Vince Garcia

Securing Sustenance: Food for Education Reform and Community Growth

"Food for education reform and community growth in urban communities"Food security and nutrition have been a wide-reaching implication for people and their environments, particularly in low-income urban neighbourhoods in Toronto. While the pandemic has proven to threaten access to food through the loss of income and assets that prevent access to buy food, 1 out of 8 households in Canada are food insecure. While urban agriculture has been a proposed solution to the food crisis that face increasingly metropolitan populations, spaces for agriculture have been more adverse due to urban expansions of residential and commercial buildings. The goal is to increase the value of urban food production and education to counter food insecurity within an urban sprawl setting. A food hub focused on educational reform and community involvement. Spaces for urban agriculture, local market, and food banks would develop not only community involvement and job opportunities but also distribute, educate, and create food systems evenly and securely within neighbourhoods in need. Site: 1496 - 1486 Queen St. W (Parkdale) With increasing rent and stagnate incomes, low-income and immigrant community members in Parkdale face adverse food insecurity challenges. The issue not the availability of food but the affordability of food. Over the past few years, Parkdale has a built spaces that serve the community food. From food banks, church programs to community gardens it has given residents access to a form of sustenance. The chosen site began with a vacant, single storey, commercial unit for sale on 1488 Queen St W. While the city proposed a Condominum to be built in between, I decided to counter that idea with the use of a food hub that can provide nourishment for Parkdale through educational reformation and community upbringing. "Rooftops + Stair-Scape" With empty flat roofs and vacant units in Toronto, it has displayed the potential to construct a layered environment for the use of local food distribution. As rooftops can overcome urban expansions it will repurpose roof top spaces as a suitable site which could be used as a space to alleviate the food crisis in Toronto. To give back to the community below, Each roof top along site are formed into spaces that users and residents can access, develop food programs and have access to main food hub proposed. Multiple forms of staircases and ramps are developed at the back of the existing residential units as a form of circulation to rooftops, outdoor gardens, and the main food hub.