Designed by the architect John Edward Hoare at the close of World War II, the Regent Park superblock is the country’s oldest public housing project. It’s bounded by River Street to the east, Parliament Street to the west, Gerrard Street to the north, and Shuter Street to the south. To make way for the planned community, the City seized and demolished 70 acres of Victorian-era working-class homes comprising what was then the southern half of the Cabbagetown slum.

Like many of Regent Park’s residential buildings, 375-407 Gerrard Street East is cruciform-shaped, a design inspired by planning styles like the Garden city movement and European courtyard architecture. The resulting inward-facing orientation of many units creates a series of communal green spaces with little pedestrian or vehicle through traffic. 

While envisioned as a pastoral urban sanctuary, this insulation from the surrounding dynamic streetscape ended up contributing to the social, commercial, and political isolation of Regent Park's low-income residents, an effect that crescendoed around the turn of the century with crime and increased drug use. In the early 2000s, the City concluded that a collection of mixed-use spaces and mixed-income residences would serve the neighbourhood better.

Over the past 15 years, many original buildings have been demolished in the southern half of the park to make way for the ongoing Regent Park Revitalization development project. The revitalization includes building new city streets running through Regent Park to serve its new commercial and mixed-use ventures and to invite movement in and out of the area. 

• Architect - John E. Hoare Jr.  <-- More buildings by this architect.