North
Lawndale Affordable Housing
The
Lawndale site has a strong presence of community; people were found
in social clusters either on the front porch or groups of children
playing. To provide an opportunity for the continuation of social
gathering and interaction, we created outdoor courtyard spaces that
could be shared by small groups of units.
The second key element was
the organizational strategy of the site. The site is structured by a
progression of private to public spaces surrounding the buildings.
The more public spaces consist of the laneway and the streets and
the more private spaces lie within the courtyards. The low rise
buildings are arranged in such a way as to shelter these courtyards
to give a sense of enclosure and intimacy without being literal and
confining. The same logic is used in the arrangement of the program
spaces within the units by placing more public uses such as the
living room and kitchen close to the main entry and grouping the
more private uses such as the bedrooms together.
Diversity of community was
critical for the project. A rich mixture of unit types would ensure
that the housing development to cater to a variety of household
types. Furthermore, it was also important to mix these units not
only within the entire development, but also within each courtyard
cluster, as well as each building unit and floor. This then allowed
for a culturally diverse neighbourhood, where people of different
backgrounds, economic status, and age groups could interact and
socialize. Due to the mixture occurring at all levels these
interactions can occur on the ground plane (i.e. courtyard spaces or
the street) as well as in the elevated pathways that connect each
cluster. The number of units that share these pathways as well as
the courtyards are minimized to promote familiarity with their
neighbours and therefore stronger bonds between them
The main types of housing
units in the low-rise units are studio, 1 bedroom, 1 bedroom duplex,
2 bedroom, and 2 bedroom duplex. In the high-rise this diversity is
maintained by incorporating different unit types at each floor to
mimic the social mixture created in the low-rise culture.
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