Urban Capital has just unveiled its new Smart House condo project here in Toronto. With units starting at 289 square feet, the project is all about ultra-compact and ultra-smart living.
While micro-apartments are trending right now, they’re not a new idea. Architects have been fascinated by modular, adaptable and compact living for ages. Here’s an example of 100 square foot living capsules built in Tokyo in the 1970s.
Tokyo, of course, is a unique example. There you have the entire population of Canada living in one city. But that doesn’t mean that Toronto isn’t feeling the pressures of urban intensification. Apartments are getting smaller.
But the interesting thing about space is that it’s a relative thing. I personally live in 650 square feet and find it more than enough space. Though I also place a huge value on my time and try to minimize the amount of traveling I need to do.
And this is really the trade off you make with space. As you move further away from a city (and housing costs drop), you’re effectively shifting those housing costs to transportation costs. Which includes real costs like gas and time, as well as more intangible costs like quality of life.
However, I know many people that are willing to make that trade off for more space. But I wonder sometimes how much of that incremental space is necessity versus perceived necessity.
How much space do you need?
One of the places I had to visit during my trip to Detroit last weekend was Lafayette Park. Designed by famed German-American architect Mies van der Rohe, it’s the largest collection of his buildings and one of the most successful examples of urban renewal in America.
Still today it remains one of the most economically and racially diverse neighbourhoods in the city and a bastion of stability within Detroit’s eroding urban fabric. But from a planning standpoint, it shares many of the same characteristics as other tower-in-a-park renewal plans.
It was built at a lower density than the neighbourhood it replaced (the unfortunately named Black Bottom slum) and it was far more insular in terms of its relationship to the greater city. From cul-de-sacs to expansive green space areas, it’s an island in the middle of Detroit.
This recipe has created many spectacular urban failures all across the world. So why not in Detroit? One would think that Detroit of all places would suffer the same fate.
I have 3 hypotheses.
First, the fact that it’s a Mies community matters. I’m sure it attracted and continues to attract residents simply because of who designed it. The entire neighbourhood is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Second, the community doesn’t have the same monoculture that many other master planned communities had. From the beginning, the intent was to develop a self sustaining mixed-income neighbourhood with shops, restaurants, schools and so on.
Third, I think the fact that the neighbourhood was more insular actually helped it. As the rest of the city’s fabric crumbled, Lafayette Park remained this kind of curated semi-urban space in the core of the city.
These are just some of my initial thoughts.
There has, of course, been a lot of rigorous academic thought on this topic by the likes of Charles Waldheim, the late Detlef Mertins, and others.
MaRS has just launched a Social Venture Exchange (SVX) here in Toronto in collaboration with the TMX Group. And I’m proud to announce that TAS is a founding venture member.
Here’s the mission of the SVX:
"The SVX is a local, impact first platform connecting impact ventures, funds, and investors in order to catalyze new debt and equity investment capital for local ventures that have demonstrable social and/or environmental impact, including nonprofits, co-operatives, and for-profit corporations."
The focus of the SVX Is on triple bottom line accounting. So it’s very well aligned with the philosophy of TAS. However, I like to think of our "four pillars" as a kind of quadruple bottom line framework. In addition to measuring social, environmental and economic impact, we also care about cultural impact.