North American cities have long had a problem with apartment buildings.

One the one hand, they were viewed as an important requirement for world-class status. Regardless of whether there was an economic imperative to build in this way, you needed grand buildings to communicate that you were an important and sophisticated city.

But on the other hand, apartments were viewed as clearly inferior to low-rise houses. Apartments were too dense; they were thought to morally corrupt people (infidelity meant just walking down the hall); and by definition -- until the rise of condominiums -- they were filled with renters.

I recently stumbled upon this 1989 research paper by Richard Dennis (through Bob Georgiou's blog) and it is a fascinating account of Toronto's first apartment-house boom from 1900 to 1920:

One of the first apartment houses to be completed in the city was the Alexandra Palace Apartments (pictured above) on University Avenue near Elm Street:

The next building to be completed, the Alexandra, on University Avenue, was on an even grander scale. It was promoted by the Union Trust Company, but subsequently owned by the specially constituted Alexandra Palace Co. Ltd., and opened in 1904. The building, of stone, brick and steel construction, comprised 72 suites on seven floors; it also included dining rooms. In 1905 more than a quarter of its suites were vacant, mainly on the upper floors (although the very top floor was fully occupied); its tenants included a leading judge, two barristers, a professor, a doctor and a prominent real estate agent, but otherwise its social standing did not quite match that of St George Mansions. In 1915 occupants included Professor James Mavor. There were more tenants aged in their thirties than in St George Mansions, but overall the average age of 42 and household size of 2.6 was not dissimilar.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the paper is Toronto's reaction to this apartment boom. We moved to stop it:

Nonetheless, it is clear that the attempted invasion of high-status single- family areas in Parkdale and, more especially, Rosedale and Avenue-St Clair, provided the catalyst to action. For all the moral outrage and sanitary evidence, there was little concern as long as apartments stayed downtown or in lower-status neighbourhoods. This becomes even more apparent when we examine what happened in the months following the passage of the by-laws.

Toronto's housing stock has changed dramatically over the last 100 years or so, and we are now nearly 50% apartments/condominiums over 5 storeys. But at the same time, some things seem to never change.

Japan has a building typology known as machiya. They are found throughout Japan, but my understanding is that they are most closely associated with downtown Kyoto. The typical machiya consists of a long wooden home with a narrow street frontage, and at least one interior courtyard garden.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of these townhouses is that, for the centuries that they have existed, they have always been mixed-used. The front of the building traditionally served as a kind of "shop space", and the private residential spaces were tucked behind it (though this line between public and private was fairly fluid).

And so for hundreds of years, the humble machiya became a flexible building typology that allowed shops, restaurants, and various other small businesses to flourish. This has changed over the years. People went off to work in offices and Western ideals around housing started to infiltrate Japan, among other reasons. But that doesn't mean that there aren't important lessons to be learned from Kyoto's machiya.

Here in Toronto, we remain deeply terrified of things like triplexes creeping into our single-family neighborhoods and we remain reticent to allow non-residential uses outside of their designated areas. Old habits die hard.

But take a walk, cycle, or drive across one of our non-Avenue-designated arterial roads (which I did yesterday), and it's hard not to imagine something much better. My mind immediately goes to an improved streetscape with (1) less on-street parking, (2) a lot more homes (as-of-right), and (3) flexible ground floor permissions that allow for crazy things like a "shop space".

And then, what kind of city might we have if we had fewer barriers in the way of infill housing and if we allowed for low-cost spaces that could flex up and down based on the needs of small entrepreneurs? I'm pretty sure it would be a better one. And of course, it's been done before.

Photo by Akira Deng on Unsplash

I'm not sure how I missed this before, but ground has just been broken on what is being called "the world's largest 3D-printed community." Co-designed by ICON and Bjarke Ingels Group and "implemented" by Lennar, the community, which is located north of Austin, Texas, will consist of 100 homes ranging from 1,500 to 2,100 square feet. There are 8 different floor plans and 24 different elevations to choose from. Each home will also come with rooftop solar panels.

Here's a short description on how the overall construction process is working:

To automate the manufacturing of homes ICON is using its Vulcan robotic construction system, a large, transportable printer that can be used in tandem with Magma, a cement mixing machine. The homes are being constructed out of Lavacrete, a durable-concrete polymer added in layers to form the structure’s facade and foundation by Vulcan. Their design blends Texas ranch vernacular with sustainable technology, providing a model for the future of large-scale 3D construction. The residences will adhere to a common design, featuring metal roofs, concrete floors, and distinct curvilinear and rib-textured concrete walls, which are the product of 3D printing.

It is quite a different looking construction site:

Now, there is certainly a conversation to be had about what these machines are building as a housing typology: This is still suburban sprawl, regardless of how the homes are being made and if there are solar panels on the roof. But if you ignore all of this for a minute, there is obviously something pretty incredible about 3D printing being able to now deliver stuff at the scale of a suburban housing project. It represents a fundamental change in how we build, in an industry that has a long history of changing very little.