60 Richmond Housing Co-Op

Urban revitalization and live/work cooperative housing come together in an inspired Modern green design.

By Jane F. Kolleeny

As one of the world’s most multicultural cities, Toronto provides transitional housing for many of its immigrant poor. Since the late 1940s, Regent Park, a 69-acre mega-development of uninviting mid-rise tenement buildings in the city’s downtown core, has served as a primary residence for this population. But Regent Park has fallen into decline, making Toronto’s downtown increasingly inhospitable and socially marginalized. In 2005, the city and the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) developed a 10-year plan to demolish and rebuild the aging development.

“The Regent Park revitalization will create better places to live — replace aging, deteriorating buildings with new ones built to the highest architectural and green standards,” explained John Fox, vice president of TCHC. By opening up what were formerly isolated streetscapes to the downtown grid, the city and TCHC hope to develop the character of the area so it becomes a true neighborhood. Redevelopment is already starting to spill out into nearby areas, including Richmond Street, the site of a new building designed by Teeple Architects.

Program

To make up for the loss of some dwelling units at Regent Park, the city needed to create new low-income housing downtown. A former homeless shelter donated by the city to TCHC at 60 Richmond was demolished, making room for a program to house unionized hospitality workers employed in the area. Local city councilor Pam McConnell suggested a co-op for residents, which ultimately resulted “in a unique partnership among Toronto Community Housing, Unite Here Local 75 (the Hospitality Workers Union), and the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto,” explains Fox. Conceived as a progressive live/work model of housing, it aspires to encourage residents to take greater responsibility for their lives.

Solution

Completed in March 2010, 60 Richmond provides 85 one- to three-bedroom apartments in a new, 11-story building. TCHC raised the $20 million required to build the facility, managed construction until completion, then turned it over to a co-op board that collects rent and oversees operations. Residents include sous-chefs, kitchen help, and hotel cleaning staff, who mostly work within walking distance. Due to open this fall, a restaurant and training kitchen will occupy the street level. “Once the restaurant and teaching kitchen are complete,” explains Stephen Teeple, principal in charge and founder of Teeple Architects, “[they will] enliven the street space with activity.”

To break down the mass of the building, Teeple organized the main facade into an irregular series of projecting volumes — three bumped-out volumes are separated by recessed areas, and a sixth-floor reveal opens to a full-height courtyard occupying the central core of the entire volume, bringing light and air inside and creating a stack effect for ventilation. Contributing further to variations in the exterior, an occasional recessed porch painted a vivid color punctuates the otherwise gray volumes of the highly insulated rain-screen cladding, which eliminates thermal bridging. While the project makes a strong architectural statement, it also serves as an extension of downtown’s urban fabric. “The building defines the public and semipublic spaces of the city and the courtyard it encloses. Its mass wraps around the corner, bringing dynamism to this urban intersection,” explains Teeple.

A garden tended by residents on a sixth-floor courtyard will produce vegetables for the restaurant, while compost from the kitchen will fertilize the growing soil. This raised courtyard also provides space where families can gather. “We cut away the mass of the building from the street facade, creating outdoor green terraces, while allowing the primary faces to define the public space of the street,” says Teeple. “We didn’t set back these terraces or disconnect them from the city but instead wove the greenery into the fabric of the city,” he continues.

On track for LEED Gold certification, the project demonstrates an impressive green agenda. Heat-recovery units in apartments and limited glazing on the exterior contribute to overall energy savings, while a sophisticated mechanical system transfers energy from the warm to the cold side of the building as temperatures change. Rainwater collection irrigates the gardens, and a green roof mitigates storm water and the heat-island effect. Limited parking, fuel-efficient autoshare vehicles, bike storage, and proximity to public transit all encourage less energy-intensive transportation.

Commentary

Teeple describes 60 Richmond as emblematic of “environmental urbanism,” which recognizes that reasonably dense development in cities is highly sustainable. But the architect did more than just reinforce a trend to denser cities — he and his team brought a strong sense of design to a project serving low-income residents. The firm sculpted the building’s main facade to make it visually compelling, though its projecting volumes appear vaguely derivative of housing by Dutch firms, specifically a project in Madrid called Celosia by MRVDV and Blanc Alleo. Still, the project is impressive as an object, as part of an urban landscape, and as a model of high-performance design.

Completion Date: March 2010

Gross square footage: 9250 m2, / 99,565 sq. ft.

Total construction cost: $20 million

Client: Toronto Community Housing

Architect:
Teeple Architects Inc.
5 Camden Street
Toronto, ON  M5V 1V2
Canada
Phone: 416-598-0554
Fax: 416-598-1705
Email: info@teeplearch.com

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