Toronto Affordable Housing Challenge 2021
Sector
Public
Location
Toronto, Canada
Year
2021
Distillery Village
The Distillery Village is a development of small buildings that conquer the territory of the city, generating clear boundaries between the public space at the street and community spaces within the courtyards. This flexible planning can be easily adapted to the different neighborhoods within Toronto and beyond, allowing to adjust densities as needed.
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Every building offers a different mix of uses at a human friendly scale that welcomes unity and inclusion. The ground level predominantly consists of open spaces for community use and commercial retail that generates revenue empowering the Village to thrive.
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The upper stories above the ground level are a diverse mix of residential units that vary in size and living styles sharing common circulation spaces. The individual units are a combination of basic building blocks required for human dwelling through the many phases of life. Each block addresses a basic dwelling need, such as resting, dining, hygiene, work, and connection to the outdoors.
Inspired by Renee Chow, author of Suburban Space - The fabric of dwelling who says,
“The measure of “place” of a neighborhood is the propensity of a setting to support and promote sharing.”
“When a territory becomes a place that each resident inhabits, the presence of individuals and their differences are shared.”
At the Village center the parking is covered entirely by green space that cascades down creating terraces for community gardens and pathways. The natural rainfall filters through the landscape collecting at a lower retention pond and is used for irrigating the terraces above.
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Affordability is achieved through fast production of traditional prefabricated modules that are assembled on site. This allows for opportunities to manage densities and create shared infrastructure. Sustainable strategies and embedded revenue play an important role for longevity, maintenance, and value.
The Village provides the capacity of choice of typology through the different phases of life. This space of belonging for people of different backgrounds, sharing interactions, identity and everyday way of living, nurtures personal relationships and promotes permanency.
Project Team:
Mariela Pfennig-Mahmud
Architect & Owner @ 360 design studio
Christine Monaghan, RA, NCARB, LEED Green Assoc.
Architect & Owner @
Christine Monaghan Architecture + Design
Muna shahrori, RA, AIA, NCARB
Architect & Owner @ light axis architecture & design
Maijosh (MJ) Giraut, AIA, NCARB, LEED GA.
Architect