2INTERSECTION & Oakwood-Vaughan

Masterplan

How can we challenge typical housing typologies in response to an increasing housing crisis amidst rapid development and gentrification of urban neighbourhoods?

Project Type: Residential Mixed-use, Masterplan

Completed: Winter 2021, 3rd Year Design Studio

Location: Toronto, ON

Programs Used: Rhino 6, Lumion, Adobe Suite

Supervised by: Adrian Blackwell, a3blackw@uwaterloo.ca

In collaboration with Justina Yang and Mary Ma

3A Studio Outstanding Design Award

2021 UWSA Project Exhibition Showcase

With the introduction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the Eglinton and OakwoodVaughan neighborhood currently lacks the services, affordable housing, and public amenities to accommodate the expected growth in the next 2 years.

In response, Intersection aims to design spaces that encourage the intersection of tenancies that represent the diverse demographic of the area. By filling in the blanks for missing services and making them accessible to all, designing new missing amenities to help nurture and support underrepresented people groups, and creating new points of convergence, the project seeks to create a self-sustaining network made up of the community members themselves on the Eglinton-Dufferin Intersection, allowing them the right to remain, transition, and age in place.

By integrating various public and shared spaces throughout the site, as well as programs catered to the needs of the residents while simultaneously providing the opportunity to train and nurture future generations, this urban design proposal challenges current typologies of separating seniors and other tenancies from one another, demonstrating how the reintegration of these groups can invigorate the community and its culture as a whole.

*All line drawings, graphics, visualizations were produced individually unless stated otherwise. I was responsible for producing the 3D model for the site and the high-rise building. All shown progress work produced individually.

Additional quality-of-life strategies on the pedestrian level are incorporated into the overall urban site to increase walkability and pedestrian safety and to support, help preserve, and grow the vivacious blend of cultures present on the historic Eglington Street, also recognized as the cultural hub Little Jamaica. Street parking is moved underground and replaced with public spaces. Bikes and public transit are then encouraged through the implementation of bike lanes. Green buffer barriers are implemented on the street for an additional level of safety for pedestrians. Finally, residents of pre-existing residential and commercial structures are given the right to remain, while additions are proposed to improve the quality of life for these residents that will be directly impacted by the new proposed developments along Eglinton.

INTERSECTION SITE AXONOMETRIC

FRAGMENT SECTION OF INTERCONNECTED KITCHEN AND GARDEN

Garden Up

Proposal for 1855 Eglington Ave.

LONGITUDINAL SECTION PERSPECTIVE

The high-rise caters towards the mixed tenancies of supportive housing, youth transitional housing, as well as affordable housing, with the intention of promoting the reintegration of often separated groups back into the community. The network of interconnected kitchen, dining and vertical gardening spaces allow for a communal sense of living, promotes the sharing skills and experiences, while having access to a variety of support systems at close proximity, creating a micro urban village within the building.

Universal Literacy

Proposal for 1828 Eglington Ave.

This multi-generational mid-rise combines universal design for seniors with a focus on providing literacy resources to any who are struggling to adjust to the accelerating pace of society. To seniors, for whom research has shown that social isolation is the key factor that leads to mental and physical health issues, teaching and incorporating digital tools and literacy skills is essential to raising their quality of life.

*unit layout diagram + cross section produced by Mary Ma

How can we re-introduce and promote intuitive connections between the city and a neglected river bank?

Project Type: Cultural, Museum, Landscape

Completed: Fall 2022, 4th Year Design Studio

Location: Roma, Italy

Programs: Rhino 6, Enscape, Adobe Suite

Supervised by: Beatrice Bruscoli, b.bruscoli@archiworld.it & Eduardo Cappella, edoardo.cappella@gmail.com

Along the banks of the Tiber, which has become a distinct separation line between the river and the city today, this project acts as an important intersection point and transitional space that aims to promote natural circulation and use by the water. The Tiber, traditionally a hinge element in the urban landscape of Rome, has become largely ignored in the neighbourhoods of the selected site, primarily due to a lack of visual connections and access. To promote intuitive circulation to the river banks below and integration with the natural landscape, the project scheme uses the existing lines formed by the embankment, pulling at them as they juxtapose the city’s built landscape with the natural overgrowth of landscape framing the river. The spaces created by these intersecting lines and circulation are then activated by the creation of public spaces, both as part of the museum and as public elements in the urban environment.

Access to the water can then be achieved through following the directed circulation through the museum, crossing spaces and directed views that break through the vegetation and frame the Tiber in different ways, or alternatively through the landscaped park just downstream of the museum. The new museum is mainly below the level of the existing Arsenale complex, accentuating historical structures and further integrating the building into the embankment, with its primary face towards the river. A central lookout point at the Arsenale building becomes the hinge of the project, and symmetry is achieved with artifacts and exhibitions in one direction, and archives in the other. However, regardless of which direction the occupant follows, the lower riverwalk plaza becomes the natural, if unintentional destination.

The park follows the same language as the museum, pulling at lines of the topography, creating spaces of program such as an outdoor classroom, sculpture garden, and flexible picnic hill between the planted landscape.