Faculty of Design

Environmental Design

Myles Marrin

Camden-Hof

Camden-Hof

“I believe the inclusion of Families represents the health of a neighbourhood, when design excludes families from living within a neighbourhood the wellbeing of the neighbourhood declines. Camden-Hof is a design concept to re-integrate families into Toronto’s urban core with the goals of providing necessary housing and healing the fabric of our densest neighbourhoods. Toronto is facing a crisis and this crisis centres around design practices which exclude families. Focussing on the Wellington Place neighbourhood of downtown Toronto; the number of households with 3 people or more is around 4%. This is extremely low, even compared to the continually dropping national average of 26%. North west of Wellington Place are some of Toronto's most vibrant neighbourhoods such as Kensington Market and Trinity Bellwoods. These neighbourhoods contain a significantly higher percentage of family households. In the Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood households with three people or more are around 33%. Subsequently these neighbourhoods feature fruit markets, schools and semi private green space Just three examples of key neighbourhood amenities not available in Wellington place. In Wellington Place, the lack of families is understandable; small and unaffordable units consume the Toronto housing market, making it unattractive and often impossible for families to exist here. This leads me to my thesis: I believe the inclusion of Families represents the health of a neighbourhood, when design excludes families from living within a neighbourhood the wellbeing of the neighbourhood declines. With this understanding it’s become my focus to design a housing infill system which injects a neighbourhood with families, while also finding ways to mitigate the housing market. The goal is to not only provide housing but, that the integration of families helps to support a wider variety of neighbourhood amenities. To do this I needed to challenge design standards, spatial designations and development methods. The result is a radical human/family centred approach to housing design. I hope Camden-Hof can inspire viewers and readers to demand more of our development standards and the institutions which support the ongoing crisis. Though Camden-Hof may be radical, the deisgn’s fundamentals are possible to implement right here in Toronto.”