“Creative but unusual housing designs that perfectly utilize these small gaps in the urban fabric” – Holcim Awards Jury

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    Project entry 2008 North America - "Residential density for urban spaces, Toronto, Canada": Sub-project 2: bubble bath.

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    Holcim Awards "Next Generation" 2nd prize 2008 North America: (l-r) Chenglong Wang, Lingchen Liu, and Brigitte Cuperus (Technical Competence Center of the Holcim Foundation)

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    Holcim Awards "Next Generation" 2nd prize 2008 North America: Chenglong Wang (right) and Lingchen Liu.

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    Holcim Awards "Next Generation" 2nd prize 2008 North America: (l-r) Chenglong Wang, Lingchen Liu, and Brigitte Cuperus (Technical Competence Center of the Holcim Foundation)

Increasing the residential density of our cities, “densifying”, is considered as an effective way to fight against urban sprawl and to foster a sustainable urban transformation that increases the individual’s quality of life and solves their transportation problems. But without dismantling existing buildings the only way to substantially increase the density is to make use of the “left over” spaces. Such pieces of land are usually small or have puzzling dimensions.

Last updated: July 01, 2008 Cambridge, MA, USA

By using Toronto as a case study, the authors have identified a multitude of such “left-overs” on which they have developed a new housing typology matching the unusual framework conditions, e.g. the unfavorable geometry of the real estate, the adjacent buildings and the possibilities for access.

The result of their efforts is a series of creative but unusual housing designs that perfectly utilize these small gaps in the urban fabric. Interesting is the thought that these partially “eccentric” housing units will respond to a tremendous demand due to the increasing social differentiation of urban society.