As we have mentioned previously on this blog, ERA Architects is collaborating with ArchiTEXT and Sustainable.TO on the exciting Community.Design.Initiative at the East Scarborough Storefront. The East Scarborough Storefront is a key community agency hub and service agency in an Apartment Neighbourhood in East Scarborough.  Over the course of an intensive 19-week mentorship semester we worked with community youth on the design new features as part of the Storefront’s ongoing renewal, including a kitchen garden and patio, a unique green-roof pavilion, a bee and butterfly garden, and a small orchard. Summer and fall 2012 will see further collaboration with the community as we move toward construction of this dynamic new environment.

In preparation for construction, the team needed to move several plots to another part of the community garden, as well as to finish our inventory of available supplies of hemlock and Douglas fir (an inventory of which had already begun earlier in the year). After being counted, measured, and documented, each piece of wood was crib-stacked to minimize surface contact and maximize air circulation.

Now that we know what we’ve got to work with, we can finalize the project’s design, and prepare the construction documents. One exciting next step is the pre-planting of our shade structure’s green roof. To allow the vegetation to establish itself in time for construction, the Storefront will host a community green-roof planting day in mid-June. Modular containers will be laid out at ground level in the Storefront’s parking lot, planted, and tended to for several months before being raised atop the pavilion when the structure is finished in the fall.

Thanks very much to all the volunteers who came out to help from Community.Design.Initiative, East Scarborough Storefront, Telus (in the green shirts, pictured above), and, as always, the community of Kingston – Galloway – Orton Park (KGO), East Scarborough.