Levels of Green: Landscape Housing in the City

Abstract

In today’s housing market, housing quality and affordability are hard to come by. Poor quality, both economic and social, are factors leading to the demise of urban housing. While prefab systems provide a better building quality than other building models, its flexibility in organization and aggregation also provides opportunities for high quality living environments. Contextual awareness and spatial relationships will be the guiding principles for this concept. Norberg-Schulz’s 4 Modes of Dwelling will be used as a model for analysis at different scales of the project. The elements and principles derived from example projects and existing housing typologies will be combined and tested to create higher quality living environments through the concept of ‘landscape housing’. This housing model hopes to provide better, well connected communities in urban environments. The design project resulting from these attributes will be tested in Toronto’s urban context in a mixed-use housing development.