Occasionally architects are charged with negotiating the industrial and agricultural past of the Great Lakes region. This is particularly true for Silo, on Toronto’s former working waterfront. Existing protected grain silos on the site, meant the planned mixed-use development had an opportunity to integrate, and perhaps accentuate a piece of the city’s past. Formally and programmatically, ques were taken from the mechanical exuberance of grain elevators and the monumental presence of the utilitarian structures. At the same time, the resulting project stands as a counterpoint to the dense regular forms of the concrete silos with a delicate curving profile and a dynamic punctuated facade.