Drawings Intent: Architecture, Energy and Structure
1. Our scheme provides the attributes, qualities and scale of individual houses while achieving a density that is high in the suburban context. We have called upon images of Edwardian houses and the original English garden suburbs to create a new order for suburban Ontario.
The housing pattern is like a wall that rises and falls suggesting a rhythm of man-made hills (the buildings) and valleys (the gardens). The building wall meshes green and building.
The site is ordered by a hierarchy of circulation routes and external spaces. A tree-lined avenue leads into the site from the main road and in turn gives onto cul-de-sac parking courts. Pedestrian lanes that connect the parking courts are the smallest scale of street and are the location of the front doors to all of the houses. Each element of circulation and spatial volume represents a different unit of social organization. The avenue suggests the neighbourhood, the parking court suggests a cluster of houses, and the lane is the street where one lives. These relationships are prototypical and could be applied to any site. The site solution illustrated represents a fragment of a potentially larger pattern which in turn would generate larger units of social organization.
The buildings are combinations of three- and four-bedroom houses and one- and two-bedroom apartments and are suitable for purchase or rental.
There are no elevators, shared entrance lobbies, access corridors, or underground garages. All housing units have private ground level entrances on the lanes with street addresses and two orientations for cross-ventilation. All three-and four-bedroom houses have private gardens at grade level. Public space in this site plan is clearly public and varies in scale to accommodate different needs.
The houses are organized with large ground floor plans containing living rooms facing the pedestrian paths, dining rooms facing the gardens, and kitchens overlooking both footpath and garden. The other rooms in the house are stacked above on two floors and open onto both an interior light well and the gardens and the lanes. It is intended that the ambiguous spatial and daylighting qualities of the rooms will free them from rigidly defined uses. The relationships between floor levels, rooms, stair, and void provide a flexible framework capable of supporting a variety of interpretations and appreciate the complexities of human association.
2. The techniques of energy conservation employed are conventional rather than radical yet they will still result in significant energy savings over less thoughtful solutions. The sloped building section permits the winter sun to penetrate all units. North-facing openings are minimized and all major windows face in other directions. Windows are double-glazed and walls have extra-heavy insulation. The passive collection of solar radiation lessens the workload of the heating systems which are forced air in the family units and electric baseboard in the apartments. Summer heat gain and the resultant need for mechanical air cooling is reduced by retractable awnings over windows and by cross-ventilation. The checkerboard site plan permits an easy flow of air around the buildings.
3 Construction techniques are conventional; load bearing masonry walls support wood floor and roof systems. Exterior walls are brick with inset planes in stucco. Window frames are wood.
(Competitor's text)
This submission was admired for the clarity of its concept: units grouped into logical blocks, simple parking compounds and collective open space, and an easily readable access system. But the jury felt that this submission suffered even more acutely than Submission 8 from an unworkable miniaturization of too many relationships. In their opinion, unit planning was often too tight, and conditions of light and view unworkable in the climate of Mississauga, Ontario. They foresaw acute difficulties of snow removal, and were concerned about the technical feasibility of the highly complicated building envelopes indicated.
(From jury report)
7 scanned / 3 viewable
- Site Plan
- Axonometric Drawing
- Schema
