Highlights of the Barns
Arts and Cultural Connectivity
The Barns anchor arts organizations, professional artists and their families in the community with affordable live/work, studio, office and rehearsal spaces. The Artscape Wychwood Barns houses 13 not-for-profit organizations, 15 artist studios and 26 artist live/work spaces. A community gallery also provides public access to arts and culture.
Heritage Preservation
The Barns have restored a unique architectural gem in Toronto’s landscape. With the oldest surviving car barn dating back to 1913, the former streetcar barns were originally built for the Toronto Civic Railway which later became the TTC. The Barns are an integral part of Toronto’s transit history and the surrounding neighbourhood.
Environmental Leadership
The Barns are the first heritage building redevelopment project in Ontario to seek Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Canada Certification. The redevelopment process integrates construction elements that demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and superior performance standards in environmental responsibility and energy efficiency.
Educational Programming
The Barns are a creative place where new and innovative ideas flourish. Interpretive displays illustrating site heritage and environmental technologies educate community members. A sustainable food systems education centre run by The Stop Community Food Centre is a central feature of the site. Various not-for-profit organizations housed in the barns provide educational programming focused on arts and the environment.
Community Partnership
Reflect the vision of a community who wanted a local resource that would foster a strong sense of belonging and inclusiveness. The Artscape Wychwood Barns offers year-round space for community festivals and special events and acts as a meeting place for the local neighbourhood.
Barn by Barn
The Artscape Wychwood Barns is one of a new generation of functionally diverse multi-tenant centres designed to promote synergy and collaboration. Unlike a traditional community centre, the Barns operate on a self-sustaining model, without requiring ongoing operating subsidy after the initial capital investment. Tenants of Artscape Wychwood Barns pay affordable rents and contribute to the programming of the building and site.
Artscape Wychwood Barns is comprised of four programmed components: the Studio Barn, the Covered Street Barn, the Community Barn and The Stop Community Food Centre’s Green Barn.
The Studio Barn provides 26 live/work studios and 15 work-only studios to professional artists as well as host a Community Gallery. The Studio Barn provides an alternative to traditional housing and creates a sense of community where artists can live, work and interconnect with their neighbourhood. The Community Gallery component features the work of artists living and working in the Barns and artists from the local community as well as international artists.
The Covered Street Barn provides affordable community use space, including year-round access for community events, exhibitions, festivals, etc. The Covered Street Barn provides an area for vendors to create a hub of economic activity in the neighbourhood while the artist studios and community groups in the adjacent barns have their entrances open onto the space.
The Community Barn provides affordable programming, rehearsal, office and meeting space to not-for-profit community arts and environmental organizations. Access to affordable, long-term and appropriate space is a key capacity issue for not-for-profit organizations. The Community Barn enhances the capacity of not-for-profit arts and environmental organizations.
The Stop Community Food Centre’s Green Barn is operated by The Stop Community Food Centre and houses a year-round temperate greenhouse, sustainable food education centre, sheltered garden, outdoor bake oven and compost demonstration site. As a leader in sustainable food systems education, The Stop Community Food Centre brings hands-on programming to the Green Barn component of the Artscape Wychwood Barns. Children and community members of all ages will learn about ecological growing practices and healthy eating through classroom visits, workshops, community kitchens and volunteering in the year round temperate greenhouse and sheltered gardens. It is a place where people of all ages and backgrounds can grow, eat, celebrate and learn about healthy, sustainable food.
