strange aspects of the agreement between the province of Ontario and AHD, the health center, was that they would allow any uses to be built on the site for this Indigenous hub, but no housing. And pretty quickly it became apparent that the Ministry of Health will give the AHT, and I'm going to refer to them as AHT if you don't mind, to build the health center. But there was no money for operational needs or operational support, let alone the kind of monies required to attract other Indigenous uses to the table. And that's when I got involved. I was asked by one of our clients at Dream, Jason Lester actually, to help him envision what the site could be like if we could convince the province to allow residential uses. And we developed a kind of a master plan which built on what Matthew and Michael Moxham at Stantec had done for the site and expanded it and showed how all of these seemingly complicated uses could actually live together on the site. We then had to go through a process of convincing the province that this was really the best way to do it. And I don't know the details of the finances, but essentially it was that the community would own the land and the other uses would, I'll call it pay rent, which would provide funds for the operations and the expansion of the facility. Again, I'm no banker, but that's basically as I understand it. What happened then was suddenly we had Stantec, the architects for the health center. We had us as the architects for the condominium, for the rental, for what we'll call the Missoula Beak Building, which as Matthew said, has an amazing training facility in it. designed to assist indigenous people to be trained for the construction industry, as well as a daycare center, a family and child center, and additional offices for other indigenous organizations. And we had ERA architects as the industrial era heritage building restoration architect. We all had to figure out how to work together. And I'm hoping that a lot of the rest of this podcast will tell you some of those stories of how we worked together. But that's really when I first met Matthew and I really understood the driving force behind the design of the health center. and realize that this was just a massive opportunity to do more than just architecture, but to do a whole master's class. in indigenous design that doesn't, I'm gonna say this, it's probably not the right thing to say, but that doesn't scare people away, but actually draws them in. And I think that we have, I mean, I say it humbly, but I think that all of us together have really succeeded in that. The comments that I get from my friends and absolute strangers who find out that we were involved is, Wow, that is so different. Anyway, we'll get into that later. But that's basically the genesis of my, as I said earlier, my beginning to learn from Matthew.

Ryan Schwartz: 12:58 - 13:18

Yeah, this sounds like an incredibly complicated project. There's a ton of people involved, a lot of stakeholders, and I'm going to ask your specific sort of roles in all of this, but then I was also curious, you mentioned Hester. Who is this gentleman Hester? It was his vision. Joe Hester. Joe Hester, yeah, from the beginning.

Les Klein: 13:18 - 13:24

Why don't you start with that, Matthew, because you knew him. I mean, I met him several times with him, but you really knew him quite intimately.

Matthew Hickey: 13:25 - 15:11

Joe Hester was the executive director since the 1980s of Anishinaabe Health and really was the driving force behind the new health center, but also making sure that there was health services being delivered. In the meantime, Indigenous people are very good at making do with what we have and being able to deliver the services at a quality level out of the houses and buildings that I mentioned previously. is very powerful, but his vision was always to build something specifically that represented indigenous cultures in 2026 and beyond in a way that people can see themselves in the building. Systemically, indigenous people have been treated poorly by our health care system. You see this in the news to this day across the country, amongst other institutions, our police institutions as well. So there's always this fear. I remember my grandmother not wanting to go to the doctor because, you know, it was scary or go to the hospital because it was scary. You know, she didn't know how she was going to be treated there. And, you know, to Joe's credit and to his determination, you know, he had the ability to see both financially how this could be done, but then also You know, the vision for it of how it could be representative. And it was not an easy, he wasn't an easy client by any means, but he was, he was driven. And I, I'm 100% sure that our architecture is better because of his drive and because of his, him questioning our work. Uh, but ultimately, you know, you have, you have people going to get their services, their health services there now that feel very comfortable because they're moving into a place or walking into a building that's designed specifically for them. It's encoded for them to feel comfortable.

Ryan Schwartz: 15:12 - 15:23

So what did that process look like? You have all these stakeholders, all these folks making decisions, the province is involved. Les, you mentioned the design process and yeah, talk us through that.

