density without urbanism Built at a scale that matches the adjacent infrastructure of industry and highway, peripheral residential development in the urban region of Halifax has not developed as an edge city, but instead, like many cities in the country, is a manufactured urban void - ‘zones waiting for morphological definition’. 1 Despite obvious urban qualities – density and diversity – these collective housing projects appear suburban, even anti-urban, in form.The result of these collective housing projects is an exception to the city, where density is without urbanism and housing is matter out of place. 2
building banal In many ways, Highfield Park-Pinecrest and Clayton Park West couldn’t be further apart. Highfield Park-Pinecrest – thousands of rental dwellings built over a short period in the late 1970s/early 1980s – is perceived as socially broken, with the percentage of lone-parent families more than double the regional average and plagued by high rates of violent crime and unemployment among young men. Clayton Park West, built in the late 1990s/early 2000s, is popular with well-educated young professionals looking for a new rental unit with free parking and generous proportions at an affordable price that is not in Highfield Park.
DIRTY REAL[URBAN]ISM collective housing morphology on the edge
cities | halifax , nova scotia by matt neville
density texture class housing legibility
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