Kensington market is a multicultural neighborhood in downtown Toronto. The site is located on Kensington Avenue, which is the main street of the Kensington market.
On the previous stage,we are focusing more on the conceptual ideas of our project:an inverse public and private relationship introduced by an central passage way connecting the three residences. Moreover, we set up a rule that public area has more void space (more roof openings) while private area has more solid space (less roof openings).
Then on the development stage, we reinforce our idea by setting up the openings more logically and making the differences between solid and void more clearly. In addition, a big development has also been made on the vertical or sectional plane (apparent in the central passage way): we transform the supporting walls into benches by making openings on the wall, set up small family businesses for each household by giving each family a stand (an opening with a movable wall) and carve the walls with movable windows for the and 4-people courtyard. Thus these non-fixed openings become endless changeable and provide people a great many opportunities to decide the space either to be private, public or semi-public. The idea here is to make these openings not only as a skin for the building, but also urban furniture to attract people to come and have a cozy rest.
In terms of technologies, we decide to continue to use solar panels on public space and thermal water facilities on private space and then introduce green roof as the courtyard for the 6-people-residence. Drainage systems are also added for the 2-people and 4-people courtyards to recycle the precipitation into irrigation.