Les Klein: 15:24 - 18:39

Well, again, there were two streams running in parallel. The health center was being designed and in fact had taken a pretty solid form by the time we got involved and we were working around it. And one of the first ideas that Matthew put in front of us was, if you imagine this block as a block, the health center was at the very center of the Cherry Street frontage, and it was surrounded on three sides by other uses. And Matthew coined the phrase, the pearl in the oyster. So the idea was that really the health center would have pride of place. And I hope that Matthew spent some time talking about some of the elements that he and Michael Moxham and the entire Stantec team brought to the table in terms of creating really a mind-bogglingly beautiful and interesting and challenging building. But for us, we recognized that we were going to be the oyster, we were going to be the vessel, but we were also going to be part of the fabric of what makes this place. So we were, as the master planning architects, taking over the master planning from Stantec's initial idea, and then working with Stantec and with Matthew and everyone else, we had a challenge because we had to do due justice to the idea of this pearl in the oyster. But we also had a civic responsibility, if I can say that, to fit within the larger context of the Canary District. And the Canary District is really quite an architectural exemplar of urban planning and of city building, of really creating a new neighborhood where literally nothing had been for many, many, many, many years. So it was a great challenge, and it was very interesting to see how we were able to do that. But ultimately, we have much, much, much to say about this, but ultimately for us as the architects of the Training, Education, and Employment Center, of the condominium, and of the rental building, and kind of oversight, of that, we recognized that we were not there to lead, we were there to knit. So I think that's kind of the way I see it. And then there's lots of stories about how, and I want to make sure we cover this, is learning how to work with the indigenous community, which is very different, very challenging for architects, especially Taipei architects, Taipei personality architects, but also unbelievably enlightening and fulfilling in ways I can, I'm only beginning now to be able to describe in words satisfactory to me.

Ryan Schwartz: 18:40 - 18:44

Well, let's get into it then. What does that process look like? What happened on this particular project?

Matthew Hickey: 18:47 - 21:36

Yeah, I mean, for Turo in particular, and I think maybe this is rubbed off on the people that we work with, like Stantec and BDP, is that we're not capital A architects. We're really about serving the community that we're working in. And, you know, we're not doing designs on a napkin at lunch and then bringing it to the client and saying, you know, this is what we want to do. It's really about, you know, working with and listening to community. And I know you hear that a lot, but. Um, or you hear people saying that a lot, but there's also this, you know, way of working where architects know best, you know, we know what's right, what's wrong. And I think being humble about what you're hearing and being able to interpret things in different ways, uh, is really key to being successful with your, with your clients, indigenous or not, you know, in my opinion, I think. You know, being able to take input from people that are going to use the building or that are going to be there, you know, nine to five as employees in this space is critical to a building being successful. And for us, we do that through a series of different working sessions. One of the one that we really like to do is called the talking circle. which sounds like we're talking, but we're actually listening. We close our mouths and we try and talk only 5% of the time. And it's really, it's really difficult to do. It's a practice as an architect, not to confirm what you're hearing, but. The moments of silence and the moments of allowing people to think, especially elders or people that take more time to gather their thoughts, is really where we find the magic. Being silent for a minute is very excruciating for us. And when you do that, that's when people start to start to chime in and you get the information that you wouldn't normally get. So I think that ability to be able to, you know, to really absorb, to close your mouth and to listen and to listen deeply is key to the success of this project. And working with Les, and maybe we can speak about, he can speak about this a little bit, is really about collaboration. You know, for us, Indigeneity in 2026 is not just about looking backwards at traditional forms or, you know, ceremony or values. You know, we do want to look at those things and bring them forward, but it's also understanding that we're building in a contemporary context. And how do we do that? How do we bring both ways of thinking, both Indigenous and Western ways of thinking, uh into these projects which i think is critical just the way that we're thinking about bringing western and traditional ways of healing into the health center or housing all these things really need to be thought about uh in relationship to each other yeah i mean i i don't mind admitting on this podcast and in general we were we bdp quadrangle was brought to task several times

