Canada is a metric country. We started adopting the metric system in 1970 and in 1971 we got the Weights and Measures Act. But even though we are officially a metric country, it is still common to use the imperial system in everyday life. For example, my driver's license says 190 cm, but I would never tell someone this, unless I were in Europe. I would use feet and inches.
The other area where it is common to use the imperial system is in construction and real estate. Officially, all drawings submitted to a municipality need to be in metric. Typically millimeters are used, meaning a common residential floor-to-floor height in Toronto works out to something like 2950 or 3000 if you want 9 feet clear to the underside of each slab.
As you can see, in design and construction it is very common to switch back and forth between millimeters and feet/inches. Marketing floor plans are typically always in square feet as well. A lot of this, I'm sure, has to do with our historical ties to the UK and our deep integration with the US market.
But the reality is that switching back and forth is inefficient, and imperial weights and measures feel like a random and outdated system. Nate Bargatze does a hilarious job of highlighting that in this SNL skit called Washington's Dream. So I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go full metric. I wonder what it will take for the US to finally get on board with the rest of the world.
(Thanks to my business partner Lucas for sharing the above skit with me. I'm a big Nate Bargatze fan.)
Cover photo by patricia serna on Unsplash
At the beginning of this year (which seems like eons ago), I wrote about a CityLab series that Feargus O'Sullivan was doing on the vernacular home designs of a handful of European cities. Cities like London and Berlin.
Well, after a brief pause, that series is back in the form of a CityLab "storythread." It's now called, "The Iconic Home Designs That Define Our Global Cities." In it, he explores the various floor plans, housing typologies, and tenures that you might find around the world. Everywhere from from Singapore to Reykjavik.
The most recent article is all about Prague's communist-era apartments. Apparently people call these paneláks because they were initially built using some sort of collection of prefabricated panels. They were a quick and dirty housing solution for a city and country that were rapidly urbanizing starting in the late 1950s. (See, prefab works.)
But what I find most interesting about the story of these paneláks is how their reputation seems to have changed and evolved over time. They proved to be a far more adaptable form of housing than you might initially think, going from written off and ready for demolition, in some cases, to then becoming a form of aspirational housing.
Part of this allegedly had to do with a handover from state ownership to private ownership, which maybe goes to show you that architecture and design, alone, aren't enough when it comes to housing innovation. You really need to consider the whole picture.
But regardless, it is clear to me that tastes do change, and housing is no exception. Renewal is an integral part of urban life. And one generation's trash might be another generation's treasure.
Photo by Jakub Matyáš on Unsplash
Last month, Curated Properties submitted a rezoning and site plan application for a 6-storey, 25-unit building at 45 Dovercourt Road in Toronto. The project is known to the market as Cabin and you can register for it now.
The project immediately caught my attention (because of its design, because of its branding, and because I like the work of Curated), so I decided to dig in further and get a copy of their architectural drawings. Development applications and their supporting documents are all public. Anyone can request a copy. But the city isn’t great at making this known.
Since I’m excited to see more of these small scale urban infill projects in the city, today I thought I would highlight some of its key features and some of the things that are being proposed in order to make a project like this work.
The Homes
First of all, 100% of the suites are 2-storey. 76% of the suites are also 2 bedroom or larger.
The result is that the project is essentially a series of townhomes stacked on top of each other. I suspect that this will appeal to more end-users as opposed to investors. Hopefully, it will also attract more families to the area.
Here’s the third floor plan:
You probably can’t see it, but all of the suites are marked as “Level 1”, obviously indicating that there’s more than one level.
Also worth mentioning is the notch or cut out on the north side of the building. This is what makes the 2 suites in the middle of the floor plate possible. In order for them to have windows, they need to be setback from the (north) property line. It also means those suites get terraces.
The Parking
Turning to the ground floor plan, it’s interesting to see that they are proposing 8 triple car stackers that will be accessible off the rear laneway (right side on the plan below). That equates to 24 parking spaces in the building (8 bays x 3 cars per stacker).
On small urban sites like this one, it can be very difficult to accommodate parking. So it’s inevitable that we will see more parking stackers in the city and a continual reduction in parking minimums.
The Construction
Finally, I have been told that this project is expected to be framed in wood, as opposed to reinforced concrete, which is more typical of condominiums in Toronto.
As of the beginning of this year (2015), the Ontario Building Code was modified to allow wood-frame buildings up to 6 storeys. Before this change, the highest you could go was 4 storeys.
This change was done with the intent of reducing construction costs so that it becomes more feasible to develop smaller infill sites such as this one. So expect to see more of this.
I know that a lot of people would like to remain in the city even when they start having children. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable low-rise homes. And not everyone wants to live in a high-rise tower.
That’s why I think we will see more, not less, low-rise and mid-rise infill projects like Cabin. If you’re interested in this topic, also check out a post I wrote called 3 stages of intensification.
The rendering at the top of this post is from Curated Properties and the drawings are by RAW Design.