Arts Thread

From the first rays of the sun in the early hours of the dawn, to the quivering rays of the street lamps in the late hours of the night, the dwellers of a city are transported from morning to night underneath the many layers of the land. The Sheppard Yonge subway station in Toronto, enveloping the urban life of a city, became the focal point of my research; to explore how light, colour and volumetric experience can uplift the human spirit in this active but often uninspired urban space. The pivot of my concept is the symbolism of a milkweed seed; an indigenous wildflower to North York district, wistful as a seed, interlocked as a sapling and outstretched as foliage. The journey of a milkweed is a metaphor that encapsulates the transitory concept of our transitory society; if cultivated with adequate sunlight, water and air, this seed will unravel its latent potential. In composing this conceptual framework within the subway station, I designed the milkweed’s growth through each level of the station embodying a subsequent stage in its development. Just as the fluid milkweed’s floss, the walls and ceilings of the subway tunnel are wrapped with strips and programmatic lighting. As the passengers travel higher, natural daylight is introduced through a crescendo of skylights representing the sapling milkweed and its stretching roots. Then, the volumes of space flourish and play with light filtration through transparent and translucent glass prism frames in the bus terminal.