Les Klein: 21:37 - 24:37

through the process by our clients, by Ms. Wabeek, by Mr. Hester, by others saying, whoa, slow down. We're not there yet. We're not where you are. We are not there yet. We need a process to go through it. When I first started working on this project, it lit under me a lot of reading about Indigenous history and Indigenous culture and ways of looking at the world. Again, Matthew will correct me if I'm wrong, but the indigenous community is not a hierarchical community. There is respect for elders, there is respect for leaders, but it's not hierarchical. And my sense that I learned was that the process is not complete until everybody who wishes to be heard has been heard. And that requires, as Matthew said, an enormous amount of being quiet to a personality architect. That's important. It was, I will say, humbling and it was enlightening because what you learn when you stop talking is quite remarkable. So that was, that was just, it was magic. It was magic. And it was challenging for me, it was challenging for our team in the office, because we were involved in architectural design of the buildings and the function and all that. But we were also involved in interiors, in the, in the, especially in the Training, Education and Employment Center. which was very near and dear to the organizing group. We're talking about children and families, and we're talking about creating careers for people. This is not, you know, stuff you throw to the side of the conversation. This is central to the conversation. And we felt that we were actually on a mission to make this work for the people who had taken on this mission. So it was really, really interesting, that process. But I also think that the challenge, as I mentioned earlier, of balancing the uniqueness of the community with integrating it into the Canary District was fascinating. Can I tell one story, Matthew? Yeah, go, go. Just tell one story, because I remember the first time we went to the client group to present our ideas for the exterior of the residential component of the building, We came back and we had these beautiful bricks that we were going to show, that we were going to use on the building. And we were really excited because we knew we had this nailed. And we presented all of this stuff and very quietly Matthew in the corner said, no brick.

Ryan Schwartz: 24:39 - 24:40

And I was, what?

Les Klein: 24:40 - 26:33

What do you mean no brick? And the client said, what do you mean no brick? Every building in the Canary District has brick. We can't not have brick. And he said, you can't have brick. And we said, so I finally learned to say, instead of saying, what? I said, why? Matthew said, because in our community, brick represents residential schools. You cannot have a building built out of brick where indigenous people with that kind of history will feel comfortable. So we said, how are we going to solve this? And this is a reflection on the kind of architect and the kind of thinker that Matthew is. He said, well, let's see if we can figure out a way to make brick not brick. And we really, Matthew working with our design lead, Ken Brooks, came up with this beautiful design for bricks. That was essentially a weaving pattern. It looked more like a blanket than it did brick. And he said, this is how we can get over that. We can create something that actually has a story to tell about brick that is a positive story. And that's something that we will be able to use as a unifying element. So there is, in fact, a band of brick floors, three, four, five, six, that wraps three sides of the entire block. And it really does feel like a blanket protecting the entire community. And of course, as a result, also protecting the health center and the training, education and employment center. And when I say to you, there were many, many such what moments, all of which turned into amazing learning moments, and more importantly, amazing design opportunities that we would never in a million years have thought of.

Ryan Schwartz: 26:35 - 27:08

Yeah. And I like this idea of knitting this project into the neighboring context. And that sounds like a challenge. First of all, it's a massive building. There's a lot going on and it's an older neighborhood and you're weaving in these indigenous values. And what does that process look like? How, how challenging is that to, on one hand, you know, you want it to sort of, I don't know if you want it to stand out, but you, I mean, maybe that's a question. Do you want it to stand out or do you want it to fit in? And that's, that's. A question to.

Les Klein: 27:08 - 27:52

We, we, we talked about, Matthew and I, I'm sorry, I'm talking too much. I'll let Matthew talk, but we want, we very specifically said, what we want to do is to create a building where people will ask questions and say, Oh, That looks like that. Why does it look like that? And when you ask a question like that, and you can give an answer like, well, you have to understand this is the indigenous hub into the indigenous community, BRIC as such is an anathema. So this is why this is different. And suddenly you've made a step towards education. You made a step for opening people's eyes about the experiences of this community. Sorry, Matthew, I jumped in.

None: 28:57 - 29:38

So, you

Matthew Hickey: 30:40 - 30:51

from all over North America, from all over the world to some degree, and being able to try and be as inclusive as possible through our relationship to direction and facing those directions.

Les Klein: 30:56 - 31:30

I was just going to say, there are so many elements to this story, because it's not really a story, it's just an endless series of stories. One of the things that we wanted to do was on just another story. was we wanted to create kind of curvilinear, because again, indigenous architecture tends to avoid, where possible, orthogonal corners. More organic is desired.

Matthew Hickey: 31:30 - 31:31

So weak connection.

