Photos courtesy of PLANT Architect Inc.

TSA Tours at Doors Open Toronto 2025: Sara Jackman Playground

Slideshow

The playground at the Laboratory School at the University of Toronto’s Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study (JICS)—now officially renamed The Sara Jackman Playground—has recently been reimagined by PLANT Architect Inc. The new bright multi-level play environment improves accessibility and supports JICS’ pedagogical goals of creative play that encourages students’ mental and physical development, while enhancing their sense of connection to the natural world.

Join the Toronto Society of Architects (TSA) and PLANT on this unique tour led by the team behind the design and implementation of this new play space. We’ll discuss the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of the playground and some lessons learned, as well as the design theory behind the project, such as designing for risk, creativity, and social impact.

This tour is being offered at 10:00 AM and again at 12:00 PM on Saturday, May 24.

This is one of three tours organized by the TSA for Doors Open Toronto 2025 exploring this year’s theme: play. Check out our tours for St. Andrew’s Playground Park and the St. James Park Playground for more opportunities to learn about playground design in our city.

When Saturday, May 24, 2025, 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM

Where The Sara Jackman Playground

Duration 1 hour

Meeting Place Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, 45 Walmer Rd, Toronto, ON, M5R 2X2

Cost Free (RSVP required)

Host Toronto Society of Architects

Tour Guide

Lisa Rapoport is a founding partner of PLANT Architect Inc. with 30 years of experience. She is widely known for her strong conceptual vision and rigorous approach to the practice of institutional and residential architecture and urban design, and for her work in exploring the relationship between architecture, landscape, and the public realm. Born and raised in Montreal, she graduated in 1988 from the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture. She co-founded PLANT Architect Inc. in 1994, and has led many of the studio’s award-winning projects, including the Dublin Grounds of Remembrance, which received an EDRA Great Places Award and a CSLA National Honour Award, the Forest Hill Village North Gateway, and Liza’s Garden at the Royal Ontario Museum. Lisa was PLANT’s partner-in-charge on Ground Plane design and the document production phase of the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture-winning Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization. Recently she was PLANT’s partner-in-charge on the Junction Craft Brewery, which garnered an Architectural Conservancy Ontario Heritage Award for adaptive reuse. She led the Mulock Property Master Plan, which establishes an advanced conceptual design for transforming a 19th-century manor hose and more than six hectares of land into a cultural and recreational hub for the Town of Newmarket. This project now in construction includes a dynamic park with all size of public gathering areas, playscape, fountains, skate trail, naturalized and historic gardens, imbedded artworks and new building including a skate pavilion, conservatory, artists residency and bridge. Her current projects range from Toronto Community Housing Corporation renovations to reimagining the Young Centre for the Performing Arts public areas.

Lisa taught at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto for 7 years, and served as an adjunct professor for 10 years at the Waterloo School of Architecture. She has co-led studios at U of T and at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and has been a visiting critic at many other schools.

In 2012, Lisa was awarded the Team Alumni Achievement Medal from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Lisa Rapoport

Partner

PLANT Architect Inc.

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TSA Tours at Doors Open Toronto 2025: Sara Jackman Playground

Tour Guide

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