Canada's Housing Crisis - Designing Better Buildings
Canada's housing crisis demands better buildings here are the changes that could improve apartment and condo life
The Conversation Canada needs more housing, but it also needs better quality housing. Simple design changes can fix common complaints about apartment and condo living.
Summary
"Canada's housing crisis demands better buildings here are the changes that could improve apartment and condo life" Marianne Touchie, The Conversation (May 24, 2023)
The article identifies common performance issues in multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) and presents evidence-based design solutions that improve comfort, health, and energy efficiency.
The problem
Multi-unit housing can be more sustainable than detached homes, but in practice MURBs suffer from:
- Poor energy efficiency: often worse than detached homes
- Noise transfer: noisy neighbours, impact noise (stomping), and outdoor noise
- Odour transfer: smoke and cooking smells migrating between suites
- Thermal discomfort: overheating in summer, cold drafts in winter
Design solutions
Ventilation: Central pressurized corridor systems are unreliable. Better alternatives include central direct-ducted systems or, ideally, suite-based heat/energy recovery ventilators (HRVs/ERVs).
Air sealing: The leakiest walls are those separating corridors from suites. Developers should focus air-sealing efforts there, along with sealing stairwell doors and adding elevator vestibules.
Soundproofing: Airborne noise is partly addressed by compartmentalization. Impact noise requires acoustic underlay below finished floors. Outdoor noise is reduced by airtight exterior walls and smaller windows.
Thermal comfort: Large, poor-quality windows are a major driver of discomfort. Smaller windows with low U-values, exterior shading, and in-suite heat pumps (rather than central systems) provide better year-round temperature control.
The good news
Many of these solutions have multiple benefits: they improve resident comfort, save energy, and reduce environmental impact. Heat pumps can replace carbon-intensive natural gas heating. The article calls on residents and building owners to advocate for these design changes through developers and provincial building codes.
Vault connections
- The Ethics of Taxation in Toronto - Structural Inequities, Allocations, and the Common Good Examines Toronto's housing affordability crisis and the structural underfunding of affordable housing, providing the policy context for why better building design matters.
- Millennials think they are worse off than their parents Documents the housing affordability gap for younger generations in Toronto, illustrating the demographic pressure driving the need for more multi-unit housing.
- The Bauhaus School The Bauhaus philosophy of functionalist design form following function is the architectural tradition behind the evidence-based design principles this article advocates for.
- Difference Between Efficiency and Effectiveness The article's distinction between simply building more housing (efficiency) and building better housing that actually works for residents (effectiveness).
- Anthony Vidler-The Architectural Uncanny Vidler's concept of the "unhomely" in modern architecture provides a theoretical lens for understanding why poorly designed multi-unit housing produces feelings of alienation and discomfort in residents.
- From Walls of Wood to Walls of Glass - Northrop Frye’s Geography of Isolation Frye's "condominium mentality" architecture producing proximity without community provides a literary-critical framework for the urban estrangement caused by modern multi-unit housing.