Maple House

Located in a former industrial area in Toronto, Canada, called West Don Lands (WDL), the site is located at the intersection between three distinct neighborhoods. The project stacks the architectural components from the three neighborhoods: Townhouses, warehouses and silos, creating a building complex that both responds to its surroundings and contributes by adding new distinctive, robust and diverse architecture. The project’s three buildings contain 770 rental apartment units in total, of which 30 percent are affordable units.

The site is a former industrial area, previously housing railyards and meatpacking warehouses, blending Toronto's industrial heritage with new developments. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, the site evolved into a patchwork of railyards, industrial warehouses and working class neighbourhoods. Today, it is ringed by several neighborhoods, each with its own unique character and materiality: The brick warehouses of the Distillery District, the glass and steel of the Canary District, the Olmsteadian Corktown Commons, and the last vestiges of an industrial waterfront.

The project is a City of Toronto pilot, addressing the pressing need for purpose-built, high-quality rental housing for residents of all income levels.

Cobe has designed two of the three buildings, containing 461 rental apartment units including 30% affordable rental units. Using a “checkerboard” approach, market and affordable units are randomly integrated throughout the community, all units are finished to the same standards, and all residents have access to the same amenities and services. Nearly half of the building’s rental homes have two- to four-bedroom layouts, providing housing options for families at both market and below-market rates. Furthermore, 10% of all units are sized for families, in accordance with the City’s ‘Growing Up: Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities’.

The project provides all residents with generous apartments, flooded with light through floor-to-ceiling windows and access to attractive amenity spaces, both indoor and outdoor, including a gym and yoga studio, an outdoor pool with city views, co-working spaces, play spaces for children, a music recording studio, and even a dog spa. These programmed areas are joined by multiple outdoor terraces for al fresco dining. These amenities, like the buildings as a whole, are designed for people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests to live together in a thriving complete community.

By placing all parking underground, the design creates a generous public space in between the buildings characterized by wooden seating, native plantings and trees, and vibrant stores, cafés, and restaurants. Setbacks in volumes are utilized for the outdoor amenity spaces. Bridges between the buildings are added to connect spaces and heighten social interaction. A cohesive design in materiality and massing.