A forest of 50 trees in shopping carts is roving around Toronto’s waterfront

The city’s concrete jungle often feels more like a desert in the summer, with sunlight reflecting off all surfaces and condo balconies acting as shady oases. But, for a few weeks, Torontonians by the lake can ditch their handheld fans and instead lounge beneath a maple in a slow-rolling shopping cart.

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The Bentway has just launched Sun/Shade, a series of installations along the waterfront that offer potential solutions to rising temperatures. One such project—Moving Forest by Gen Yamamoto and Carmen Busch of Amsterdam-based NL Architects—features a fleet of 50 red, silver and sugar maple trees sprouting out of shopping carts, like a roaming grove providing temporary shade over otherwise parched patches of land.

The moving maples started their journey at YZD (the former 370-acre Downsview Airport Lands) at the end of May and, as of June 17, have been moved to the Bentway’s Studio Terrace, where staff reposition them daily to follow the arc of the sun. On July 7, the maples will migrate to the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre on Queens Quay for another shading session. Then, on July 14, the forest will be part of a final installation at Harbourfront Centre—after which they’ll give up their roaming and be planted across Toronto.

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The installation is also a nod to the city’s goal of increasing its tree canopy—a colloquial metric by which environmentalists grade a city’s green bona fides—from its current 30 per cent coverage to 40 per cent. “Moving Forest is joyful and approachable,” says Bentway curator Ilana Altman. “And as Toronto continues to warm, it’s critical that we invest in urban forests.”