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Dezeen recently featured the above project in Philadelphia by Interface Studio Architects. It’s called Powerhouse and the goal was to provide a variety of different housing typologies and tenures within a dense infill project that, at the same time, remains in keeping with its context.
The full block complex contains 31 residential units, which are a mixture of apartments, duplexes (stacked towns), live/work units, and single-family townhouses. There’s also a corner retail space. 10 of the units are rental and the balance are for sale. The development also incorporates 3 existing rowhouses on the block. (Were these the holdouts?)
Here is a diagram from ISA to give you a sense of how these different housing types come together:
The project feels germane to Philly’s urban fabric and it is certainly interesting in its own right. But for those of us from Toronto, it’s perhaps even more interesting because it’s a scale of infill development that we don’t see very often in this city: low-rise intensification. (Also commonly referred to as “The Missing Middle”.)
Recently I’ve been speaking with a number of people about whether or not Toronto should be thinking differently about its low-rise neighborhoods. Because as it stands today, even this sort of gentle density can cause quite a stir.
Two thoughts immediately come to mind – one of which will not surprise anyone who reads this blog. Firstly, I see laneway housing as an elegant way to intensify low-rise neighborhoods without changing their character. That’s why I’m proposing this house.
Secondly, I have long felt that we should rethink how we treat arterial roads that are not designated as “Avenues.” That is, we should encourage greater densities. An “Avenue” designation signals mid-rise. But absent this, our policies are frankly retrograde, given the way some of these arterial streets have evolved over the years.
What are your thoughts about this scale of infill?
Images: ISA
Earlier this week I got a sneak peek of One Spadina Crescent – the new building for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.
The renovation and addition was designed by the Boston-based firm NADAAA. And let me tell you, it’s absolutely spectacular.
I was in a rush at the time and I didn’t have my real camera on me, but I managed to quickly grab this snap:
One of the most widely read posts on this blog is this one here, called: Why it’s next to impossible to get a laneway house built in Toronto. Clearly, there’s a tremendous amount of interest in this housing type both here in the city and elsewhere.
Since I wrote that past over 2 years ago, I have been bombarded with emails from people asking me the status of the project and if I could help them achieve something similar on their properties. And my response was always the same: sorry, the project is on hold.
But over the last few years, things have changed. Home prices have risen dramatically in this city. At the beginning of 2017, the average price of a detached house reached almost $1.6 million – representing a year-over-year increase of nearly 30%!
In part because of this, laneway housing has also entered mainstream consciousness thanks to groups and initiatives such as The Laneway Project, Lanescape, Evergreen, the University of Toronto, and so on. There are now Councillors advocating for them within City Hall, which was not the case even a few years ago.
Given all of these changes, I decided that it was time to dust off my laneway house design and make a serious go at it. So I called up my architect friend Gabriel Fain and asked him if he would help me pioneer this new housing typology. He immediately said yes.
Last week a revised version of Mackay Laneway House was submitted to the city, kick-starting the approvals process. Here’s a rendering showing the north elevation (view from existing house):
Dezeen recently featured the above project in Philadelphia by Interface Studio Architects. It’s called Powerhouse and the goal was to provide a variety of different housing typologies and tenures within a dense infill project that, at the same time, remains in keeping with its context.
The full block complex contains 31 residential units, which are a mixture of apartments, duplexes (stacked towns), live/work units, and single-family townhouses. There’s also a corner retail space. 10 of the units are rental and the balance are for sale. The development also incorporates 3 existing rowhouses on the block. (Were these the holdouts?)
Here is a diagram from ISA to give you a sense of how these different housing types come together:
The project feels germane to Philly’s urban fabric and it is certainly interesting in its own right. But for those of us from Toronto, it’s perhaps even more interesting because it’s a scale of infill development that we don’t see very often in this city: low-rise intensification. (Also commonly referred to as “The Missing Middle”.)
Recently I’ve been speaking with a number of people about whether or not Toronto should be thinking differently about its low-rise neighborhoods. Because as it stands today, even this sort of gentle density can cause quite a stir.
Two thoughts immediately come to mind – one of which will not surprise anyone who reads this blog. Firstly, I see laneway housing as an elegant way to intensify low-rise neighborhoods without changing their character. That’s why I’m proposing this house.
Secondly, I have long felt that we should rethink how we treat arterial roads that are not designated as “Avenues.” That is, we should encourage greater densities. An “Avenue” designation signals mid-rise. But absent this, our policies are frankly retrograde, given the way some of these arterial streets have evolved over the years.
