Impossible Properties is a theoretical project that describes a method for replacing all building regulations in the city of Toronto with local codes specifying potential trajectories for property severance. The basic tenets of the project are as follows: 1. There is no public. Everything is saleable, there are no limits on the number of internal or vertical parcels that could result out of the subdivision of a single lot; 2. There are no pristine conditions, every element of the contemporary city – the disparate growths of architectural form and urban infrastructure – will affect how the future city will emerge; 3. The actors (owners) of the contemporary city are the actors and owners of the future city; 4. The idiosyncrasies of the existing property matte will be codified at the scale of block and intersection to influence, and adapt with, the agglomeration of new urban forms. Impossible Properties plays out at 11 intersections and blocks located along Bathurst Street, a four-lane road traversing the spectrum of demographic, architectural/morphological, tenurial and topographical conditions in Toronto. The street itself is one of the oldest in the city, a north-south concession that has connected Toronto to Lake Simcoe since the early 1800s. The project begins with a survey of ownership types, lot-line shapes and potential moments of illegibility - the moments at which overlap or the creep of architectural development have rendered the ownership regime unclear. The next sequence of operations includes the quantification of idiosyncrasies in the existing property matte – the most common are those related to topography, adjacency, architecture, utility infrastructure and transportation infrastructure. Moments of illegibility, and property idiosyncrasies are recorded in the local code. The code is an inventory of deviations, an evolving guidebook for future development at a specific locale.
The insertion of architecture into this scenario may proceed as follows: 1. Read the evolving Local Code : Understand that these are the constraints that will influence future severance on the site under review. Working on behalf of your client, the severance of air or land property you propose will be your interpretation of the Local Rules; what you foresee as the inevitable urban form that will result from the application of the rules with initial conditions outlined in the contextual data and in the site information. The rules are a product of isolated deviations visible in the provided contextual data. 2. Review provided Contextual Data : This information explains the contemporary, and historical characteristics of the site under review and its relationship to the larger project of the adjacent urban topography and neighborhood. The layers of historic information, the palimpsest, will provide cues as to how your development will abut future adjacent developments. In other words, there is likely to be more of the same where anything is plentiful. You are encouraged to vary as long as your deviation results in new code. 3. Insert the needs of the Client here : even property severance is an architectural project and it will be drawn in plan and section. There is not longer a need for perspective drawing. Environmental engineering will be your biggest task as the property units must provide back to the grid at least what they take out. 4. Ensure that the owners of all the surfaces that your properties touch are informed of your development . Amend the local code, or provide an original code, if necessary. If providing an original code, ensure that the owners of all affected surfaces have committed to its application. 5. Contact the municipality and the judiciary to inform them of your plan to sever or develop any given parcel of ground or air .
p
39
street, street smarts, street life: onsite 19
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator