60 Richmond
Toronto, Ontario
Photo Credit: Teeple Architects
CASE STUDY
Initial Research by: Desiree Theriault
Edited by: Samantha Miller & Nicole Brekelmans
Case study compiled in 2017
Project: 60 Richmond
Type of Urban Strategy: Permaculture, Sustainable Design
Type of Project: Urban Infill / Housing Cooperative
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Date Designed/Planned: 2008
Construction Completed: 2010
Designer: Teeple Architects
With the rapid growth of urbanization across the world, there has been a necessary need for cities to address their diminishing resources, exploitation of the environment and its extensive population growth. How can architects and urban planners begin to address this issue? How can they provide a sustainable solution that begins to reconstruct the earth’s bounties?
60 Richmond Housing Cooperative designed by Teeple Architects, acts as a catalyst for the future of urbanism and living architecture. The project marries both the functionality of urban structure and the sustainability and self-sufficiency of the environment providing a new architectural expression that addresses the issues of rapid urbanization and the diminishing of earth’s resources. 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative becomes a full-cycle ecosystem asking its residents to be a part of its ecological processes. The project features multiple outdoor gardens at different levels that provide the residence with passive design cooling and cleansing, rainwater harvesting and storm water management. Additionally, the gardens also provide the residents with fresh, local food creating a more sustainable self-sufficient community. The project also features a restaurant operated and owned by the residents of 60 Richmond Street. The result of these elements fosters a resilient, self-sustaining village within a building – a revolution for the demands of social housing.
CONTEXT
60 Richmond Housing Cooperative seeks to expand the notion of future urbanism by creating a fully functioning village within a building. The 11 storeys, 85-unit building provides homes to hospitality-industry workers and their families who were displaced by the redevelopment of Regent Park. While the project establishes an interesting and dynamic public realm for the ground floor of Richmond Street, it also provides the residence an opportunity to cultivate greenery, cool and cleanse the air, and absorb the stormwater. 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative then becomes a new form of social housing by utilizing architecture as an ‘extension of the natural environment’ (Archdaily, 2017). The project questions how we can begin to address the rapid growth of our cities?
How do we preserve the Earth’s finite resources? What about the inevitable destructive path of urbanization? 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative answers these questions by providing a unique urban strategy that utilizes architecture and people to fulfil a fully self-sustainable mini urban ecosystem. The project does this pushing and pulling portions of the architecture at different levels to create vegetable gardens, greenery and social spaces. This void and space also act as a cooling system for the building while simultaneously providing daylight to every unit. The vegetable gardens provide a sustainable local food market to the residence of 60 Richmond, while the restaurants and markets below provide careers for the residence of the building.
60 Richmond Housing Cooperative becomes a condition of ‘urban permaculture’- design that creates a sustainable cycle responding to both the ‘urban form of the city and the environmental condition of the site’ (Canadian Architect, 2017).
FUNDING
SITE ANALYSIS
PROJECT BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
The proposal of 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative originally began as an infill project. The project would address the low-income housing for displaced residents of the Regent Park re-development and provide a new public identity of the corner of Richmond Street and Church Street. However, the City Councillor Pam McConnell urged to push the design further by asking Teeple Architecture to ‘demonstrate what co-op housing can and should be’ (Hospitality Training Center, 2017).
In 2008, Teeple Architecture took this opportunity to provide a LEED Gold standard building that provides its residents with a multi-use, mixed-income building that pushes the boundaries of architecture. The project would feature multiple gardens and social spaces that provide the residence with ample outdoor living area, fresh and sustainable food sources, and better views of the city. It also aimed at providing low-cost living and maintenance for the residents by utilizing green roofs to reduce the urban heat island effects and provide passive cooling to the building. In addition, the project would also utilize storm water management and rainwater harvesting to provide fresh and clean to the gardens with no costs to the residents. Lastly, the ground floor of the project would feature a large restaurant monitored and operated by the residents themselves – creating a responsive, sustainable and fully functional community within a building (Canadian Architect, 2017).
The project was completed in 2010 and has since seen a number of awards including the Ontario Association of Architects Design Excellence Award, LEED Gold certification for environmental stewardship, and Canadian Architect Award of Excellence (ArchDaily, 2017).
THE CHALLENGE
GOAL OF THE PROJECT
The goal of 60 Richmond East Housing Co-operative is to create a unified movement between urban and social. Some of the key goals of the project involve:
-Restating the importance of architecture within social housing projects
-Utilizing ‘urban permaculture’ as an exploration of the potential of the co-op as a social organization appropriate for the provision of affordable housing.
-Activating and composing the street connections, creating a dynamic public realm
-Creating a unique building experience that serves as an example of innovative sustainable social housing
-Providing residents with a stable home that creates a relationship between the architecture world and the social world.
(Archdaily, 2010)
DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, AND DECISION MAKING PROCESS
The building design of 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative needed to be innovative and strategical in order to stretch the minimal funding and provide residents with low-cost, affordable housing. The building itself is designed with three stack modules that push and pull from the streetscape creating voided and protruded areas. The building is design with a 60/40 ratio of walls to windows providing ample daylight to all residents of the building while also acting as a passive design strategy to achieve a LEED Gold rating in energy savings. Each window uses a fibreglass glazing with Low-E, argon-filled, warm edge spacers that optimize thermal breaks and provide a passive design strategy that easily heats and cools the building.
In order to eliminate thermal bridging and ensure a durable maintainable exterior, the entire building is wrapped in a ‘highly insulated rain-screen cladding’ in grey and neutral cream colours. Pops of bright red, yellow and orange appear within the voided spaces created by the playful push and pull of the building modules. The building also recycled the original foundation walls of the previous building as shoring (reinforcement) for the construction of the building.
One of the biggest aspects of the project are the gardens perfusions and voids on many levels of the building. Each garden insulates the building, absorbs and manages stormwater and diminishes the heat island effect. The voids within the architecture provide natural ventilation to all units of the building, while also supplying natural daylight to each unit. The 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative has provided its residents with a sophisticated, innovative and sustainable building that generates and responds to all the needs of the residents and the environment.
ROLE OF DESIGNERS
GENESIS OF THE PROJECT
With the rapid growth of urbanization across the world, there has been a necessary need for cities to address their diminishing resources, exploitation of the environment and its extensive population growth. How can architects and urban planners begin to address this issue? How can they provide a sustainable solution that begins to reconstruct the Earth’s bounties?
60 Richmond Housing Cooperative designed by Teeple Architects acts as a catalyst for the future of urbanism and living architecture. It marries both the functionality of urban structure and the sustainability and self-sufficiency of the environment providing a new architectural expression that addresses the issues of rapid urbanization and the diminishing of earth’s resources. 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative becomes a full-cycle ecosystem asking its residents to be a part of its ecological processes. The project features multiple outdoor gardens at different levels that provide the residence with passive design cooling and cleansing, rainwater harvesting and stormwater management. Additionally, the gardens also provide the residents with fresh, local food creating a more sustainable self-sufficient community. The project also features a restaurant operated and owned by the residents of 60 Richmond Street. The result of these elements fosters a resilient, self-sustaining village within a building – a revolution for the demands of social housing.
CITATIONS
PROGRAMMED ELEMENTS
Green Terraces at various levels that provide fresh local foods for both residents and restaurant
Kitchen Gardens – drawing daylight into the building interior
Ground Floor Restaurant activating the public realm
Playful voids and protrusions that act as social gathering spaces
PROJECT IMPACT