HOLDING SPACE: REWRITING THE NARRATIVE OF AFFORDALBE HOUSING

In response to the rapid economic growth and stratification in Toronto, this project renegotiates Toronto’s urban spatial efficiency, accessibility, and efficacy with a new affordable housing typology; utilizing “home” as a vessel to equitably generate agency, ownership and place.

As a means of rethinking the city’s current distribution and access of residential land, the project reimagines a functionally obsolete industrial space into infrastructure of stability and economic engagement - combating typical narratives of impermanence and immobility that has historically surrounded affordable living. Through both design and text, the project aims to make more complex and vital realities of affordable housing visible; holding space for these nuances to become vibrant intricacies as the city makes the necessary shift towards equity and care in housing its population.

The focal point of the design is not to prescribe nor assume ways of living but provide residents with choice and space to find individualism and connect with various scales of their community. Through scale and materiality, the design provides a neighbourhood-like variation and experience from within the project itself.