TORONTO — Les Klein has heard all the suggestions about the future of the Gardiner Expressway, and he’s not impressed.

Whether it’s the call to tear it down, or the so-called hybrid solution, Klein believes neither approach is best for the city.

Instead, he’s got an idea of his own, one he is floating to policy-makers in Toronto, and one which he hopes gets some traction.

Build a roof atop the existing highway and turn it into a seven-kilometre, 80-acre greenspace, he says. That way, you get the best of both worlds – you retain a much-needed commuter corridor and prevent cars from clogging up the neighbourhood roads below it, as they surely will if you remove the highway, and at the same time you take a step to increasing the parkland in downtown Toronto, with all the ecologically sustainable benefits that would entail.

So far, in the polarized, agenda-driven world that is Toronto city planning, there hasn’t been much interest in his suggestion. But it is fully in keeping with his long-standing approach to architecture and city planning, an approach that garnered him a prestigious industry award, the Order of da Vinci, presented last month by the Ontario Association of Architects. The award goes to architects who  have  “made a significant and meaningful contribution to the profession,” and in honouring Klein, the association recognized his “leadership and profound relationships within the profession and the community at large.”

The way Klein sees it, you don’t throw out something that can still be put to use. Recycled, as it were. You’ve already got the Gardiner, tens of thousands of people rely on it every day, so improve it, enhance its value, don’t throw it out.

Klein, founding partner of Quadangle Architects, believes that “adaptive re-use” of existing structures is a fundamental principal of the firm and one of the areas in which it has enjoyed success. The city is full of Quadrangle projects that give new life to tired old buildings.

Take the BMW showroom at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway, for example. In the 1950s it served as an office building for Lever Brothers. About 15 years ago, it got the Quadrangle treatment, turning it into the glossy, modern edifice you see today.

You can also count the Candy Factory Lofts on Queen Street, The Toy Factory Lofts in Liberty Village, the Kaufmann Lofts in downtown Kitchener, as among the old buildings made new again by Quadrangle.

Klein has also been responsible for creating many well-known Ontario landmarks, such as southern Ontario’s ONroute Service Centres. But perhaps the most well known, if not iconic, building to get the Quadrangle treatment is the structure at 299 Queen Street, which used to be the CHUM-City building and was home to MuchMusic. It started life in 1914 as the Methodist Book Publishing Company and later housed Ryerson Press.

When CITY impresario Moses Znaimer approached him about the building, it was with the idea of turning it into a community hub and of opening it to the public. It was in keeping with his idea of making CITY-TV a community-based, storefront station, broadcast facility and media centre, Klein said.

The result of their collaboration is the media centre you see today. It has proven so successful, it has served as a blueprint for other successful TV station projects, duplicated across Canada and as far afield as Barcelona, Spain and Bogota, Colombia.

Znaimer is Quadrangle’s longest-standing client and the approach taken with Znaimer is repeated with other customers, Klein said. Quadrangle’s success is based on personal relationships and understanding what the client wants and expects, he said.

The firm was launched in 1986 with four partners – hence the name, Quadrangle – as “an ideas based firm,” that often counts “ideas-based entrepreneurs,” like Znaimer, among it client base, Klein said.

Quadrangle has a roster of some 130 employees. Today it is headed by a group of 10 partners, with one, Brian Curtner, remaining with Klein as one of the co-founders. 

Building relationships is a vital aspect of the company’s success and some have been clients of the firm for 20 years or more, he said.

Adaptive re-use, as it were. Now if he can marshal some of that goodwill, maybe Klein can convince policy-makers there really is a third, greener, option to re-use and adapt the Gardiner Expressway.