Gallery

Nicole Ratajczak

MODERN LOFTS are medium density and medium-high density apartment buildings [Floor Area Ratio of 2.4 or greater] built on conventional-size city lots, developed without land assemblies in areas that would profit from greater density, in the periphery of downtown Toronto. The buildings work with several assumptions for Toronto’s future, and for the future of a building type that thrived there into the 1960’s, before it was abandoned in favour of apartment buildings that more-or-less ignored the enduring city fabric.
[1] in a core as congested as Toronto’s is becoming, there will be a market for apartment buildings with extremely limited parking.
[2] With small numbers of apartments per building and with modern controls, there is no need to develop such buildings with double-elevator cores.
[3] Every small building built in the core should maintain SOME commercial/institutional occupancy at ground level.
[4] Every small building built in the core should be environmentally sound in easy-to achieve ways, and should anticipate changes in use over time.
This is a view into the second-storey library, separating the living units from the ground level.