I'm good friends with Gabriel Fain (of Gabriel Fain Architects) and Francesco Valente-Gorjup and Aleris Rodgers (of Studio VAARO). Gabriel, Francesco, and I all went to architecture school together (undergrad). Gabriel is the architect behind Mackay Laneway House. And the three of us are really good about staying in touch, and taking group photos so we can document our aging.

Here's us circa 2013:

And here's us 10 years later at my 40th birthday:

Earlier this year, we were all hanging out when they told me that they were working on a research project with the Neptis Foundation called Impossible Toronto. They were authoring the project's inaugural publication and the goal was to explore a housing typology that could be suitable for the city — perhaps even highly desirable — but that is currently impossible to build.

As they were telling me about the project, they casually added, "Oh, and we volunteered you to help the team with development feasibility and financial modeling. We need you do a pro forma for the housing type we're proposing." If that's not true friendship, I don't know what is.

Well, that publication has landed from the printers. It's called Impossible Toronto: On the Courtyard — Learning from European Blocks. And it's beautiful (graphic design by Blok Design):

The full launch is set for October 3rd, 2025 here in Toronto (mark your calendars). At that point, hard copies will be available for sale and soft copies will be available as a free download. But even before then, I want to congratulate the team and everyone involved — there's a long list. This is important work for our great city.

I also very much enjoy the premise of the book and the series as a whole. Most bold ideas start out as impossible, until all of a sudden they're not. The best ideas, it has been said, are just on the right side of impossible.

At the intersection of rue Eugene Sue and rue Simart in Paris is a collection of mid-rise buildings that were constructed during Haussmann's renovation of Paris in the second half of the 19th century. They were intended to house some 10,000 workers.

Here's an aerial image of that intersection from Google Maps:

Some people, namely the folks over at The Funambulist, have compared this area to the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong as a result of its extreme population density. But unlike the Walled City, this area of Paris still exists today.

The way these blocks are able to achieve such a high population density is by employing compact internal courtyards. In some cases they would be more accurately referred to as light wells.

Here's a fascinating diagram from The Funambulist showing the approximate areas of each courtyard/light well:

I have become very interested in these sorts of European courtyard buildings. They do have their benefits. For one, they offer respite from the rest of the city. But you can also understand why the modernists were so fixated on access to light and air.

This morning I came across this drone photo of Hong Kong by @vnthota:

I immediately thought it was a good example of the typical Hong Kong tower plan that I have been writing about on this blog. You can see the cruciform plan, the light/air cutouts, and how this plan allows for towers to be built directly beside each other.

In some cases the result is perhaps not that dissimilar from a European courtyard block, except the building typology here is high-rise as opposed to mid-rise. Note the outdoor spaces in the middle of the blocks.

The cruciform plan also creates a secondary scale of courtyards at the corners of these “tower courtyard blocks.” That is, where you have 3 towers arranged in a triangle. I only see two instances where you have 4 directly adjacent towers. Probably discouraged.

It’s also interesting to note how relatively subtle shifts in tower positioning seem to open up the possibility of additional towers. You can see that just below the boat in this picture (not sure what the boat is all about).

Is there anything else you find interesting in this picture?