URBAN LIFE

comprehensive design: apartment in Toronto

program: an apartment complex with 48 units ranging from studios to 3-bedroom modules, a 38-space basement parking garage, and ground floor retail spaces. 20% of the program should fulfill the ADA accessibility guidelines.

This objective of this studio is to focus on comprehensive architectural design — the synthesis of ideas with the translation into built form. Through the development of a stringent program, the project addresses such wide ranging issues as concept, program, site, construction and technology.
Among North American cities, Toronto is notable for its resistance to the urban depression that is common in the region. In fact, during the past decade its real estate market has probably been the most vibrant in its history. With immigrants — predominately urban dwellers from around the world ­—  comprising nearly half its population, downtown Toronto shows a remarkably rapid growth in density. The program of this project can be considered a paradigm of such a phenomenon: situated on West Queen’s St., it is in the center of the most vivacious neighborhood of the city. The hybrid scheme also reflects the common typology of downtown housing in the city.
The overall design process is guided by the painting “Yonge Street Boogie Woogie 2.”  (title by the author), which is developed as a preliminary study of the city. It is only after the painting that the fluidity of the city as a whole becomes apparent. Through this exercise, the design quietly responds to the scale of the city by adopting the theme of fluidity in its concept. This is followed by a series of more traditional studies that assist decision making in the scale of neighborhood, the unit, the room, and detail. They include site documentation, volumetric analysis, topological study, refinement of individual units, and basic structural planning. Through these studies, the final proposal integrates the comprehensive or even conflicting considerations into a single negotiated structure.
As a depiction of the everyday movements around the city, the design responds to the idea by applying linear structures: in smaller scale, the façade is clad with continuous horizontal strips that acts both as thermal barrier and (in the case of openings) louver system; in larger scale, the whole structure is generated with several intertwining giant ribbons-like structures that define both the perimeter of the building and the width of the units. After the general form is established, individual units find their places between the ribbons.