11 Brock
WINNER OF A 2024 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
The need for supportive housing is at a crisis point across Canada. 11 Brock Avenue not only addresses this need, but does so in a way that understands the effects of good design and the critical need for a baseline of net-zero and low carbon in building construction. This project prioritizes community through the design of an interior single-loaded corridor that promotes access to light and views to the communal spaces along the courtyard. The street façade expresses the rigour of mass timber construction, while still being playful and achieving a balance between opaque and transparent surfaces. – Matthew Hickey, juror
LOCATION Toronto, Ontario
11 Brock Avenue is one of five projects resulting from a City of Toronto partnership with the Federal Government to create urgently needed supportive and affordable housing under the Rapid Housing Initiative. Targeting housing-ready sites, the initiative funds projects that are fast-tracked from project start to occupancy within 18 months.
Located in Toronto’s central-west Parkdale neighbourhood, 11 Brock Avenue will provide 42 new supportive and rent-geared-to-income residential units on a corner lot that has been vacant for years. The building’s fine-grained, four-storey Brock Avenue façade is vertically divided into six bands, and animated by a couple of curves reminiscent of an old rolltop desk. One band demarcates the main entry by rolling inward above it; an adjacent band unrolls above the ground at bench height, creating an informal seating platform. Along the building’s west and north facades, its landscaped border amps up visual interest by oscillating in plan between planting beds and hardscaped areas for seating and bicycle parking.
Several other congenial ideas coalesce in and around the building’s tiered, south-facing courtyard. At grade, the building’s dining hall and lounge, lobby corridor, and staff spaces all face onto a compact courtyard patio, providing the ‘eyes on the street’ that help make this secluded space feel like a safe, sociable hub. The laundry room, conceived here as a social space rather than a purely utilitarian one, also has a courtyard view. A series of outdoor areas cascade down towards the ground-floor patio: the topmost tier is a garden terrace, with picnic tables and raised accessible community-garden planting beds. Single-loaded corridors wrap the outdoor space on three sides, and include large window-boxes with seating, so that residents can sit by a window with views to the shared social area.
11 Brock Avenue is an all-electric, mass timber building, designed to meet net zero and low embodied carbon requirements. A wide band of extensive green roof aids in retaining stormwater and promotes biodiversity; the roof has also been designed to support a planned, future photovoltaics installation.
The layout of the residential units is optimized for simplicity and efficiency, and ensures privacy by not having any units face each other. Using a regular grid layout and repeating stacked suites improves the efficiency of the design and the speed of construction. More than 30 percent of the homes this project provides are accessible suites.
CLIENT Govan Brown and Associates Ltd., City of Toronto | ARCHITECT TEAM Jessica Daga, Aaron Budd (MRAIC), Hillary Eppel, Aziza Asat, Jina Lee, Hayley Imerman (MRAIC), Valerie Hough, Hugo Flammin, Evan Wakelin, Joseph Khan | TRANSPORTATION BA Consulting Group | AREA 1,055 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Under construction | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION 2025
As appeared in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine
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