a–A has applied the lessons of successful, pedestrian-oriented urban precincts, such as Toronto’s Distillery District and Vieux-Montréal, to a multi-phase redevelopment that repurposes a 1970s-era suburban shopping centre to reflect modern ways of living. The sheer size of the site, and its proximity to existing civic buildings, has enabled a–A to envisage a walkable, intimate community knit together in a fine-grained thread of built form and open space. The program for Pickering Town Centre incorporates freehold and rental, low-rise and mid-rise residential uses, local shops, cafés and restaurants, iconic public buildings that add gravity and permanence to the community. We have interrogated the form, program and siting of the communal buildings –the library, the performing arts centre and the community centre – to understand how they can best be deployed to activate and galvanize the new neighbourhood.