Les Klein: 31:31 - 34:49

Yeah, exactly. We suggested that we would have curved balconies around the upper levels of the condominium. We thought about it, we said, well, we want to have visibility and we want to do all of this, but we really don't want to necessarily create an ordinary situation. So we said, you know, what are the really great things you can do is you can use picket railings all the way around because picket railings can be adjusted and they really flow beautifully. And Matthew said, can't have picket rails. And I went, what? Why not? Well, Matthew said, in our community, picket rails say jail. And given the over-incarceration of Indigenous communities, he said, that is not a vocabulary that this project can afford. So he suggested brilliantly, he said, well, why don't we go back to glass, but rather than regular glass, why don't we, why don't we, uh, frit the glass so that it actually looks like there are clouds floating on top of the building, uh, bringing not only the directionality, but also this notion of the changing weather and, and the things that nature brings to us. And these were not, you know, again, as Matthew said, this was not a feather. This was a use of a metaphor that goes beyond indigenous, simply indigenous design and engenders more questions. Why is that? Why is that really like that? Oh, I'm glad you asked. Those kinds of things, I think, are just flowing through the entire project. And what I wanted to mention was when Matthew mentioned the raised landscape, which was designed by Stantec. their landscape group, which is unbelievably brilliant, was that when we started working together, the two pieces of the project, one of the things I learned, which I did not know, is that the healing garden and the lodge that's in the center of it, which Matthew can get into more, needed to be connected to the ground. So initially we said, oh, we didn't know that. So let's build a wall around that area down through the parking garage so that we can fill that with earth and then it would be connected. And then we all together, Michael Moxham and us and Matthew said, wait a minute. Why aren't we doing that? Why don't we redesign the entire underground garage so that there is no underground garage whatsoever under the health center? So there's no part of that building that is separated from the earth. Let's, if we're going to make a statement, let's not make a nominal statement. Let's make the big, the proper statement. And we went to the development group and we said, you know, we got to do this. And they said, we're all in, we'll figure it out. It was quite amazing. So that the entire health center sits directly on the earth.

Matthew Hickey: 34:50 - 35:11

That comes from a place where if we were doing ceremony, we typically go outside and take our shoes off and stand on the earth directly. So there's this really lovely connection within the health center, healing right to the ground, right to the history of place. Um, that, you know, we're lucky enough to be able to trade those things off, uh, in, in a contemporary urban realm.

Les Klein: 35:12 - 35:21

And you should, you really should talk about the pebbles in the stream, Matthew, because I, I think that's, that resonates with me so, so much. Well, you've teased it, so now you have to.

Matthew Hickey: 35:25 - 38:03

I mean, I started out the podcast kind of speaking about this and the historic fabric of this place. And oftentimes, you know, we only go back when we're talking about heritage to a built form when in fact we have very strong heritage or historic fabric that exists way before there was anything built in this place. Way before humans occupied it. There's all of our relations, the beaver, the snipe, the heron. It could be called the heron district. You know, for some reason it's not. But this area was the largest wetland in the Great Lakes systems, which was vast. People were here because of sustenance. We were here because of the waterfowl. We were here because of the fish. The eels, things that are returning now with the beautiful regeneration of Okwemin Minising and the underwater pathways. I think it's really important for us to remember that as humans, we share this earth with other species, including water, including the air, and we're responsible. We're supposed to be the stewards for that. Thinking about that and thinking about where this site is, thinking about the kind of regeneration of the land, one of the things that we really wanted to acknowledge was this idea that we're sitting right on the ground, but there's a history to this place. And if you take a look at the ground floor of Anishinaabe health. It's quite lifted. It's quite transparent. You can see right through it from Cherry Street into the raised garden. But there's these little pebbles or little pods that sit within that space, including the ceremonial sweat lodge, which is really extremely important to the services being offered. The community kitchen, which is also extremely important. Food and feasting. Food is our medicine. Feasting is part of our ceremonies as well. So being able to know how to cook and and feed yourself properly, extremely key to healing and health. And then the community center, being able to come together and gather. And as you think about it, these things, if you look at it and plan it, they look like pebbles in the stream and people get to move through them. A really kind of lovely analogy for the Don River Delta, or what we now call the Don River, but the Delta and how water used to move in this place. You know, it's an abstraction through architecture. It's an abstraction through scale. But I think as people move through these spaces, and I remember even myself being in there when it was just under construction, that there was this, you know, it felt differently just because of the forms that you're moving in and around. So I think there's a lot of things to be acknowledged in that. People maybe not get that right away, but understanding place and honoring places as important as honoring the community that you're working with and for.