Faculty of Design
Environmental Design
Liam Greenlees
The Other City Project an Exploration Into Urban Inequity
Environmental Design
2021
My thesis will create a mixed income alternative housing project along Queen Street West and Lansdowne Avenue in the core of the Parkdale community. This project will utilize urban farming as both a social and economic tool for repair by creating local food security, localizing the laneway to pedestrians, and creating a reliable strategy for economic self sustenance to assure future maintenance and development of the community.
“My thesis was initially inspired by the lack of innovation found in Canadian affordable housing projects and I sought out to create a new typology for these affordable communities. Toronto itself has had a number of failed social housing projects. Many of these projects stem from post war development. Some of the tell tale reasons to why these communities failed are actually quite simple. Inadequate access to public amenities, pedestrian travel and safety, a lack of mixed income businesses and residents, and lastly the pitfall of a single, large housing agency serving as a distant, sole landlord for all of the non-market housing. Members of social/affordable housing deserve to live in a housing experience that is equitable and dignifying. These projects should be designed with special care to assure their social integration to the surrounding community and to solidify their future economic self sustenance. As a response to these factors and the ever present future intensification of our city. My thesis proposes a mixed income alternative housing project along Queen Street West and Lansdowne Avenue in the core of the Parkdale community. This project will utilize urban farming as both a social and economic tool for repair by creating local food security, localizing the laneway to pedestrians, and creating a reliable strategy for economic self sustenance to assure future maintenance and development of the community.”