The Bloor St. BIA ‘Fireside’ benches are a great example of collaborating with a great team from concept to final implementation! The Bloor St. BIA identified a need to improve their streetscape environment while providing added protection to the trees that line this iconic stretch of Bloor St. between Avenue Rd. and Church St. Most downtown environments have a cold industrial feel and by adding integrated lighting into the bench frames, we were able to take the original design vision to create a warm ‘campfire’ feel through the custom designed lighting to bring a bit of nature to the downtown core.

We focused our manufacturing process on using modular fabricating principles while mixing a variety of sustainable and varied raw materials. The all-welded aluminum tubing and laser cut paneling, the modular construction approach allowed for us to create both 2 and 3 position versions of the bench that line the high-end retail corridor stretch of downtown Toronto. The benches are toped using individual seat plates with applied Ipe wood slats and are finished with a ‘Anti-Vandal’ finish for long-term manageable upkeep solutions for the BIA team. Each of the individual segments were designed to be interchangeable for a seamless installation process.

It was a pleasure to collaborate with the Bloor St. BIA team, dtah, MLB and Somerville Construction on such an impactful project!