Reissa Lee-Chan
GRAFT: Pneumatic Rooftop Structures for Community Nourishment in Urban Housing Redevelopment
Environmental Design
2025
Alexandra Park (Queen St and Spadina Ave) is undergoing a redevelopment by Tridel to drastically transform the historically low income and food insecure neighbourhood. By replacing existing housing with modern high riseand townhouse developments. Although this rebuildmay improve infrastructure, it fails to address thedeeper issues residents face particularly with food insecurity. This thesis argues for a design based solutionthat empowers community and helps to solve the prolonged food scarcity in this neighbourhood. The integration of pneumatic rooftop structuresthat function as lightweight greenhouses and vertical gardens. Made to catalyze, emphasizeand expand previous urban agricultural programslike the Bowery project which was relocated in 2022. This thesis can switch the mindset of possibilities, can also potentially change building bylaws to have requirements of urban agriculture practices.Particularly in redevelopments of neighbourhoods to ensure that the residents are properly nourished. This intervention aims to reclaim the new developmentsrooftop spaces for food production, allowing for multiple opportunities for the local community to flourish; community gardening, Alexandra Park Community Centre cooking programs, neighbouringhomeless shelters, YMCA youth shelter...etc. Residents can directly participate in nourishingtheir community strengthening social bonds while contributing to each other. By embedding food sovereignty into the fabric of urban redevelopmentthis proposal offers a long term response to the cycles of displacement and food insecurity.The goal here is to have a subscription program for low income residents (priority) to pick up their produce from Alexandra Park Community Centre weekly. This project provides for 15,776 people, population density in Toronto is 16,000 per sq km. Not only nourishing Alexandra Park but extensions and neighbouring communities.