A Good Neighbor

Bloor West Village, often known as BWV to locals, is a bustling 8-block area with over 400 pubs, restaurants, stores, and services, as well as a vibrant nightlife scene. It’s within a block from High Park, including the High Park Zoo, a theater, and a wildlife center. 

 

The location of the project is on the Bloor West Village, and the project was done to continue the painting that is the streetscape of Bloor West. It fills up the missing middle. It completes the block. It becomes a good neighbor project. The theme of missing middle becomes an urban investigation to ensure no emptiness or holes in the streetscape. It becomes a project that satisfies the neighboring site, the people who occupy the space, and its culture.

 

This project intends to take on the stereotypical community layout where civic and retail are the focus of the community. But this time, I wanted to make the residential and civil parts the focal point of the block. I am essentially having the program helping the proposed residence and creating fragmented buildings and blocks to personify and mimic the nature of Bloor West Village. Through that, a question of finding the connections of fragmentations rises. The answer to the question was a creation of atria that connects all the residential programs and puts the residential program at a hierarchy. In contrast, the retail and civic program is only on the first floor and accessed through Bloor, the side roads, and a proposed pedestrian route that mimics the livelihood of Bloor street.