What are your thoughts about this scale of infill?
Images: ISA
Earlier this week I got a sneak peek of One Spadina Crescent – the new building for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.
The renovation and addition was designed by the Boston-based firm NADAAA. And let me tell you, it’s absolutely spectacular.
I was in a rush at the time and I didn’t have my real camera on me, but I managed to quickly grab this snap:
One of the most widely read posts on this blog is this one here, called: Why it’s next to impossible to get a laneway house built in Toronto. Clearly, there’s a tremendous amount of interest in this housing type both here in the city and elsewhere.
Since I wrote that past over 2 years ago, I have been bombarded with emails from people asking me the status of the project and if I could help them achieve something similar on their properties. And my response was always the same: sorry, the project is on hold.
But over the last few years, things have changed. Home prices have risen dramatically in this city. At the beginning of 2017, the average price of a detached house reached almost $1.6 million – representing a year-over-year increase of nearly 30%!
In part because of this, laneway housing has also entered mainstream consciousness thanks to groups and initiatives such as The Laneway Project, Lanescape, Evergreen, the University of Toronto, and so on. There are now Councillors advocating for them within City Hall, which was not the case even a few years ago.
Given all of these changes, I decided that it was time to dust off my laneway house design and make a serious go at it. So I called up my architect friend Gabriel Fain and asked him if he would help me pioneer this new housing typology. He immediately said yes.
Last week a revised version of Mackay Laneway House was submitted to the city, kick-starting the approvals process. Here’s a rendering showing the north elevation (view from existing house):
It’s of the third floor.
What you see in the middle are steps leading down to an “open bleacher space” that functions as a crit space and as an oculus that brings light into the core of the building. In the middle of the building is a large flex space.
Because the building effectively sits in the middle of Spadina Avenue, the windows on the right side (above) look directly up the street, as if you were standing in the middle of it. I wish I had betters photos to share with you all.
When you’re an architecture student, you spend almost all of your waking time in studio. I can certainly think of worse buildings to be cooped up in. I’m excited to see it in full swing come September.
Click here if you’d like to see renderings of the building.
The next step will be a trip to the Committee of Adjustment to obtain the necessary variances. But even with all of the momentum building in the city right now around more affordable housing solutions, this will not be a slam dunk.
So in parallel to all of this, we have also launched a new website called lanewaylove.com. Here you will find general information about laneway housing, as well as floor plans of the proposal. But most importantly, we hope it will serve as a tool to generate support for this and other laneway houses in Toronto.
At the bottom of the site is a link that will allow you to support Mackay Laneway House by submitting your name, email, and postal code. The reason it also asks for your postal code is so that we can anonymously match supporters with specific areas of the city. We think this will be valuable information going forward.
If you believe that Toronto would be well-served by more affordable and sustainable housing solutions, I would encourage you to sign your name at lanewaylove.com and share this post with your network. We would greatly appreciate your support.
Here we go!
It’s of the third floor.
What you see in the middle are steps leading down to an “open bleacher space” that functions as a crit space and as an oculus that brings light into the core of the building. In the middle of the building is a large flex space.
Because the building effectively sits in the middle of Spadina Avenue, the windows on the right side (above) look directly up the street, as if you were standing in the middle of it. I wish I had betters photos to share with you all.
When you’re an architecture student, you spend almost all of your waking time in studio. I can certainly think of worse buildings to be cooped up in. I’m excited to see it in full swing come September.
Click here if you’d like to see renderings of the building.
The next step will be a trip to the Committee of Adjustment to obtain the necessary variances. But even with all of the momentum building in the city right now around more affordable housing solutions, this will not be a slam dunk.
So in parallel to all of this, we have also launched a new website called lanewaylove.com. Here you will find general information about laneway housing, as well as floor plans of the proposal. But most importantly, we hope it will serve as a tool to generate support for this and other laneway houses in Toronto.
At the bottom of the site is a link that will allow you to support Mackay Laneway House by submitting your name, email, and postal code. The reason it also asks for your postal code is so that we can anonymously match supporters with specific areas of the city. We think this will be valuable information going forward.
If you believe that Toronto would be well-served by more affordable and sustainable housing solutions, I would encourage you to sign your name at lanewaylove.com and share this post with your network. We would greatly appreciate your support.
Here we go!
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