On the Courtyard
02
Design Proposal

The Built Form

Each city block would see the creation of one to two courtyards—new semi-public third spaces, each with its own character. Whether or not individual yards open directly to the rest of the courtyard, the courtyards provide visual relief even in the most urban environments. Where soft landscaping and permeable hard paving are used, the courtyards also mitigate the heat-island effect and double as sponges for rainwater retention.

We are not the first to visualize a future for Toronto populated with mid-rise buildings. But many existing proposals illustrate how a single building would look and work, while our interest is in illustrating a complete block—in showing how a large number of buildings can create a desirable and urbanized streetscape over time.

In this vision, courtyard block buildings—that is, the individual buildings that make up a larger courtyard block—begin to organically replace existing two-storey and three-storey buildings along major Toronto streets before spreading into certain residential neighbourhoods, finally creating, over the

next centuries, the urban fabric of low mid-rise buildings that is so common in European cities.

In this conceptual design exercise, we propose a master plan for a typical downtown Toronto block--one bordered by a “major street” on one side and a smaller-scale, more residential street on the other, bisected by a central laneway–as a testing ground for our courtyard block design. Within that block, we combine two standard side-by-side mid-block lots into a single 14 x 39 metre lot on which to design a slice of a courtyard block: two buildings–one facing the street and one facing the laneway–with a courtyard in between.

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Built Form

By bringing façades closer to the sidewalk and creating potential commercial spaces at street level, courtyard blocks create a more engaging pedestrian experience along primary streets.

Many communal infrastructural needs (such as trash collection and bicycle parking) are centralized and pushed into the public realm, rather than decentralized and duplicated within each individual building.

Renders

The buildings themselves might have few, if any, amenities. The courtyard and—especially in the vibrant downtown core—the city are the amenities. The community also becomes an amenity: you are more likely to meet neighbours when you share the same stairwell and outdoor space.

In our Toronto courtyard design, we seek to blur the boundary between front and back, inner and outer courtyard buildings. Are the lower laneway residences separating two courtyards from each other or instead sitting within one much larger courtyard? Depending on the density and porosity of construction along the laneway, either reading of the courtyard is possible.

With deep balconies and operable exterior blinds to provide shade, through-units that allow for direct cross-ventilation, and concrete floors that can absorb and radiate solar heat in the winter, the building is designed to provide a measure of passive heating, cooling, and ventilation.

On the Courtyard could transform the fabric of our city. One of the fundamental strengths of this project is in how it thoughtfully delivers density alongside a radically improved experience of community life.

If this proposal were merely an architectural design for a single plot of housing, it would likely anticipate a definitive landscape design—and, consequently, have little effect.

But this is an idea aiming for larger urban impact, moving from the scale of the individual plot to the block—and, consequently, the neighbourhood and the city. The vision is both specific and open ended, especially in its expression of landscape. Ultimately, it creates specific possibilities for new forms of urban nature and community.

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The primary goal of the interior architecture is to provide high-quality living spaces, with well-proportioned rooms, generous windows for natural light and ventilation in all main spaces, excellent thermal and acoustic insulation, and a strong connection to the outdoors through balconies or Juliet balconies.

Utility areas that would typically take up much of the ground floor (such as garbage and bike storage rooms) have been relocated underground or into the public realm. This opens up a variety of possibilities for ground-floor layouts—allowing, for example, a passage directly through to the courtyard from the street.

Renders

The courtyard-block units are typically “through-units,” with views to both the street and the courtyard. This ensures that all the most important rooms have natural daylight and increases the potential for cross-ventilation.

The courtyard-block typology accommodates a range of apartment types, from studios to three- or four-bedrooms, for flexibility over a life cycle. A resident could move apartments several times over their lifetime as their circumstances change and never leave their street.

One of the goals of introducing the courtyard block to Toronto would be to provide a viable alternative to living in houses. As such, units need to be well proportioned: they need not be immense to be comfortable but neither should they tend towards the “micro” apartments that have become more common in recent years.

The single open stair, directly visible from both the building entry and from each unit’s front door, encourages those residents who can to use the stair as much as possible and increases the likelihood that neighbours will have the opportunity to see and get to know each other, fostering a greater sense of community.

On the Courtyard
02
Design Proposal

The Built Form

Built Form

Renders

Renders

Drawings

Ground Floor Plan